Speeches on the legislative independence of Ireland : With introductory notes

Front matter

From the collection of James Collins, Drumcondra, Ireland.

Purchased, 1918.

M46S

Contents

:f

ORATION DELIVERED BY RICHARD O’GORMAN, ESQ., IN COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, AUGUST 14, 1867. . ™

ENGLISH LEGISLATION IN 1846— GROWTH OF THE NATIONAL

Appendix

Resolutions of the Common Council of New York on the arrival of T. F. Meagher — deputation at the Astor House — presentation of address and resolutions — Mr. Meagher’s replies — declines public procession and hospitalities of the city , , ... 811

O’GORMAN’S ORATION.

[When the melancholy intelligence of the death of General Meagher, by drowning in the waters of the Missouri, on the night of the 1st of July, 1867, was confirmed, the officers of his old Brigade organized and carried out a series of funeral ceremonies, commencing with the solemn High Mass of Requiems in the Church of St. Francis Xavier, New York, on the 16th of August, 1867, and terminating with the following oration, whicli was delivered by Richard O’Gorman, in the Cooper Institute, on the evening of the same day].

The funeral rites have all been duly performed. The bell has tolled. The solemn Mass for the Dead has been sung. The melancholy strains of the ‘ Dies Iras,’ saddest of all utterances of human woe, still linger in the hearts of all that sorrowing throng who this morning knelt before the altar, where, with all the pomp of its time-honored ceremonies, with sacrifice and prayer, the Church of Christ consigned the soul of its departed child to the forgiveness and mercy of Him who promised that He would be the resurrection and the life, and that every one that lived and believed in Him should not die for ever. No higher honors, no heartier sorrow, no more earnest prayer

XU o’gorman’s oration.

could attend on its last journey the soul of the proudest lord on the earth than have followed what is eternal and immortal of him who, but a few weeks ago, was a living man, beloved and honored by us all, Thomas Francis Meagher. To me, it seemed that in the ceremonies of the Church this breathing world had bade him its most touching, most solemn farewell ; but there were some who wished that, before this day of mourning had gone by, before we had turned back to the every-day work of life, to its distractions, its thousand cares and details that drown memory and thought, some one of those who had known him longest and best should say a word or two about him, and teach those who had met him but for a moment in the rough highway of life, how much of what was good and noble, and generous and heroic, was in this man whose name has for twenty years been frequent on men’s lips, and whose memory will still be kept green in the souls of those who loved him. He is gone. The pitiless Missouri, hurrying fast to the sea, has enwrapped him in a watery shroud, and dug him a lonely grave beneath its turbid waves. That matters little to him. He had faced death often on the battle-field, where, in the press of continued conflict, the bodies of heroes lay unrecognized and unburied, or were placed in one common grave, friend and foe side by side, unknown and undistinguished in the bloody equality of war. He is gone. His journey of forty-three years, from the cradle to the grave, is done. His battle of life has been fought. Its strife and struggles are ended. It was not his, indeed, to succeed in the great objects for which he strove. He saw the wreck of many a cherished hope, and many a dazzling vision turned out but a waking dream. Yet his hopes were high hopes ; his dreams were dreams such as good men dream, of increased o’gorman’s oration.

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freedom and happines to man. For these, he dared, in perilous times, to raise his voice and sword, and through all the vicissitudes of his life he bore himself like a man loyal to the good cause he first loved — the salvation of his native island and her people ; faithful to the flag he followed— the flag of the republic which gave him a welcome and a home ; loyal and faithful, not in seeming or in words alone, but in the deeds of earnest devotion and sacrifice of self, wherein men put to hazard what men most prize on earth, ease and pleasure, and liberty and life.

How the old times come back to me when I think of him and of the scenes where first I met him. Old friends seem to throng around me again, and voices to whisper to me that have been silent for years. How well I remember that splendid hour — more than twenty golden years ago — when the intellect of Ireland awoke from its long torpor, and by voice and pen, in lesson and song, and legend of the past, spoke to the souls of the Irish people, and for a while they dared to think and hope and strive for the redemption of their crushed and insulted island. For years the voice of the great tribune, O’Connell, had thundered in the ears of the multitude his denunciation of that fatal act which had robbed Ireland of its independent existence, of its national parliament, of all the bright hopes of prosperity and progress which had grown up in the short but brilliant era of her legislative independence. He told us of the days when Flood and Grattan, with eloquence that shall live as long as the language in which they spoke, proclaimed the rights of the Irish parliament, and how one hundred thousand armed volunteers stood ready with their swords to make the declaration good. He told how,' with miraculous rapidity, the slumbering power of the Irish nation awoke, and the fair form, so long bowed and soiled in sorrow, arose and smiled again

XIV o’gorman’s oration.

in all her ancient beauty — an Island Queen. Then how the short and happy era passed like a sunny hour in a winter’s day, and by fraud and force, by such treachery as bad men resort to for bad ends, Ireland was robbed of her legal rights as an independent kingdom, and crushed and strangled and suffocated in that fatal grasp which knaves and fools did then call the Act of Union. These things, day after day, O’Connell told to listening thousands with all the fire of eloquence that was in him, till at last, as his voice grew bolder and more defiant, it found its way to the quiet halls where students pored over the dreams of sages. It entered there and stirred their souls, and they closed their books — the fatal books, that tell of Grecian valor and Roman constancy, of great deeds done in the ancient days ; the fatal books, that tell of heroic conflicts where weakness, armed for the right, had done successful battle with the guilty strong, how men had risked land and limb and life for the common weal in the brave days of old. They closed them and laid them down, not as the prudent men do, in order to forget them and save their souls from the contagion of such examples ; not for this? but that they might themselves tread Ghe same perilous path, and teach their people to save the island they loved. Of these young enthusiasts was in great part formed the party sometimes called “ Young Ireland.” They were honest, pure, unselfish, gallant men. They did wonders. They made a native literature, which has survived them and will never die. They did create and foster a public opinion in Ireland and make it racy of the soil. Song, native and home-felt, gushed up at their bidding, as did of old in the desert the life-giving waters when the rock was touched by the prophet’s wand. While the English language is spoken, these simple ballads will not be forgotten, but will be read and sung, in cottage and palace, all over o’gorman’s oration.

XV the earth wherever beats in men’s hearts the strong current of Irish blood. How can I think of them — how can I speak of them without emotion — these simple, noble, true-hearted gentlemen among whom it is my pride to have had the least place. How many of them have 1 seen depart, one by one. How few of them remain ; and now he that was the youngest and most brilliant of them all — he whom, when scarce out of boyhood, they welcomed into their ranks with so glad a welcome — he in whom they hoped so much — he whom they all loved, not more for his genius than for his simple, fresh, and genial nature — he, Thomas Francis Meagher, has followed them to that better land, where friends long parted fondly hope to meet again.

Meagher was little more than twenty-two when his voice was first heard in a popular assemblage. From the first there was the ring of true eloquence in all he said. He was bold* direct, and fearless. Others had caught up the harp of Ireland, and taught it to awaken memories and hopes that long had slept. But Meagher’s voice was as the trumpetblast to rouse the whole island and startle it into enterprise and action. His popularity was unbounded. He won all hearts, and impressed all with the consciousness of his power, till we thought we heard, in the voice of that inspired boy, a magic as mighty as Grattan’s, to fire the breast, convince the reason, and elevate the soul to that noble daring to which nothing is impossible. His career was as short as it was dazzling. O’Connell, worn out by years and labor, laid him down and died. The political machinery he had constructed fell into feeble hands, and broke to pieces. All over the continent of Europe the minds of men began to be stirred by an angry consciousness of wrong, and the people’s wrath lay smouldering like a fire waiting for the breath that was to fan it into flame.

XY1 o’gorman’s oration.

It came. France, dishonored by a monarch who had dared to trifle with the instincts and pride of the French people, flew to arms, and trampled throne and sceptre under its feet. Poland, Hungary, Italy, sprung up at the signal. All over Europe, among the people long oppressed, went forth the cry, “We will have no foreign masters. Our land is ours, and we will have it for our own.” And Ireland-— the Poland of the sea — Ireland, the most wretched - of all — failing in every attempt to obtain from the British parliament compliance with her prayers, is it wonderful that she, too, dreamt that her hour of deliverance was at hand, and that she could wring from Britain, with the armed hand, that national self-government under which she had been once so happy? The hour seemed propitious. A European war was imminent, and it was not likely that England could keep aloof. The storm seemed gathering fast. In Ireland bold words had been spoken : it was time to put them to the test. Men began to ask, What will Meagher do ? He who grandly apostrophized “ the sword,” will he dare to try its metal now ? He did not shrink from the ordeal. He deemed himself, in honor, bound — himself, to take, for weal or for woe, the risks he had invited others to assume. He threw himself among the people, ready to lead or to follow, as they pleased, going forth to face fearful odds with a heart as light as if he thought there was merry-making before him, and not the harvest of death. Remember, he had nothing to gain and everything to lose - — an honorable social position, the prospect of wealth, the reputation of distinguished ability — all the advantages that give to youth sure promise of a brilliant and prosperous future. All these things that men most love he cast into the balance, and chose to share the fate of the crushed and forlorn oeople. But the struggle was not to be. France stood still, and looked on in apathy ; while the o’gorman’s oration.

XVII nations whom her example had fired into revolt — the nations on whose independence her own safety depended — were, one by one, crushed and re-enslaved. England, freed from the danger of European war, stood armed and prepared. To the Irish people, the odds against them seemed too heavy, and the means at their disposal too poor and weak. They did not revolt ; no blow was struck. Colder, perhaps wiser, counsels prevailed ; and the opportunity, if it was one, went by for ever. The Government, watchful and active, at once put forth the arm of the law. O’Brien, Meagher, and others were arrested, tried for high treason, found guilty, and condemned to death. Then once more spoke the young orator ; and this is what he said :

“ My lords, it is my intention to say a few words only. I desire that the last act of a proceeding which has occupied so much of the public time, should be of short duration. Nor have I the indelicate wish to close the dreary ceremony of a state prosecution with a vain display of words. Did I fear that hereafter, when I shall be no more, the country I tried to serve would speak ill of me, I might, indeed, avail myself of this solemn moment to vindicate my sentiments and my conduct. But I have no such fear. The country will judge of those sentiments and that conduct in a light far different from that in which the jury by whom I have been convicted have viewed them, and by the country the sentence which you, my lords, are about to pronounce, will be remembered only as the severe and solemn attestation of my rectitude and truth. Whatever be the language in which that sentence be spoken, I know that my fate will meet with sympathy, and that my memory will be honored. In speaking thus, accuse me not, my lords, of an indecorus presumption in the efforts I have made in a just and noble cause. I ascribe no main imxviii o’gorman’s oration. t

portance, nor do I claim for those efforts any high reward. But it so happens, and it will ever happen so, that they who have lived to serve their country — no matter how weak their efforts may have been — are sure to receive the thanks and blessings of its people. With my countrymen I leave my memory, my sentiments, my acts, proudly feeling that they require no vindication from me this day. A jury of my countrymen, it is true, have found me guilty of the crime of which I stood indicted. For this I entertain not the slightest feeling of resentment towards them. Influenced as they must have been by the charge of the Lord Chief Justice, they could perhaps have found no other verdict. What of that charge ? Any strong observations on it I feel sincerely would ill befit the solemnity of this scene ; but I would earnestly beseech you, my lord — you who preside on that bench — when the passions and the prejudices of this hour have passed away, to appeal to your own conscience, and to ask of it, was your charge what it ought to have been, impartial and indifferent between the subject and the crown ? My lords, you may deem this language unbecoming in me, and perhaps it may seal my fate ; but I am here to speak the truth, whatever it may cost — I am here to regret nothing I have ever done, to regret nothing I have ever said — I am here to crave with no lying lip the life I consecrate to the liberty of my country. Far from it. Even here — here, where the thief, the libertine, the murderer, have left their foot-prints in the dust — here, on this spot, where the shadows of death surround me, and from which I see my early grave in an unanointed soil open to receive me — even here, encircled by these terrors, that hope which first beckoned me to the perilous sea on which I have been wrecked, still consoles, animates, and enraptures me. No ; I do not despair of my poor old country — her peace, her liberty, her glory. For o’gorman’s oration.

XIX that country I can do no more than bid her hope. To lift this island up — to make her a benefactor to humanity, instead of being, as she is now, the meanest beggar in the world — to restore to her her native powers and her ancient constitution — this has been my ambition, and this ambition has been my crime. Judged by the law of England, I know this crime entails upon me the penalty of death ; but the history of Ireland explains that crime and justifies it. Judged by that history, I am no criminal, you (addressing Mr. M‘Manus) are no criminal, you (addressing Mr. OT)onoghue) are no criminal, and we deserve no punishment ; judged by that history, the treason of which I stand convicted loses all its guilt, has been sanctified as a duty, and will be ennobled as a sacrifice. With these sentiments I await the sentence of the court. I have done what I felt to be my duty. I have spoken now, as I did on every other occasion during my short life, what I felt to be the truth. I now bid farewell to the country of my birth — of my passions — of my death ; a country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies — whose factions I sought to quell — whose intelligence I prompted to a lofty aim — whose freedom has been my fatal dream. To that country I now offer as a pledge of the love I bore her, and of the sincerity with which I thought and spoke, and struggled for her freedom, the life of a young heart ; and with that life, the hopes, the honors, the endearments of a happy, a prosperous, and honorable home. Proceed, then, my lords, with that sentence which the law directs — I am prepared to hear it — I trust I am prepared to meet its execution. I shall go, I think, with a light heart before a higher tribunal — a tribunal where a Judge of infinite goodness, as well as of infinite justice, will preside, and where, my lords, many, many of the judgments of this world will be reversed.77

XX o’gorman’s oration.

Remember, he then thought that speech was to be his last. These words he uttered, looking death in the eye. Tell me, have you ever known of any man that, in such a trying hour, uttered a more gallant, noble, dignified protest? Think of this, you, if there be any who deem that we who knew this man, loved him above his deserts ; you who knew him only by his faults, and who may now be disposed to magnify them and to belittle his virtues — fancy yourselves, if you can dare to fancy it, in such a strait, and tell me if you could have raised your quivering souls to so grand an eminence as his who that day set the prisoner above the judge who tried him, and dignified the felon’s dock, till it became, in the eyes of the world, a temple of freedom. You know how the sentence of death was commuted, not mitigated, to that of banishment for life in a penal settlement, and Meagher was sent to spend the rest of his days, a convict among convicts, in Van Dieman’s Land. Death seemed better — death in the island he loved, with his last look resting on Irish soil, on Irish hill and sky. But to live, and see his career closed at twenty-five ; to hear from afar the great sea of life surging around, and never to have a venture on the tide ; to see the great game of life played by other hands, and he to stand by inactive, and only to watch and mark the game — to rot out a stagnant existence — to die a living death. This was hard to bear, and it seemed to be all his future. But what man can cast his own horoscope, or predict to-day what shall befall him to-morrow ?

Meagher left Irish hearts and Irish love behind him in Ireland but to find them watching and waiting for him at the antipodes. For, let me tell you, all over the earth, North and South, East and West, wherever you may wander, you shall scarcely find a spot so remote or desolate that an Irishman who loves Ireland, and whom Ireo’gorman’s oration.

XXI land loves, will not find there a welcome and a friend. In Van Dieman’s Land, Meagher found true and faithful friends. He placed himself in their hands. They planned his escape. It was successful ; and in 1852 he set foot on American soil, once more a free man. You all remember what an outburst of enthusiasm with all sorts of men welcomed him to this republic. It wras among the halcyon days of America. There was nothing to disturb, distract, or embitter men’s thoughts. In an unchecked career of peace, prosperity, and honor, the great republic, secure and incredulous of danger, moved proudly along. Her large heart overflowed with benevolence and hospitality, and to have striven and suffered for a people’s liberty was a sure passport to men’s homes and hearts. The desire to hear the young orator was universal. Meagher, for a time, preferred silence and privacy, but in the end the popular wish prevailed, and he began a series of lectures which, with other literary labors, became his chief occupation for some years. He was everywhere successful, and sustained his great reputation. But those who knew him best saw that he was altered, that the disasters which he had undergone had hurt him, that some of his early fire had been quenched, and that his eloquence had lost the vigor which had been its chief charm in Ireland. His was a mind that needed the inspiration of a great purpose. That to which he had devoted his early efforts was gone, and none other came to supply its place.

But events in America were shifting fast. The strife of factions, in whose healthy action free societies must always find the surest guarantee of safety, was becoming bitter and sectional. Wild, reckless, angry, and wicked threats and challenges were made and answered, and a fatal madness spread over the land. There were some who spoke words of warning, of reconciliation, and peace. It was too

XXII o’gorman’s oration.

late. The cloud spread and darkened all the horizon, and the storm broke in thunder. You remember well how, on the first breaking out of the Civil War, when the first shot was fired on the national flag, the great mass of the people of Irish race on this continent took sides with the legally organized Government of the United States. The 69th Regiment of the New York State Militia was among the first to hurry to the defence of Washington. With it went Thomas Francis Meagher, in command of a company which he had organized. His was no factious motive. He knew little of parties or their purposes. He had no unkind feeling toward the South. He believed that the integrity of the Union was endangered, and that by a speedy display of force the fatal project might be checked in time, and he went forth to imperil his life for the sake of the home of his adoption, with as pure a purpose, as cheerful a heart, as that with which he had faced the rebel’s doom for the salvation of the land of his birth. One other thought, too, lay near his heart — a thought which quickened the pulse of every Irishman that marched then under the starry flag, that sang to him at the camp-fires, and whispered to him as he paced the sentinel’s lonely rounds. It was this, that, in the course of the civil war, America might learn, what Irish instinct well knew, the jealousy with which the governing classes in Britain ever look on her revolted colonies, and that our war might be ended by the armies of a re-united North and South, marching side by side under the old flag, against the seeming friend but real foe of the republic ; the subtle, wily, persistent conspirator against all national repose or freedom or progress all over the earth, save her own — Great Britain. You know of the battle of Bull Run, and how all through that disastrous day Meagher bore himself with conspicuous gallantry. He returned to New York, and by his efforts was organized o’gorman’s oration.

the Irish Brigade, of which he became the commanding officer. The rest of the story should not be told by me. ^ I see many a man around me who followed all the fortunes of that gallant corps, and who will carry the consciousness of his share in its achievements as his proudest memory, to his grave. It was the old story. Never did Clare, or Dillon, or Sarsfield more gallantly lead gallant men on Landen, or Cremona, of Fontenoy, than did Meagher, when he cheered on the boys of his Irish Brigade at Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, Antietam, or when, at Fredericksburg, he obeyed the fatal order that doomed the Irish Brigade to hopeless slaughter in the attack on Marye’s Heights. Aye ! be proud of the Irish Brigade. Be proud of him who led it. Preserve his memory, ye who served with him in those days of fire and death. Three thousand men were in that brigade when it went into the war — five hundred were all that left it. Yet it never disobeyed an order, never lost a flag, never lost hope, or heart, or cheerfulness.

“ It fought as it reveled, fast, fiery, and true,"

facing danger with a smile, laughing at fatigue and hardship, and breasting the red surges of war with a cheer as gay and ringing as other men utter when they have won a victory in some athletic game. “ A somewhat irregular nature — this Irish nature,” I think I hear some amateur philanthropist observe. Aye, irregular .as the granite boulder on which the foundations of continents rest — irregular and as massive. As irregular as the young river that comes rushing, laughing, bounding from the mountain-side, leaping from cataract to cataract, from fall to fall, now deep, now rapid, always wayward and free, never learning to be staid and regular and respectable, until it reaches the cities and marts of commerce, and becomes tainted and stained with its impurities. Oh, if this world had none but o'gorman's oration.

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late. The cloud spread and darkened all the horizon, and the storm broke in thunder. You remember well how, on the first breaking out of the Civil War, when the first shot was fired on the national flag, the great mass of the people of Irish race on this continent took sides with the legally organized Government of the United States. The 69th Regiment of the New York State Militia was among the first to hurry to the defence of Washington. With it went Thomas Francis Meagher, in command of a company which •he had organized. His was no factious motive. He knew little of parties or their purposes. He had no unkind feeling toward the South. He believed that the integrity of the Union was endangered, and that by a speedy display of force the fatal project might be checked in time, and he went forth to imperil his life for the sake of the home of his adoption, with as pure a purpose, as cheerful a heart, as that with which he had faced the rebel's doom for the salvation of the land of his birth. One other thought, too, lay near his heart — a thought which quickened the pulse of every Irishman that marched then under the starry flag, that sang to him at the camp-fires, and whispered to him as he paced the sentinel's lonely rounds. It was this, that, in the course of the civil war, America might learn, what Irish instinct well knew, the jealousy with which the governing classes in Britain ever look on her revolted colonies, and that our war might be ended by the armies of a re-united North and South, marching side by side under the old flag, against the seeming friend but real foe of the republic ; the subtle, wily, persistent conspirator against all national repose or freedom or progress all over the earth, save her own — Great Britain. You know of the battle of Bull Run, and how all through that disastrous day Meagher bore himself with conspicuous gallantry. He returned to New York, and by his efforts was organized xxiv

regular natures and regular men in it, where would the world be ? Where would be its valor, its self-sacrifice, its heroism, its faith ? When the hours of life pass peacefully in easy routine along, then the regular natures and the regular men sow the seed and gather the harvest, and grow rich, and dream that all society should be made only of such as they.

But in the strange economy of life all natures have their uses. . When the crisis comes ; whSn the fabric of society is shaken ; when the blast of foreign or civil war sounds in our ears ; when the sky is overcast and all the earth rocks and shudders with hidden throes ; when the times are themselves irregular, portentous, full of fear — then irregular natures and irregular men are needed to do these deeds of devotion, self-sacrifice, reckless valor, by which alone, in evil hours, nations can be saved. Were this city threatened to-morrow with invasion, I think all Wall street would agree with me that its dcfenco would bo more wisely entrusted to one thousand of the least regular men among us, than to the same number culled from among the wealthiest financiers or the largest merchants that have ever frowned at the errors and weaknesses of those whose strong temptations they have never known, and whose characters they could never comprehend. Ah, God help us! If Heaven did not judge more kindly than we judge one another, how few of us would see salvation. But I must hurry to a close. The Irish Brigade, in fact, ceased to exist. It was reduced to a battalion of a few hundred men. In February, 1863, General Meagher wrote to the then Secretary of War, asking that it might be sent home to recruit its ranks, as had been done by other commands. The request was denied, and, after the battle of Chancellorsville, General Meagher resigned his command. His Farewell Address to his comrades, the remnant of the Brigade, contains this passage, which I cannot forbear to read :