Through the whole of his long career, Daniel O'Connell kept three grand objects constantly
in view: 1st. He desired to emancipate his co-religionists of the Catholic faith and also the
dissenting Protestants, from the civil disabilities that oppressed and degraded them; in
other words, he sought to win religious liberty for the vast majority of the Irish people
and even for the minority of the English and Scotch.
2nd. He aimed at uniting Irishmen of all races and religions into one strong nation.
But, 3rd. His greatest and noblest ambition was to regain the legislative independence of
his country - to make Ireland a free nation once again.
He succeeded in accomplishing the first of these objects... met with only partial success
in his endeavours to unite all the various jarring elements of the Irish nation. But in his
efforts to achieve the third and noblest object of his ambition he failed completely.
After a vast and imposing display, continuing for months, of multitudinous popular masses
and of the marvelous dominion, which his transcendent abilities had given him over the
popular mind, the seeming might of the repeal movement gradually dwindled away and at last
the whole organisation dissolved into thin air, 'like the baseless fabric of a vision'
while the aged chieftain, broken alike in health and heart and power, retired to a foreign
land to die.
And this failure could not be otherwise, seeing the means adopted by O'Connell to achieve
his end. His early triumphs, which were won by agitation, caused him to push his theory of
'moral force' (to use his own term) to the utmost pitch of exaggeration.
If England conceded emancipation peacefully, it was because it really took no power from
her; it simply brought the Catholics within the pale of the Constitution; perhaps, in
certain ways, it rather increased England's power. Besides, a rich and influential portion
of the English people participated in the struggle.
In the reform agitation the majority of the people of England, Scotland and Ireland united
in demanding a reform bill from the Government. But the case of repeal was altogether
different. This was an international question. England was asked to surrender her dominion
over Ireland. Power is seldom or never yielded save to force. And what force, adequate to
the task of wresting the legislative independence of Ireland from England, could be found
in the mere expression of public opinion in trampled Ireland? No portion of the English
people would help to strengthen this array of Irish public opinion so as to bring the
requisite pressure on the hostile majority in parliament... Besides, toward the close of
the agitation for repeal, O'Connell brought forward an abstract proposition which, acted
on in good faith, should necessarily deprive the 'agitation' system of the only force it
ever had - that of the threat held in reserve.
The proposition was in effect, 'that under no circumstances, would an oppressed nation be
justified in resorting to arms against the oppressor, unless first attacked'.
In short, the Irish people, naturally one of the most martial upon God's earth, were called
upon to swallow the monstrous and even laughable delusion that England could be induced by
mere force of reason and persuasion to give up her hold on Ireland.
If the Irish people could possibly have come to believe and act on this principle, the
British Government need only avoid attacking and they might continue oppressing the Irish
to the end of time.
His determination to act on this exaggerated theory of 'moral force' blighted the
closing
scenes of O'Connell's career and ruined the cause of Ireland for the time - so much so that
we must hesitate whether, upon the whole, we should deem the life of this most illustrious
of all Irish political leaders a success or a failure.
In truth, in the history of this 'moral force' delusion are to be found the saddest,
but
not the least instructive, lessons of his extraordinary life; the chief moral to be
derived from which is, that Ireland, to be happy, must be independent and that to be
independent she must place her sole trust in the God of battles and her own manhood
marshalled in the field! © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008
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