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CHAPTER XVI.

MORAL FORCE ALL-SUFFICIENT FOR THE RESURRECTION OF IRELAND.

THIS chapter will be devoted to the island itself. For many centuries it was happy in its seclusion and separation from the rest of Europe: in these days it necessarily forms a part of the whole mass of Japhetic races; its isolation is no longer possible; and, in the opinion of many, it is destined once again to become a spot illustrious and happy. The consideration of how that lustre and happiness are to come upon it is the only task still left us.

Whoever takes into consideration the advantages it already enjoys, and compares its present situation with that of a hundred years back, cannot fail to be struck with the remarkable change for the better which has taken place between the two periods. Ireland still suffers, and suffers sorely, and the world still speaks with justice of her wrongs; but, in whatever light they may appear to those who love their country, no one can pretend that it still groans under the weight of tyranny which has formed the burden of her history. And, while acknowledging this beneficial change in her condition, they must wonder at the same time how small was the share which the natives themselves had in bringing it about, although their activity never relaxed, and they had great and good men working for their cause. What, in truth, did it?

The first point which claims our attention is how effectually the moral force of what is called liberal thought dealt a deathblow to the penal laws half a century before any of them were erased from the statute book.

Liberal thought may be said to have originated in England, whence it passed over to France, to be disseminated and take root throughout Europe by means of the mighty influence then exercised by the great nation. The chief object which animated the minds of those who first labored for its admission into modern European principles is not for us to consider here. There is no doubt that this chief object was of a loosening and deleterious nature: namely, to ruin Christian faith, to change all the

old social and political axioms held by Christendom, and to create a new society imbued with what now goes by the name of modern ideas. It is not necessary to point out the frightful imprudence as well as criminality of many of those who were the pioneers of the movement. We must only take the new principles as a great fact, destined yet to effect a radical change in the ideas of men of all races, a change already begun in Europe.

Liberal thought, we say, originated in England; and it would be easy to show that there it was the result partly of Protestantism, partly of indifferentism, the ultimate consequence of the great principle of private judgment.

This became manifest in Great Britain, from the beginning of the eighteenth century, and, as was previously shown, what is called the British Constitution was the result and outgrowth of deep political thought matured in minds indifferent to religion, of men who were as little Protestants as any thing else. But they were deeply possessed by a sense of conservatism and moderation in the application of the most radical principles, which later on the fiery Gallic mind carried to their final and most disastrous consequences.

But, in whatever garb it may have appeared, liberalism was clearly the essence of the British Constitution, as established after all the civil and dynastic wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The leaders of the English nation happened at the time to be fully wedded to aristocratic ideas, and accordingly they refused to recognize all the consequences of their principles, and to see them carried out to the full.

It was admitted that the king reigned, but did not govern; that the nation governed by its representatives; that those representatives were created by election; that a nation could not be taxed without its free consent; that thought, religious thought chiefly, was free; that toleration, therefore, could admit of no exception in point of religious doctrine; and all the other modern principles which have at length been admitted, though not always observed, as governmental axioms by all European nations.

As long as those axioms were in the close keeping of English patricians, some of their consequences were far from being fully evolved; but certain Frenchmen, Voltaire among others, happening to cross the Straits of Dover, returned with them, and, the wretched government of Louis XV. being not only too weak to withstand, but even conniving at, the boldness of the new phi losophers, the French language, which was then spoken all over Europe, carried with it from mouth to mouth the new and fascinating doctrine of the emancipation of thought.

None of those writers, indeed, undertook to plead the cause of unfortunate Ireland. Voltaire threw the whole of France into

agitation, nay, all Europe, to the wilds of Russia, by taking up the case of the Protestant Calas, who was condemned to death and executed unjustly, as it seems, for the supposed murder of a son who was inclined to embrace Catholicity; but never a word did he speak of the suffering which at that time had settled down over the whole Irish nation solely for the crime of its religious convictions.

Nevertheless, toleration became the catch-word with all. It rang out loudly from a thousand French pamphlets and ponderous tomes; it was caught up and echoed back from England; it penetrated the unkindly atmosphere of Russia even, and was silently pondered over under the rule of an unbelieving despot.

It was impossible for Ireland not to derive some benefit from all this. It took a long time, indeed, for emancipation of thought to cross that narrow channel which divided the "sister" islands; for, at the precise period when the doctrine was loudest in France, the most atrocious penal laws were being executed in Ireland, and there seemed no hope for the suffering nation.

But, toward the end of that eventful eighteenth century, the breath of that magic word, toleration, at last was felt on the shores of Erin. When it was in the mouths of all Europe, when English clergymen had thoroughly imbibed the new doctrine, when even Scotch ministers began to thaw under its genial influence, and become "liberal theologians," how could an Irish magistrate think of hanging a friar, or transporting a priest, or imposing a heavy fine on a Catholic who committed the heinous offence of hearing mass, or absenting himself from the services of the Established Church? At last, the "Mass-rock" was no longer the only spot whereon the divine victim of expiation could be offered up; and it soon came to be known that, to bylanes and obscure houses in the cities numbers of persons flocked on Sundays, presided over by their own Sogarth Aroon. On one occasion, already noticed, the floor of a rickety house, where they were worshipping, gave way, to the killing and maiming of many; thenceforth, Catholics were allowed to assemble in public to the knowledge of all, and, though "discoverers" were still legally entitled to denounce and prosecute them, there was small chance of a verdict against them.

Thus was it owing to a great moral force-whether good or bad is not the question now-that the penal laws first became obsolete; and Irishmen had absolutely nothing whatever to do in the matter. Not a single pamphlet, demanding toleration, and proclaiming the rights of religious freedom, ever, to our knowledge, issued from the Irish press at the time. No book, written by an Irish author, advocating the same, was ever printed clandestinely, as were so many French books, at first appearing in Holland, or covertly in France, with a false title-page.

When the Volunteer movement took place, toleration was in full sway in Ireland. As was seen, the question debated in the Dungannon Convention referred solely to the extension of the elective franchise to Catholics; and, though this was unjustly denied them by the majority of the Volunteers, under the guidance of the leaders of the movement, there was no question of any longer refusing to the native Irish Catholics the right of practising their religion freely. This the moral sense of the century had secured to them.

The attainment of the political franchise was also the result of purely moral force, though it required a much longer time in its acquisition, as it was a question, not merely of a right individual in its nature, as all natural religious rights are, but one affecting external society, and productive of material results of great import.

In this the Irish were not merely passive; they launched themselves heart and soul on the sea of political agitation. From 1810 to 1829, the Catholic Association, which embraced men of all classes of society, was incessant in its clamor for emancipation. The chief object of this association being the political franchise, it was felt by all that, sooner or later, that privilege must be granted. Meanwhile, the secular enemies of Ireland were not idle. Emancipation that is the political franchise— they called a "Utopian dream," which they asserted England could not grant. Was it not directly opposed to the coronationoath, nay, to the English Constitution? The king himself was, and publicly declared himself to be, of this opinion. According to your thorough-bred Englishman, the state would rather spend its last shilling, and sacrifice its last man, than suffer it. How many spoke thus, even up to the very day on which Wellington, changing his mind perforce, at last proposed the measure!

All this opposition was perhaps only to be expected; but the strange thing was that many excellent patriotic Irishmen, Catholics, laymen as well as clerics and prelates, were opposed to the agitation set on foot by O'Connell and his friends; they also thought it a "Utopian dream," likely only to bring new calamities upon their country. They seemed not to see that the refusal of emancipation meant in fact the continuance of the small Protestant minority as the ruling power-the state-in Ireland, which, owing to moral force, was no longer so, save in theory. In fact, already the majority, that is, almost the whole of Ireland, was an immense power. Its members were at liberty to combine openly, to show themselves, to speak, to write, to agitate; they were, in a word, a people, and the Protestant minority no longer really constituted the state.

It is true that the majority of Irishmen had for centuries continued to act unanimously in their resistance to oppression; as

was seen, they had been a people from the moment that the English kings and Parliaments strove to coerce their religious faith, and more particularly from the destruction of clanship. They were truly a nation, though without a government of their own, and for the greater part of the time bending under the most intolerable tyranny. Religion had given them one thought and one heart. And now that, owing to the mighty, the irresistible moral force of liberalism, they could no longer be openly persecuted for wishing to remain Catholics, the question arose: Were they still to be absolutely nothing in the state? This was the real demand of the Catholic Association, and every one ought to have seen its importance and the certainty of success.

Nevertheless, a great number of sincere Irishmen did not see the question in this light, and were covertly or openly opposed to the agitation. Ireland appeared to be divided just at a mo

mentous crisis.

The leaders of the association were not themselves altogether agreed as to the best mode of putting their question. Some were for armed opposition, thinking they could beat England in the open field. But the great originator and leader of the movement sternly opposed so mad a proposition. He was for moral force, seeing how clearly and irresistibly, even if unwittingly, it was working for their cause. In spite of all adverse circumstances, although the English party and the English nation stood up en masse against him, although many Irishmen refused to join in the agitation, while some of his best friends wished to risk all in a desperate venture, he stood calm, firm, and so confident of success, that he caused himself to be returned as member for the County Clare to the English Parliament, before even emancipation had given him the right of candidature. It was immediately after this "unconstitutional" election that the boon of emancipation was suddenly granted, contrary to all expectation and probability, and O'Connell proudly took his seat among the representatives of Ireland in the Imperial Parlia

ment.

If this measure was not carried by a purely moral force, it is hard to see how that phrase can be applied to any thing in this world. This is not the place to write a history of that memorable struggle. It is still fresh in the memory of many living men. We merely draw a conclusion from what has happened in our own time, and one which may be said to be a clear inference from the circumstances of the case, and to which no one can offer any serious objection. This conclusion is, the omnipotence of moral force in gaining for Ireland so much of liberty, of political and social privileges, as was finally granted her.

This victory won for the Irish Catholics the acknowledgment on the part of England that they were a factor in the state. The

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