oman Catholics owed the elective franchise.
It was in vain that all the great orators and statesmen of two
generations exerted themselves to remove the Roman Catholic
disabilities, Burke, Fox, Pitt, Windham, Grenville, Grey, Plunkett,
Wellesley, Grattan, Canning, Wilberforce. Argument and expostulation
were fruitless. At length pressure of a stronger kind was boldly and
skilfully applied; and soon all difficulties gave way. The Catholic
Association, the Clare election, the dread of civil war, produced the
Emancipation Act. Again, the cry of No Popery was raised. That cry was
successful. A faction which had reviled in the bitterest terms the mild
administration of Whig Viceroys, and which was pledged to the wholesale
disfranchisement of the Roman Catholics, rose to power. One leading
member of that faction had drawn forth loud cheers by declaiming against
the minions of Popery. Another had designated six millions of Irish
Catholics as aliens. A third had publicly declared his conviction, that
a time was at hand when all Protestants of every persuasion would find
it necessary to combine firmly against the encroachments of Romanism.
From such men we expected nothing but oppression and intolerance. We are
agreeably disappointed to find that a series of conciliatory bills is
brought before us. But, in the midst of our delight, we cannot refrain
from asking for some explanation of so extraordinary a change. We are
told in reply, that the monster meetings of 1843 were very formidable,
and that our relations with America are in a very unsatisfactory state.
The public opinion of Ireland is to be consulted, the religion of
Ireland is to be treated with respect, not because equity and humanity
plainly enjoin that course; for equity and humanity enjoined that
course as plainly when you were calumniating Lord Normanby, and hurrying
forward your Registration Bill; but because Mr O'Connell and Mr Polk
have between them made you very uneasy. Sir, it is with shame, with
sorrow, and, I will add, with dismay, that I listen to such language.
I have hitherto disapproved of the monster meetings of 1843. I have
disapproved of the way in which Mr O'Connell and some other Irish
representatives have seceded from this House. I should not have chosen
to apply to those gentlemen the precise words which were used on a
former occasion by the honourable and learned Member for Bath. But I
agreed with him in substance. I thought it highly to the honour of