33

LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 185

upon the vast assembly like a summer thunder-shower upon a dusty road. He
could stir the multitude at will, to a tempest of wrath, or reduce it to the
silence with which a mother leaves the cradle-side of her sleeping babe.
Such tenderness—such pathos—such world-embracing love! and, on the
other hand, such indignation—such fiery and thunderous denunciation, and
such wit and humor, I never heard surpassed, if equaled, at home or abroad.
He held Ireland within the grasp of his strong hand, and could lead it whith-
ersoever he would, for Ireland believed in him and loved him, as she has
loved and believed in no leader since. In Dublin, when he had been absent
from that city a few weeks, I saw him followed through Sackville street by
a multitude of little boys and girls. shouting in loving accents: "There goes
Dan! there goes Dan!" while he looked at the ragged and shoeless crowd
with the kindly air of a loving parent returning to his gleeful children. He
was called "The Liberator." and not without cause; for, though he failed to
dl'cct the repeal of the union between England and Ireland. he fought out the
battle of Catholic emancipation. and was clearly the friend of liberty the
world over. In introducing me to an immense audience in Conciliation Hall,
he playfully called me the "Black O'Connell of the United States;" nor did
he let the occasion pass without his usual word of denunciation of our slave
system. O. A. Brownson had then recently become a Catholic, and taking
advantage of his new Catholic audience, in Brownson's Quarterly Review,
had charged O'Connell with attacking American institutions. In reply, Mr.
O'Connell said: "I am charged with attacking American institutions, as slav-
ery is called; I am not ashamed of this attack. My sympathy is not confined
to the narrow limits of my own green Ireland; my spirit walks abroad upon
sea and land, and wherever there is oppression. I hate the oppressor, and
wherever the tyrant rears his head, I will deal my bolts upon it; and wherever
there is sorrow and suffering, there is my spirit to succor and relieve." No
trans-atlantic statesman bore a testimony more marked and telling against
the crime and curse of slavery than did Daniel O'Connell. He would shake
the hand of no slaveholder, nor allow himself to be introduced to one, if he
knew him to be such. When the friends of repeal in the Southern States sent
him money with which to carry on his work, he, with ineffable scorn, refused
the bribe, and sent back what he considered the blood-stained offering, say-
ing he would "never purchase the freedom of Ireland with the price of
slaves."

It was not long afler my seeing Mr. O'Connell that his health broke
down, and his career ended in death. I felt that a great champion of freedom
had fallen, and that the cause of the American slave, not less than the cause