The landlord system should be broken up; all taints of feudalism abolished; primogeniture and entail destroyed; and traffic in the soil be made as free as in the potatoes it yields. "Ireland for the Irish," was the watchword of Daniel O'Connell; and when translated "The Land of Ireland for the People of Ireland," it is just and equitable. "Absenteeism " should be no longer tolerated. To strip foreign landlords of soil that they will neither cultivate nor sell, is justifiable on every principle of property and Christianity. Every farm in America is held by a title based on the doctrine that land is given to man to be occupied and cultivated, not wandered over and made a waste. We displaced the aboriginal hunters on this principle, and inclosed farms and built cities. The means used to effect this were often nefarious; the object sought was righteous. The landlords of Ireland, in regard to one-third of the soil, neither cultivate nor occupy it; and such is the dire necessity of the case, that the Government would be justified in taking the land from every such owner, and giving it to the people, so that it might bring forth its natural increase of bread to the sower. Every man owning land in Ireland, who prefers to live in England, and habitually lets the soil lie waste, or, being cultivated, draws the substance from it to be expended abroad in extravagance, should be compelled to restore it to the people of Ireland, to be used, not for purposes of luxury, but to save the dwellers thereon from starvation. This is not confiscation, but restoration. Famine-stricken Ireland, and not full-fed English aristocracy, is the owner of the soil of Ireland. The great mass of these alien proprietors hold their lands by titles derived from wholesale confiscation. Cromwell and other English rulers took them by force from the native, and gave them to the foreigner. Force, if need be, should compel their restoration. Property in the soil has its duties to discharge, as well as its rights to enjoy; and if it willfully refuse to discharge the former, then it should not be allowed to enjoy the latter. The people of Ireland have a God-given right to live upon and by the soil on which His Providence has planted their feet. Coercion bills may be necessary for Ireland. If they be, they should be impartially enforced on both landlords. and tenants, compelling each to discharge their respective duties. If the owners of Irish estates are incapable of learning that property has its obligations as well as its immunities, they should be made to give place to more tractable scholars. And finally more than all this, and including it all, IRELAND SHOULD GOVERN IRELAND. This is the tender point in this much vexed and most vexatious "Irish Question." England has never brought her unbiased judgment to its investigation. The truth simply is, John Bull dare not look it steadily in the face. He knows he has no more right to govern Ireland than he has to govern Pennsylvania-no more right to govern it in the way he has since the Union, than to put its every man, woman, and child, to the sword. Conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, his government of that people has been one series of crimes and blunders. It was sheer usurpation in the beginning, and neither time nor the mode of its administration has changed its character. Three-fourths of the genuine, unadulterated Irish desire a separation from England. But England refuses to relinquish its grasp. It pleads in extenuation of its hold on the national throat, that Ireland is incapable of governing itself. This may be. But it is evident that England is incompetent to the task. Ireland could hardly do worse for itself than England has done for it. It should be permitted to try an experiment which, in England's hands, has proved a sad failure. Let England give Ireland the rope, and, if she hang herself, it will at least be suicide, and not murder. If free Ireland continued to shiver in bog cabins, and feed on saltless potatoes, she would at least gratify that inherent principle in human nature, which makes the beggar prefer to freeze and starve in his own chosen way, rather than on compulsion. But no such doom awaits emancipated Ireland. A government, based on democratic foundations, springing from and responsible to the people, would be a government for the people. Cast off British rule, drive out the Church Establishment, extirpate the landlord system, give Ireland to the Irish, throw them upon their own ample physical and mental resources-thus creating for them a new world, and a new race to people it—and who can estimate the upward spring of the national energies ? But, will Ireland ever obtain independence? Will she ever become a nation? Will Emmett's epitaph ever be written ? Did England ever relinquish her hold upon a rod of bog or an acre of sand, except at the point of the bayonet? By voluntarily restoring independence to Ireland, dare she set an example that would bring Canada, Hindostan, and all her colonies and " Keys" in the uttermost parts of the earth to her doors, asking, yea, demanding, like restitution? And must Ireland draw the sword, or submit ? Ah! must she draw the sword and submit? England will never dare to give freedom to Ireland, till she dare not refuse. Commotions in her own bosom, that shall blanch her check, and make her knees smite together, may bring Ireland's "opportunity." If she should, in that hour, smite her chains, would not the blow quicken the pulses of every free heart in the world? "There is no sufficient cause to justify a revolution," says some coward or conservative. The case of George Washington vs. George Guelph, decided that question, wherein it was ruled by the whole Court, that "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.' The stamp act? It was the little finger to the loins. England, by a thousand acts, has stamped the life out of eight millions of people. But, unless light beams from unexpected quarters, there is not a shadow of hope of successful resistance to British oppression for years to come. If Ireland were three thousand miles away, she could break her chains with one united blow. But the shadow of her towering conqueror crosses the narrow channel, and fills her with awe. And worse than all, her councils, which should breathe only the spirit of harmony, are rent with domestic feuds. No true son of the land of Hancock and of Henry blames O'Brien, Meagher, and the "rebels" of Forty-Eight, for striking a blow for their country's independence. The hour was unpropitious. The preparation was defective. The means were wholly inadequate to the end. But, the motive which inspired the deed was noble. Whether the graves of these patriotic men be made at the foot of an Irish scaffold, or on the soil of a penal colony, regenerated Ireland will seek out their resting-places, and her grateful tears "Shall sprinkle the cold dust in which they sleep СНАРТЕER XXX. Life, Services, and Character of Daniel O'Connell. EVERY page of Ireland's history during the present century bears the name of DANIEL O'CONNELL. In many important respects he is the greatest of Irishmen. He occupied a first place among the persons who have recently figured in European affairs, and was one of the most celebrated orators of our times. For the last twenty years, few men exerted so powerful an influence on the politics of Great Britain, while his sway over his immediate countrymen has probably never been equaled. His death produced a profound sensation in two hemispheres. Though his character, like that of all men who leave a deep impress on their age, has been variously estimated by those who, on the one hand, received his warm sympathy and powerful support, or, on the other, encountered his fierce reprobation and vigorous opposition, yet all classes of friends and foes concurred in the sentiment that a master spirit had ceased to influence human affairs. Mr. O'Connell was admitted to the Dublin bar at a time when Curran, one of the most witty, graceful, and brilliant advocates that ever swayed a jury, and Plunkett, one of the most eloquent lawyers that ever addressed a bench, were in the zenith of their fame. It is sufficient proof of the ability and skill of young O'Connell to say, that he had been at the bar but a year or two before he was surrounded by a large circle of clients, and had won victories over each of the eminent barristers I have named. But it was not possible for a mind com |