Handbook of Home Rule: Being Articles on the Irish Question
History
Handbook of Home Rule: Being Articles on the Irish Question
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901; Irish question
I will add one more illustration which, although more remote than those
which I have taken from the Southern States during the reconstruction
period, is not too remote for my purpose, and is in some respects
stronger than any of them. I do not know a more orderly community in the
world, or one which, down to the outbreak of the Civil War, when
manufactures began to multiply, and the Irish immigration began to pour
in, had a higher average of intelligence than the State of Connecticut.
Down to 1818 all voters in that State had to be members of the
Congregational Church. It had no large cities, and this, with the aid of
its seat of learning, Yale College, preserved in it, I think, in greater
purity than even Massachusetts, the old Puritan simplicity of manners,
the Puritan spirit of order and thrift, and the business-like view of
government which grew out of the practice of town government. A less
sentimental community, I do not think, exists anywhere, or one in which
the expression of strong feeling on any subject but religion is less
cultivated or viewed with less favour. In the matter of managing their
own political affairs in peace or war, I do not expect the Irish to
equal the Connecticut people for a hundred years to come, no matter how
much practice they may have in the interval, and I think that fifty
years ago it was only picked bodies of Englishmen who could do so. Yet,
in 1833, in the town of Canterbury, one of the most orderly and
intelligent in the State, an estimable and much-esteemed lady, Miss
Prudence Crandall, was carrying on a girls' school, when something
happened to touch her conscience about the condition of the free negroes
of the North. She resolved, in a moment of enthusiasm, to undertake the
education of negro girls only. What follows forms one of the most famous
episodes in the anti-slavery struggle in America, and is possibly
familiar to many of the older readers of this article. I shall extract
the account of it as given briefly in the lately published life of
William Lloyd Garrison, by his sons. Some of the details are much worse
than is here described.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account