O'CONNELL AND REPEAL
The second popular war cry was "Repeal." In this agitation, again O'Connell's was the chief personage, and his eloquence the chief factor. It was in effect another phase of the Irish demand for Home Rule. Since the first day of the new century Ireland had been, for legislative purposes, a part of the United Kingdom. It was the act which had established this "Legislative Union" and abolished the Irish Parliament which O'Connell was determined to repeal. All that monster meetings, soul-moving oratory, secret associations, printer's ink, could do to influence the government by parliamentary manoeuver, demonstration of popular feeling, intimidation, and threats of insurrection was done. As a member of Parliament, and the dictator to his "tail" of half a hundred Irish members, the silver-tongued "Irish tribune" exerted a considerable political power so long as parties were somewhat evenly divided so as to make his support desirable. But when, in 1841, the Tories came back into office under Sir Robert Peel, backed by a strong majority, this influence declined. The arrest of O'Connell, in 1843, for treasonable utterances, discredited him with his following, which soon fell apart-the more determined section to carry Ireland's cause to the extreme of violent outbreak, the milder partisans to await a more opportune moment to press their agitation for Home Rule.