He would,
he said, enter into no compromise with slavery. He cared not what cast
or creed or color it might assume, whether personal or political,
intellectual or spiritual; he was for its total, immediate abolition. He
was for justice,--justice in the name of humanity and according to the
righteous law of the living God.
Ardently admiring our free institutions, and constantly pointing to our
glorious political exaltation as an incentive to the perseverance of his
own countrymen in their struggle against oppression, he has yet omitted
no opportunity of rebuking our inexcusable slave system. An enthusiastic
admirer of Jefferson, he has often regretted that his practice should
have so illy accorded with his noble sentiments on the subject of
slavery, which so fully coincided with his own. In truth, wherever man
has been oppressed by his fellow-man, O'Connell's sympathy has been
directed: to Italy, chained above the very grave of her ancient
liberties; to the republics of Southern America; to Greece, dashing the
foot of the indolent Ottoman from her neck; to France and Belgium; and
last, not least, to Poland, driven from her cherished nationality, and
dragged, like his own Ireland, bleeding and violated, to the deadly
embrace of her oppressor.
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