, Daniel O’Connell, and the Transatlantic Failure of Irish American Abolitionism Christopher Allan Black

Christopher Allan Black is a When Frederick Douglass traveled to Teaching Associate and doctoral candidate in 1845, the fugitive slave and his bene - in the Department of English at factors hoped to develop a coalition between the Oklahoma State University. oppressed peasants and African-American slaves in their native homeland. While in bondage, Douglass had read the speeches of Sheridan in support of Catholic Emancipation in the Columbian Orator and was impressed by the Irish Catholic leader’s strong utilitarian denunci - ation of and bold vindication of human rights. Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison believed that the Irish Repeal movement and the American Abolitionist movement of the 1840s shared much in common in terms of their polit - ical, social, and economic goals. In antebellum “Passage to the United States seems to America and Ireland, freed African-American produce the same effect upon the exile of slaves and oppressed working class Irish Erin as the eating of the forbidden fruit did Laborers advocated for their right to live free upon Adam and Eve. In the morning, they from intolerance, discrimination, and prejudice. were pure, loving, and innocent; in the During the mid-nineteenth century, Frederick evening guilty.” Douglass and Daniel O’Connell both crossed the Atlantic Ocean seeking sympathetic supporters The Liberator for their individual reform movements in their August 11, 1854 native countries . However, while Douglass’s Irish tour enlisted the native Irish peasantry and the Hibernian Anti Slavery Society (HASS) to fully support the Abolitionist movement in America, newly arrived Irish immigrants became reluctant to support black emancipation because they believed that O’Connell and Garrison’s equation of the Irish Repeal move - ment with Garrisonian Disunionism was being

17 used as a political ploy to discourage the Irish During their first joint appearance together at Americans ’ ascension into white middle class Conciliation Hall in Ireland, O’Connell intro - society and their desire to achieve economic duced Douglass as a friend of Irish Repeal and success at the expense of working class black supporter of Garrisonian Disunionism and took labor. i advantage of the occasion to rhetorically com - Through their attempt to ideologically pare the oppression of maintaining the Union connect the rhetoric of Irish Repeal and with Britain to the current controversy in the Garrisonian Disunionism, Douglass and United States over preserving union with the Garrison deliberately used O’Connell as a pawn slaveholding Southern states. O.A. Brownson, a to influence the political attitudes of the Irish in Catholic and the publisher of Brownson’s America .ii Douglass and Garrison believed that Review , charged O’Connell with directly inter - the key to garnering support for the black fering in American political affairs. However, emancipation movement among the newly O’Connell claimed that he was not directly arrived Irish immigrants involved enlisting the attacking the institution of American slavery; he sympathy of foreign benefactors from outside was protesting the universal abuses of oppres - the United States. O’Connell, the hero of Irish sion that he saw occurring throughout the Repeal , became crucial to these efforts because world. O’Connell asserted, “My sympathy is not he was a respected leader and political confined to the narrow limits of my own green reformer among the peasantry in his own coun - Ireland; my spirit walks abroad upon sea and try. In the eyes of the native Irish peasantry and land, and wherever there is oppression I hate Irish Americans, O’Connell was revered as a the oppressor” (Douglass 683). A large part of respected champion of liberty for his triumph in O’Connell’s appeal to the Abolitionist community the Catholic Emancipation movement of the in America was his impassioned utilitarian belief 1820s and his unwavering support of the Repeal in the universality of human suffering. While movement in the 1840s . During Douglass’s Irish Douglass and Garrison were initially cautious tour, O’Connell rhetorically referred to the for - about making the connection between the suf - mer slave as “the black O’Connell of the United fering of the Irish immigrant working class and States,” a carbon copy of himself to rhetorically African-American slaves , they believed that if appeal to the ethos of the supporters of Irish they could persuade Irish immigrants that the Repeal who were skeptical of backing anti slav - oppression of blacks was part of a larger system ery efforts in the United States . In Life and of universal human suffering then they would Times , Douglass writes of O’Connell that : become sympathetic to the Abolition of slavery in the United States. He held Ireland within the grasp of his Douglass and Garrison looked upon strong hand, and could lead it whither - O’Connell as a moral authority who had the soever he would for, for Ireland credibility to convince the Irish American popu - believed in him and loved him as she lation of the injustice of slavery. Noel Ignatiev had loved and believed in no leader observes, “Given O’Connell’s record on the slav - since. He was called “The Liberator” ery question and his influence among Irish and not without cause, for, though he everywhere, it was natural that Abolitionists in failed to effect the repeal of the Union America would wish to make maximum use of between England and Ireland, he his name” (8). The supporters of Garrisonian fought out the battle of Catholic eman - Disunionism believed that the Irish immigrant cipation, and was clearly the friend of population held the key to whether or not union liberty the world over. (682) with slaveholders would be abolished. O’Connell’s first address to an American audi - 18 ence occurred on January 28, 1842 at Faneuil off the shackles of the economic caste system; Hall in Boston. While the purpose of the meet - rather they wanted the peasantry to view ing was to advocate for the Abolition of slavery America as a society highly divided along ethnic in the District of Columbia, the Abolitionists and class lines. This emphasis on the innate made a concerted effort to advertise the event to inequality of antebellum American society is a predominantly Irish audience by posting precisely why the plight of the Irish peasant and handbills in immigrant neighborhoods and pro - the black chattel Slave are explicitly linked in moting the speech in The Boston Pilot the Douglass’s 1845 narrative. Critic Paul Giles Catholic paper. While O’Connell’s speech attract - writes: ed several thousand Irish from Boston and the surrounding area , it did not have the desired . . . Douglass mentions Sheridan’s effect that Garrison hoped it would have. On mighty speeches on and in behalf of February 5 , 1842, The Pilot warned against Catholic Emancipation, thus implicitly drawing close connections between the Irish linking the circumstances of Irish Repeal movement and Garrisonian Disunionism. Catholics under British rule with the The Catholic press warned that Abolition would plight of slaves in the American South. lead to the dissolution of the Union and that the This is a parallel reinforced by disunionist movement itself “was a British plot Garrison’s preface which sings the to weaken the United States” (Ignatiev 13). The praises of Daniel O’Connell, distin - Catholic media argued that if the Irish American guished advocate of universal emanci - community supported the Abolitionist movement pation, and the mightiest champion of that it would result in greater economic compe - prostrate but not conquered Ireland. tition and ethnic discrimination among emanci - (36) pated blacks and working class Irish laborers. The editors of The Pilot claimed that if Irish Throughout his narrative, Douglass consistently Americans endorsed Disunionism they ran the views the socioeconomic status and living con - risk of putting themselves back into the sub - ditions of the Irish refracted through the foreign servient minority position they experienced in cultural lens of American black chattel slavery. their native country. As a result, Douglass and Writing to Garrison in 1846 concerning the Garrison strategically employed O’Connell as a impoverished living conditions of the Irish respected authority to counteract this type of working class in their homeland, the fugitive divisive rhetoric that existed within the Irish slave observed that the peasantry lived “in much American community . the same degradation as the American slaves” To a certain extent, bringing O’Connell to (Giles 36). In the rural Irish countryside, the the United States was a way to expose the newly fugitive slave saw much that reminded him of arrived Irish immigrants to the inherent social his former condition. The working class Irish inequalities present within antebellum American peasantry labored under the same type of society . Douglass and Garrison metaphorically oppressive working conditions as African- linked the rhetoric of Irish Repeal and American slaves in the American South. In his Garrisonian Disunionism to convince recent personal narrative, Douglass elicits much philo - Irish immigrants that the institution of American sophical sympathy for the suffering of the native slavery was as unjust as the colonial oppression Irish peasantry. However, Douglass and endured by the Irish in their native homeland. Garrison’s compassion for the peasantry did not Douglass, Garrison, and O’Connell did not want extend to the Irish immigrants whom they saw the newly arrived immigrants to view the United as an economic threat to the ability of the liber - States as a utopian society where they could cast ated African-American slaves to improve their 19 class status and working conditions . Along with O’Connell, the abolitionist communi - Douglass and Garrison’s desire to enlist ty decried universal oppression and abuse of the support of the newly arrived Irish immi - perceived minority groups on both sides of the grants as advocates in support of the abolition Atlantic. Yet, when the Irish peasantry immigrat - of slavery in the United States was destined to ed to America and cast off their working class failure from the start because , like their African- minority status, the Abolitionists became less American counterparts , the former peasant sympathetic to their economic struggles. working class was not willing to remain an In his study , “Repealing Unions: American impoverished and oppressed people. In his Abolitionists, Irish Repeal, and the Origins of transatlantic comparative study of rural Ireland Garrisonian Disunionism,” W . Caleb McDaniel and the American south, Kieran Quinlan writes, asserts that “Irish Repeal and Garrisonian “In 1729, a Presbyterian minister in Ulster Disunionism may seem to share little in com - starkly explained the departure of so many of mon. But Garrisonians believed they were anal - his flock to America: if they stay in Ireland, their ogous” (244). Garrison metaphorically referred children will be slaves” (46). The Ireland that to Disunionism as “the great question of a immigrants to America left behind was con - repeal of the Union” rhetorically merging it with trolled by a minority Anglican Church that O’Connell’s movement (McDaniel 244). excluded Catholics and Presbyterian Dissenters Garrison claimed to support Irish Repeal for the from their free exercise of religion and their full same reason he supported the repeal of the participation in civil government. Those Irish Union between the North and the South. peasants who were not of the Anglican faith According to Garrisonians, both movements were treated as second-class citizens. While it is emphasized the oppression of ethnic and true that Daniel O’Connell, the hero of Catholic minority groups to a certain degree. Repeal of emancipation, consistently repudiated slavery , the Union with Britain would free the Irish peas - and Ireland’s national poet Thomas Moore antry from the economic and colonial oppres - denounced the contradictory nature of a coun - sion of their British masters. Similarly, repealing try that espoused liberty and freedom while sup - the Union with slaveholders would theoretically porting the institution of slavery, the plight of allow blacks in the North to cast off the eco - African-American slaves was not of major con - nomic and class oppression associated with the cern once the oppressed Irish working classes institution of slavery. McDaniel argues that most immigrated to America . of the American abolitionists believed that In antebellum America, the former impov - Disunionism would be ineffective. However, erished Irish peasants were more concerned Garrison felt that he could counteract these crit - with their own social welfare than the struggles icisms by comparing Irish Repealers with for racial equality of black slaves in the United Abolitionists. Garrison also strongly believed States. During the mid-nineteenth century, the that rhetorical analogies between Repeal and working class Irish peasantry began to look Disunionism would attract Irish Americans to toward the United States as a territory where their ranks. The critical connection Garrison they could develop a new national identity and was attempting to make was based upon the flee working class oppression and religious subjugation of ethnic and racial minorities that intolerance. The abolitionist community saw this were integral to both movements . Garrisonians transatlantic Irish Diaspora as a continued deliberately employed these moral arguments in threat to their goal of black emancipation. order to reduce socioeconomic competition and Douglass and Garrison felt for the suffering of discrimination among Irish immigrants and the Irish peasantry as long as they remained an working class blacks. The ethical and moral oppressed minority in their native country. analogies made by Garrison concerning the two 20 disunionist movements, however , fell on deaf enter the working class system in the British ears due to the desire of Irish Americans to cast colonies. The ability to improve their class sta - off their oppressed minority status. tus was what the Irish were fighting for in their It is important to note that Frederick struggle to repeal the Union with Britain. If they Douglass literally arrived in Ireland on the eve could not improve their class status in their own of the Potato Famine in 1845, which coincided country, the impoverished Irish would attempt with the mass immigration of working class to do so by immigrating to America where they Irish to the United States and increased eco - could easily dispense with their oppressed nomic competition in northern cities among minority identity. newly liberated slaves and Irish American immi - Even though Douglass and Garrison sup - grants . While the Irish peasantry experienced ported the Irish Repeal movement , many socioeconomic conditions in their native home - American Abolitionists continued to be wary land similar to the plight of African-American about comparing the economic conditions of slaves, unlike blacks when the Irish immigrated the Irish working classes and African-American to America they were able to cast off their slaves. Fionnghuala Sweeney comments, minority class status as oppressed laborers. In “Abolitionists were understandably weary of the contrast to their African-American counterparts, metaphorical extension of slavery to include Irish American immigrants gained basic civil wage slavery, insisting on the distinctive charac - rights and the opportunity to ascend the social ter of slavery—the question of ownership, not ladder. Quinlan asserts: the material conditions of the slave—which meant that slaves were always worse off than It was not, of course, that the Irish in even the most downtrodden of free labourers” Ireland confused their own situation (74). Even though economic and class oppres - with that of chattel slaves in America, sion existed in Ireland, the Abolitionists argued although there was a constant barrage that the working class enjoyed a sense of liberty of southern propaganda literature that and freedom that simply did not exist within the extolled the social benefits of slavery American slave system. The Abolitionists for blacks themselves as opposed to acknowledged that the Irish were colonial sub - the uncertainties of employment jects of the British Empire and were treated as encountered by the wage slaves of the second-class citizens, but their oppression was northern states . . . (50) not equivalent to the denial of human rights that slaves experienced in America. Apparently, For example, at one of O’Connell’s rallies in Douglass’s benefactors in Ireland agreed with 1843 for repeal of the Union between Ireland the American Abolitionist views on the wage and England , a float featured two boys—one slavery of the working class because the majori - painted black and the other painted white. The ty of his supporters were well to do upper class black boy exhibited the label free because politicians who were more concerned with Westminster had abolished slavery in the West abolishing slavery abroad than supporting the Indies ten years earlier. The black boy displayed labor rights movement at home. The principles his broken chains to the audience. The white of American Abolitionists only extended across boy wore intact chains around his neck pro - the Atlantic because of political opportunities claiming “A Slave Still.” What this public display offered by Douglass’s presence abroad to coun - highlighted was the desire of the Irish to throw teract the pro slavery rhetoric in the United off the burden of the economic caste system in States and the class based racism of Irish their home country. Britain’s abolition of slavery Americans . Connecting the politics of Irish in 1833 resulted in black laborers being able to Repeal and Garrisonian Disunionism was strate - 21 gically employed to reduce ethnic discrimina - While Douglass’s exposure to poverty and tion and competition for jobs between Irish economic discrimination in Ireland exacerbated immigrants and black chattel slaves. However, his knowledge of other forms of oppression, he Garrison came to believe that the rhetoric of had begun to be exposed to immigrant labor Irish Repeal could be effective in causing these discrimination towards African-American slaves two disparate groups to unite as allies against from the time he had escaped from slavery in oppression and ethnic discrimination. Baltimore. When he was a slave in the Auld’s Douglass’s travels abroad caused him to home, Douglass used to spend a considerable realize that working class oppression occurred amount of time on the docks where he encoun - as a result of multiple social and cultural fac - tered working class laborers from various eth - tors. In Life and Times, Douglass discusses the nic groups. In chapter seven of his 1845 narra - change in his own class-consciousness that he tive , Douglass recounts his first experience with experienced during his time in England and working class Irish laborers. Douglass writes: Ireland. Douglass comments: “My visit to England did much for me every way. Not the I went one day down on the wharf of least among the many advantages derived from Mr. Waters; and seeing two Irishmen it was the opportunity it afforded me of becom - unloading a scow of stone, I went, ing acquainted with the educated people and of unasked, and helped them. When we seeing and hearing many of the most distin - had finished, one of them came to me guished men of that country” (679). While and asked me if I were a slave. I told English society was not divided by racial dis - him I was. He asked, “Are ye a slave crimination, when Douglass arrived in the for life?” I told him that I was. The British Isles , the public was sharply divided by good Irishmen seemed to be deeply two great controversial questions of repeal. affected by the statement. He said to British citizens were in the midst of the heated the other that it was a pity so fine a lit - battles over repeal of the Union between tle fellow as myself should be a slave England and Ireland and repeal of the Corn for life. He said it was a shame to hold Laws. As a former slave living abroad, Douglass me. They both advised me to run away experienced firsthand how issues of economic to the north; that I should find friends and class status could divide a people along there, and that I should be free. I pre - political lines. In the 1840s, conservatives advo - tended not to be interested in what cated for retaining the Corn Laws, while the ris - they said, and treated them as if I did ing power of commerce and manufacturers sup - not understand them; for I feared they ported repeal. British political and ideological might be treacherous. (43-44) conflicts involved opposing factions, but their opposition to one another went deeper than Reflecting back upon this incident in the ship - mere policy disagreements. The disputes over yard in 1845, Douglass specifically identifies the repeal pitted the well to do landed aristocracy working class sailors as Irish , an ethnic distinc - against the working class who experienced tion that a naïve child would not naturally make. famine, poverty, and pestilence on a daily basis. Implicit in this passage is the working class As a former slave, Douglass had believed that conflict that ensued between free blacks and there was very little socioeconomic conflict Irish immigrant laborers in the 1840s. For a among the white community; however, his time brief moment, the working class Irish sailors in Britain completely changed his view of the seem to empathize with the suffering of black political structure within mainstream white slaves. However, Douglass does not fully trust society . the motives of the sailors. The black slave does 22 identify this man as a “good ” Irishmen, yet he is ued Irish immigration. In Life and Times fully aware that many working class white immi - Douglass observes: grants deliberately turn in fugitive slaves when it suits their purposes. The young slave desperate - The Irish, who, at home, readily sym - ly wants to heed the advice of the Irish and run pathize with the oppressed everywhere, away to the North. Yet, Douglass is wary of trust - are instantly taught when they step ing the good nature of these men because he upon our soil to hate and despise the knows that their always is the possibility that the Negro. They are taught to believe that Irish sailors would be untrustworthy and inform he eats the bread that belongs to them his master of his plans to run away. In . . . Every hour sees us elbowed out of Baltimore and other cities on the eastern some employment to make room for seaboard, Douglass knew that the Irish had the some newly-arrived immigrant from reputation of turning in escaped slaves whom the Emerald Isle, whose hunger and they believed interfered with their ability to color entitle him to special favor . . . obtain jobs and make a decent wage . In his while a ceaseless enmity in the Irish is description , Douglass makes a clear distinction excited against us” (qtd in Hardack between the benevolent Irish and their untrust - 132). worthy counterparts. In Life and Times (1849), the emancipat - In this passage, Douglass notes his concern that ed slave slightly revises this incident , writing, the immigration of the Irish and their participa - “The good Irishmen gave a shrug, and seemed tion in the American capitalist system causes the deeply affected. He said it was a pity so fine a Irish to turn against black labor in order to little fellow as I should be a slave for life. They climb the social ladder. To be successful, work - both had much to say about the matter, and ing class immigrants take the jobs that rightfully expressed the deepest sympathy with me, and belong to former slaves whom Douglass views the most decided hatred of slavery” (540). In as native citizens of the United States. Irish his revision of the narrative, Douglass intimates immigration was harmful to the abolitionist that these good Irishmen are sympathetic movement because the former peasants did not towards the Abolitionist cause. While the fugitive want to remain part of an oppressed class. slave still expresses concern that they will betray Douglass argues that when the Irish landed in his trust, Douglass stresses the benevolent America they adopted the prejudices of the humanity of these men. The Irish portrayed in upper class toward blacks because they felt the second passage might as well be Daniel that they must to compete both socially and O’Connell , fervently opposed to the human suf - economically. fering encountered by American Chattel Slaves. Noel Ignatiev in How the Irish Became Douglass deliberately portrays the second group White , argues that the Irish were strong sup - of Irish Americans as sympathetic to the porters of the American Abolitionist movement Abolitionist cause. The emancipated slave holds in their own country because the peasants per - up these men as an example of the type of ceived themselves as an oppressed ethnic benevolent human compassion that he feels that minority, yet when they immigrated to this coun - the Irish immigrant should exhibit . The second try the Irish Americans largely abandoned their group of Irish laborers seems to be more inter - allegiance to radical reform movements. This ested in the fugitive slave’s personal welfare and attitude was due in large part to the fact that in less interested in taking his bread. the United States religious discrimination ceased Despite his earlier sympathetic portrayal to be an issue for Irish Immigrants. The Douglass expresses his concerns about contin - Protestant church primarily supported the 23 Abolitionist movement in the United States , and Irish to enter the middle class occurred at the particularly in the South , the expense of the African-American population. did not take a stand on the abolition of slavery. Unlike their black counterparts, the Irish Richard Hardack observes that during the colo - attempt to whiten themselves and become part nial settlement of the United States the majority of middle class American society was successful of Catholics settled in Maryland , and both because it was possible for the immigrant popu - priests and laymen were involved in slave own - lation to totally erase their ethnic status through ing. H . Shelton Smith claims that “though some immigrating to the United States. Quinlan Catholics lamented the existence of slavery, argues, “In the South the Irish became so white Catholic doctrine disavowed only abuses in slav - at times that their ethnic past might be almost ery and never the institution of slavery itself, totally forgotten” (52). For the Irish immigrant, which was held to violate neither natural nor the South became a type of new frontier where divine law; Catholic spokesmen adamantly disas - the former working class peasant could reinvent sociated themselves from the notion that slavery himself and gained a new identity as an aristo - was inherently sinful” (qtd in Hardack 120). In cratic slave holding landowner. Ironically , it was Ireland , the institution of slavery had been abol - the racially segregated environment in the ante - ished because it interfered with the ability of the bellum American South that benefited the Irish Irish peasant to make a profit off of the sugar who were perceived as white and able to gain trade. Black labor provided an inexpensive financial status by practicing slavery. alternative to the Irish peasant. However, in The native Irish peasantry saw America as America , the Irish Catholic immigrants owned their great refuge and unlike Ireland there was land and directly profited off readily available no fear of being returned to colonial working sources of slave labor. class oppression. For the Irish immigrant, While Irish Americans were sympathetic to America provided perhaps the best opportunity O’Connell’s plea to support the Irish Repeal to improve their social and economic status. movement in their home country, they were not However, for Douglass and Garrison , there was willing to go along with the Irish Catholic danger in aligning themselves too closely with leader’s support of Abolition. This was due in the working class Irish population. In the United large part to the fact that particularly in the States, the Irish were no longer perceived as South, many Irish Americans benefited econom - impoverished peasants , and as a result their ically from the institution of slavery. Ignatiev ability to climb the social ladder resulted in argues that the Irish immigrants in the 1840s freed blacks remaining in their subservient aspired to become ethnically white because they positions. Douglass and Garrison felt they need - believed that this racial transformation was the ed the political support of the Irish peasantry in only way to achieve status and power in main - their home country, but only as a means to stream American society. While scholars have affect the attitudes of Irish immigrants towards disagreed with Ignatiev’s argument , it does have the black population in America. O’Connell and validity when viewed in the context of African- the Irish were only beneficial to the Abolitionist American and Irish American working class movement as long as they remained an impover - interactions. In both the North and the South, ished people, yet when they gained economic Irish Immigrants were eager to enter the middle and class status , they were quick to dispense class and ascend the social ladder. However, in with their support for Garrisonian Disunionism both regions of the country , the ability of the and the American anti slavery cause.

24 Works Cited Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) . Library of America 1994 Print. Douglass, Frederick. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass . Library of America 1994 Print. Ferreira, Patricia. “All But A Black Skin and Wooly Hair: Frederick Douglass’s Witness of the Irish Famine.” American Studies International . Vol. 37 No.2 June (1999) 69-83 Print. Giles, Paul. “Narrative Reversals and Power Exchanges: Frederick Douglass and British Culture.” Virtual Americas: Transnational Fictions and the Transatlantic Imaginary . Durham: Duke UP, 2002: 22-46 Print. Hinks, Peter and John McKivigan. Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition Vol 1 . Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007 Print. Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish Became White . New York: Routledge 2009 Print. Jenkins, Lee. “The Black O’Connell: Frederick Douglass and Ireland.” Nineteenth Century Studies . 13 (1999): 22-46 Print. McDaniel, W Caleb. “Repealing Unions: American Abolitionists, Irish Repeal, and the Origins of Garrisonian Disunionism.” Journal of the Early Republic 28 (2008): 243-69 Print. O’Connell, Maurice. “Young Ireland and Negro Slavery: An exercise in Romantic Nationalism.” Thought 64.253 (1989): 130-36 Print. Quinlan, Kieran. Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South . Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2005 Print. Riach, Douglass C. “Daniel O’Connell and American Anti Slavery.” Irish Historical Studies 77 (1976): 3-25 Print. Hardack, Richard. “The Slavery of Romanism: The Casting out of the Irish in the Work of Frederick Douglass.” Liberating Sojourn: Frederick Douglass and Transatlantic Reform . Ed. Alan J Rice and Martin Crawford. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999: 115-40 Print. Rodgers, Nini. Ireland Slavery and Anti Slavery 1612-1865 . New York: Palgrave, 2007 Print. Sweeney, Fionnghuala. Frederick Douglass and the Atlantic World . , England: University of Liverpool Press, 2007 Print.

Notes i In 1837, a group of reform minded Irishmen of Quaker descent founded the Hibernian Anti Slavery Society. Active in a number of social and reform campaigns in their home country including the Irish Repeal movement, the leadership included: James Haughton, a successful corn merchant, Richard Davis Webb, a printer and pub - lisher, and Richard Allen, a cloth merchant. The Hibernian Anti Slavery Society generally supported Garrisonian Disunionism in the United States and sought to end the alliance between Irishmen and slaveholders in the American South. In 1841, Haughton and Webb drafted an address to America that urged Irish Americans to support the Abolitionist cause in their newly adopted homeland. The famous heroes of the Catholic Emancipation movement of the 1820s Daniel O’ Connell and Father Mathew were the first to sign the declaration. ii In the 1840s, Garrison believed that the economic, cultural, and legal interdependence of the Union between Free states and slave states contributed to a shared identity and dependence. Garrison maintained that the Northern states were being victimized by the slave oligarchy. The American Union was bound together by an immoral system. Abolitionists believed that the only way that slavery would be eliminated was by separating off from the slave states. Garrison believed that there could be no Union with slaveholders. Garrison argued that the American Disunionist movement embodied the same principles as the Irish Repeal movement. Like the Northern states, the Irish were being victimized by their Union with Britain. Irish immigrants generally supported Repeal of the Union with Britain and Garrison believed that rhetorically comparing the two movements would enlist the sup - port of the Irish American community. 25