the strains that were inducing the youth of the country to familiarize
themselves with steel blades and rifle barrels proceeded from the pens
of those fair and gifted beings. Day after day, as this party sickened
of the stale platitudes, and timid counsels, and crooked policy of the
Hall, O'Connell, his son John, and other leading members of the
Association, insisted more and more strongly on their doctrine of moral
force, and indulged in the wildest and most absurd denunciations of the
principle of armed resistance to tyranny. "The liberty of the world,"
exclaimed O'Connell, "is not worth the shedding of one drop of human
blood." Notwithstanding the profound disgust which the utterance of such
sentiments caused to the bolder spirits in the Association, they would
have continued within its fold, if those debasing principles had not
been actually formulated into a series of resolutions and proposed for
the acceptance of the Society. Then they rose against the ignoble
doctrine which would blot the fair fame of all who ever fought for
liberty in Ireland or elsewhere, and rank the noblest men the world ever
saw in the category of fools and criminals. Meagher, in a brilliant
oration, protested against the resolutions, and showed why he would not
"abhor and stigmatize the sword." Mr. John O'Connell interrupted and
interfered with the speaker. It was plain that freedom of speech was to
be had no longer on the platform of the Association, and that men of
spirit had no longer any business there--Meagher took up his hat and
left the Hall, and amongst the crowd that accompanied, him, went William
Smith O'Brien, Thomas Devin Reilly, Charles Gavan Duffy, and John
Mitchel.

After this disruption, which occurred on the 28th of July, 1846, came
the formation of the "Irish Confederation" by the seceders. In the
proceedings of the new Society Mr. Mitchel took a more prominent part
than he had taken in the business of the Repeal Association. And he