Two things, through life, O'Connell strenuously affirmed and inculcated. First, that the man who committed outrage supplied the enemy with a weapon to be used against the country. Second, that Ireland would never be prosperous until the Union was repealed.
He did not join the United Irishmen in 1798,--not because he, like them, had not an aspiration for the political independence of his country, but because he disapproved of _their_ mode of striving for it, by force. From first to last he was opposed to violence. The "Young Ireland" schism, at Conciliation Hall, which so much annoyed him, during the last eighteen months of his career, was caused by his resistance to the doctrine of "physical force."
As to the Union--it is only just to say, that O'Connell's first public effort was against that measure. His maiden speech, delivered on January 13th, 1800, at a Catholic meeting, in Dublin, unequivocally condemned the Union. The Resolutions adopted by the meeting, drawn up by O'Connell, declared the proposed incorporate Union to be, "in fact, an extinction of the liberty of Ireland, which would be reduced to the abject condition of a province, surrendered to the mercy of the Minister and Legislature of another country, to be bound by their absolute will, and taxed at their pleasure by laws, in the making of which Ireland would have no efficient participation whatever!" During the struggle for Emancipation, as well as from that era until his death, O'Connell always declared that he would not be satisfied with less than "the Repeal." He never cushioned, never concealed that such was his object. I mention this, because it has been said that, "having got Emancipation, he ought not to have gone for Repeal." As a matter of _policy_, perhaps, Ireland would now be better off if the Repeal agitation had not taken place; but it is indisputable that from 1800 to 1846, O'Connell declared that he would not be satisfied with less than "the Repeal."
Here it may be well to notice the _questio vexata_ of the famous "O'Connell Rent." The amount has not been exactly ascertained, but it is believed to have varied from 10,000_l._ to 20,000._l_ a year. It commenced after Emancipation was granted, and was continued until 1846, when, from the pressing wants of the Irish, it was announced that Mr. O'Connell wished it to be discontinued until they could better afford to pay it. Here it may be best to give Mr. O'Connell's own apology, in a letter to Lord Shrewsbury, in 1842. He said, "I will not consent that my claim to 'the Rent' should be misunderstood. That claim may be rejected, but it is understood in Ireland. My claim is this:--For more than twenty years before Emancipation, the burthen of the cause was thrown upon me. I had to arrange the meetings--to prepare the resolutions--to furnish replies to the correspondence--to examine the case of each person complaining of practical grievances--to rouse the torpid--to animate the lukewarm--to control the violent and inflammatory--to avoid the shoals and breakers of the law--to guard against multiplied treachery--and at all times to oppose, at every peril, the powerful and multitudinous enemies of the cause. To descend to particulars: At a period when my minutes counted by the guinea--when my emoluments were limited only by the extent of my physical and waking powers--when my meals were shortened to the narrowest space, and my sleep restricted to the earliest hours before dawn; at that period, and for more than twenty years, there was no day that I did not devote from one to two hours (often more) to the working out of the Catholic cause; and _that_ without receiving, or allowing the offer of any remuneration, even for the personal expenditure incurred in the agitation of the cause itself. For years I bore the entire expenses of a Catholic agitation, without receiving the contributions of others to a greater amount than seventy-four pounds in the whole. Who shall repay me for the years of my buoyant youth and cheerful manhood? Who shall repay me for the lost opportunities of acquiring professional celebrity; or for the wealth which such distinction would ensure?"