the highest degree of personal liberty, yet, experience has taught us
that, without the ruin of the Protestant establishment, the Catholic
cannot be allowed the smallest influence in the state.'

Those men were as thoroughly convinced as their descendants,
who protest against concession to-day, that all our Protestant
institutions would go to perdition, if Papists, although then mere
serfs, were allowed to vote for members of parliament. They were
equally puzzled to know why Roman Catholics were discontented, or what
more their masters could reasonably do for them to add to the enviable
happiness of their lot. 'We entreat you,' the Dublin corporation said
to their Protestant brethren throughout the country--'we entreat you
to join with us in using every honest means of persuading the Roman
Catholics to rest content with the most perfect toleration of their
religion, the fullest security of their property, and the most
complete personal liberty; but, by no means, now or hereafter, to
attempt any interference in the government of the kingdom, as such
interference would be incompatible with the Protestant Ascendancy,
which we have resolved with our lives and fortunes to maintain.'
Lest any doubt should exist as to what they meant by 'Protestant
Ascendancy,' they expressly defined it. They resolved that it
consisted in a Protestant King of Ireland; a Protestant Parliament,
Protestant electors and Government; Protestant benches of justice;
a Protestant hierarchy; the army and the revenue, through all their
branches and details, Protestant; and this system supported by a
connection with the Protestant realm of Britain.

The power of the political franchise to elevate a degraded people, to
convert slaves into men, is exhibited before the eyes of the present
generation in the Southern States of America; even where differences
of race and colour are most marked, and where the strongest natural
antipathies are to be overcome. We may judge from this what must
have been the effect of this concession on the Irish Celts. The
forty-shilling freeholders very soon became objects of consideration
with their landlords, who were anxious to extend their political
influence in their respective counties, for the representation of
which the great proprietors had many a fierce contest. The abolition
of this franchise by the Emancipation Act made that measure a
grievance instead of a relief to the peasantry, for the landlords were
now as anxi