Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Next Page
OCR
‘TRUTH IS POWERFUL, |, |
VOL. th.
‘ ¥Xveiand—Blections,
Amost numerous and highly respectable assemblage of the
frieuds of Messrs. Power and Srvart, took place at the Par-
ish Chapel in Dungarvan on Sunday last.. Most of the respec
aable inhabitants and freeholders of Dungarvan were present,
and took a deep interest ia the object of the meeting. . About
half past wo o'clock the Very Rev. Dr. Connouty, P. P. was
called to the Chair, and a Committee was appointed to prepare
yesolutions to be submitted to the consideration of the Free-
holders assembled. . . 5
On the first Resolution being po
SE i re
Chairman, and you Ca-
ngarvan—The Resolution just read is
analmost self-evident proposition; for who hears me in this
crowded meeting but must know from his own personal expe-
rience, without asking for the melancholy traditions of his Fa-
thers, how much every man in this wasted and wretched land
&tands. in need of that first of all national remedies Catholic
Emancipation. top
ie, graven as it ought to be on the heart of every Catholic in
the Country, had 1 not heard of several late attempts on the
part of our enemies, to distort it from its real signification.
"You are not only denied your rights, but you are taunted with
the assertion, that you know not what your rights meau; in
the midst of your sufferings, you are told that you are happy—
in the midst of your chaius, that you are free—that you cannot
distinguish between benefits and injuries—that Emancipation
is a mere shadow—that Petition is a senseless outcry, and tha
seven millions of your feilow-countrymen ‘have been till this
hour engaged ina petty struggle of sell-interest fowthe person-
al and exclusive advantage of a few.” They ask you, why vote
for Mr. Stuart ; why not vote for Lord George Beresford; are
they not both Protestants, and what has one Protestant more
than another to claim or meritthe support ofa Catholic? This,
indeed, is monstrous, and adds insult to wrong ; but what are
we not to espect from men who have had the audacity to join
such things together as Lord George Beresford and Cathotic
Emancipation ! ‘The’ time is come to answer them ; listen, and
learn your interests, fellow-countrymen, from other authority
than an anti-Catholic Faction, whose existence depends on your
apathy only, and who if you felt but half what other Nations
\ feel for your oppression, would long since have ‘disappeared
before your united efforts and indignation, , .
Why vote for Mr. Stuart, and why not vote for Lord George
Beresford? L will answer them ; not because they are Catholic
or Protestant—for what care I for the religious opinions of any
man, when they do not injure the community—but because one
is a liberal Protestant, and the other an illiberal one; because
Mr. Stuart would admil, and Lord George would do, and has
done, every thing in his power to exclude me from the pale of
the Constitution, . No man is so besotted as to hate his friend
and love hig enemy ; but when this is not a matter between one
than and another, but between one and thousands; when it is
known that Lord George has pledged himself to vote against
our Emancipation, against the Emancipation of seven millions
_ ef his fellow-countrymen, and Mr, Stuart has pledged himself
to do all that a Member of Parliament can do to achieve it, I
then say, that for a man who: feels the slightest touch of affec-
tion for his Country, no question can’ exist ; all hesitation
_ should be at an end; the duty is a positive one—the Catholic
ifhe feels as a man and an Irishman, if he be nota hireling;
a mere bondsman, a slave in heart and head, cannot degrade
himself so far as to tender bis support, or even rest in a crimi-
nal ieutrality, when such a Candidate as Lord George Beres-
ford stands before him. It is against intollerance, against Big-
etry, against Exclusion, that I vote, and not against this man,
or against that man. Were Mr. Stuart to avow the same prin-
‘iples, he would and ought to find us the same enemies. Noth-
g can redeem a profession of hatred to our Creed and Coun-
try :.that man is our enemy, Who is an enemy to our Country,
and no man can love our Country, who consents to keep seven-
tights of its inhabitints in bondage. -< Lo,
es—our present state is bondage—Emancipation would be
liberty. Iris an insulting outrage to common sense to say, that
it is of no consequence or of no utility to us alls. If it be indif-
. ferent, why refaseit? Why, when it is mentioned in the North
.the whole Orange Ascendancy bustles up in arms against it,
Emancipation of no atility 7“ And of whom have they learned
that? Ofthe Caibolics? No. “And who has better right to
.if1) Of the Tiheral Protestant t No. ' The sixty-nine Peers,
with the Duke of Devonshire at their head ; the principal land-
ed proprietors in Ireland; they who above all others have had
the greatest experience on this important question ; they in the
7 face of the whole country have declared, that it was essential to
the prosperity. td the very existence of the Empire. Who then
‘ure the men who dare insult you with this assertion? Men who
Jive upon your oppression; who. if it ceased, would certainly
“.vease also} men who hate your cause and affect to contemn it;
und who fear you too much, slaves, ever to allow you to be free.
‘They know too weil how much it would benefit you, even to
advocate it within or without of Parliament. ° Are they not
strangers to every thing Irish, and how can they love the Ca-
“tholic ?- But whatis this Emancipation? Do they know even
‘he megning of the word? They say it is the elevation of afew
.
" NEW-YORK, SATURDAY, JULY 29,
Baronets to the peerage, of a few Gentlemen to the Baronetcy,
a few Commoners to Parliament, a few- Lawyers to a silk
gown, of promotion here, pension there, rank in the army, in
the navy, at the bar, and | know not what other miserable ob-
jects of self-love in which the great mass of the People can
have no shave,” These things would not be worth contending
for; and I for one, were not the People, you and each man iu
the County, and in every County in Ireland, to be benefitted,
and essentially benefitted by this great change—I for one would
say, throw away your efforts elsewhere, this is but « little vari-
ety in our slavery, the slavery exists still, the Country is op-
pressed, the People wretched, and I care not whether twenty
men be happier when seven millions are stilislaves. But, as [
contend, and shal! to my latest breath, for this great cause, and
as IT hope to go down to. my grave far other than those who
went before me, 50 ulso I do it, on the perfect conviction that I
am not fighting my. own battle, but that of every olher man,
peer or peasant, in the country.” The way to try these things,
is to try them on our enemies. ‘ake, for instance, a No-Pope-
ry Englishman of some slavish borough of the West of England
and strip him one by’ one of the privileges of which an unjust
and infamous Code has already deprived his Catholic fellow-
subject... Suppose you tell him, and I here limit myself to
those disqualifications which exist at present, without touching
on that atrocious system of domestic tyranny, which has been
described by our greatest Statesmen as the most perfect sys-
tem of despotism that ever existed since the days of Nero, and
which had been suffered to exist for two centuries, unimpaired
and uncorrected till the year 1793. Suppose you tell him—you
have children; they profess your faith, the faith of. their an-
céstors before them; their ancestors have served the State—
they too shall serve it when time and strength shall give them
the power as well as the will; you would do well first to educate
them ; it is from want of education, that all the cries and ex-
cesses of society proeced—but there is no education for you,
unless it be preceded by apostacy ; renounce your religion, and
your children shall have it gratis—if not, rot where you are—
you are unworthy of being taught, though the State, expends
thousands, and part of those thousands your own money, taken
out of your own’ labour, and privations, in the education of
whom, of your avowed hereditary and sworn enemies? What
would the Englishman say to this! Why what every man must
say, such a studied plan of brutalizing society, could ouly. be
equalled by the cruclty with which its effects are punished.—
‘They first deny you education, and they taunt youand punish
you because you want it, So much for education.. Let us pro-
ceed farther—were [also to tell him, you shall. not have a
Church built, but from the miserable pittance of your poorest
peasantry; but not only that, you shall contribute largely to
the Churches of the very sect which most oppress yon—you
shall be obliged to contribute to Churches where there are no
Congregations, ‘and that too in districts where the Bishops wal-
low in riches, and the poor are in rebe! rom starvation
you shall not be buried but by the permission of an encmy ex-
officio to your belief; you shall run coustant risk of encreased
and capricious claims ; you shall have no security against them
ut the chance of a litle doubtful mercy mixed up in the habi-
taallyrapny of your tax-masiers; you shall not only support
your own Clergy, but you shalt support another Clergy as nu-
merous, and a Clergy too, the first article of whose political
faith is to oppress. the Israelite, lest the Egyptian bondage
should fall, and to trample under foot Christians like them-
selves, that an ,‘* Establishment,” which they catl a Church
should not crumble over them... Then if you ask for redress,
you may doit, but you shall find on the bench, and in the jury-
room, aud in the gaol, judges and accusers, and gaolers in the
same persons; men who will invert all principles of British jus-
tice, to worship at the feet of an intolerant ascendency, not re-
cognised by law or constitution, but daringly, insolently, and
openly opposed to both, Strange then with all this, thet in good
time you may be stung by an accumulation of wrong and in-
sult, and ina moment of convulsion and dispair, may infringe
on laws, laws which we make and not you, that you be pun-
isbed as you deserve for your miseries, and little Ly little, ex-
terminated from the land. ; What, [ repeat again, would the
veriest artisan in the most corrupt village iu Protestant England
eay to this?) They revolt at the slightest diminution of their
daily meal, because they eat bread instead of pork. , This is
ground enough for a sedition; but were one of those disquali-
fying outrageous statutes attempted to be enforced in any one
district on any one person in that land. what would be their
answer, Petitions on Petitions, clamour on clamour, outery on
outcry, meeting on meeting, until the whole country was arm-
ed against the oppression; nor would they cease till one by
one they had extorted theit liberties from the fears or policy
of their oppressors, And what makes the difference of your
case with theirs? Is it because the word Catholic differs fom
the word Protestant—or have you less of life and blood, a less
sensibility to insult and infamy, because you believe in Trans-
Substantion instead of Consubstantiation ? Because you believe
not only all that a Protestant believes, but something more—is
that a reason why your homes should be made the dens of out~
casts, and you should be condemned to lock upon every bless-
ing of the Constitution—sthrough bars? It is the casg of every
1826. 2.
man in Ireland—I say it emphatically—every man must feel in
terested in the education, the rites of sepulture, ‘the taxes, the
tithes, the magistracy oi Ireland, The .ascendency may tell us
we are happy.
then will we believe you, Monopolists! ‘I'he face of the whole
Jand preaches and proves against you 1 have been in the most
despotic countries of Europe, where the Government was an
avowed despotism, but the People at least had butone oppres+
sor—there was no Ifydra, no handred-headed, hundred-hand«
ed Orange Tyranny above them. ‘Their
ed, and not in rags—they ate, and were satlsied—they did not
starve anoually, that they might perish annually—there was
no inquisition about their grates and hearths, they lived free at -
Jeast at home, and were too far from their master’s to feel them,
In Papal Rome the peasant is happier ten thousand times than.
in this English Ireland. - [ had rather serve there than be free Mw
here, after the manner of Jrish Freedom. The Constitution ig
an admirable one, ‘ the envy of surrounding nations,” though:
that cant is dying fast, the consummation of human wisdom,
(witness its anti-social Catholic Code.) What care we for this,
when we do not enjoy it. It is quitas sensible a thing as to tell
us, there was or is a good Coustitution in China. WhatI want
isthe Enjoyment. ce a
The guoler, no doubt, admires gaol, so do not the prisoners
witht them. And as we know the constitution but by bonds,
fetters, pains and penalties, and every thing prison-like, and
tyrannic, L must think like a prisoner, and thinking so, must
actasTthivk. The constitution may be good; but what is the
‘There lies the injury—there also
The laws are good, if we ha
them—and we must have them, if we know ourselves as we
know our enemies. There are two means: the first, violence—
and we are becoming too enlightened to take the first—it is a
circuitous route to freedom; the other, the means which the
constitution has vested in us, and the first of these is the elec.
tive franchise-—If we ‘properl. d exercised this right, we
shoald long since have been emancipated; for the Catholic
Freeholders of Ireland bear the same proportion as the other
inhabitants to the Protestants. In this county, they are on the
books, and 501 Freeholders comprehended us 82101. Now it”
is obvious, that if these, 32 would only feel as every Catholic
ought to feel, we should have an immense majority over our
opponents, and could consequently returu any person, whether !
Mr, Stuart, Mr. P or any person we thought fit. On the
othet side, it is not less true, that if these men are not returned,”
the fault is wholly and entirely in the Catholics ; in other words,
man who has kept them what they are, whose family is the cbict.
cause of their degradation, and who, so far from retracting his.
steps, says openly to Catholics—to Catholics themselves (the
most audacious insult that can be offered to meu) that if they
choose him again, as price of that choice, he will add as man.
new votes as he can to the hundreds that he and his family have
given before against them, That is—elect me, that 1 may wrong
ou; place me above you, that [ may trample on you; bend your
backs that you may help me to my seat; and give me the lash
that I may scourge you. This is the matter-of-fact simple trans-.
lation into the language of common sense of Lord George Bes
resford’s Anti-Irish, aud Anti-Catholic Address. But of what
matter is his voice; of what matter, then, is the vote of ang
mau. Of those votes, one by one, is made up the representation
of the county, and it is this representation which gives us laws,
Now, should every one reason thus, or a large proportion of the
country, not a year would pass without secing a despotism ow
the throne of England, and the House of Parliament converte
into a Russian Senate. . Every one is bound to give what he
can; and if all felt this duty, as [ am sure you do, there is na
ower on earth, no bishop majorities in the House of Lords, na
Ducal oaths, or Royal Vetoes which could oppose us, For how,
does the case staud?—The Lords must yield to the Commons
—they have always one so—and the English portion of, the
Commons must ultimately yield to the Irish. [f unanimous, the
Irish members must prevail; and why should they not at length
be unanimous? Have we not 75 members: and may we not
have 80 or 90 or 1007 Many of the counties of Ireland have
been altogether neutralized—they have Jost their votes by the
opposition of diferent interests. But what county has suffered,
more than our own? By the opposition of Lord George, Mr,
Power has navote. We are as if we were not; our voice is not
heard in the Imperial Parliament. How is this to be remedied?
By giving Mr. Power a colleague, whose sentiments are like
Mr. Power's, and both of whom are your representatives, and.
not that of a few, and of a faction; you not ouly gain an existe
ence in the legislature, but you gain a powerful ove; you have
{wo votes where you till this hour had ‘none, And is not. thig
worth ambition—and is not this ambition holy—and is not every
effort to be strained, for what is worthy of the exertion ofa
whole people? Nor does the victory rest there; we are not cons
tending against an tsolated bigot—he is but one bead of the
mighty serpent; strike there, and you strike at all, Qrangeism
trembles through all ber nerves, and the secret of her strength
is wrapt up in the strength of the Beresfords. What will the
Eldons, and the Becls, and the. Goulburas of the Ascendancy’
Isay—change wretcheduess into blessings ;—, "
the Catholics have been base enough to put into Pailiament, ay _
NO. 30. '
EET Le Oe
aa eS os
rd
ty Tae
x
Fae
FE ee 9 ot gO
: ey
ye ge
eu 7
el