WHY ARE IRISHMEN GENERALLY DEMOCRATS ?

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 399, 3 December 1880, Page 5

WHY ARE IRISHMEN GENERALLY DEMOCRATS ?

(New York Freeman's Journal.)

We are frequently asked this question by men who wish to be fair. One such, lately, and a man of intelligence on other subjects, expressed surprise tinped with incredulity when we pointed to the well known facts proving that from the division of politicians into Federalists and Democrats. — (then called Republicans,) — the former were most unjust towards Irishmen, while the latter, in the general run of their public conduct, have been the raaintainers of the rightß of all adopted citizens. We think the present a very good time to reproduce an article from a man who, as a scholar and a generous lover of this country, and of its institutions, i<« tloeerving of great regard. We refer to the celebrated Matthew Carey, of Philadelphia, the personal friend of nearly all the jr-eat public men of America at the beginning of this Century, The extract we give is the fiftyeighth chapter of Mr. Carey's f am nut '• Olive Branch, or Faults on Both Sides." We copy from the eitrhth edition, published in 1817. " Tnou shalt not vex the stranger, nor oppress him ; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." — Exodus xxii. 21. ILLIBEBALTTY OP PREJUDICES AGAINST FOREIGNERS— UNGRATEFUL ON THE PATiT OF AMERICA— IRISHMEN AND FRENCHMEN PECULIAR OBJECTS OF DISLIKE — PENNSYLVANIA LINE—EXTREME SUFFKHING — TEMPTING ALLUREMENTS — UNSHAKEN VIRTUE AND HEROISM — ARNOLD— SILAS DEANE— REFUGEES. %< The real cause of the war must be traced to ... the influence of worthless foreigners over tbe press, and the deliberations of the Government in all irs branches." Keply of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts to the Speech of Governor Strong, June. 1814. I have long desiTed a fair opportunity of handling this topic. I have long felt indignant at the indiscriminate abu«e hurled on foreigners in general — and more particularly on the Irish, on whose devoted beads are incessantly poured out the vials of wrath. There is no country that owes more to — there is no country has more need of — foreigners. There is perhaps no country in which they are more the objects of invective, of reproaches, of envy and jealousy. A jealousy of foreigners prevails in England. But it is confined to the canaille, who trundling their barrows — sweeping the streets — or pursuing their genteel > ffices of chimney sweeps and night men — hate and despise the bag and tail parlryvovs — the blundering Irishvian — the sivtpte sarvney [Scotchman — the leek-eating Welchman. In fact, every man who wears a coat different from his own, or who displays any indication that proves him not to be a " true-born Englishman," is an object of contempt to an English scavenger. But it is not thus in high life in that country. A foreigDer of genteel manners — decent address — and good character, is treated with the attention and politenpss he deserves. With a degree of magnanimity, deserving of praise, and worthy of beinsr copied, England, which possesses abundance of artists of high standing, and sterling merits, appointed the American West, as president of her royal academy. France, with a constellation of native talents never exceeded, entrusted her armies to a Berwick, to a Saxe, to a Miranda, to a Kellerman. At a more recent period, a Swiss banker presided over her financial concerns. Russia has frequently placed over her fleets Scotch naval heroes. In fact, explore Christendom, and you will find there is no country so savage, so uncultivated, or so highly poli«hed and refined, which does not cheerfully avail itself of the proffered talents of the foreigner who makes his permanent domicile there. But in this " most enlightened " of all the enlightened nations of the earth, party spirit has excited a peculiar degree of malevolence against the Irish and the French — and for the same reason ; because England is hostile to both. The urbanity, the mildness, the equanimity, the refinement and the politeness of the Frenchman, avail him nothing. He is an object of jealousy and ill-will, in spite of all his own good and endearing qualities, and in spite too of tbe services his nation "in the fiery hour of trial," rendered the United States. Ths poor, persecuted, proscribed, and oppressed Irishman, hunted out of his own country, and knowing the value of liberty heie, from the privation of it there — finds the antipathies of his lords and masters transferred to many of those whose fellow citizen he intends to become. To some of these narrow, infatuated, bigotted and illiberal men, a Hottentot, or a Caffrarian, or a Japanese would be more acceptable than an Irishman. One circumstance — were there no other record — ought to endear to Americans, the name, the country of an Irishman. It has a high claim, not cancelled, on the pen of the historian. It has not yet had justice done it. Let me grace my book with the narrative. Daring the American revolution, a band of Irishmen were embodied to avenge, in the country of their adoption, the injuries of the cJ^ptry of their birth. They formed the major part of the celebrated Pennsylvania line. They bra ely fought and bled for the United States. Many of them sealed their attachment with their lives. Their adopted country was shamefully ungrateful. The wealthy, the independent, and the luxurious, for whom they fought, were rioting in the superfluities of life, while their defenders were literally half starved and half naked. Their shoeless feet marked with blood their tracks on the highway. They long bore their grievances patiently. They at length murmured. They remonstrated. They implored a supply of the necessaries of life ; but in vain. A deaf ear was turned to their complaints. They felt indignant at the cold neglect — at the ingratitude — of that country for which so many of their companions in arms had expired on the crimson fiold of battle. They held arms in their hands. They had reached the boundary line, beyond which forbearance and submission become meanness and pusillanimity. As all appeals to the gratitude, the justice, the generosity of the country, had proved unavailing, they determined to try another course. They appealed to ber fears. They mutinied. They demanded with energy

that ledress for which they had before supplicated. It was a noble deed. I hope in all similar cases, similar measures will be pursued. The intelligence was carried to the British camp. It there spread joy and gladness. Lord Howe hoped that a period had" arrived to the " rebellion," as it would have been termed. There was a glorious opportunity of crushing the half-formed embryo of the republic. He counted largely on the indignation, and on the resentmentof thenatives of " the emerald Isle.' 1 He knew the irascibility of thtir tempers. He calculated on the diminution of the strength of •• the rebels," and accession to the numbers of the royal army. Messengers were despatched to the mutineers. Tney had carte blanche. They were to allure the poor Hibernians to return, like prodigal children, from feeding on husks, to the plentiful fold of their royal master. Liberality herself presided over Howe's offers. Abundant supplies of provisions— comfortable clothing, to their heart's desire — all arrears of paj — bounties — and pardon for past offences were offered. There was, however, no hesitation among the>e poor, neglected warriors. Th> y refused to renounce poverty, nakedness, suffering, and ingratitude. The splendid temptations were held out in vain. There was no Judas, no Arnold there. They seized the tempters. They trampled on their shining ore. They sent them to their General's tent. The miserable wretches paid their forfeit lives for attempting to seduce a band of ragg< d, forlorn, and ileserted, but illustrious heroes. We prate about Koman, about Grecian patriotism. Onehalf of it is false. In the other half, there is nothing that excels this noble trait, which is worthy the pencil of a West or a Trumbull.

Let me reverse the scene. Let me introduce some characters of a different 6tamp. Who is that miscreant yonder — dark, designing, haggard — treachery on his countenance — a dagger in his hand? Is it Arnold ? It is. Was he au Irishman ? No. He was not of that despised caste, the foreigners. He was an American. Neither Irish nor French blood flowed in bis veins.

Behold, there is another. Who is he, that Judas like, is pocketing the wages of corruption, for which he has sold his country ? Is he an Irishman ? No. He is a native American. His name is Silas Deane.

But surely that numerous band of ruffians, and plunderers, and murderers, who are marauding and robbing — who are shooting down farmers, and their wives, and their children, are " foreigners."' It is impossible they can be natives. No native American would perpetrate such barbarities on his unoffending fellow citizens. It is au error. They are refugees and tories — all native born.

lam an Irishman. With the canaille in saperfine cloths and silks, as well as with the canaille in rags and tatters, this is a subject of reproach. For every man, woman, or child, base enough to attach disgrace to any person on account of his country, I feel a most sovereign contempt. Let them move in what sphere they may, whether in coffee-houses, or hall rooms, or palaces — in hovels, or garrets, or cellars— they are groveling, sordid, and contemptible. To express the whole in two words — pity there were not words more forcible — they are mere canaille.

I glory, I feel a pride in. the name of an Ijishman. There is not, under the canopy of heaven, another nation, which, ground to the earth as Ireland has been, fur six hundred years, under so vile a pro« consular government — almost every viceroy a Verres — a government, whose fundamental maxim is " divide and destroy" — whose existence depends on fomenting the hostility of the Protestant against the Presbyterian and Catholic, and that of the ''atholic against the Protestant and Presbyterian — there is not, I say, auother nation, which, under such circumstance?, would have preserved the slightest ray of respectability of character. A book now lies before me, which, in a few lines, with great naivete cievelopes the horrible system pursued by England in the government of Ireland, of exciting the jealousy of one part pt the nation against the other. A schemer, of the name of Wood, bad influence enough to procure a patent for supplying Ireland with copper coin in the year 1724, whereby he would have amassed an immense fortune by fleecing the nation of its gold and silver in return for his base copper. Dean Swift exposed the intended fraud with such zeal and ability, that he aroused the public indignation at the attempt, and thus the projector was fairly defeated, and his patent revoked. Primate Boulter, who was at that period Prime Minister of Ireland, in a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, deplores the consequences of this fraudulent attempt, in uniting parties which, till then, bad been embittered enemies. This grand dignitary of the Church regarded a cessation of discord and hostility among the oppressed Irish as a most alarming event ! pregnant with danger to the authority of England ! But, reader, I will let him speak for himself :—: —

" The people of every religion, country, and party here, are alike set against Wood's half pence, and their agreement in this had a very unhappy influence on the affairs of the nation, by bringing on intimacies hetween Papists and Jacobites, and the wbigs who before had no correspondence with them !1 ! " See Boulter's letters, vol. 1, page 7. Dublin Edition 1770.

Notwithstanding all the grinding, the debasing circumstances that militate against Ireland and Irishmen, there is no country in Christendom, which has not witnessed the heroism, the generosity, the liberality of Irishmen — none where, notwithstanding the atrocious calumnies propagated against them by their oppressors, they have not forced their way through the thorny and briery paths of prejudice and jealousy, to honor, to esteem, to respect. It has been said that they are in this country turbulent, and refractory, and disorderly, and factious. This charge is a3 base as those by whom it is advanced. There is more turbulence, more faction, more disaffection in Boston, whose population is only 33,000, and which has as few foreigners as perhaps any town in the world, than there is in the two States oE Pennsylvania and New York, with a population of 1,700,000, and which contains probably two-thirds of all the native Irishmen in this country. While native-born citizens, some of whom pride themselves on Indian blood flowing in their veins, and others who boast of a holy descent from Those " sainted pilgrims," whom British persecution drove to the howling wilderness, were sacrilegiously and wickedly attempting to destroy tb.e glorious

(would to heaven I could Bay the immortal) fabric of our almost divine form of government ; of the Irishmen in this country, high and low, ninety-nine of every hundred were strenuously labouring to ward off the stroke. I said, there is no country that owes more to foreigners than the United States. I owe it to myself and to my reader, not to let a point of such importance rest on mere assertion. Of the men who acquired distinction in the cabinet, or in the field, during the revolutionary war, a very large proportion were foreigners. In " the tiroes that tried men's souls," they weTe gladly received, and courteously treated. Their services were then acceptable. But now, like the squeezed orange, they are to be thrown aside, and trodden under foot. The illustrious Lafayette, General Lee, General Gates, General Stewart, the inestimable General Montgomery, General Pulaski, General Kosciusko, Baron Steuben, Baron De Kalb, General M'Pherson, General St. Clair. General Hamilton, Pobert Morris, the amiable Charles Thompson, Judge Wilson, Baron Glnubec, Thomas Fitzsimons, William Findley, and hundreds of others, eminent during the revolution, were foreigners. Many of them were not excelled for services and merits by any native American, whether the blood of a dingy Pocahontas crawled through his veins, or whether he descended in a right line from any of " the Pilgrims " that waged war against the potent Massassoit. Since the preceeding pages were written, I have met with a pamphlet of infinite merit, written by one of the authors of " Salmagundi," from which I quote the following statement with pleasure : as affording an able vindication of the Irish, and a fair sketch of the oppressions and wrongs they have endured. In the name of the nation I thank the writer for this generous effusion, of which the value is greatly enhanced, by the extreme rarity of such liberality towards Ireland or Irishmen on this side of the Atlantic. The work has, moreover, the merit of being an excellent defence of this country against the abuse of British critics. I earnestly recommend it to the perusal of every American who feels for the honour of his country. "The history of Ireland's unhappy connection with England, exhibits, from first to last, a detail of the most persevering, galling, grinding, insulting, and systematic oppression, to be found any where except among the helots of Sparta. There is not a national feeling that has not been insulted and trodden under foot ; a national right that has not been withheld, until fear forced it from the grasp of England ; or a dear, or ancient prejudice, that has not been violated in that abused country. As Christians, the people of Ireland have been denied, under penalties and disqualifications, the exercise of the rites of the Catholic religion, venerable for its antiquity ; admirable for its unity ; and consecrated by the belief of some of the best men that ever breathed. As men they have been deprived of the common rights of British subjects under the pretext that they were incapable of enjoying them ; which pretext had no other foundation than their resistance of oppression, only the more severe by being sanctioned by the laws. England first denied them the means of improvement ; and then insulted them with the imputation of barbarism."

While on the point of closing this page, I have been furnished •with a noble effusion on this subject, from very high authority. Its sterling merits, and its justice towards the nation I have daTed to vindicate, will warrant its insertion, and amply compensate the perusal. ". A dependency of Great Britain, Ireland has long languished under oppression reprobated by humanity, and discountenanced by just policy. It would argue penury of human feelings, and ignorance of human rights, to submi 1 patiently to those oppressions. Centuries have witnessed the struggles of Ireland ; but •with only partial success. Rebellions and insurrections have continued with but short intervals of tranquility. Many of the Irish, like the French, are the hereditary foes of Great Britain. America has opened her arms to the oppressed of all nations. No people have availed themselves of the asylum with more alacrity, or in greater numbers than the Irish. High is the meed of praise, rich the reward, •which Irishmen have merited from the gratitude of America. As heroes and statesmen, they honour their adopted country." The above sublime and correct tribute of praise, is extracted from the Federal Republican, of June 22, 1812, and forms part of an unanimous address agreed to by the Federal members of the Legislature of Maryland, to the people of that State.

I have been highly and very unexpectedly gratified to find another advocate and defender of the Irish nation, since the publication of my former edition. Mr. Coleman, the editor of the New York Evening Post, bears this strong testimony in favour of that nation, in his paper of the 7th of March, 1815 : "No character is more estimable and respectable than that of the real Irish gentleman ; and those who have come to reside among us, are distinguished by the urbanity of their manners, and the liberality of their minds."

A London undertaker has, within the last few weeks, driven the city as an advertisement an enormous coffin, mounted on a base and drawn by five horses. This final receptacle is got up in the most gaudy colors, ornamented with the name and address of the purveyor on the outside, and lined within with satin or some other comfortable and pleasant-looking material. A live corpse, -with a sheet about him, did duty in this luxurious tenement, just to let the public see -what a fine time one would have of it who should be lucky enough to obtain possession of the lodgment in perpetuity. A gentleman, who passed over the fatal field of Isandhlwana rather less than three weeks ago, informs us that, except in the immediate vicinity of the camp, all the dead bodies still lie exposed, being covered only by a few tufts of grass or loose soil. Re describes the field as a most horrible sight, bones lying about in all directions, and articles of clothing sticking out of the ground. — Natal Witness.

A servant at Erie, Pa., habitually drank his employer's brandy on the sly. A bottle containing poison was unintentionally set where the brandy had been. The servant drank from it and was killed.