Mitchel denied that he was for immediate insurrection, but what did that denial mean? If the Lord Lieutenant proclaimed a district and ordered the arms to be given up, if they were not given up the police and military would be called out. Mr. Mitchel says, in such a case, the people must sell their lives as dearly as they can. This was immediate collision. Were the men so incited to resist to be left to their fate? Surely not; they must be supported, and this was immediate insurrection. The union of classes was denounced as absurd and impossible, but in our history the one problem which had engaged the constant meditation of Irish patriots was to combine classes, not to divide them. "To combine classes Roger O'Moore embraced Preston of Gormanstown on the summit of Knocklofty in 1641—to combine classes Sarsfield rode from Limerick town to Galway Garrison to bring back Tyrconnell—to combine classes Henry Grattan sent the resolution in favour of Catholic Emancipation to the Convention of Dungannon—to combine classes Wolfe Tone, a Protestant, became secretary to the Catholics of Ireland—to combine classes O'Connell drank 'the glorious, pious, and immortal memory of William the Third' to combine classes Thomas Davis thought, laboured, and lived."[1]
Michael Crean, an intelligent artisan, much respected in the Confederation, inquired how the arms on which we were invited to rely were to be procured. Were men to be told to buy guns who could not buy a loaf to save their lives?
Mr. Ross, of Bladensburgh, illustrated from recent foreign history the peril of preaching hostility to classes in a national struggle. Austria stimulated the Polish peasantry of Gallicia into butchering the Polish nobles, and then trod both into a common ruin.
T. D. Reilly briefly supported the amendment. He was not going to begin an insurrection as soon as suggested, but he was determined to found rifle clubs.
- ↑ It is worth noting that Lalor was far from agreeing with Mitchel on the conduct of the Confederation with respect to the Nationalist gentry. Speaking of the reluctance of the Young Irelanders to give up all hope of aid from them, he afterwards (in July, '48) wrote: "Who imputes blame to them for this? Whoever does will not find me to join him. I have no feeling but one of respect for the motive which caused their reluctance and delay."
