(1775-1847)
[Footnote 8: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
[Illustration: O'Connell. [TN]]
Daniel O'Connell, undoubtedly one of the greatest Irishmen that ever
lived, and according to Mr. Lecky perhaps the greatest political
agitator that the modern world has known, was born August 6, 1775, in
the county of Kerry, in Ireland. His parents were of good family, but
comparatively poor, his father being a second son. Later on, Daniel was
adopted by an uncle, through whom he came in for the property of
Darrynane, made famous by his name. He was sent when a boy--the fact is
worth noticing--to the first school kept openly by a Catholic priest
since the establishment of the penal laws. Afterward he became a student
in France--in St. Omer and in Douay, until the outbreak of the French
Revolution made it unsafe for him to remain longer in France--or at all
events until his family believed that it would not be safe for him to
remain there any longer. The excesses of the Revolution greatly shocked
and horrified the young O'Connell, and indeed the effect of that early
shock was felt by him all through his career. He became impressed with
an almost morbid detestation of all forms of blood-shedding; and for a
while after his return to Ireland he firmly believed himself to be a
Conservative in politics. But the system of administration which
prevailed in Great Britain and Ireland under Conservative governments
soon convinced him that he could have nothing to do with Conservatism,
and he very soon became--what he ever after continued to be--a Liberal
as regarded Imperial policy, and indeed something more than a
Liberal--what we should now call a Radical. He studied for the bar, and
was, to all appearance, little inclined for anything but law and field
sports. He was a keen sportsman, and, like another distinguished
Irishman, "all his life long he loved rivers, and poets who sang of
rivers." He made rapid way in his profession, and soon became one of the
foremost advocates in Ireland. He was a safe, shrewd, keen lawyer as
well as a great advocate--the two parts do not always go together. He
was a master of the art of cross-examination and he was a magnificent
speaker--his speeches were aflame with humor, and pathos, and passion.
His voice was one of immense power and sweetness and variety of tone.
Mr. Disraeli in one of his books, when praising to the highest the
superb voice of the great Sir Robert Peel, says that he had never heard
its superior "except indeed in the thrilling tones of O'Connell." The
Irish advocate had the advantage, too, of a commanding presence. He was
tall and moulded in almost herculean form, and he had eyes which were
often compared with those of Robert Burns--the light of genius was in
them. There is a full-length picture of him in the Reform Club, London,
which enables one to understand how stately and imposing his presence
must have been.
The career of O'Connell would appear to have been easily marked out for
him. He was the foremost advocate in Ireland; he was making a large
income; he had inherited a considerable property--what was there for him
but to go on and prosper; make money, hunt, shoot, fish, and be happy.
He could not indeed obtain any of the honors or dignities of his
profession. He could not even be a king's counsel, and wear a silk gown.
His religion cut him off from all such marks of distinction--for he was
a member of the Catholic Church. But no penal laws prevented him from
addressing juries and winning verdicts and attracting popular admiration
and making money. He was very happily married--a genuine love-match, it
would seem to have been, and the love lasted. Moreover he was strongly
and almost unreasonably opposed to all manner of agitation that bordered
on rebellion or even on sedition. He was positively unjust, he was
utterly unreasonable, in his estimate of the rebellion of 1798 and
Robert Emmet's abortive effort in 1803. He never did full justice even
to the brave men who were concerned in these movements. He had an
absolute detestation for all manner of secret societies. He knew too
well that they only ended in betrayal by some traitor who had contrived
to be admitted to their ranks. Under such conditions and with such views
what was there to induce the successful and prosperous advocate who
loved peace and who hated social disturbance, to mix himself up with
political affairs at a time when national politics meant for a patriotic
Irishman only social exclusion, danger, poverty, and even ruin?
O'Connell could not help himself. He had to walk, as Carlyle says of a
very different man, "his own wild road whither that led him."
O'Connell's wild road--the road that he had to walk, led him to the
leadership of two great national movements.
To understand what O'Connell fought against we must, of course,
understand O'Connell's time. It is not easy for an American reader to
understand it without some thought and without the endeavor to grasp the
reality of a state of things quite outside his own living experience.
When O'Connell began his career in politics the Act of Union had but
lately been passed. That Act of Union deprived Ireland of the more or
less independent Parliament which she had had for generations and even
for centuries. It was indeed a Parliament "more or less"
independent--less, perhaps, much rather than more. Still there had been
always a recognition of Irish nationality in the existence of any form
of Irish Parliament. The troubles between England and her American
colonies--between England and France--had led to the concession of what
we now know as Grattan's Parliament--the nearest form of Home Rule
Ireland had ever enjoyed since her conquest by the descendants of the
great Norman kings. But it was a Parliament of Protestants--no Catholic,
in a nation of which five-sixths were Catholics, could sit in the
National Parliament or even give a vote for a member of that National
Parliament. Grattan's Parliament was exclusively Protestant; but yet,
with all its imperfections, so nationalist was it in spirit that it was
willing, under Grattan's inspiration, to enable Roman Catholics to vote
for the election of members of the Irish House of Commons. But Grattan
and his friends were anxious to go much farther. They demanded a
complete political equality for the Roman Catholics. A society was
formed for the purpose of conducting the agitation. Its leaders were
almost all Protestants--many of them were Protestants from Ulster. The
stupid bigotry of George the Third bluntly refused Catholic
Emancipation; and the Society of United Irishmen became a rebellious
organization. The rebellion of 1798 broke out and was crushed after
terrible bloodshed. Then, when Ireland was wholly at the mercy of
England, Pitt brought in his proposal for an Act of Union. After much
resistance from all that was patriotic in Ireland and all that was
sympathetic in England, the Act of Union was carried--by fraud and force
and bribery and purchase. It has to be remembered with satisfaction that
some of the noblest Englishmen of the time were as strenuously opposed
to such a measure as Grattan himself. Pitt had made liberal promises
about Catholic Emancipation while he was striving to carry the Act of
Union, but when the Act was passed he dropped all talk about Catholic
Emancipation, and pleaded as his excuse that the king would not listen
to any further proposals on the subject. O'Connell's first political
speech was made in January, 1800, at a meeting of Catholics held in
Dublin to protest against the Act of Union.
Something else had to be done, however, before it could be possible in
Ireland to encounter the Act of Union with anything like a successful
constitutional agitation. The right had to be obtained for a Catholic to
sit in Parliament. The Catholic Association had been formed for the
purpose, and O'Connell became its recognized leader, and, more than
that, the recognized leader of the Irish people. Meanwhile there were
constant efforts made in Parliament for the emancipation of the
Catholics. Sir Robert Peel, who had begun his career as Chief Secretary
to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, had become Secretary of State for the
Home Department--and it may be well to mention to American readers that
the Irish Secretaryship is really a subordinate part of the Home Office.
Peel, as Home Secretary, was necessarily kept in constant touch with
everything going on in Ireland. He was greatly impressed by some of the
debates in the House of Commons. He was especially impressed by an
observation which Lord Brougham, then Mr. Brougham, made in a speech
supporting Catholic Emancipation, to the effect that not one of those
who spoke against emancipation had ventured even to suggest that things
could remain as they then were. Something will have to be done, Peel
said to himself. What is the something to be? The new king, George the
Fourth, in whose succession to the throne O'Connell and Thomas Moore and
the Irish people generally had had so much hope, was doggedly opposed to
the political relief of the Catholics.
Accident helped to bring about a settlement of the question. A sudden
vacancy occurred in the Parliamentary representation of the County of
Clare, owing to the fact that the former representative had accepted
office in the government, and had therefore to offer himself for
re-election. The leaders of the Catholic Association determined on the
bold policy of putting forward a candidate to contest the seat.
O'Connell, of course, was recognized by everyone as the man to fight the
battle. He willingly accepted the responsibility. Even moderate men,
partly sympathetic, shook their heads when they heard of this
determination. "O'Connell will end his life on the gallows" was the
confident prediction of some who passed among their neighbors for
sensible persons. The Viceroy of Ireland predicted that O'Connell would
take care to maintain good order in Clare during the election.
O'Connell's opponent predicted that O'Connell would not dare to come to
Clare in person; that he would not run the risk of confronting his
enemies. O'Connell ran the risk--he was not a man likely to be afraid of
risks. He went to Clare. The enthusiasm was wild, but the order was
perfect. O'Connell, the excluded Catholic, was elected by a majority of
more than two to one. The result set Peel thinking. What he thought we
have in his own words. Was it possible to take no account of "that
political and religious excitement which was quickening the pulse and
fluttering the bosom of the whole Catholic population--which had
inspired the serf of Clare with the resolution and the energy of a
freeman?" No, it was not possible. Peel soon made up his mind.
O'Connell presented himself at the bar of the House of Commons later on,
but not until after Peel and Wellington had crammed emancipation down
the king's throat and compelled him to accept it. Wellington seems to
have reasoned much in this way: "I know nothing about the question--Peel
knows all about it; Peel thinks it will be for the good of the king and
the country to pass Catholic Emancipation; the king, I am sure, does not
know any more about the matter than I do, and I am prepared to go with
Peel, and the king must come with us. Peel thinks there must be civil
war if we don't pass Catholic Emancipation, and I have had too much of
war in my time--and I don't propose to stand a civil war--not if I know
it." The king had, of course, to give way in the end, and Catholic
Emancipation was passed. It was passed rather ungraciously. It was
accompanied by a quite superfluous measure suppressing the Catholic
Association, which had in fact already dissolved itself, its work being
done, and invalidating the election of O'Connell. Perhaps, without these
sops to religious bigotry, an act for the emancipation of the Catholics
could not then have been carried through the Houses of Parliament.
O'Connell presented himself at the bar of the House of Commons and
claimed a right to take his seat. He was called upon to swear the old
oaths--what we may fairly call the anti-Catholic oaths. Of course he
refused. A new writ was ordered for Clare, and O'Connell was
triumphantly returned. The struggle was over.
The remainder of O'Connell's life was devoted mainly to the cause of
Repeal of the Union--in other words, the cause of Home Rule. He
organized the great system of monster meetings--vast out-of-door
gatherings, which he swayed as he pleased by the magic of his eloquence,
his humor, his passion, and the charm of his wonderful voice. No doubt
he sometimes used very strong language; no doubt some of the younger men
fully believed that he meant rebellion--that he had rebellion up his
sleeve if his demands were not conceded. The meetings were always held
on the Sunday; were indeed, regarded as, in a certain sense, religious
celebrations. The meeting of October 8, 1843, was to be held on the
historic ground of Clontarf, and it was expected to be the greatest of
all the assemblages, although some of them had drawn together a crowd of
nearly a quarter of a million of men. The Government issued a
proclamation prohibiting the meeting, and O'Connell bowed to the
prohibition. He sent messengers in every direction countermanding the
assembling of men, in order to prevent any chance of that disorder and
bloodshed which he had always shrunk from and abhorred. He and some of
his friends, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy among the rest, were put on their
trial on a charge of sedition. Most of them were found guilty and
sentenced to fine and imprisonment. They were confined in Richmond
Prison, Dublin. Their incarceration did not last long, and indeed, was
what might be called "internment" rather than actual imprisonment. A
majority of the law lords in the House of Peers, the final tribunal,
annulled the sentences on the ground that the jury had been unfairly
chosen--was packed, in fact. O'Connell and his colleagues were set free
after a few months; but the leader never recovered his former ascendency
over the political movement of Ireland. He was growing old; he had been
reckless of his great physical resources, he had been unsparing of his
strength; and undoubtedly, the younger men in the agitation fell away
from him when he had made it clear that he never meant, under any
conditions, to lead them into revolution. A number of his young and
brilliant followers set up a party of their own--the Young Ireland
Confederation--which after his death drifted into a generous, but
hopeless, rebellion. The Young Ireland movement, however, quickened and
established a national literature which had an immense effect on
subsequent political history in Ireland. The Irish famine of 1846 and
1847 was a terrible blow to O'Connell in his rapidly weakening health.
His last speech in the House of Commons was an appeal for a generous
help to Ireland, and a prediction, which proved only too true, that if
generous help were not given, one-fourth of Ireland's population must
perish by starvation. His physicians ordered him to the Continent, and
he passionately longed to reach Rome and die under the shadow of the
Vatican. He had during some of his years led a wild life, and he had
killed a man in a duel--a duel which was literally forced upon him, but
for which he always felt deeply penitent. His ultimate longing had come
to be a quiet death in the papal city. He was not graced so far. He died
in Genoa on May 15, 1847.
As a politician O'Connell was absolutely consistent. He was in favor of
liberty for Ireland, but he was in favor of liberty for every other
country. His definition of liberty was practical and not merely
declamatory. He was in favor of equal rights for all men before the law;
he was in favor of a free press, a free vote, and as nearly as possible
a manhood suffrage. He was in many ways far in advance of the English
liberals of his day. When the question of slavery in the West Indian
colonies was under discussion in Parliament, he went farther for
abolition than even the professed philanthropists and emancipationists,
the Clarksons and the Buxtons, were inclined to go. He was almost
fanatically opposed to the advocates of the slave system in the United
States, and he refused to receive any help in money from them to carry
on his Repeal agitation. He declined to endure any political dictation
from the Vatican, although he was a most devoted Roman Catholic. He
would take, he said, without question his religion from Rome, but not
his politics. There was no great cause of freedom upheld all through the
world in his time, but he clung to it and cleaved to it. The writer of
this article once talked to Mr. Gladstone about O'Connell, well knowing
that in early life Mr. Gladstone had been a great admirer of O'Connell's
abilities. Mr. Gladstone told many anecdotes of O'Connell's personal
energy in pursuit of any purpose which he believed to be just, and in
illustration of his wonderful mastery over even a thoroughly hostile
audience. When asked what he believed to be O'Connell's principal
characteristic, Mr. Gladstone paused for a while and thought the
question out, and then gravely and deliberately answered: "I should
think his greatest characteristic was a passion of philanthropy." A
passion of philanthropy! Is it possible to have a nobler epitaph
pronounced on one than that--and pronounced by such a man? No man in our
modern history was ever so bitterly and savagely denounced in England as
O'Connell. No words were too rough for him. He was commonly called in
English newspapers the "Big Beggarman." He was accused every day, of
making a fortune out of the contributions of a half-starving people. The
truth was that all and much more than all the money raised by the Irish
people, was spent on the agitation for repeal of the Union. The truth
was that O'Connell gave up his splendid practice at the bar, for the
sake of advocating the Irish national cause. The truth was that he spent
his own money and reduced his own property to all but pauperism, for the
sake of advancing the same cause. The truth was that he died poor,
leaving his children poor. But he had his reward. A man whom Mr.
Gladstone could describe as possessed above all other things by a
passion of philanthropy, may leave his memory safely in the charge of
those whose best interests he honestly strove to serve.
[Signature of the author.]