Principles of Freedom | Page 8

fighting for
freedom some start up in their plea for liberty, pointing to the
prosperity of England, France, and Germany, and when we debate the
means by which they won their power, we find our friends draw no
distinction between true freedom and licentious living; but it would be
better to be crushed under the wheels of great Powers than to prosper
by their example. And so, through every discussion we must make
clear the meaning of our terms. There is one I would treat particularly
now. Of all the terms glibly flung about in every debate not one has
been so confused as Moral Force.

II
Since the time of O'Connell the cry Moral Force has been used
persistently to cover up the weakness of every politician who was
afraid or unwilling to fight for the whole rights of his country, and
confusion has been the consequence. I am not going here to raise old
debates over O'Connell's memory, who, when all is said, was a great
man and a patriot. Let those of us who read with burning eyes of the
shameless fiasco of Clontarf recall for full judgment the O'Connell of
earlier years, when his unwearied heart was fighting the uphill fight of
the pioneer. But a great need now is to challenge his later influence,
which is overshadowing us to our undoing. For we find men of this
time who lack moral courage fighting in the name of moral force, while
those who are pre-eminent as men of moral fibre are dismissed with a
smile--physical-force men. To make clear the confusion we need only
to distinguish moral force from moral weakness. There is the
distinction. Call it what we will, moral courage, moral strength, moral
force; we all recognise that great virtue of mind and heart that keeps a
man unconquerable above every power of brute strength. I call it moral
force, which is a good name, and I make the definition: a man of moral
force is he who, seeing a thing to be right and essential and claiming
his allegiance, stands for it as for the truth, unheeding any consequence.
It is not that he is a wild person, utterly reckless of all mad possibilities,
filled with a madder hope, and indifferent to any havoc that may ensue.
No, but it is a first principle of his, that a true thing is a good thing, and
from a good thing rightly pursued can follow no bad consequence. And
he faces every possible development with conscience at rest--it may be
with trepidation for his own courage in some great ordeal, but for the
nobility of the cause and the beauty of the result that must ensue,
always with serene faith. And soon the trepidation for himself passes,
for a great cause always makes great men, and many who set out in
hesitation die heroes. This it is that explains the strange and wonderful
buoyancy of men, standing for great ideals, so little understood of
others of weaker mould. The soldier of freedom knows he is forward in
the battle of Truth, he knows his victory will make for a world beautiful,
that if he must inflict or endure pain, it is for the regeneration of those
who suffer, the emancipation of those in chains, the exaltation of those

who die, and the security and happiness of generations yet unborn. For
the strength that will support a man through every phase of this struggle
a strong and courageous mind is the primary need--in a word, Moral
Force. A man who will be brave only if tramping with a legion will fail
in courage if called to stand in the breach alone. And it must be clear to
all that till Ireland can again summon her banded armies there will be
abundant need for men who will stand the single test. 'Tis the bravest
test, the noblest test, and 'tis the test that offers the surest and greatest
victory. For one armed man cannot resist a multitude, nor one army
conquer countless legions; but not all the armies of all the Empires of
earth can crush the spirit of one true man. And that one man will
prevail.
III
But so much have we felt the need of resisting every slavish tendency
that found refuge under the name of Moral Force, that those of us who
would vindicate our manhood cried wildly out again for the physical
test; and we cried it long and repeatedly the more we smarted under the
meanness of retrograde times. But the time is again inspiring, and the
air must now be cleared. We have set up for the final test of the man of
unconquerable spirit that test which is the first and last argument of
tyranny--recourse to brute strength. We have surrounded