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officer a free-born American must be made to seal up the vouchers of his lineage, to exhibit the records of his baptism and his birth, to establish the identity that binds him to his parents, to his blood, to his native land, by setting forth in odious detail his size, his age, the shape of his frame, whether his hair is long or cropped- his marks- like an ox or a horse of the mănger – that all this must be done as the condition of his escape from the galling thraldom of a British ship! Can we hear it, can we think of it, with any other than indignant feelings at our tarnished name and nation?

Sir, when this same insatiate foe, in the days of the Revolution, landed with seventeen thousand hostile troops upon our shores, the Congress of '76 declared our independence, and hurled defiance at the martial array of England! And shall we now hesitate? shall we bow our necks in submission? shall we make an ignominious surrender of our birthright under the plea that we are not prepared to defend it? No, Americans! Yours has been a pacific republic, and therefore has not exhibited military preparation; but it is a free republic, and therefore will it now, as before, soon command battalions, discipline, courage! Could a general of old by only stamping on the earth raise up armies, and shall a whole nation of freemen, at such a time, know not where to look for them? The soldiers of Bunker Hill, the soldiers of Bennington, the soldiers of the Wabash, the seamen of Tripoli, forbid it! RICHARD RUSH (July 4, 1812).

XIX. -WAR SOMETIMES A MORAL DUTY.

SIR, I dissent from the resolutions before us. I dissent because they would pledge me to the utter repudiation of physical force, at all times, in all countries, and under every circumstance. This I can not do; for, sir, when national rights are to be vindicated, I do not repudiate the resort to physical force I do not abhor the use of arms. There are occasions when arms alone will sufwhen political ameliorations call for a drop of blood · ay, for many thousand drops of blood.

fice;

Opinion, I admit, sir, may be left to operate against opinion. But force must be used against force. The soldier is proof against an argument, but not against a bullet. The man that will listen to reason, let him be reasoned with. But it is only the weaponed arm of the patriot, that can prevail against battalioned despotism. Therefore, sir, I do not condemn the use of arms as immoral, nor do I conceive it profane to say, that the

AGAINST UNDERHAND MEASURES.

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King of Heaven, the Lord of Hosts, the God of Battles, bestows his benediction upon those who unsheathe the sword in the hour of a nation's peril.

Be it in the defence, or be it in the assertion, of a people's liberty, I hail the sword as a sacred weapon; and if it has sometimes taken the shape of the serpent, and reddened the shroud of the oppressor with too deep a dye, yet, sir, like the anointed rod of the High Priest, it has at other times, and as often, blossomed into celestial flowers to deck the freeman's brow.

Abhor the sword? Stigmatize the sword? No! for in the passes of the Ty-rol' it cut to pieces the banner of the Bavarian, and through those craggy de-files' struck a path to fame for the peasant insurrectionist of Innsbruck!

Abhor the sword? Stigmatize the sword? No! - for it swept the Dutch marauders out of the fine old towns of Belgium Scourged them back to their own phlegmatic swamps, and knocked their flag and scepter, their laws and bayonets, into the sluggish waters of the Scheldt.t

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Abhor the sword? Stigmatize the sword? No! - for at its blow a giant nation started from the waters of the Atlantic, and by the redeeming magic of the sword, and in the quivering of its crimson light, the crippled colony sprang into the attitude of a proud republic-prosperous, limitless, and invincible!

THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER.

XX. - AGAINST UNDERHAND MEASURES.

REVIEWING, sir, the political movements in Ireland for some years past, it would seem as if those principles of public virtue, which give to a people their truest dignity and their surest strength, had been systematically decried. Truth has been frittered away by expediency, generosity has been supplanted by selfishness, self-sacrifice has been lampooned as an ancient folly.

To repeal the Union, we are told it is essential that repealers should take offices! - to give the minister a decisive blow, it is expedient to equip the patriot hand with gold! Strenuously to oppose the minister, you must, first of all, beg of the minister, then be his very humble, and, if possible, conclude with being his much obliged servant! The financial statement between the two countries can not be properly made out, until some repeal account

*Andrew Hofer, a gallant leader of the Tyrolese he was shot by his country's oppressors, Feb. 20, 1810. + Pronounced, Skelt.

Tried by court-martial

ant has had a friendly intercourse with the Treasury, and a propitious acquaintance with the Mint!

Impoverished by the Union, beggared by the Union, driven. to the last extremity of destitution by the Union, it is advisable that we should prove all this to the minister and the parliament, with our pockets full of salaries, and our family circumstances in full bloom!

Denouncing the rapacity of England, we are to share her spoils ! Impeaching the minister, we are to become his hirelings! Claiming independence, shouting for independence, foaming for independence, we are to crawl to the castle of the Lord Lieutenant, and there crave the luxuries and the shackles of the slave! Thus we are told to act! Thus we are implored to agitate! This is the great, peaceful, moral, and constitutional doctrine! This, the true way to make us the noblest people on the face of the globe, and restore Ireland to her place among the nations!

Mean, venal, and destructive doctrine! — teaching the tongue that has burned and denounced, to cool and compliment! Mean, venal, and destructive doctrine! teaching the people, on their march to freedom, to kneel and grovel before the golden idol in the desert! Mean, venal, and destructive doctrine! — teaching whining, teaching flattery, teaching falsehood! Scout it, spurn it, fling it back to the castle from whence it came! there let it lie, among the treasured instructions of tyranny, and the precious revelations of treason!

IB.

XXI. PATRIOTISM A REALITY.

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SIR, the pursuit of liberty must cease to be a traffic. It must resume among us its ancient glory be with us an active heroism. Once for all, sir, we must have an end of this money-making in the public forum. We must ennoble the strife for liberty; make it a gallant sacrifice, not a vulgar game; rescue the cause of Ireland from the profanation of those who beg, and from the control of those who bribe!

Ah! trust not those dull philosophers of the age, those wretched skeptics, who, to rebuke our enthusiasm, our folly, would persuade us that patriotism is but a delusion, a dream of youth, a wild and glittering passion; that it has died out in this nineteenth century; that it can not exist with our advanced civilization with the steam-engine and free trade!

False false!

The virtue that gave to Paganism its dazzling lustre, to Barbarism its redeeming trait, to Christianity

THE RESURRECTION OF ITALY.

47

its heroic form, is not dead. It still lives, to preserve, to console, to sanctify humanity. It has its altar in every climeits worship and festivities. On the heathered hills of Scotland, the sword of Wallace is yet a bright tradition. The genius of France, in the brilliant literature of the day, pays its high homage to the piety and heroism of the young Maid of Orleans. In her new senate hall, England bids her sculptor place among the effigies of her greatest sons the images of Hampden and of Russell. By the soft blue waters of Lake Lucerne stands the chapel of William Tell. At Innsbruck, in the black aisle of the old cathedral, the peasant of the Tyrol kneels before the statue of Andrew Hofer. In the great American republic-in that capital city which bears lis name rises the monument of the Father of his country.

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Sir, shall we not join in this glorious homage, and here in this island, consecrated by the blood of many a good and gallant man, shall we not have the faith, the duties, the festivities, of patriotism? You discard the weapons of these heroic men discard the virtues. Elevate the national character; confront corruption wherever it appears; scourge it from the hustings; scourge it from the public forum; and, whilst proceeding with the noble task to which you have devoted your lives and fortunes, let this thought enrapture and invigorate your hearts: That in seeking the independence of your country, you have preserved her virtue preserved it at once from the seductions of a powerful minister, and from the infidelity of bad citizens.

XXII. - THE RESURRECTION OF ITALY (1847).

IB.

SIR, is there nothing in the events now transpiring around us to rouse Ireland from her sleep to stir the blood of her sons? Beyond the Alps a trumpet calls the dead nations of Europe from their shrouds. Do you not hear it? Does it not ring through the soul, and quiver through the brain?

Italy at whose tombs the poets of the Christian world have knelt and received their inspiration- Italy, amid the ruins of whose Forum the orators of the world have learnt to sway the souls of men Italy, from whose radiant skies the sculptor draws down the fire that quickens the marble into life-Italy, the brave, the beautiful, and the gifted Italy is in arms! Prostrate for centuries amid the dust of heroes, wasting silently away, she has started from her swoon; for the vestal flame could not be extinguished. Austria — old, decrepid, haggard thief,

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her sword, and plays the penitent within the walls of Ferrara. Glory to the citizens of Rome, who have sworn that they prize liberty as a treasure to be battled for with their lives! And glory to the maids and matrons of Rome, who bid the chivalry of their houses go forth in the righteous cause!

And what can Ireland do to aid this brilliant nation in her struggle? In rags, in hunger, and in sickness, sitting, like a widowed queen, amid the shadows of her pillar towers and the altars of a forgotten creed, gray with two millions of her sons and daughters lying slain and shroudless at her feet, this poor island do? Weak, sorrowful, treasureless, as she is, I believe there are still a few rich drops within her heart that she can spare.

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Perish the law that forbids her to give more! Perish the law that, having drained her of her wealth, forbids her to be the boldest spirit in the fight! Perish the law which, in the language of one whose genius I admire, but whose apostasy I shall never imitate, "converts the island which ought to be the most fortunate in the world into a receptacle of suffering and degradation – counteracting the magnificent arrangement of Providence-frustrating the beneficent designs of God!"

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IB.

EUROPEAN EXAMPLES.

MEN of Ireland, a right noble philosophy has taught us that God has divided the world into those beautiful systems, called nations, each of which, fulfilling its separate mission, becomes an essential benefit to the rest. To this divine arrangement will you alone refuse to conform, surrendering the position, renouncing the responsibility, which you have been assigned?

Shame upon you! — Switzerland, without a colony, without a gun upon the seas, without a helping hand from any court in Europe, has held for centuries her footing on the Alps; spite of the avalanche, has made her little territory sustain the children to whom she has given birth; and, though a blood-red cloud is breaking, even whilst I speak, over one of her brightest lakes, be sure - whatever plague it may portend-be sure of this: the cap of foreign despotism will never gleam again in the marketplace of Altorf.

Shame upon you! Norway, with her scanty population, scarce a million strong, has kept her flag upon the Categat; has reared a race of gallant sailors to guard her frozen soil; year after year has nursed upon that soil a harvest to which the Swede can

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