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the organs of all parties, and was commented on by nearly every political paper in the Empire, and finally by the journals of France and the United States. The Conservative Press generally predicted that the Nation would be speedily destroyed for its audacity, and that O'Connell's letter might be regarded as the funeral oration of Repeal. When Davis and my other friends returned to town, or could communicate with me, they cordially accepted the policy of resistance, and for nearly a month, during which O'Connell and the Association maintained absolute silence, the country was
Repeal as a national settlement, and contended that it was not better but worse:—
"The Imperial Representation on which it is based is calculated to perpetuate our moral and intellectual subjection to England. It will teach the aristocracy still to turn their eyes to London as the scene of their ambition. It will continue to train them in English manners, feelings, and prejudices, and establish permanently a centre of action apart from their native country. By the same process it will plant deeper the evil of absenteeism. It will compel Lords and Commons to reside out of the country, and continue the drain upon our resources in which you found so strong an argument for Repeal." A share in the control of the Empire, I contended, was an inadequate compensation for accepting an Irish Legislature with shorn authority, for our minority in the Imperial Parliament would be as powerless hereafter as it was powerless at present to control the colonial policy of the Empire. It was, moreover, a settlement not less difficult to obtain; for while Repeal only contemplated the restoration of a Constitution which formerly existed in Ireland, Federalism raised a new and serious difficulty by necessitating a reconstruction of the Empire on a new basis, with local legislatures in each of the three kingdoms. I then urged, as courteously as I could, the delicate objection that Federalism, whatever were its merits, would not be promoted by his adopting it. "Federalism has undoubtedly the advantage of Repeal in one point it is less hated. Unionists have not been trained to regard it as a raw head and bloody bones. They look upon it with comparative calmness, and are certainly more likely to become reconciled to it than to Repeal. But it would not be in a better, but in a worse, condition for effecting this purpose if the National Party adopted it to a man. The Lords used to think it an excellent reason for rejecting measures that they were countenanced by O'Connell, and I fear party prejudice at home would treat Federalism in the same way. To be misunderstood and misrepresented is the progressive tax upon greatness, and since you are a millionaire you cannot complain of paying in proportion." I warned him that, even if Federalism were desirable, the way to create a party for it was not by identifying it with Repeal. The men mooting the question were men who always kept a day's march behind the people. If he had begun three years before by asking for Federalism they would be now speculating on "justice to Ireland" and the restoration of the Whigs; and if ever he fell back on their ground he would inevitably find it deserted; Federalism was the shadow of Repeal, he could not get nearer to it or farther from it. "Young Ireland," bk. iii. chap. iii.