Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/270

 Before my Report passed entirely through Committee O'Brien was of opinion that it had become necessary to carry the question before a public meeting of the Confederation, which must make a choice between the principles on which it was founded and the new opinions which it was proposed to teach it. A day was accordingly fixed, when the question was fairly and frankly debated.

O'Brien opened the debate with moderation and dignity. He repudiated Mr. Mitchel's policy in the first place, because it would be fatal to the interests of the people it proposed to serve.

"At the outset it was destructive of the poor; for, if the poor rate was not paid, how could they be fed? To use the Confederation for preaching this policy would be to make it the instrument of increasing the deaths by starvation by hundreds of thousands. The people were advised to procure arms; but under English law it was an offence punishable with two years' imprisonment to possess arms in a proclaimed district; and there were six counties already proclaimed. It would be proper for those who gave this advice to try the experiment themselves, and not leave it to be made by helpless, uneducated men, for if the advice were acted upon the end would inevitably be a massacre. And let it be remembered that to preach this policy in the Confederation would break faith with their own members. The Confederates, in answer to opponents, had repeatedly and solemnly denied, in the face of God and their country, by speeches and by specific resolutions, that it was their intention to have recourse to insurrection. If Mr. Mitchel thought that a different policy ought to be now adopted by the country, it was open to him to invite those who agreed with him to form an association for this purpose, but it was not open to him to use the Confederation, which had obtained support by professing constitutional doctrines for a directly adverse object.