Irish support of slaveholders
March 22, 1842
Garrison responds to news that slaveholders are sending money to Ireland to support the struggle against Britain, and thus Irish here may be obliged to support slaveholders. “How marvelously Providence works! The Irish Address, I trust is to be the means of breaking up a stupendous conspiracy, which I believe is going on between the leading Irish demagogues, the leading pseudo democrats, and the southern slaveholders. Mark three things. First, the Irish population among us is nearly all ‘democratic’. Second — The democratic party is openly and avowedly the defender and upholder of the ‘peculiar institution’ of slavery. Third — The cry in favor of Irish Repeal is now raised against the anti-slavery enterprise! Also, if possible, by sending over donations to Ireland, to stop O’Connell’s mouth on the subject of slavery, and to prevent any more ‘interference’ on that point, from that side of the Atlantic! Hence, I observe, at the Repeal meetings in various parts of the country, resolutions and declarations which amount to sacred pledges, that those ‘repealers’ will stand by southern institutions, at all hazards! Now, by the Address, which will cause every toad to start up into a devil as soon as he is touched, we shall be able to probe this matter to the bottom. If O’Connell and our friends in Ireland remain true to us, and renew their spirited attacks upon American slavery, …then it will put down at the South this pretended sympathy for Ireland, and be the means of advancing our movement more rapidly. ” 1