Declaration of the United Irishmen
In the
present great era of reform, when unjust Governments are falling in
every
quarter of Europe; when religious persecution is compelled to abjure
her
tyranny over conscience; when the rights of man are ascertained in
theory, and
that theory substantiated by practice; when antiquity can no longer
defend
absurd and oppressive forms against the common sense and common
interests of
mankind; when all Government is acknowledged to originate from the
people, and
to be so far only obligatory as it protects their rights and promotes
their
welfare; we think it our duty, as Irishmen, to come forward, and state
what we
feel to be our heavy grievance, and what we know to be its effectual
remedy. We
have no national Government— we are ruled by Englishmen, and the
servants of
Englishmen whose object is the interest of another country, whose
instrument is
corruption, and whose strength is the weakness of Ireland; and these
men have
the whole of the power and patronage of the country as means to seduce
and
subdue the honesty and spirit of her representatives in the legislature.
Such
an extreme power, acting with uniform force, in a direction too
frequently
opposite to the true line of our obvious interests, can be resisted
with effect
solely by unanimity, decision and spirit in the people — qualities
which may be
exerted most legally, constitutionally, and efficaciously by that great
measure
essential to the prosperity, and freedom of Ireland — an equal
representation
of all the people in Parliament. We do not here mention as grievances
the
rejection of a place-bill, of a pension bill, of a responsibility-bill,
the
sale of peerages in one house, the corruption publicly avowed in the
other, nor
the notorious infamy of borough traffic between both, not that we are
insensible to their enormity, but that we consider them as but symptoms
of that
mortal disease which corrodes the vitals of our constitution, and
leaves to the
people in their own government but the shadow of a name.
Impressed
with these sentiments, we have agreed to form an association to be
called “The
Society of United Irishmen,” and we do pledge ourselves to our country,
and
mutually to each other, that we will steadily support and endeavour, by
all due
means, to carry into effect the following resolutions:
FIRST
RESOLVED: That the weight of English influence on the Government of
this
country is so great as to require a cordial union among all the people
of Ireland to maintain that balance which is
essential to the preservation of our liberties and the extension of our
commerce.
SECOND:
That the sole constitutional mode by which this influence can be
opposed is by
a complete and radical reform of the representation of the people in
Parliament.
THIRD:
That no reform is practicable, efficacious, or just, which shall not
include
Irishmen of every religious persuasion. Satisfied, as we are, that the
intestine divisions among Irishmen have too often given encouragement
and
impunity to profligate, audacious and corrupt administrations, in
measures
which, but for these divisions, they durst not have attempted, we
submit our
resolutions to the nation as the basis of our political faith. We have
gone to
what we conceive to be the root of the evil. We have stated what we
conceive to
be the remedy. With a Parliament thus reformed, everything is easy;
without it,
nothing can be done. And we do call on, and most earnestly exhort, our
countrymen in general to follow our example, and to form similar
societies in
every quarter of the kingdom for the promotion of constitutional
knowledge, the
abolition of bigotry in religion and politics, and the equal
distribution of
the rights of men through all sects and denominations of Irishmen. The
people,
when thus collected, will feel their own weight, and secure that power
which
theory has already admitted to be their portion, and to which, if they
be not
aroused by their present provocation to vindicate it, they deserve to
forfeit
their pretensions for ever.
