American slavery but shares in his common
denunciation of all tyranny; its victims but partake of his common pity
for the oppressed and persecuted and the trodden down.
In this hasty and imperfect sketch we cannot enter into the details of
that cruel disregard of Irish rights which was manifested by a Reformed
Parliament, convoked, to use the language of William IV., "to ascertain
the sense of the people." It is perhaps enough to say that O'Connell's
indignant refusal to receive as full justice the measure of reform meted
out to Ireland was fully justified by the facts of the case. The Irish
Reform Bill gave Ireland, with one third of the entire population of the
United Kingdoms, only one sixth of the Parliamentary delegation. It
diminished instead of increasing the number of voters; in the towns and
cities it created a high and aristocratic franchise; in many boroughs it
established so narrow a basis of franchise as to render them liable to
corruption and abuse as the rotten boroughs of the old system. It threw
no new power into the hands of the people; and with no little justice has
O'Connell himself termed it an act to restore to power the Orange
ascendancy in Ireland, and to enable a faction to trample with impunity
on the friends of reform and constitutional freedom.
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