Historical Papers / Part 3 from Volume VI of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier

by John Greenleaf Whittier

After denouncing the abolitionists for gratuitously republishing the advertisements for runaway slaves, the Kentucky orator says:—

"And like a notorious agitator upon another theatre, they would hunt down and proscribe from the pale of civilized society the inhabitants of that entire section. Allow me, Mr. President, to say that whilst I recognize in the justly wounded feelings of the Minister of the United States at the Court of St. James much to excuse the notice which he was provoked to take of that agitator, in my humble opinion he would better have consulted the dignity of his station and of his country in treating him with contemptuous silence. He would exclude us from European society, he who himself, can only obtain a contraband admission, and is received with scornful repugnance into it! If he be no more desirous of our society than we are of his, he may rest assured that a state of perpetual non- intercourse will exist between us. Yes, sir, I think the American Minister would best have pursued the dictates of true dignity by regarding the language of the member of the British House of Commons as the malignant ravings of the plunderer of his own country, and the libeller of a foreign and kindred people."

The recoil of this attack "followed hard upon" the tones of congratulation and triumph of partisan editors at the consummate skill and dexterity with which their candidate for the presidency had absolved himself from the suspicion of abolitionism, and by a master-stroke of policy secured the confidence of the slaveholding section of the Union. But the late Whig defeat in New York has put an end to these premature rejoicings. "The speech of Mr. Clay in reference to the Irish agitator has been made use of against us with no small success," say the New York papers. "They failed," says the Daily Evening Star, "to convince the Irish voters that Daniel O'Connell was the 'plunderer of his country,' or that there was an excuse for thus denouncing him."

The defeat of the Whigs of New York and the cause of it have excited no small degree of alarm among the adherents of the Kentucky orator. In this city, the delicate Philadelphia Gazette comes magnanimously to the aid of Henry Clay,—

"A tom-tit twittering on an eagle's back."

The learned editor gives it as his opinion that Daniel O'Connell is a "political beggar," a "disorganizing apostate;" talks in its pretty way of the man's "impudence" and "falsehoods" and "cowardice," etc.; and finally, with a modesty and gravity which we cannot but admire, assures us that "his weakness of mind is almost beyond calculation!"

We have heard it rumored during the past week, among some of the self- constituted organs of the Clay party in this city, that at a late meeting in Chestnut Street a committee was appointed to collect, collate, and publish the correspondence between Andrew Stevenson and O'Connell, and so much of the latter's speeches and writings as relate to American slavery, for the purpose of convincing the countrymen of O'Connell of the justice, propriety, and, in view of the aggravated circumstances of the case, moderation and forbearance of Henry Clay when speaking of a man who has had the impudence to intermeddle with the "patriarchal institutions" of our country, and with the "domestic relations" of Kentucky and Virginia slave-traders.

We wait impatiently for the fruits of the labors of this sagacious committee. We should like to see those eloquent and thrilling appeals to the sense of shame and justice and honor of America republished. We should like to see if any Irishman, not wholly recreant to the interests and welfare of the Green Island of his birth, will in consequence of this publication give his vote to the slanderer of Ireland's best and noblest champion.

But who is Daniel O'Connell? "A demagogue—a ruffian agitator!" say the Tory journals of Great Britain, quaking meantime with awe and apprehension before the tremendous moral and political power which he is wielding,—a power at this instant mightier than that of any potentate of Europe. "A blackguard"—a fellow who "obtains contraband admission into European society"—a "malignant libeller"—a "plunderer of his country"— a man whose "wind should be stopped," say the American slaveholders, and their apologists, Clay, Stevenson, Hamilton, and the Philadelphia Gazette, and the Democratic Whig Association.

But who is Daniel O'Connell? Ireland now does justice to him, the world will do so hereafter. No individual of the present age has done more for human liberty. His labors to effect the peaceable deliverance of his own oppressed countrymen, and to open to the nations of Europe a new and purer and holier pathway to freedom unstained with blood and unmoistened by tears, and his mighty instrumentality in the abolition of British colonial slavery, have left their impress upon the age. They will be remembered and felt beneficially long after the miserable slanders of Tory envy and malignity at home, and the clamors of slaveholders abroad, detected in their guilt, and writhing in the gaze of Christendom, shall have perished forever,—when the Clays and Calhouns, the Peels and Wellingtons, the opponents of reform in Great Britain and the enemies of slave emancipation in the United States, shall be numbered with those who in all ages, to use the words of the eloquent Lamartine, have "sinned against the Holy Ghost in opposing the improvement of things,—in an egotistical and stupid attempt to draw back the moral and social world which God and nature are urging forward."