stitutional manner.
When the "single-drop-of-blood" principle became the guiding star of his
political life, his demands had public opinion, and their own inherent
justice only to support them; so that physical force no longer played a
part in Irish politics, except from the fact that, inasmuch as it
undoubtedly still existed, it might some day act without him, or in
spite of him, or act when he should be dead and gone. It is hard to
think that a people who had been resisting English oppression for twenty
generations, with nothing else but physical force, ever believed him in
earnest, when he told them they should win their rights by legal and
constitutional means alone. The more educated may have given some
credence to his words, but I do not think the great bulk of the people
ever did.[107] At any rate, the principle was distasteful to them; and
when the _Nation_ newspaper began to publish what seemed to them the
good old threatening physical force articles, and when a talented band
of young gentlemen, in the Repeal Association, began to pronounce
eulogiums on the physical force patriots of other countries in fervid
eloquence, they soon became the prime favourites of the people; and it
was not long until the _Nation_ surpassed, in circulation, every other
journal in the country. Those enthusiastic young men saw that the
oft-repeated maxim, that "no political amelioration is worth one drop of
human blood," took the strength and manhood out of the agitation; so
they determined to return to the older doctrine of moral force--a
doctrine which neither makes it independent of physical force, nor
antagonistic with it, but rather its threatening shadow. A principle
well expressed by the motto on the cannon of the Volunteers of
'82--"Free Trade, or else."--a motto often quoted by the Liberator
himself, with a disclaimer, to be sure, in order to avoid the law, as
the people believed. Smith O'Brien was right, then, when he said he
could not see the utility of continually assuring England that, under no
circumstances whatever, would Ireland have recourse to any but peaceable
means to right her wrongs, quoting at the same time Davis's happy
definition of moral force--

"When Grattan rose, none dared oppose
The claim he made for freedom;
They knew our swords to back his words
Were ready, did he need them."

Had Mr. O'Brien and his friends stopped here, all would have been well;
but they did not. The two p