Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 ‘The Colour of Servitude’
- 2 ‘Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!’
- 3 ‘Slavery under another Name’
- 4 ‘Murderers of Liberty’
- 5 ‘Foreign Interference in Domestic Affairs’
- 6 ‘American Sympathy and Irish Blackguardism’
- 7 ‘The Man of all Men’
- 8 ‘The Negro's Friend’
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
6 - ‘American Sympathy and Irish Blackguardism’
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 ‘The Colour of Servitude’
- 2 ‘Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!’
- 3 ‘Slavery under another Name’
- 4 ‘Murderers of Liberty’
- 5 ‘Foreign Interference in Domestic Affairs’
- 6 ‘American Sympathy and Irish Blackguardism’
- 7 ‘The Man of all Men’
- 8 ‘The Negro's Friend’
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
In the same year that O'Connell was fighting to bring about a repeal of the Act of Union, he made some of his most blistering attacks on slavery. Even as the repeal campaign had been gathering momentum, O'Connell had intensified his attacks on American slavery. His actions were clearly making an impact in America. The Pennsylvania Freeman, an admirer of O'Connell, reprinted a number of his speeches delivered before the Repeal Association in Dublin. It opened by saying:
O'Connell has become almost as much of an ‘Agitator’ in the United States as he is in his own country. His frequent and just denunciations of our republican inconsistency and despotism, have thrown our people into paroxysms of excitement, and given a fresh impetus to the anti-slavery discussion.
As much as he was admired in the United States, he was despised in equal measure. A newspaper in Maryland published correspondence alleged to be from O'Connell, in which he had attacked the author, Charles Dickens. This article was reprinted in an Irish newspaper, the Pilot. O'Connell was furious. He informed the Irish editor:
There is a species of outrageous rascality which has been seldom attempted in this country, and seems reserved for the vileness of a great portion of the newspaper press in the United States – that portion of it which seems to exceed in every species of infamy even the basest of the base, the London Times.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Daniel O'Connell and the Anti-Slavery Movement'The Saddest People the Sun Sees', pp. 113 - 140Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014