Frederick Douglass,
Daniel O’Connell, and
the Transatlantic Failure
of Irish American
Abolitionism
Christopher Allan Black
Christopher Allan Black is a
Teaching Associate and doctoral candidate
in the Department of English at
Oklahoma State University.
When Frederick Douglass traveled to
Ireland in 1845, the fugitive slave and his benefactors hoped to develop a coalition between the
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 denunciation of slavery 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 political, social, and economic goals. In antebellum
America and Ireland, freed African-American
slaves and oppressed working class Irish
Laborers advocated for their right to live free
from intolerance, discrimination, and prejudice.
During the mid-nineteenth century, Frederick
Douglass and Daniel O’Connell both crossed the
Atlantic Ocean seeking sympathetic supporters
for their individual reform movements in their
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 movement with Garrisonian Disunionism was being
“Passage to the United States seems to
produce the same effect upon the exile of
Erin as the eating of the forbidden fruit did
upon Adam and Eve. In the morning, they
were pure, loving, and innocent; in the
evening guilty.”
The Liberator
August 11, 1854
17
used as a political ploy to discourage the Irish
Americans’ ascension into white middle class
society and their desire to achieve economic
success at the expense of working class black
labor.i
Through their attempt to ideologically
connect the rhetoric of Irish Repeal and
Garrisonian Disunionism, Douglass and
Garrison deliberately used O’Connell as a pawn
to influence the political attitudes of the Irish in
America.ii Douglass and Garrison believed that
the key to garnering support for the black
emancipation movement among the newly
arrived Irish immigrants involved enlisting the
sympathy of foreign benefactors from outside
the United States. O’Connell, the hero of Irish
Repeal, became crucial to these efforts because
he was a respected leader and political
reformer among the peasantry in his own country. In the eyes of the native Irish peasantry and
Irish Americans, O’Connell was revered as a
respected champion of liberty for his triumph in
the Catholic Emancipation movement of the
1820s and his unwavering support of the Repeal
movement in the 1840s. During Douglass’s Irish
tour, O’Connell rhetorically referred to the former slave as “the black O’Connell of the United
States,” a carbon copy of himself to rhetorically
appeal to the ethos of the supporters of Irish
Repeal who were skeptical of backing anti slavery efforts in the United States. In Life and
Times, Douglass writes of O’Connell that:
During their first joint appearance together at
Conciliation Hall in Ireland, O’Connell introduced Douglass as a friend of Irish Repeal and
supporter of Garrisonian Disunionism and took
advantage of the occasion to rhetorically compare the oppression of maintaining the Union
with Britain to the current controversy in the
United States over preserving union with the
slaveholding Southern states. O.A. Brownson, a
Catholic and the publisher of Brownson’s
Review, charged O’Connell with directly interfering in American political affairs. However,
O’Connell claimed that he was not directly
attacking the institution of American slavery; he
was protesting the universal abuses of oppression that he saw occurring throughout the
world. O’Connell asserted, “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” (Douglass 683). A large part of
O’Connell’s appeal to the Abolitionist community
in America was his impassioned utilitarian belief
in the universality of human suffering. While
Douglass and Garrison were initially cautious
about making the connection between the suffering of the Irish immigrant working class and
African-American slaves, they believed that if
they could persuade Irish immigrants that the
oppression of blacks was part of a larger system
of universal human suffering then they would
become sympathetic to the Abolition of slavery
in the United States.
Douglass and Garrison looked upon
O’Connell as a moral authority who had the
credibility to convince the Irish American population of the injustice of slavery. Noel Ignatiev
observes, “Given O’Connell’s record on the slavery question and his influence among Irish
everywhere, it was natural that Abolitionists in
America would wish to make maximum use of
his name” (8). The supporters of Garrisonian
Disunionism believed that the Irish immigrant
population held the key to whether or not union
with slaveholders would be abolished.
O’Connell’s first address to an American audi-
He held Ireland within the grasp of his
strong hand, and could lead it whithersoever he would for, for Ireland
believed in him and loved him as she
had loved and believed in no leader
since. He was called “The Liberator”
and not without cause, for, though he
failed to effect 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. (682)
18
ence occurred on January 28, 1842 at Faneuil
Hall in Boston. While the purpose of the meeting was to advocate for the Abolition of slavery
in the District of Columbia, the Abolitionists
made a concerted effort to advertise the event to
a predominantly Irish audience by posting
handbills in immigrant neighborhoods and promoting the speech in The Boston Pilot the
Catholic paper. While O’Connell’s speech attracted several thousand Irish from Boston and the
surrounding area, it did not have the desired
effect that Garrison hoped it would have. On
February 5, 1842, The Pilot warned against
drawing close connections between the Irish
Repeal movement and Garrisonian Disunionism.
The Catholic press warned that Abolition would
lead to the dissolution of the Union and that the
disunionist movement itself “was a British plot
to weaken the United States” (Ignatiev 13). The
Catholic media argued that if the Irish American
community supported the Abolitionist movement
that it would result in greater economic competition and ethnic discrimination among emancipated blacks and working class Irish laborers.
The editors of The Pilot claimed that if Irish
Americans endorsed Disunionism they ran the
risk of putting themselves back into the subservient minority position they experienced in
their native country. As a result, Douglass and
Garrison strategically employed O’Connell as a
respected authority to counteract this type of
divisive rhetoric that existed within the Irish
American community.
To a certain extent, bringing O’Connell to
the United States was a way to expose the newly
arrived Irish immigrants to the inherent social
inequalities present within antebellum American
society. Douglass and Garrison metaphorically
linked the rhetoric of Irish Repeal and
Garrisonian Disunionism to convince recent
Irish immigrants that the institution of American
slavery was as unjust as the colonial oppression
endured by the Irish in their native homeland.
Douglass, Garrison, and O’Connell did not want
the newly arrived immigrants to view the United
States as a utopian society where they could cast
off the shackles of the economic caste system;
rather they wanted the peasantry to view
America as a society highly divided along ethnic
and class lines. This emphasis on the innate
inequality of antebellum American society is
precisely why the plight of the Irish peasant and
the black chattel Slave are explicitly linked in
Douglass’s 1845 narrative. Critic Paul Giles
writes:
. . . Douglass mentions Sheridan’s
mighty speeches on and in behalf of
Catholic Emancipation, thus implicitly
linking the circumstances of Irish
Catholics under British rule with the
plight of slaves in the American South.
This is a parallel reinforced by
Garrison’s preface which sings the
praises of Daniel O’Connell, distinguished advocate of universal emancipation, and the mightiest champion of
prostrate but not conquered Ireland.
(36)
Throughout his narrative, Douglass consistently
views the socioeconomic status and living conditions of the Irish refracted through the foreign
cultural lens of American black chattel slavery.
Writing to Garrison in 1846 concerning the
impoverished living conditions of the Irish
working class in their homeland, the fugitive
slave observed that the peasantry lived “in much
the same degradation as the American slaves”
(Giles 36). In the rural Irish countryside, the
fugitive slave saw much that reminded him of
his former condition. The working class Irish
peasantry labored under the same type of
oppressive working conditions as AfricanAmerican slaves in the American South. In his
personal narrative, Douglass elicits much philosophical sympathy for the suffering of the native
Irish peasantry. However, Douglass and
Garrison’s compassion for the peasantry did not
extend to the Irish immigrants whom they saw
as an economic threat to the ability of the liberated African-American slaves to improve their
19
class status and working conditions.
Douglass and Garrison’s desire to enlist
the support of the newly arrived Irish immigrants as advocates in support of the abolition
of slavery in the United States was destined to
failure from the start because, like their AfricanAmerican counterparts, the former peasant
working class was not willing to remain an
impoverished and oppressed people. In his
transatlantic comparative study of rural Ireland
and the American south, Kieran Quinlan writes,
“In 1729, a Presbyterian minister in Ulster
starkly explained the departure of so many of
his flock to America: if they stay in Ireland, their
children will be slaves” (46). The Ireland that
immigrants to America left behind was controlled by a minority Anglican Church that
excluded Catholics and Presbyterian Dissenters
from their free exercise of religion and their full
participation in civil government. Those Irish
peasants who were not of the Anglican faith
were treated as second-class citizens. While it is
true that Daniel O’Connell, the hero of Catholic
emancipation, consistently repudiated slavery,
and Ireland’s national poet Thomas Moore
denounced the contradictory nature of a country that espoused liberty and freedom while supporting the institution of slavery, the plight of
African-American slaves was not of major concern once the oppressed Irish working classes
immigrated to America.
In antebellum America, the former impoverished Irish peasants were more concerned
with their own social welfare than the struggles
for racial equality of black slaves in the United
States. During the mid-nineteenth century, the
working class Irish peasantry began to look
toward the United States as a territory where
they could develop a new national identity and
flee working class oppression and religious
intolerance. The abolitionist community saw this
transatlantic Irish Diaspora as a continued
threat to their goal of black emancipation.
Douglass and Garrison felt for the suffering of
the Irish peasantry as long as they remained an
oppressed minority in their native country.
Along with O’Connell, the abolitionist community decried universal oppression and abuse of
perceived minority groups on both sides of the
Atlantic. Yet, when the Irish peasantry immigrated to America and cast off their working class
minority status, the Abolitionists became less
sympathetic to their economic struggles.
In his study, “Repealing Unions: American
Abolitionists, Irish Repeal, and the Origins of
Garrisonian Disunionism,” W. Caleb McDaniel
asserts that “Irish Repeal and Garrisonian
Disunionism may seem to share little in common. But Garrisonians believed they were analogous” (244). Garrison metaphorically referred
to Disunionism as “the great question of a
repeal of the Union” rhetorically merging it with
O’Connell’s movement (McDaniel 244).
Garrison claimed to support Irish Repeal for the
same reason he supported the repeal of the
Union between the North and the South.
According to Garrisonians, both movements
emphasized the oppression of ethnic and
minority groups to a certain degree. Repeal of
the Union with Britain would free the Irish peasantry from the economic and colonial oppression of their British masters. Similarly, repealing
the Union with slaveholders would theoretically
allow blacks in the North to cast off the economic and class oppression associated with the
institution of slavery. McDaniel argues that most
of the American abolitionists believed that
Disunionism would be ineffective. However,
Garrison felt that he could counteract these criticisms by comparing Irish Repealers with
Abolitionists. Garrison also strongly believed
that rhetorical analogies between Repeal and
Disunionism would attract Irish Americans to
their ranks. The critical connection Garrison
was attempting to make was based upon the
subjugation of ethnic and racial minorities that
were integral to both movements. Garrisonians
deliberately employed these moral arguments in
order to reduce socioeconomic competition and
discrimination among Irish immigrants and
working class blacks. The ethical and moral
analogies made by Garrison concerning the two
20
disunionist movements, however, fell on deaf
ears due to the desire of Irish Americans to cast
off their oppressed minority status.
It is important to note that Frederick
Douglass literally arrived in Ireland on the eve
of the Potato Famine in 1845, which coincided
with the mass immigration of working class
Irish to the United States and increased economic competition in northern cities among
newly liberated slaves and Irish American immigrants. While the Irish peasantry experienced
socioeconomic conditions in their native homeland similar to the plight of African-American
slaves, unlike blacks when the Irish immigrated
to America they were able to cast off their
minority class status as oppressed laborers. In
contrast to their African-American counterparts,
Irish American immigrants gained basic civil
rights and the opportunity to ascend the social
ladder. Quinlan asserts:
enter the working class system in the British
colonies. The ability to improve their class status was what the Irish were fighting for in their
struggle to repeal the Union with Britain. If they
could not improve their class status in their own
country, the impoverished Irish would attempt
to do so by immigrating to America where they
could easily dispense with their oppressed
minority identity.
Even though Douglass and Garrison supported the Irish Repeal movement, many
American Abolitionists continued to be wary
about comparing the economic conditions of
the Irish working classes and African-American
slaves. Fionnghuala Sweeney comments,
“Abolitionists were understandably weary of the
metaphorical extension of slavery to include
wage slavery, insisting on the distinctive character of slavery—the question of ownership, not
the material conditions of the slave—which
meant that slaves were always worse off than
even the most downtrodden of free labourers”
(74). Even though economic and class oppression existed in Ireland, the Abolitionists argued
that the working class enjoyed a sense of liberty
and freedom that simply did not exist within the
American slave system. The Abolitionists
acknowledged that the Irish were colonial subjects of the British Empire and were treated as
second-class citizens, but their oppression was
not equivalent to the denial of human rights that
slaves experienced in America. Apparently,
Douglass’s benefactors in Ireland agreed with
the American Abolitionist views on the wage
slavery of the working class because the majority of his supporters were well to do upper class
politicians who were more concerned with
abolishing slavery abroad than supporting the
labor rights movement at home. The principles
of American Abolitionists only extended across
the Atlantic because of political opportunities
offered by Douglass’s presence abroad to counteract the pro slavery rhetoric in the United
States and the class based racism of Irish
Americans. Connecting the politics of Irish
Repeal and Garrisonian Disunionism was strate-
It was not, of course, that the Irish in
Ireland confused their own situation
with that of chattel slaves in America,
although there was a constant barrage
of southern propaganda literature that
extolled the social benefits of slavery
for blacks themselves as opposed to
the uncertainties of employment
encountered by the wage slaves of the
northern states. . . (50)
For example, at one of O’Connell’s rallies in
1843 for repeal of the Union between Ireland
and England, a float featured two boys—one
painted black and the other painted white. The
black boy exhibited the label free because
Westminster had abolished slavery in the West
Indies ten years earlier. The black boy displayed
his broken chains to the audience. The white
boy wore intact chains around his neck proclaiming “A Slave Still.” What this public display
highlighted was the desire of the Irish to throw
off the burden of the economic caste system in
their home country. Britain’s abolition of slavery
in 1833 resulted in black laborers being able to
21
gically employed to reduce ethnic discrimination and competition for jobs between Irish
immigrants and black chattel slaves. However,
Garrison came to believe that the rhetoric of
Irish Repeal could be effective in causing these
two disparate groups to unite as allies against
oppression and ethnic discrimination.
Douglass’s travels abroad caused him to
realize that working class oppression occurred
as a result of multiple social and cultural factors. In Life and Times, Douglass discusses the
change in his own class-consciousness that he
experienced during his time in England and
Ireland. Douglass comments: “My visit to
England did much for me every way. Not the
least among the many advantages derived from
it was the opportunity it afforded me of becoming acquainted with the educated people and of
seeing and hearing many of the most distinguished men of that country” (679). While
English society was not divided by racial discrimination, when Douglass arrived in the
British Isles, the public was sharply divided by
two great controversial questions of repeal.
British citizens were in the midst of the heated
battles over repeal of the Union between
England and Ireland and repeal of the Corn
Laws. As a former slave living abroad, Douglass
experienced firsthand how issues of economic
and class status could divide a people along
political lines. In the 1840s, conservatives advocated for retaining the Corn Laws, while the rising power of commerce and manufacturers supported repeal. British political and ideological
conflicts involved opposing factions, but their
opposition to one another went deeper than
mere policy disagreements. The disputes over
repeal pitted the well to do landed aristocracy
against the working class who experienced
famine, poverty, and pestilence on a daily basis.
As a former slave, Douglass had believed that
there was very little socioeconomic conflict
among the white community; however, his time
in Britain completely changed his view of the
political structure within mainstream white
society.
While Douglass’s exposure to poverty and
economic discrimination in Ireland exacerbated
his knowledge of other forms of oppression, he
had begun to be exposed to immigrant labor
discrimination towards African-American slaves
from the time he had escaped from slavery in
Baltimore. When he was a slave in the Auld’s
home, Douglass used to spend a considerable
amount of time on the docks where he encountered working class laborers from various ethnic groups. In chapter seven of his 1845 narrative, Douglass recounts his first experience with
working class Irish laborers. Douglass writes:
I went one day down on the wharf of
Mr. Waters; and seeing two Irishmen
unloading a scow of stone, I went,
unasked, and helped them. When we
had finished, one of them came to me
and asked me if I were a slave. I told
him I was. He asked, “Are ye a slave
for life?” I told him that I was. The
good Irishmen seemed to be deeply
affected by the statement. He said to
the other that it was a pity so fine a little fellow as myself should be a slave
for life. He said it was a shame to hold
me. They both advised me to run away
to the north; that I should find friends
there, and that I should be free. I pretended not to be interested in what
they said, and treated them as if I did
not understand them; for I feared they
might be treacherous. (43-44)
Reflecting back upon this incident in the shipyard in 1845, Douglass specifically identifies the
working class sailors as Irish, an ethnic distinction that a naïve child would not naturally make.
Implicit in this passage is the working class
conflict that ensued between free blacks and
Irish immigrant laborers in the 1840s. For a
brief moment, the working class Irish sailors
seem to empathize with the suffering of black
slaves. However, Douglass does not fully trust
the motives of the sailors. The black slave does
22
identify this man as a “good” Irishmen, yet he is
fully aware that many working class white immigrants deliberately turn in fugitive slaves when it
suits their purposes. The young slave desperately wants to heed the advice of the Irish and run
away to the North. Yet, Douglass is wary of trusting the good nature of these men because he
knows that their always is the possibility that the
Irish sailors would be untrustworthy and inform
his master of his plans to run away. In
Baltimore and other cities on the eastern
seaboard, Douglass knew that the Irish had the
reputation of turning in escaped slaves whom
they believed interfered with their ability to
obtain jobs and make a decent wage. In his
description, Douglass makes a clear distinction
between the benevolent Irish and their untrustworthy counterparts.
In Life and Times (1849), the emancipated slave slightly revises this incident, writing,
“The good Irishmen gave a shrug, and seemed
deeply affected. He said it was a pity so fine a
little fellow as I should be a slave for life. They
both had much to say about the matter, and
expressed the deepest sympathy with me, and
the most decided hatred of slavery” (540). In
his revision of the narrative, Douglass intimates
that these good Irishmen are sympathetic
towards the Abolitionist cause. While the fugitive
slave still expresses concern that they will betray
his trust, Douglass stresses the benevolent
humanity of these men. The Irish portrayed in
the second passage might as well be Daniel
O’Connell, fervently opposed to the human suffering encountered by American Chattel Slaves.
Douglass deliberately portrays the second group
of Irish Americans as sympathetic to the
Abolitionist cause. The emancipated slave holds
up these men as an example of the type of
benevolent human compassion that he feels that
the Irish immigrant should exhibit. The second
group of Irish laborers seems to be more interested in the fugitive slave’s personal welfare and
less interested in taking his bread.
Despite his earlier sympathetic portrayal
Douglass expresses his concerns about contin-
ued Irish immigration. In Life and Times
Douglass observes:
The Irish, who, at home, readily sympathize with the oppressed everywhere,
are instantly taught when they step
upon our soil to hate and despise the
Negro. They are taught to believe that
he eats the bread that belongs to them
. . . Every hour sees us elbowed out of
some employment to make room for
some newly-arrived immigrant from
the Emerald Isle, whose hunger and
color entitle him to special favor . . .
while a ceaseless enmity in the Irish is
excited against us” (qtd in Hardack
132).
In this passage, Douglass notes his concern that
the immigration of the Irish and their participation in the American capitalist system causes the
Irish to turn against black labor in order to
climb the social ladder. To be successful, working class immigrants take the jobs that rightfully
belong to former slaves whom Douglass views
as native citizens of the United States. Irish
immigration was harmful to the abolitionist
movement because the former peasants did not
want to remain part of an oppressed class.
Douglass argues that when the Irish landed in
America they adopted the prejudices of the
upper class toward blacks because they felt
that they must to compete both socially and
economically.
Noel Ignatiev in How the Irish Became
White, argues that the Irish were strong supporters of the American Abolitionist movement
in their own country because the peasants perceived themselves as an oppressed ethnic
minority, yet when they immigrated to this country the Irish Americans largely abandoned their
allegiance to radical reform movements. This
attitude was due in large part to the fact that in
the United States religious discrimination ceased
to be an issue for Irish Immigrants. The
Protestant church primarily supported the
23
Abolitionist movement in the United States, and
particularly in the South, the Catholic Church
did not take a stand on the abolition of slavery.
Richard Hardack observes that during the colonial settlement of the United States the majority
of Catholics settled in Maryland, and both
priests and laymen were involved in slave owning. H. Shelton Smith claims that “though some
Catholics lamented the existence of slavery,
Catholic doctrine disavowed only abuses in slavery and never the institution of slavery itself,
which was held to violate neither natural nor
divine law; Catholic spokesmen adamantly disassociated themselves from the notion that slavery
was inherently sinful” (qtd in Hardack 120). In
Ireland, the institution of slavery had been abolished because it interfered with the ability of the
Irish peasant to make a profit off of the sugar
trade. Black labor provided an inexpensive
alternative to the Irish peasant. However, in
America, the Irish Catholic immigrants owned
land and directly profited off readily available
sources of slave labor.
While Irish Americans were sympathetic to
O’Connell’s plea to support the Irish Repeal
movement in their home country, they were not
willing to go along with the Irish Catholic
leader’s support of Abolition. This was due in
large part to the fact that particularly in the
South, many Irish Americans benefited economically from the institution of slavery. Ignatiev
argues that the Irish immigrants in the 1840s
aspired to become ethnically white because they
believed that this racial transformation was the
only way to achieve status and power in mainstream American society. While scholars have
disagreed with Ignatiev’s argument, it does have
validity when viewed in the context of AfricanAmerican and Irish American working class
interactions. In both the North and the South,
Irish Immigrants were eager to enter the middle
class and ascend the social ladder. However, in
both regions of the country, the ability of the
Irish to enter the middle class occurred at the
expense of the African-American population.
Unlike their black counterparts, the Irish
attempt to whiten themselves and become part
of middle class American society was successful
because it was possible for the immigrant population to totally erase their ethnic status through
immigrating to the United States. Quinlan
argues, “In the South the Irish became so white
at times that their ethnic past might be almost
totally forgotten” (52). For the Irish immigrant,
the South became a type of new frontier where
the former working class peasant could reinvent
himself and gained a new identity as an aristocratic slave holding landowner. Ironically, it was
the racially segregated environment in the antebellum American South that benefited the Irish
who were perceived as white and able to gain
financial status by practicing slavery.
The native Irish peasantry saw America as
their great refuge and unlike Ireland there was
no fear of being returned to colonial working
class oppression. For the Irish immigrant,
America provided perhaps the best opportunity
to improve their social and economic status.
However, for Douglass and Garrison, there was
danger in aligning themselves too closely with
the working class Irish population. In the United
States, the Irish were no longer perceived as
impoverished peasants, and as a result their
ability to climb the social ladder resulted in
freed blacks remaining in their subservient
positions. Douglass and Garrison felt they needed the political support of the Irish peasantry in
their home country, but only as a means to
affect the attitudes of Irish immigrants towards
the black population in America. O’Connell and
the Irish were only beneficial to the Abolitionist
movement as long as they remained an impoverished people, yet when they gained economic
and class status, they were quick to dispense
with their support for Garrisonian Disunionism
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. Liverpool, 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 publisher, and Richard Allen, a Dublin 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 support of the Irish American community.
25