time of applying them.[1] On these points he used the arguments which he had promised O'Brien to employ. But Lalor scoffed at delay and compromise. If his opinions were good they were good at that time and place. And he pricked Mitchel with the contemptuous criticism which, to a man of his nature, was hardest to bear.
"The question of time (Lalor wrote to him), is everything. I want a prepared, organised, orderly, and resistless revolution. You would only have an unprepared, disorderly, and vile jacquerie. You plead against locking the stable door until the horse has been stolen, or is about to be stolen. But the lock and key have yet to be forged. You won't help to forge them. But you may possibly overtake us and help to see the door locked by others. Good. … Ireland was ready to strip for battle, and none flinched but the fire-eaters."
At length Lalor, aided by Kenyon, prevailed, and Mitchel declared that the Confederation and the Nation ought to pronounce for the new opinions. In one day he changed the practice and policy of his life as completely as a man does who substitutes a military uniform for the vest and paletot of a civilian, and his recent promise to O'Brien not to intrude Lalor's opinions on the Confederation was soon abandoned. His change of policy was ill received by his comrades. The Council of the Confederation were still as opposed as he himself had been some weeks earlier to breaking faith with their supporters, and as regards the Nation I placed a distinct limit on the extent to which it could be introduced there. I was content that Lalor or Mitchel or Kenyon should advocate their opinions in letters bearing their own signatures, but in leading articles or literary criticism they would make me and others, who did not agree with them, morally responsible for them, and this I could not permit. In this personal narrative my share in the transaction must be made plain and intelligible. My opposition to Lalor's policy was based not on moral but strictly on political grounds.
- ↑ "I see no reason to prevent me from mentioning that, in about a month from the date and delivery of my paper, I received a letter from John Mitchel stating that, on perusal and consideration of its contents, he had fully adopted my views, and that he meant to act on them as soon as occasion should fit and serve." J. F. Lalor to the Confederate Club. June, '48.
