WENDELL PHILLIPS ON O'CONNELL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 6, 7 June 1873, Page 8

WENDELL PHILLIPS ON O'CONNELL.

We' give an abridgment of the famous lecture on O'Connell, by America's greatest orator, Wendell Phillips. It was delivered lately in New York. Whoever has heard this lecture has declared it to be tha grandest tribute to the genius, and the noblest eulogium of the motives, of O'Conn 11 that has ever been delivered. We specially commend it to readers of Froude's writings, and of Goldwin Smith, in the contero. porary. Ladies and Gentlemen, — I am to talk to you of O'Connell — Daniel O'Connell, the champion of Irish Catholic citizenship, and the great example of modern agitation. I originally chose O'Connell as the subject of a Lyceum lecture because he represented, better than any other man of the century, this modern element in constitutional government — Agitation. You know Sir Robert Peel defined agitation to be t/e " marshailing of the conscience of a nation to mould its laws, and appeal to the thought and the principle of a community to reach indirectly ite ballot-bearing classes." The power, the reach, the real view and specific machinery of agitation England owes to Daniel O'Connell. He was the first to elaborate and profoundly to deepen in the State tho exact linos and limitations of th-3 great modern element ; he taught the art to Cobden, and if the

British people owe anything to Cobden for haying lifted the brad taj Xn/iwfc and^" ehl ™>t be his largest claim to the grati- • th<s ""^^ of tht English-speaking g races 2 a £^/ 8 w °™ lais brow might be fairly saidto be A^T* k C and WOrth of the g rea t Irish champion. ntiSi^y "f° mea T J lmt °' Conn <* confined himself ta the SSo&SZ fnf *F*? OT 0 emanci P^on. Education and the Sch Xrl l fT c , °f knd ' and the of the S^fi the removal of that chronic oppression, arising from the comCr W Sr "£ BtreUgfch - ° f the two rcK g ious establishments of Ireland. All these three questions O'Connell lafd down in his speeches island 6 W^ C r bhCßentimen . fc ° f *^liour-which ridiculed, despised and hated the very suggestions that, carried into proper support MpS eDCe « f h f- a "PS* and the official i^uence P of the Bri52'SZS'^dt claim of Great Brifcain to ' da y to the • w*y <* thoughtful Englishman knows that England to-day is occupying but a aecond rate place on the chessboard of Europe; tfiat she hS grldually sunk from the position of a first class power. Eig t years afol lZ lussedm Cooper Institute for having said that EnglanTwa? noH •econd rate power on the chess board of Europe, but to-day her W nahsts have ceased to deny the fact, and are searching around foJTn explanation of its necessity. Of the two groat causes whfch have made her faU from her position as a first clals power in Europe, the first ,s the oppression ot her own masses, and the second the seven c8 tod Ul^ ?r tCdan - d infam ° US oPP^on of Ireland Froude told us with an epigramatic force the great truth that the wickedness of nations is always punished. No matter how long Providence waits, in the end the mckedne 8 s of a race is answered by the wickedness of their desecndautß England has held for seven centuries to the lips of her sister Ireland a poisoned chalice. Its ingredients wore the deepest contempt and the most unmeasured oppresSon- S justice such as the world hardly ever saw before. And, as Mr Froude md Providence ishpldinghack that same cup to the UpsofThemot er country. The occasions have heen frequent witldn the last few years when England longed to draw the sword, when the England of W Cuatham would have flung herself madly into the great Sto staS gles of the Continent. When Germany brought undTSTeel fn S7 l f^ f e Wol^W 01^ ?f? f D ° nraark > that g» ve <**** m£ the Princess of Wales, England longed to draw the sword. When within jirofaU lIS t fcrUCk h hrh r ,ff yin the ostenUtiously^ the face of aU England— "snubbed" her ia the only word that describ-s wSI a h^T t v e £ ? ntam l0 T ed dww the Bword ' bufc 9he hw right well that tue first cannon shot she ventured to fire against a first-class power 111 Europe Ireland would stab her in the b£k. Checkmated she could not move on the chess board of the great pow rs. One of the great causes of tliis sudden crippling of luf pow?r^S been the Irish qu stion. I don't wonder at aU that a thoughtful Englishman should long to explain to the world, if he can, that the steps by which his country has heen brought to tlus sad state have been inevitable. If Mr Froude could make out that proposition and convince t c world, through the American poopL;, that England accepted the inevitable fate which the gcograplucal proximity of Ireland had entailed upon her, he wpuld hay-> gone far to rub out the eclipse of his country's shame. I tZLT of 811^ make the att&m^ But /beh-eve that' instead ol England s havuy conquered Ireland, that in the true Sngland. She has summoned her before the power of the civilized world to judge oi the justice of her legislation .* Sh e has checkmated her as a power on the chess-board of Europe. She has monopolized tae attention of her statesmen. She has made her own island the pivot upon which the destiny of England turns. And her last great statesman the present Prime Minister, Gladstone, owes whatever fame he i has to tt,e supposition that he has devised a way by which he c^n conciliate Ireland and save his own country " Harriet Martineau, who has found something to explain and sometfamg to excuse m every equivocal act of every British sSesm^n; X, rfl^S^f f1"f 1 " 068 ' haS never run along the whole histoS of a representative Enghslmum without usually finding half-a-dozen occasions to praise Hm-in her whole history o^ O'CoS has nevtr cotp.£-dtoSo aU l TT t0 blame Hrn «ther for a badacrori^ S P bal ofct V - ti aCt , was gOOd ' fissure to search and nflu,nS^ an d Tuti orifcv h « * yee , Tll> * n * in ° w day, to suet a level of Da^To'Connell. 7 h} ' Bde P ° Wer of and pui T ose as Having given a summary of Ireland's history of seven centuries, and a vivid picture of the oppressed state of Ireland when O'Connell entered upon public life, ho proceeded : O'Coanell began his career by notifviriff fim m,w; n j-v^* •& • tiiastr.et, ho caught two young priests by the shoulder, iSedSm

into the room, and locked the doors on these nine men. You will thinV very naturally it was impossible to happen that those ten mcii mefcin an upper room of a Dublin hotel-two of them prisoners-reduced the strongest Government m Europe, with the Duke of Wellington at its head, to surrender within twenty years. He claimed of his people a new effort. The hierarchy of tfe chuwh 2SC? JTi" 7 Bai ? Been ever y atfcem P fc 2•* "Jw^S to the scaffold ;we are not willing to risk another effort. The peerag? ot the island repudiated him They said, we have struggled and bled for half a dozen centuries ; it is better to sit down content. Alone a young man^ithout office, without wealth, without renown, he dung himself in front of the people and asked for a new effort, What S the power left him ? Simply the people-three or four SSJnTS S /i ki ?' J^-^^rted peasants, standing on a soil soaked with the blood of their ancestors, cowering under a code of which Broughamsaid « that they could not liEt their hands without brSing it. What was his constituency ? If he had the Press, he could not appeal to them with it, for they could not read ; he could nob marshall them into a great party, for that was illegal. Co-operation in politics, committees of correspondence, the machinery of agitation, as we have it was illegal He began his agitation by making specche* He said to himself : The hierarchy leave me ; the nobles repldiate me the wealthy scorn me ; the educated distrust me. I will lean on ths people. He was the first man, as Canning said, « who summoned a race into exist nee and restored the balance of the world " So O ConneU was the first man in Great Britain to BUtnmon a veople into existence and check the advances of the oppression of the SiT 8 ' He^ sht T^ bden M 8 method ' InaSrtainsensehe moulded the age When Lincoln said, " I drift : I seek only to know %Si ™} ce rr \ oi the people ;» when Grant went intoST, 33 g 5» LTO n ° P u°^ y ; ,lßtaild, lßtaild here *° d 0 the ™n of the America^ people —they were both echoas of Daniel O'Connell He was the first great subject who taught the crown to look outside th; House of Commons for the dictator of its policy, He went round making speeches, but he had no journals-no papers to repJS speeches j they would not even report he had a meeting, But, m Lowell says, Patience is the passion of great souls." So,within£ nit^ patience he went over Ireland dropping the seed. The Lecturer, after describing O'Connell's wonderful powers as a leader of men, as a politician, and a barrister, concluded with the following eloquent peroration on Poland :— « Now, one word on Eroude if you have patience. You have heard of Poland, the chivalrous' nation the nation of nobles, m whose viens flowed the blue blood that astonished Europe by its heroism. Well, a hundred years ago, Austria and Prussia defeated all its efforts, and crushed it out of sight Poland rebelled, and rebelled, and rebelled j she was crushed every time Her language is a forgotten tradition. Her laws are a felony to cite" Her nobles are wanderers on the face of the earth. If you look on the map there is no Poland. A hundred years have done it. Yet whew are the hps that would not bo blistered if they dared to say aW against Poland? W en America wanted to know how to fight they fin s^l f T CO> t h t P ° le - When the bard ' fche orator ' the finest illustrations of bray ry or patridtism they point to Poland No man eyer doubted the capacity of Poland. But a hundred yeara have annihilated her. There was Ireland, half as large, half as>puW isolated from the Continent by the ocean, tied to England/SratS from Europe For seven hundred years the omnipotent SaxoTm* vT™ TIM BHnd * t0 .P° wder - A »d yet, after seven hundrS years, an Englishman comes here to teach us that that race has neither bravery nor courage! But after those seven hundred years it stUl stands, with the National flag in one hand and the Crucifix of Catholicity in the other. v«««iwMr Phillips concluded amid loud and reiterated cheering.