A fortnight later, after a fierce debate of two days' duration, the complete and final separation between Old and Young Ireland occurred on the 28th of July. Monday, the 27th, was the usual day for the weekly meeting, and on that day the business commenced by Mr. Ray, the Secretary, reading a letter from O'Connell, who had gone to London to attend Parliament, in which he expressed his sorrow at the miserable dissensions which had arisen amongst them, at a period, too, when unanimity was most necessary, and most likely to be useful. He, in substance, repeats the principles contained in the Report adopted a few days before:—"Here we take our stand," he writes, "peaceable exertions and none others—no compromise, no equivocation—peaceable exertions and none others." "Let it, however, be borne in mind that these peaceable doctrines leave untouched the right of defence against illegal attack or unconstitutional violence." "It had become," he adds, "more essential than ever to assent to those peace principles, as the Association was sought to be involved in proceedings of a most seditious nature, stated in the Nation newspaper to have been perpetrated in and by the writers for that publication."
Smith O'Brien was the first to speak. Although he might, he said, be in error, he conceived that the present discussion had been raised with a view to call upon the Association to say that there are no circumstances, in this or any other country, to justify the use of physical force for the attainment of political amelioration—a doctrine to which he did not subscribe. He instanced various countries which had attained their liberty by means of physical force. Then referring to the period of 1782 in Ireland—"I say," said Mr. O'Brien, "if the Parliament of England refused to accede to the national demand of the Volunteers to have a free constitution, that the Volunteers would have been fully justified in taking up arms in defence of the country." He, however, for his part, considered the question a merely speculative one, as, so far as he knew, no one contemplated an appeal to physical force, under the present circumstances, which would be madness, folly, and wickedness. He considered it very unwise to be putting those tests when there was no occasion for them. He declared against permitting those Liberals, who had taken place under the Whigs, to have a walk over; they should, he maintained, be opposed by Repeal candidates, as nothing in the Whig programme called for the anticipative gratitude of Ireland. Finally, he expressed the hope that no rash attempt would be made to expel certain members of the Association. "Let nothing," he said, "be done rashly; let nothing be done to destroy this glorious confederacy, the greatest and most powerful that ever existed for the preservation and achievement of the liberties of a people."
Mr. John O'Connell, in a clever speech, replied to Smith O'Brien. He defended the course his father had taken in not giving immediate opposition to the Whigs, as several excellent measures might be expected from them; besides, if they were driven from power they must be succeeded again by the Tories, and although he was far from becoming the defender of the Whigs, still they were better than the Tories; "if the antecedents of the Whigs were bad, the antecedents of the Tories," said he, "were most criminally bad." With regard to the graver question, the chief cause of difference in the Association, the Peace Resolutions, he said, "My honorable friend [Smith O'Brien] has deeply regretted the resolutions that have passed here this day fortnight. He says he would have come up here to modify them, if he were aware that they were about to be brought forward. There may have been, unfortunately, a form wanting; and I regret that any form of the Association should have been wanting in any proceeding that he complains of. There may have been a want of the form of giving notice; but perhaps this may have been an excuse for the want of that notice—namely, that the resolutions of this day fortnight were proposed by the founder of this Association, as simply and entirely the literal and the sole reiteration of the resolutions upon which he founded this Association. He had no doubt upon the subject. It is a maxim that all pledges and tests are to be taken in the sense and in the spirit of the person who gives or proposes the tests, otherwise they should be refused to be accepted. Now, my father moved these resolutions this day fortnight, in order to bring back to men's minds the principles on which this Association is founded—in order to remove from gentlemen any real ground of complaint, if they find in this Hall an opposition to their doctrine of physical force, by shelving them that we don't want to prevent them from expressing such opinions if they go elsewhere, but that we do object to it in an Association expressly founded on the exclusion of physical force." Mr. O'Brien, he continued to say, called the opinion about physical force a speculative opinion; he, Mr. O'Connell, denied it to be such; for the moment the loophole which he seeks to establish is admitted, we place the Association in danger, and it would be the duty of Government to put it down. He then clearly indicated that, unless the Young Ireland party acceded to the Peace Resolutions, they could not continue to be members of the Association. He said: "It is time now to settle this point once and for ever. If, in pressing this question to a point now, any of those talented, warm, enthusiastic and patriotic men, who have hitherto held out to us the prospect of most able and valuable assistance, should oppose the Peace Resolutions, so as to render their retirement from the Association necessary, that would, indeed, be a great calamity. But Ireland must be saved at any price; on the other hand, if those who stood by the Peace Resolutions found themselves in a minority, they would retire—with deep regret, and with fears for the safety of the Association—they would retire, but not into inaction, they would still work for the cause, and redeem the pledge they had given their country, to labour without ceasing, until they succeeded in achieving her independence."
Several other members addressed the meeting. At its close Mr. O'Brien suggested that, if both parties wished, everything which had transpired on that day, regarding the questions in dispute, should be laid aside, binding neither party to any course of action, and reserving any measures to be adopted, so as to apply to what might occur at the meeting of next day. John O'Connell replied that, in his opinion the Association was in the greatest peril, and it would be therefore necessary to have "Yea" or "Nay" to the Peace Resolutions.
At the adjourned meeting next day, the Secretary read a letter from Mr. Charles Gavan Duffy, the proprietor of the Nation newspaper. That journal had been charged by several members of the Association with inciting the people to overthrow English rule in Ireland by armed force. Mr. Duffy's letter was written to explain and defend the articles of the Nation, which were said to have such a tendency. It must be admitted that, in his earlier days of agitation, O'Connell did not seem to hold the single-drop-of-blood theory; on the contrary, he often threatened England, at least indirectly, with the physical strength of the Irish millions. The Young Ireland party, in defending themselves, referred to this, but Mr. John O'Connell explained in his speech of the previous day, that all those allusions to physical force pointed but to a single case in which it could be used—"the resistance of aggression, and defence of right." The Liberator himself, in the letter quoted above, also fully admits this one case, when he says it is to be borne in mind that those peaceable doctrines leave untouched the right of defence against illegal attack, or unconstitutional violence. Referring to this admission, Mr. Duffy, in a postscript to his letter, writes—"Mr. O'Connell says his threatening language pointed only to defensive measures. I have not said anything else. I am not aware of any great popular struggle for liberty that was not defensive."
Mr. John O'Connell again spoke at great length on the second day; his speech mainly consisting in a bill of indictment against the Nation. He quoted many passages from it to show that its conductors wrote up physical force. Mr. John Mitchell, in an able speech, interrupted by cheers, hisses, and confusion, undertook to show that O'Connell was, to all appearance, formerly for physical force. He was accustomed, he said, to remind his hearers that they were taller and stronger than Englishmen, and had hinted, at successive meetings, that he had then and there at his disposal a force larger than the three armies at Waterloo. "I cannot," said Mr. Mitchell, "censure those who may have believed, in the simplicity of their hearts, that he did mean to create in the people a vague idea that they might, after all, have to fight for their liberties. It is not easy to blame a man who confesses that he, for his part, thought when Mr. O'Connell spoke of being ready to die for his country, he meant to suggest the notion of war in some shape; that when he spoke of 'a battle line,' he meant a line of battle and nothing else."[105]
Tom Steele having addressed the meeting for some time, Mr. Thomas Francis Meagher rose and delivered what was subsequently known as "the sword speech," a name given to it on account of the following passage: "I do not disclaim the use of arms as immoral, nor do I believe it is the truth to say that the God of Heaven withholds his sanction from the use of arms. From the day on which, in the valley of Bethulia, He nerved the arm of the Jewish girl to smite the drunken tyrant in his tent, down to the hour in which He blessed the insurgent chivalry of the Belgian priests, His Almighty hand hath ever been stretched forth from His throne of light, to consecrate the flag of freedom, to bless the patriot's sword. Be it for the defence, or be it for the assertion of a nation's liberty, I look upon the sword as a sacred weapon. And if it has sometimes reddened the shroud of the oppressor; like the anointed rod of the High Priest it has, at other times, blossomed into flowers to deck the freeman's brow. Abhor the sword and stigmatize the sword? No; for in the cragged passes of the Tyrol it cut in pieces the banner of the Bavarian, and won an immortality for the peasant of Innspruck. Abhor the sword and stigmatize the sword? No; for at its blow a giant nation sprung up from the waters of the far Atlantic, and by its redeeming magic the fettered colony became a daring free Republic. Abhor the sword and stigmatize the sword? No; for it scourged the Dutch marauders out of the fine old towns of Belgium back into their own phlegmatic swamps, and knocked their flag, and laws, and sceptre, and bayonets into the sluggish waters of the Scheldt. I learned that it was the right of a nation to govern itself, not in this Hall, but upon the ramparts of Antwerp. I learned the first article of a nation's creed upon those ramparts, where freedom was justly estimated, and where the possession of the precious gift was purchased by the effusion of generous blood. I admire the Belgians, I honour the Belgians, for their courage and their daring; and I will not stigmatize the means by which they obtained a citizen king, a Chamber of Deputies." Here Mr. John O'Connell rose to order. He said, the language of Mr. Meagher was so dangerous to the Association, that it must cease to exist, or Mr. Meagher must cease to be a member of it. Mr. Meagher again essayed to speak, but failed to obtain a hearing. Mr. John O'Connell continued: Unless, he said, those who acted with Mr. Meagher stood by the Peace Resolutions, they must adopt other resolutions and another leader; upon which Mr. O'Brien and the Young Ireland party abruptly left the Hall, amid much excitement and confusion. They never returned to it: the rupture was complete.
Thus, at a most critical moment, standing between two years of fearful, withering famine, did the leaders of the Irish people, by their miserable dissensions, lay that people in hopeless prostration at the mercy of the British Cabinet, from which, had they remained united, they might have obtained means of saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of their countrymen.[106]
It matters but little now which party was in the right and which in the wrong. Looking back, however, through the cool medium of a quarter of a century, it would seem that each side had something of right to support its views. In the earlier part of his career, O'Connell did not disclaim the use of physical force, nor denounce the employment of it, in the cause of liberty, as it became his habit to do towards the close of his life; and if ever he did so, it was usually after telling his audience, as Mr. Mitchel said, that Ireland contained seven millions of people, as brave as any upon the face of the earth. Subsequent professions of loyalty, and assurances of his never intending to have recourse to the bravery of those millions, were interpreted by the people as nothing more than a clever touch of legal ability, to keep himself out of the power of the Crown lawyers, who were ever on the watch to catch him in his words. O'Connell himself may have never contemplated any effort beyond legal and constitutional agitation, but the fear that he might intend something more, founded on his bold allusions to the strength and courage of those whom he led, gave undoubted force to the demands he made upon the Government—in a strictly legal and constitutional manner. When the "single-drop-of-blood" principle became the guiding star of his political life, his demands had public opinion, and their own inherent justice only to support them; so that physical force no longer played a part in Irish politics, except from the fact that, inasmuch as it undoubtedly still existed, it might some day act without him, or in spite of him, or act when he should be dead and gone. It is hard to think that a people who had been resisting English oppression for twenty generations, with nothing else but physical force, ever believed him in earnest, when he told them they should win their rights by legal and constitutional means alone. The more educated may have given some credence to his words, but I do not think the great bulk of the people ever did.[107] At any rate, the principle was distasteful to them; and when the Nation newspaper began to publish what seemed to them the good old threatening physical force articles, and when a talented band of young gentlemen, in the Repeal Association, began to pronounce eulogiums on the physical force patriots of other countries in fervid eloquence, they soon became the prime favourites of the people; and it was not long until the Nation surpassed, in circulation, every other journal in the country. Those enthusiastic young men saw that the oft-repeated maxim, that "no political amelioration is worth one drop of human blood," took the strength and manhood out of the agitation; so they determined to return to the older doctrine of moral force—a doctrine which neither makes it independent of physical force, nor antagonistic with it, but rather its threatening shadow. A principle well expressed by the motto on the cannon of the Volunteers of '82—"Free Trade, or else."—a motto often quoted by the Liberator himself, with a disclaimer, to be sure, in order to avoid the law, as the people believed. Smith O'Brien was right, then, when he said he could not see the utility of continually assuring England that, under no circumstances whatever, would Ireland have recourse to any but peaceable means to right her wrongs, quoting at the same time Davis's happy definition of moral force—
"When Grattan rose, none dared oppose