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f DANIEL O'CONNELL '^
A X O T H K
COMMITTEE
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F:c.m ;!,(? Catholic Telegraph of AVednesday August 5tb, Ib^.T
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STEREOTYPE EDITION
p^ CINCINNATI, 0. ^,
iij** Printed at xhe Catholic Telegraph Office, Corner of Vine yi;d Longwortli Streets.S^^jfci,
i^ 1863.
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Daniel 0"Coniiell and the Committee of tlie Irish Repeal Association of Cincinnati.
The Committee, to whom the Address from the Cincinnati Irish Repeal Association, on the subject of Negro Slavery in the United States of America. v:as referred, have agreed to the following Report : —
To D. T. DisNET, Esq.,
Corresponding Secretary.
W. Hunter, Esq.,
Vice-President.
****** *****1 Executive Com- * * * * * * * I mittee of the
***** ****
*** *****
Cincinnati Irish Repeal
Corn Exchange Rooms, Dublin, "1 11th October, 1843. J
Gentlemen : — We have read, with the deepest affliction, not unmixed with some surprise and much indignation, your detail- ed and anxious vindication of the most hideous crime that has ever stained human- ity— the slavery of men of color in the United States of America. We are lost in utter amazement at the perversion of mind and depravity of heart which your Address evinces. How can the generous, the char- itable, the humane, the noble emotions of the Irish heart, have become extinct amongst yon ? How can your nature be so totally changed as that you should become the apologists and advocates of that execrable system, which makes man the property of his fellow-man — destroys the foundation of all moral and social virtues — condemns to ignorance, immorality and irreligion, mil- lions of our fellow-creatures — renders the slave hopeless of relief, and perpetuates op- pression by law; and, in the name of what you call a Constitution !
It was not in Ireland you learned this cruelty.' Your mothers were gentle, kind and humane. Their bosoms overflowed with the honey of human charity. Your sisters are, probably, many of them, still amongst us, and participate in all that is good and benevolent ia seatimeat and ac-
tion. How, then, can yon have become so depraved ? How can your souls have be- come stained with a darkness blacker than the negro's skin ? You say you have no pecuniary interest in negro slavery. Would that you had 1 for it might be some pallia- tion of your crime ! but, alas ! you have in- flicted upon us the horror of beholding you the VOLUNTEER advocatcs of despotism, in its most frightful state ; of slavery, in its most loathsome and unrelenting form.
We were, unhappily, prepared to expect some fearful exhibition of this description. There has been a testimony borne against the Irish, by birth or descent, in America, by a person fully informed as to the facts, and incapable of the slightest misrepre- sentation ; a noble of nature more than of titled birth ; a man gifted with the highest order of talent and the most generous emo- tions of the heart — the great, the good Lord Morpeth — he, who, in the House of Com- mons, boldly asserted the superior social morality of the poorer classes of the Irish over any other people — he, the best friend of any of the Saxon race that Ireland or the Irish ever knew; he, amidst congregated thousands, at Exeter Hall in London, mourn- fully, but firmly, denounced the Irish in America as being amongst the worst ene- mies of the negro slaves and other men of color.
It is, therefore, our solemn and sacr^ duty to warn you, in words already used, and much misunderstood by you — "to come out of her" — not thereby meaning to ask you to come out of America, but out of the councils of the iniquitous and out of the congregation of the wicked, who consider man a chattel and a property, and liberty an inconvenience. Yes. We tell you to come out of such assemblages ; but we did not and do not invite you to return to Ire- land. The volunteer defenders of slavery, surrounded by one thousand crimes, would find neither sympathy nor support amongst native, uncontaminated Irishmen.
Your advocacy of slavery is founded upon a gross error. You take for granted that
2 —
man can be the property of his fellow-man. You speak in terms of indignation of those ■who would deprive white men of their ^^pro- perty," and thereby render them less capa- ble of supporting their families in affluence. You forget the other side of the picture. You have neither sorrow nor sympathy for the sufferings of those who are iniquitously compelled to labor for the affluence of others ; those who work without wages — who toil without recompense — who spend their lives in procuring for others the splen- dor and wealth in which they do not par- ticipate. You totally forget the sufferings of the wretched black men, who are deprived of their all without any compensation or redress. If you, yourselves, all of you — or if any one of you, were, without crime or offence committed by you, handed over into perpetual slavery ; if you were compelled to work from sunrise to sunset without wages, supplied only with such coarse food and raiment as would keep you in working or- der; if, when your ^'owner' fell into debt, you were sold to pay his debts, not your own ; if it were made a crime to teach you to read and to write ; if you were liable to be separated, in the distribution of assets, from your wives and your children ; if you (above all) were to fall into the hands of a brutal master — and you condescend to ad- mit that there are some brutal masters in America — if, among all those circumstances, some friendly spirits of a more geuerous or- der were desirous to give liberty to you and your families — with what ineffable disgust would not you laugh to scorn those who should traduce the generous spirits who would relieve you, as you now, pseudo-Irish- men— shame upon you ! have traduced and vilified the Abolitionists of North America !
But, you come forward with a justifica- tion, forsooth ! You say that the Constitu- tion of America prohibits the abolition of slavery. Paltry and miserable subterfuge ! The Constitution in America is founded upon the Declaration of Independence. That Declaration published to the world its glorious principles; that Charter of your Freedom contained these emphatic words :
" We hold these Truths to be self-evident " — that All Mkn are cheated ecjual; that " they are endowed by their Creator with " certain inalienable Rights ; that amongst "these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit "of happiness;" — and the conclusion of that Address is in these words :
" For the support of this Declaration, " with a firm reliance on the protection of " Divine Providence, we mutually pledge " to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and
" OUR SaCRKD IIOXOB."
There is American honor for you I There is a profane allusion to the adorable Crea- tor 1
Recollect that the Declaration does not limit the equality of Man, or the Right to Life and Liberty, to the White, to the Brown, or to the Copper-colored Races. It includes all Races. It excludes none.
We do not deign to argue with you on the terms of the American Constitution ; and yet we cannot help asserting that, in that Constitution the word "Slavery" or "Slave," is not to be found. There are, indeed, the words — "persons bound to labor;" but it is not said hoiv bound. And a Constitutional Lawyer or Judge, construing the American Constitution with a reference to the Declara- tion of Independence, which is its basis, would not hesitate to decide that, "bound to labor" ought, in a Court of Justice, to mean "bound by contract to labor ;" and should not be held to imply, "forced or comjyclled to labor," in the absence of all contract, and for the exclusive benefit of others.
However, we repeat that we do not deign to argue this point with you ; as we proclaim to the world our conviction that no Consti- tutional Law can create or sanction slavery. Slavery is repugnant to the first principles of society ; but, it is enough for us to say, as regards Americans, that it is utterly re- pugnant to that Declaration of the Equality of all Men, and to the inalienable Right of all Men to Life and Liberty. To this De- claration the free citizens of the United States have, in the persons of their ances- tors, solemnly pledged their "sacred hoxor."
We shall, at once, shew you how that "sa- cred honor' is basely violated ; and also demonstrate how totally devoid of candor your Address is, inasmuch as you rely on the Constitution of the American States as precluding the abolition of slavery; whilst you totally omit all mention of one District, which the Constitutional Law, alleged by you, does not reach. We mean the District of Columbia.
In the District of Columbia there is no Constitutional Law to prevent the Congress from totally abolishing slavery within that District. Your Capitol is there. The Tem- ple of American Freedom is there — the Hall of your Republican Representatives — the Hall of your Republican Senators — the Na- tional Palace of your Republican President is there — and Slavery is there too, in its most revolting form ! The Slave Trade is there — the most disgusting Traffic in hu- man beings is there — human flesh is bought and sold, like swine in the pig-market — aye, in your Capital — your Washington I Yes. Let Americans be as proud as they please, this black spot is on their escutcheon. Even under the shade of the Temple of their Constitution the man of color crawla a slave, and the tawny American stalks a Tyrant.
The cruelty of the slave principle rests
— 3
not there — it goes much farther. The wretch- ed slaves are totally prohibited even from petitioning Congress. The poor and paltry privilege even of prayer is denied them ; and you, even you — pseudo-Irishmen ! are the advocates and vindicators of such a sys- tem. What ! would not you, at least, insist that their Groans should be heard !
It is carried still farther. Even the free- born white Americans are not allowed to petition upon any subject including the question of slavery: or, at least, no such petition can be read aloud or printed. And, although the Congress is entitled to abolish slavery in Columbia, the door for petition, praying that abolition, is closed without the power of being opened.
We really think that men, who came from generous and warm-hearted Ireland, should shrink into nonentity rather than become the advocates aud defenders of the system of slavery. But we trust that the voice of indignant Ireland will scatter them, and prevent them from repeating such a Crime.
In another point of view, your Address is, if possible, more culpable. You state that before the Abolitionists proclaimed their wish to have slavery abolished, several slave-holding States were preparing for the gradual emancipation of their negroes ; aud that humane individuals in other States were about to adopt similar measures.
We utterly deny your assertion, and we defy you to shew any single instance of pre- paratory steps taken by any State for the emancipation of the negroes before the abo- lition demand was raised. You violate Truth iu that Assertion. There were no Buch preparations. It is a pure fiction, in- vented by slave-holders out of their unjust animosity to the Abolitionists. It is said that the fear of abolition has rendered the slave-holders more strict, harsh and cruel towards their wretched slaves — and that they would be more gentle and humane if they were not afraid of the Abolitionists. We repeat that this is not true, and is mere- ly an attempt to cast blame on those who would coalesce to put an end to negro sla- very.
It is in the same spirit that the criminal calumniates his prosecutor, and the felon reviles his accuser. It is, therefore, utterly untrue that the slave-holders have made the chains of the negro more heavy through any fear of abolition.
Yet if you tell the truth ; if the fact &e, that the negro is made to suffer for the zeal of the Abolitionists ; if he is treated with in- creased cruelty by reason of the fault of the iriends of abolition, then, indeed, the slave- holders must be a truly Satanic race. Their conduct, according to you, is diabolical The Abolitionists commit an offence, and the unhappy negroea are punished. The
Abolitionists violate the law of property, aud the penalty of their crime is imposed upon the negro ! Can any thing be more repugnant to every idea of justice? Yet this is your statement.
We, on the other hand, utterly deny the truth of your allegations; and where we find you calumniate the slave-holders we be- come their advocates against your calumny. You calumniate everybody — slaves — Aboli- tionists and slave-owners — framers of Con- stitutions— makers of laws — everybody ! The slave-holders are not favorites of ours, but we will do them justice, and will not permit you to impute an impossible crime to them.
You tell us, with an air of triumph, that public opinion, in your country, is the great Law-giver. If it be so, how much does it enhance the Guilt of your conduct, that you seek to turn public opinion against the- slave and in favor of the slave-holder ! that you laud the master as generous and humane, and disparage, as much as you can, the un- happy slave; instead of influencing, as Irish- men ought to do, the public mind in favor of the oppressed. You carry your exag- gerations to a ludicrous pitch, denoting your utter ignorance of the history of the human race. You say that "the negro is really in- " ferior as a race ; that .slavery has stamped " its debasing influence upon the Africans; " that between him and the white almost a " century would be required to elevate the " character of the one, and to destroy the " antipathies of the other." You add — we use your own words — "The very odor of the " negro is almost insufferable to the white ; " and however much humanity may lament " it, we make no rash declaration when we " say the two races cannot exist together "on equal terras under our 'Government " and our Institutions.' "
We quote this paragraph at full length, because it is replete with your mischievous errors and guilty mode of thinking.
In the first place, as to the odor of the negroes, we are quite aware that they have not as yet come to use much of the otto of Roses or Eau de Cologne. But we implore of your fastidiousness to recollect that mul- titudes of the children of white men have negro women for their mothers ; and that our British travelers complain in loud and bitter terms of the overpowering stench of stale tobacco-spittle, as the prevailing ''odor" amongst the native free Americans. It would be, perhaps, better to check this nasal sensibility on both sides, on the part of the whites as well as of blacks. But it is, in- deed, deplorable that you should use a lu- dicrous assertion of that description as one of the inducements to prevent the abolition of slavery. The negroes would certainly
— 4 -.
smell at least as sweet when free, as they now do being slaves.
Your important allegation is, that the negros are, naturally, an inferior race. That is a totally gratuitous assertion upon your part In America you can have no oppor- tunity of seeing the negro educated. On the contrary, in most of your States it is a crime — sacred Heaven ! a crime to educate even a free negro ! How, then, can you judge of the negro race, when you see them despised and contemned by the educated classes ; reviled and looked down upon as inferior ? The negro race has, naturally, BCme of the finest qualities. They are naturally gentle, generous, humane, and very grateful for kindness. They are as brave and as fearless as any other of the races of human beings ; but the blessings of education are kept from them, and they are judged of, not as they would be with proper cultivation, but as they are rendered by cruel and debasing oppression. It is as old as the days of Homer, who truly asserts that the day which sees a man a slave takes away half his worth. Slavery actually brutalizes human beings. It is about sixty years ago when one of the Sheiks, not far South of Fez, in Morocco, who was in the habit of accumulating white slaves — upon being strongly remonstrated with by an European power, gave for his reply, that, by his own experience, he found it quite manifest that white men were of an inferior race, intend- ed by nature for slaves ; and he produced his own brutalized white slaves to illustrate the truth of his assertion. And a case of an American, with a historic name — John Adams — is quite familiar : Some twenty- five years ago — not more, John Adams was the sole survivor of an American crew, wrecked on the African Coast He was taken into the interior as the slave of an Arab Chief. He was only for three years a slave, and the English and American Consuls having been informed of a white man's slavery, claimed him and obtained his liberation. In the short space of three years he had become completely brutalized ; he had completely forgotten the English language, without having acquired the na- tive tongue. He spoke a kind of gabble, as unintellectual as the dialects of most of your negro slaves; and many months elapsed before he recovered his former habits and ideas.
It is, also, a curious fact, as connected with America, that the children of the Anglo-Sa.xon race and of other Europeans born in America, were, for many years, considered as a degraded and inferior class. Indeed it was admitted, as if it were an axiom, that the native-born American was in nothing equal to his European progeni- tor; and so far from the fact being disputed,
many philosophic dissertations were publish- ed endeavoring to account for the alleged debasement The only doubt was about the cause of it "Nobody doubted," to use your own words, "that the native-born Americans were really an inferior race." Nobody dares to say so know ; and nobody thinks it Let it, then, be recollected that you have never yet seen the negro educated. An English traveler through Brazil, some few years ago, mentions having known a negro who was a Priest, and who was a learned, pious and exemplary man in his sacerdotal functions. We have been lately informed of two ne- groes being educated at the Propaganda and ordained Priests — both having distinguish- ed themselves in their scientific and theo- logical course. The French papers say that one of them celebrated Mass and delivered a short but able sermon before Louis Phi- lippe. It is believed they have both gone out with the Right Rev. Dr. Baron on the African Mission.
We repeat, therefore, that to judge pro- perly of the negro, you should see him edu- cated and treated with the respect due to a fellow-creature — uninsulted by the filthy aristocracy of the skin, and untarnished to the eye of the white by any associationa connected with his state of slavery.
We next refer to your declaration that the two races, viz., the Black and the White, cannot exist, on equal terms, under your Government and your Institutions. This is an extraordinary assertion to be made at the present day. You allude, indeed, to Antigua and the Bermudas. But we will take you to where the experiment has beea successfully made upon a large scale — namely, to Jamaica.
There the two races are on a perfect equality in point of law. There is no mas- ter— there is no slave. The law does not recognize the slightest distinction between the races. You have borrowed the far greater part of your Address from the cant phraseology which the West Indian slave- owners, and especially those of Jamaica, made use of before emancipation. They used to assert, as you do now, that abolition meant destruction ; that to give freedom to the negro would be to pronounce the assas- sination of the whites; that the negro, as soon as free, would massacre their former owners and destroy their wives and families. In short, your prophecies of the destructive effects of emancipation are but faint and foolish echoes of the prophetic apprehen- sions of the British slave-owners. They might, perhaps, have believed their own as- sertions, because the emancipation of the negroes was then an untried e.xporiment But you — you are deprived of any excuse for the reassertion of a disproved calumny. The Emancipation has taken place — the
— 5 —
compensation given by England was not given to the negroes, who were the only per- sons that deserved compensation. It was given to the so-called "owners." It was an additional wrong — an additional cause of irritation to the negroes. But, gracious Heaven I how nobly did that good and kind- ly race — the negroes — falsify the calumnious apprehensions of their task-masters ! Was there one single murder consequent on the emancipation ? Was there one riot — one tumult — even one assault? Was there one single white person injured either in person or property ? Was there any property spoil- ed or laid waste ? The proportion of ne- groes in Jamaica to white men is as 300 to 60 or eighty per cent. Yet the most perfect tranquility has followed the Emancipation. The Criminal Courts are almost unemploy- ed ; nine-tenths of the jails are empty and open ; universal tranquility reigns. Al- though the Landed proprietors have made nse of the harshest landlord power to exact the hardest terms by way of rent from the negroes, and have also endeavored to extort from him the largest possible quantity of labor for the smallest wages, yet the kindly negro race have not retaliated by one single act of violence or of vengeance : the two races exist together, upon equal terms, un- der the British Government and under Bri- tish Institutions.
Or shall you say that the British Govern- ment and British Institutions are preferable to yours ? The vain and vaporing spirit of mistaken Republicanism will not permit you to avow the British superiority. You are bound, however reluctantly, to admit that superiority or else to admit the falsity of your own assertions. Nothing can, in truth, be more ludicrous than your declaration in favor of slavery. It, however, sometimes rises to the very border of Blasphemy. Your words are, "God forbid that we should ad- vocate 'human bondage in any shape.' "
Oh ! shame upon you ! How can you take the name of the All-Good Creator thus in vain ! What are you doing ! Is not the entire of your Address an advocacy of hu- man Bondage ?
Another piece of silliness. You allege that it is the Abolitionists who make the slave restless with his condition, and that they scatter the seeds of discontent. How can you treat us with such contempt as to use assertions of that kind in your Address ? How can you think we could be so devoid of intellect as to believe the negro would not know the miseries of slavery, which he feels every hour of the four-and-twenty, un- less he were told by some Abolitionist that slavery was a miserable condition ?
There is nothing that makes us think so badly of you as your strain of ribaldry in attacking the Abolitionists.
The desire to procure abolition is, in it- self, a virtue and deserves our love for its charitable disposition, as it does respect and veneration for its courage under unfavor- able circumstances. Instead of the ribaldry of your attack upon the Abolitionists, you ought to respect and countenance them. If they err by excessive zeal, they err in a righteous and a holy cause. You would do 'well to check their errors and mitigate their zeal within the bounds of strict propriety. But if you had the genuine feelings of Irish- men you never would confound their errors with their virtues. In truth, we much fear or rather we should candidly say, we readily believe that you attribute to them imaginary errors for no other reason than that they really possess one brilliant virtue — namely, the love of human freedom in intense per- fection.
Again, we have to remark that you exag- gerate exceedingly when you state that there are fifteen millions of the white population in America whose security and happiness are connected with the maintenance of the system of negro slavery. On the contrary, the system of slavery inflicts nothing but mischief upon the far greater part of the inhabitants of America. The only places in which individual interest is connected with slavery are the slave-holding States. Now, in those States, almost without an ex- ception (if, indeed, there be any exception), the people of color greatly exceed the whites ; and thus, even if an injury were to be in- flicted on the whites by depriving them of their slaves, the advantages would be most abundantly counterbalanced and compen- sated for by the infinitely greater number of persons, who would thus be restored to that greatest of human blessings — personal Liberty. Thus the noble Benthamite maxim of "doing the greatest possible good to the greatest possible number," would be amply carried out into effect by the Emancipation of the negroes.
You charge the Abolitionists, as with a crime, that they encouraged a negro, flying from Kentucky, to steal a horse from an in- habitant of Ohio, in order to aid him, if ne- cessary, in making his escape. We are not, upon full reflection, sufficiently versed in casuistry to decide whether, under such cir- cumstances, the taking of the horse would be an excusable act or not. But, even con- ceding that it would be sinful, we are of this quite certain, that there is not one of you that address us who, if he were under simi- lar circumstances, that is, having no other means of escaping perpetual slavery, wocld not make free with your neighbor's horse to effectuate your just and reasonable pur- pose. And we are also sure of this, that there is not one of you who, if he were com- pelled to spend the rest of his life as a per-
- 6 —
sonal slave, worked, and beaten, and sold. and transferred from hand to hand, and separated, at his master's caprice, from wife and family — consigned to ignorance — work- ing without wages, toiling without reward — without any other stimulant to that toil and labor than the driver's cart-whip — we do say that there is not one of you who would not think that the name of pick-pocket, thief or felon, would not be too courteous a name for the being who kept you in such thraldom.
We cannot avoid repeating our astonish- ment that you. Irishmen, should be so de- void of every trace of humanity as to be- come the voluntary and pecuniarily-disin- terested advocates of human slavery ; and especially, that you should be so in America But what excites our unconquerable loath- ing is to find that in your Address you speak of man being the property of man — of one human Being being the property of another, with as little doubt, he.sitation or repug- nance, as if you were speaking of the beasts of the field. It is this that fills us with ut- ter astonishment. It is this that makes us disclaim you as countrymen. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that you breathed your natal air in Ireland — Ireland, the first of all the nations on the earth that abolish- ed the dealing in slaves. The slave trade of that day was, curiously enough, a slave trade in British youths — Ireland, that never was stained with negro slave trading — Ire- land, that never committed an offence against the men of color — Ireland, that never fitted out a single vessel for the traf- fic in blood on the African Coai5t.
It is, to be sure, afflicting and heart-rend- ing to us to think that so many of the Irish in America should be so degenerate as to te amongst the worst enemies of the people of color. Alas ! alas ! we have that fact placed bevond doubt by the indusputable tes- timony of Lord Morpeth. This is a foul blot that we would fain wipe off the scutcheon of expatriated Irishmen.
Have you enough of the genuine Irish- man left amongst yon to ask what it is that we require you to do ? It is this :
First — We call upon you, in the sacred name of humanity, never again to volunteer an behalf of the oppressor ; nor even for any self-interest to vindicate the hideous crime of personal slavery.
Secondly — We ask you to assist in every way you can in promoting the education of the free men of color, and in discounte- nancing the foolish feeling of selfishness — of that criminal selfishness which makes the white man treat the man of color as a de- graded or inferior being.
Thirdly — We ask you to assist in obtain- ing for the free men of color the full benefit of all the rights and franchises of a Freeman in whatever State he may inhabit.
Fourthly — We ask yon to exert yourselves in endeavoring to procure for the man of color, in every case, the benefit of a Trial by Jury ; and especially where a man insisting that he is a Freeman is claimed to be a slave.
Fifthly — We ask you to exert yourselves in every possible way to induce slave-owners to emancipate as many slaves as possible. The Quakers in America have several so- cieties for this purpose. Why should not the Irish imitate them in that virtue ?
Sixthly — We ask you to exert yourselves in all the ways you possibly can to put an end to the internal slave trade of the States. The breeding of slaves for sale is, probably, j the most immoral and debasing practice ever known in the Morld. It is a crime of the most hideous kind ; and if there were no other crime committed by the Americans, this alone would place the advocates, sup porters and practisers of American slavery in the lowest grade of criminals.
Seventhly — We ask you to nse every eser* tion in your power to procure the abolition of slavery by the Congress in the District of Columbia.
Eighthly — We ask you to use your best exertions to compel the Congress to receive and read the petitions of the wretched ne- groes ; and, above all, the petitions of their white advocates.
Ninthly — We ask you never to cease your efforts until the crime of which Lord Mor- peth has accused the Irish in America, of "being the worst enemies of the men of color, shall be atoned for, and blotted out and effaced forever.
You will ask how you can do all these
things ? You have already answered that
question yourselves ; for you have said that
j public opinion is the Law of America. Con-
I tribute, then, each of you in his sphere to
I make up that public opinion. Where yoo
have the electoral franchise, give your vote
to none but those who will assist you in so
holy a struggle.
Under a popular Government, the man who has right, and reason, and justice, and charity, and Christianity itself at his side, has great instruments of legislation and le- gal power. He has the elements about him of the greatest utility ; and even if he should not succeed he can have the heart-sooihing consolation of having endeavored to do great and good actions. He can enjoy, even in ! defeat, the sweet comfort of having endea- I vored to promote benevolence and charity. I It is no excuse to allege that the Congress is restricted from emancipating the slaves by one General Law. Each particular slave I State has that power within its own pre- cincts; and there is every reason to be con- 1 vinced that Maryland and Virginia would I have followed the example of New York,
7 -
and long ago abolished slavery but for the diabolical practice of "raising," as you call it, slaves for the Sourthern market of pesti- lence and death.
Irishmen and the sons of Irishmen have, many of them, risen to high distinction and pov,-er in America. Why should not Irish- men and the sons of Irishmen write their names in the brightest pages of the chapter of humanity and benevolence in American story ?
Irishmen ! our Chairman ventures to think, and we agree with him, that he has claims on the attention of Irishmen in every quarter of the globe. The Scotch and French philosophers have proved by many years of experiment that the Irishman stands first among the races of man in his physical and bodily powers. America and Europe bear testimony to the intellectual capacity of Irishmen. Lord Morpeth has demonstrated in the British Parliament the superior morality of the humbler classes of Irish in all social and family relations. The religious fidelity of the Irish nation is blazoned in glorious and proverbial cer- tainty and splendor.
Irishmen! sons of Irishmen! descendants of the kind of heart and affectionate in dis- position, think, oh think only with pity and compassion on your colored fellow-creatures in America. Offer them the hand of kindly help. Soothe their sorrows. Scath their oppressor. Join with your countrymen at home in one cry of horror against the op- pressor ; in one cry of sympathy with the enslaved and oppressed,
" 'Till prone in the dust slav'ry shall be hiirl'd,— Its name and nature blotted from the world."
We cannot close our observations upon the unseemly, as well as silly attacks you make upon the advocates of abolition, with- out reminding you that you have borrowed this turn of thought from the persons who opposed Catholic Emancipation in Ireland, or who were the pretended friends of the Catholics. Some of you must recollect that it was the custom of such persons to allege _^j;hat but for the "violence" and ''miscon- duct" of the agitators, and more particularly of our Chairman, the Protestants were about to emancipate the Catholics gradually. It was the constant theme of the newspaper press, and even of the speeches in the Houses of Parliament, that the violence and mis- conduct of agitators prevented Emancipa- tion. It was the burthen of many pamph- lets, and especially of two, which were both written, under the title of "Faction Un- masked," by Protestants of great ability. They asserted themselves to be friends of Emancipation in the abstract; but they al- leged that it was impossible to grant Eman- cipation to persons whose Leaders miscon- ducted themselves as the Agitators did.
They gratified their hatred to the Catholics as you gratify your bad feeling towards the negroes, by abuse of the Catholic leaders as virulent as yours is against the Abolition- ists. But they deceived nobody. Neither do you deceive anybody. Every humane be- ing perceives the futility and folly of your attacks upon the Abolitionists, and under- stands that those attacks are but the exhi- bition of rancor and malignity against the tried friends of humanity.
You say that the Abolitionists are fanatics and bigots, and especially entertain a viru- lent hatred and unchristian zeal against Catholicity and the Irish. We do not mean to deny, nor do we wish to conceal that there are amongst the Abolitionists many wicked and calumniating enemies of Catholicity and the Irish, especially in that most intolerant class — the Wesleyan Methodists ; but the best way to disarm their mailice is not by giving up to tliem the side of humanity, while you, yourselves, take the side of sla- very. But, on the contrary, by taking a superior station of Christian virtue in the cause of benevolence and charity, and iu zeal for the freedom of all mankind.
We wish we could burn into your souls the turpitude attached to the Irish in Ame- rica by Lord Morpeth's charge. Recollect that it reflects dishonor not only upon you but upon the land of your birth. There is but one way of effacing such disgrace, and that is by becoming the most kindly towards the colored population, and the most energetic in working out in detail, as well as in gen- eral principle, the amelioration of the state of the miserable Bondsmen.
You tell us, indeed, that many Clergy- men, and especially the Catholic Clergy, are ranged on the side of the slave-holders. We do not believe your accusation.
The Catholic Clergy may endure, but they assuredly do not encourage the slave-owners. We have, indeed, heard it said that some Catholic Clergymen have slaves of their own ; but, it is added, and we are assured positively, that no Irish Catholic Clergymau is a slave-owner. At all events, every Cath- olic knows how distinctly slave-holding, and especially slave-trading, is condemned by the Catholic Church. That most eminent man, His Holiness, the present Pope, has, by an Allocution published throughout the world, condemned all dealing and trafiSc ia slaves. Nothing can be mope distinct nor more powerful than the Pope's denuncia- tion of that most abominable crime. Yet it subsists in a more abominable form than His Holiness could possibly describe, in the traffic which still exists in the sale of slaves from one State in America^ to another. What, then, are we to think 'of you, Irish Catholics, who send us an elaborate vindi- cation of slavery without the slightest ceq-
snre of that hateful crime ? a crime which the Pope has so completely condemned — namely, the diabolical raising of slaves for eale, and selling them to other States.
If you be Catholics you should devote your time and best exertions to working out the pious intentions of His Holiness. Yet you prefer — oh, sorrow and shame I to Tolunteer your vindication of everything that belongs to the guilt of^slave^y.
If you be Christians at all, recollect that slavery is opposed to the first, the highest, and the greatest principles of Christianity, which teach us "to love the great and gootl God above all things whatsoever ;" and the next "to love our fellow-man as ourselves ;" which commands us "to do unto others as we would be done by." These sacred prin- ciples are inconsistent with the horrors and crimes of slavery ; sacred principles which Lave already banished domestic bondage from civilized Europe, and which will also, in God's own good time, banish it from America, despite the advocacy of such puny declaimers as you are.
How bitterly have we been afflicted at perceiving by the American newspapers, that recently in the city which you inhabit an opportunity was given to the Irish to ex- hibit benevolence and humanity to a color- ed fellow-creature, and was given in vain 1 We allude to the case of the girl Lavinia, who was a slave in another State, and brought by her owner into that of Ohio. She by that means became entitled to her freedom, if she had but one friend to assert it for her. She did find friends — may the great God of Heaven bless them I Were they Irish ? Alas I alas I not one. You eneer at the sectaries. Behold how they here conquer you in goodness and charity. The owner's name, it seems, was Scanlan ; unhappily a thorough Irish name. And he, it appears, has boasted that he took his re- venge, by the most fiendish cruelty, not upon Lavinia or her protectors, for they were not in his power, but on her unoffending father, mother and family I
And this is the system which you, Irish- men, through many folio pages of wicked declamation, seek at least to palliate if not justify. Our cheeks burn with shame to think that such a monster as Scanlan could trace his pedigree to Ireland. And yet you, Irishmen, stand by in the attitude rather of friends and supporters, than of impugners of the monstrous cruelty. And you prefer to string together pages of cruel and heart- less sophistry in defence of the source of his crimes, rather than take part against him.
Perhaps it. would offend your fastidious; ness if such a man were compared to a pick- pocket or a felon. We respect your preju-
dices and call him no reproachful name. It is, indeed, unnecessary.
We conclude by conjuring you, and all other Irishmen in America, in the name of your fatherland — in the name of humanity — in the name of the God of Mercy and Charity ; we conjure you. Irishmen and de- scendants of Irishmen, to abandon for ever all defence of the hideous negro slavery sys- tem. Let it no more be said that your feel- ings are made so obtuse by the air of Ame- rica that you cannot feel as Catholics and Christians ought to feel this truth — this plain truth, that on'e man cannot have any
PROPERTY IN ANOTHER MAN. There is UOt
one of you who does not recognize that principle in his own person. Yet we per- ceive— and this agonizes us almost to mad- ness— that you, boasting on Irish descent, should, without the instigation of any pecu- niary or interested motive, but out of the sheer and single love of wickedness and crime, come forward as the volunteer de- fenders of the most degrading species of human slavery. Woe I Woe ! Woe I
There is one consolation still amid the pulsations of our hearts. There are — there must he genuine Irishmen in America — men of sound heads and Irish hearts, who will assist us to wipe off the foul stain that Lord Morpeth's proven charge has inflicted on the Irish character — who will hold out the hand of fellowship, with a heart in that hand, to every honest man of every caste and color — who will sustain the cause of humanity and honor, and scorn the paltry advocates of slavery — who will shew that the Irish heart is in America as benevolent and as replete with charitable emotions as in any other clime on the face of the earth.
We conclude. The spirit of democratic liberty is defiled by the continuance of ne- gro slavery in the United States. The United States, themselves, are degraded be- low the most uncivilized nations, by the atrocious inconsistency of talking of liberty and practising tyranny in its worst shape. The Americans attempt to palliate their iniquity by the futile excuse of personal in- terest ; but the Irish, who have not even that futile excuse, and yet justify slavery, are utterly indefensible.
Once again — and for the last time — we call upon you to come out of the councils of the slave-owners, and at all events to free yourselves from participating in their guilt
Irishmen, I call on you to join in crush- ing slavery, and in giving Liberty to every man of every caste, creed aud color.
Signed by order,
Daniel O'Connell,
Chairman of the Committee.
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