Unrivaled for tact, shrewdness, and presence of mind; keen, ingenious, and thorough in the details of business, he must be accorded first laurels as an advocate, for his sway over a jury was complete. His absolute control of men, and the dead-sureness with which he undertook a case, has caused him to be criticized for employing the methods of a bully or a browbeater. It is said of him that his actions in the court room were sometimes those of the actor. If things did not go to suit him, he would catch up his brief bag and dash it down on the table, or would leave the court room in apparent rage, stopping the proceedings until a messenger from the judge would call him back to take up his case again. But whether or not this dramatic manner affected the court or the jury in his favor, certain it is that he seldom or never lost a case.

Personally O'Connell was highly endowed with the qualities of an orator. In stature he was a giant-tall, muscular, broad-chested, and with large square shoulders. Wendell Phillips speaks of him as having a "magnificent presence, impressive bearing, massive like that of Jupiter." He was homely of face, but his countenance was kindly and sympathetic. In action he was not particularly graceful, and his walk was careless and shuffling. In temper he was genial and good-natured. One of his biographers speaks of him thus: "Warm and generous in feeling, cordial and frank in manners, loving a good joke, having an exhaustless supply of wit and humor, in every way so fascinating in manner, no man was ever better fitted to win and hold the hearts of his countrymen.”

Another prime physical qualification was his wondrous voice. It was powerful, flexible, and expressive. Disraeli pronounced it "the finest voice ever heard in Parliament-deep, sonorous, distinct, and flexible. In its transitions from the highest to the lowest notes it was wondrously effective. All

who heard him were enchanted by its swelling and sinking waves of sound, its quiet and soft cadences, alternated with bass notes of grandeur."

In the history of oratory, so far as we have been able to learn, no public speaker was ever known to encompass within the sound of his voice so large a number of people. It is said that at the great field meeting at Tara, during the agitation for Catholic emancipation, one hundred fifty thousand people were able to hear and understand him. It cannot be denied that he was one of the most successful orators in the history of Great Britain. Though not a classic orator to be ranked with Burke and Chatham, yet he ruled the passions of the Irish people absolutely with his simple, rugged eloquence. The effect was genuine and immediate. He could melt with pathos and convulse with wit; dazzle with flights of imagination and captivate with logic. Audiences gazed with fascinated admiration as he spoke. While he made the most careful preparation of the ideas to be used in his speeches, his words were largely extemporized. Men could feel him hewing out his rhetoric as he rushed along. He was impulsive in speech, dramatic in action, and drove home his thought with vigorous gesture. It seemed to be no effort for him to speak. Wendell Phillips, after hearing him several times, says: "We used to say of Webster, this is a great effort; of Everett, this is a beautiful effort; but you never used the word 'effort' in speaking of O'Connell. It provoked you that he would not make an effort." Phillips says that John Randolph, "who hated an Irishman almost as he hated a Yankee, hearing O'Connell, exclaimed, 'This is the man, these are the lips, the most eloquent that speak English in my day.'"

His style is to be commended for its short and concise sentences, his impressive periods, his vigorous Anglo-Saxon,

his terse reasoning, and his wealth of wit and humor. It is to be condemned for occasional coarseness, venom, and exaggeration. The bitterness of his taunts and sarcasm neutralized his influence in Parliament and reacted upon him unfavorably. Rough language and uncouth epithets may appeal to the masses and sometimes gain their point, but the tendency is to "make the judicious grieve." With his massive strength, even though now and then coarse-grained, he could pound an antagonist with denunciation, riddle him with invective, or roast him alive before a slow fire of sarcasm." When Disraeli turned Tory he was said by O'Connell to be "one who, if his genealogy had been traced, would be found to be the lineal descendant and true heirat-law of the impenitent thief who atoned for his crimes upon the cross." He once spoke of Peel as one whose smile was "like the silver plate on a coffin." These were bitter, venomous remarks, and made enemies rather than friends for O'Connell's cause.

With a mind strong and fiery rather than polished, O'Connell was yet versatile in oratory. He was equally at home in the forum, on the stump, and in the House of Commons. When he first entered Parliament he was called the "mob orator," but he was able to adapt himself to his surroundings and soon commanded the respectful attention of that assembly. Then, too, he was sincere. He could be trusted because of his unsullied private character. His speech was listened to by the Irish people with reverent interest, and he held complete sway over them because of the character of the man behind the speech-one, as Wendell Phillips puts it, "who could be neither bought, bullied, nor cheated." His patience, his disinterestedness, and his fidelity to principle were prime elements in his remarkable career. It was his character and leadership which enabled him to revolutionize

conditions in Ireland. "He championed the cause of humanity," says Mathews, "without regard to clime, color, or condition; and wherever the moan of the oppressed was heard, there, too, was heard the trumpet voice of O'Connell, rousing the sympathy of mankind, rebuking the tyrant, and cheering the victim."

As a political agitator he was daring and successful because of his devotion to his cause, his race, his church, and his country. Sure of his point, confident in his power, all his arguments bore directly upon the issue. He demanded the removal of penalties against the Catholics. To this end he organized the Catholic Association. He carried the agitation to such an extent that his ideas were embodied in a measure which was introduced and carried in the House of Commons. But, as is the case with many other reforms, it was defeated in the House of Lords. Civil war seemed imminent. Though Catholics were not then admitted to Parliament, O'Connell was elected and reëlected, and kept knocking at the doors. Finally, in 1829, the disabilities were removed and the Irish members were permitted to take their seats with other representatives of the people. His influence in Commons was so great, and he was so powerful a debater, that he almost succeeded in securing autonomy for Ireland. He it was who first proposed and almost carried a measure for the disestablishment of the Irish Church. This meant the withdrawal of government support from the established Church of England in Irish domain, so that the Catholic and other churches might stand on their own merits-stand or fall as institutions supported by voluntary contributions. But this measure was not carried through until a quarter of a century after O'Connell's death, under the administration of Gladstone.

His advocacy of Irish independence, or what later became known as Home Rule, caused his arrest and imprisonment.

He was released after a few months, but the confinement had undermined his health and he was never afterwards able to assume the leadership of his people. It is enough for us to know that by his masterly eloquence and leadership he raised a mass of dispirited, broken-hearted people to the plane of a nation. He lifted unhappy Ireland to an exalted place in British affairs. His leadership was marvelous. Under no other leader have the Irish people been so orderly. His motto was, "He who commits a crime helps the enemy." It was his patient, law-abiding effort which brought about Catholic emancipation. His love of humanity was not confined to his own people. It is interesting to note that in our own struggle to free the negro, O'Connell's voice was raised to enlist his countrymen in America on the side of the downtrodden slave. He exclaimed in one of his speeches: "I send my voice across the Atlantic, careering like the thunderstorm against the breeze, to tell the slaveholder of the Carolinas that God's thunderbolts are hot, and to remind the bondman that the dawn of his redemption is already at hand."

REPEAL OF THE UNION

This speech was delivered at Mullaghmast, Ireland, in September, 1843. Agitation had been going on in Ireland since 1829, steadily increasing in insistency and intensity until 1843, when a series of great outdoor mass meetings was begun at Trim. The multitudes assembled at two of the meetings, the one at the Hill of Tara, the other at Mullaghmast, were variously estimated at from 300,000 to 1,000,000. The Irish were a unit for a domestic parliament, and O'Connell controlled their action with a master hand.

I. REPEAL INEVITABLE

I accept with the greatest alacrity the high honor you have done me in calling me to the chair of this majestic meeting. I feel more honored than I ever did in my life, with one single exception, and that related to, if possible, an equally majestic meeting at Tara.