These are awful considerations, truly, if risked. I am one of those who
have always believed that any political change is too dearly purchased by
a single drop of blood, and who think that any political superstructure
based upon other opinion is like the sand-supported fabric,--beautiful in
the brief hour of sunshine, but the moment one drop of rain touches the
arid basis melting away in wreck and ruin! I am an accountable being; I
have a soul and a God to answer to, in another and better world, for my
thoughts and actions in this. I disclaim here any act of mine which
would sport with the lives of my fellow-creatures, any amelioration of
our social condition which must be purchased by their blood. And here,
in the face of God and of our common country, I protest that if I did not
sincerely and firmly believe that the amelioration I desire could be
effected without violence, without any change in the relative scale of
ranks in the present social condition of Ireland, except that change
which all must desire, making each better than it was before, and
cementing all in one solid irresistible mass, I would at once give up the
struggle which I have always kept with tyranny.
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