“General, the Protestants in the north are a much maligned people who are now united in peace with one another. We are a hard-working people who have built Belfast, in very few years, into a successful and growing city. We weave linen and build ships. But if we unite with the backward south — there will be changes I am sure. The past has been a turbulent one, but that I feel is over. Now what will happen to us?”
“You, and every other resident of this island, will be treated equally. I sincerely hope that you all follow the example of the people of Canada, where national elections have been held and a government has been democratically elected. The same we hope will be true of Mexico in the near future, now that the invading army has been expelled.”
“If you let them rule us there will be murder in the streets—”
“Mr. Lytle,” Reynolds said quietly, “there is no more ‘them.’ There is only democracy now, where all men are equal. One man, one vote. I should think that as an elected official yourself you would respect that fact. Ireland will no longer be ruled from above, ruled by a distant monarch and a self-appointed nobility. You are a free man and you should be grateful for that freedom.”
“Freedom!” he cried out. “We are ruled by invaders!”
“For the moment,” Lee said calmly. “But when you have had your election we will be more than happy to leave. You will have your own police force then to protect you, an army of your own as well to guard against foreign invasion if that is threatened. We have offered you freedom from foreign rule. You would be wise to take it.”
The mayor glared pure hatred. Unspoken was the knowledge that his Protestant majority in Northern Ireland would now be a minority in Catholic Ireland.
“You cannot be sure that the new Ireland will not have a place for you,” Surgeon Reynolds said quietly. “If we fight for equality we may be able to forget the inequalities of the past. Is that not worth working for? Do you see my blue uniform and General Lee’s gray one? Do you know the significance of this? We fought a terrible civil war, brother killing brother — and now we have turned our backs on it and live in peace. Can you not abandon your tribal loyalties and learn to live in peace with your brothers who share this island? Isn’t that a goal worth achieving, an ambition worth attaining?”
His answer was only grim silence. But from their expressions it was obvious that the two men were not pleased with the prospect of a brave new world.
Lee spoke into the silence.
“You gentlemen may go. Please contact me at any time concerning matters of the public good. We are all on the same side, as Surgeon Reynolds has so eloquently said.
“The side of peace.”
Despite General Sherman’s refusal to let him be anywhere near the invasion fleet, John Stuart Mill had still managed to arrive in Ireland as soon as hostilities were at an end. By appealing directly to President Lincoln, who had spoken to the Secretary of the Navy, who had confided in Admiral Farragut, who in turn had gone to Commodore Goldsborough for aid. Goldsborough made the eminently practical suggestion that Mill should see the war from the deck of his ship, the USS Avenger. Since the British had no ironclads that could better — or even equal — her in strength, his safety would not be put into question. Mill greatly enjoyed this wartime experience, particularly when the great ship had fired at an unseen target in Dublin, using the most modern communication, and had in this manner brought about the surrender of the British troops in Dublin Castle.
Only when martial law had been partially lifted was he permitted ashore. Even then a troop of cavalry escorted his carriage from the dock to Fitzwilliam Square, while General Sherman’s aide, Colonel Roberts, accompanied him.
“It is a splendid city,” Mill said looking at the leafy square and the handsome Georgian houses that surrounded it. The colonel pointed.
“There it is, number ten. It is all yours. Don’t know who the owner is yet, but we do know that he left with one bag on the first mailboat from Kingstown after hostilities ended. So it is yours for as long as you need it.”
The two soldiers on guard outside saluted as they went in. “Wonderful, wonderful,” Mill said as they walked through the elegant rooms and admired the handsome garden to the rear. “A suitable setting for the foundation of a new state. Here will meet the men whose task that will be. Thank heavens that they will have such an excellent model to hand, less than a hundred years old.”
“I think, at this point, that you have lost me, sir.”
“Nonsense, my dear fellow, you know all about this Union that you fight to defend. You should be very proud of it. You have your own Congress — and your own Constitution. It was indeed the rule of law, and constitutional responsibility, as pointed out by Lord Coke, that your founding fathers used as a model. It is my great hope that Ireland shall build upon that model in return. First a constitutional congress — and then a constitution. Remember, that all during the Revolutionary period, Americans relied upon their possession of the rights of Englishmen, and the claim that infringement upon those rights was unconstitutional and void. That claim could not, however, rest upon a secure legal foundation until the rights of Americans were protected in written organic instruments. Such protection came with the adoption of written constitutions and bills of rights in the states, as soon as independence had severed their ties with the mother country. The American army has indeed succeeded in severing the Irish ties with Great Britain. Now I am sure that you are wondering how the rights guaranteed by these new constitutions can be enforced?”
Colonel Roberts was thinking nothing of the kind. In fact he wished that he were back in the heat of battle rather than facing up to the seemingly incomprehensible enthusiasms of John Stuart Mill. “Guaranteed rights…” he finally muttered. “Enforced?”
“As, of course, they must be protected. The American genius was the adaptation of a system of checks and balances. The answer to this question is, of course, ultimately, judicial review. That is the function of the Supreme Court. Ireland is very much in need of this rule of law. For the British have never looked upon Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom, like Scotland, but as a remote and certainly different part. A backward land set in unprofitable and obscurantist ways of life and thought. All that will change. As a new democracy, separate at last, this country can only look forward to a brilliant future.”
17 MARCH 1864
Perhaps it was the power of prayer rising from every church across the land that brought this particular sunrise, shining golden shafts across the sea. For over two weeks it had rained ceaselessly, remorselessly, cruelly, until it was a wonder that all of Ireland was not washed into the surrounding ocean. Surely everyone was praying for an end of the rain on this most important of all days.
Nevertheless, from dawn to dusk, on the Wednesday it had rained as hard as on any other of the days. But not a cloud was in sight on Thursday morning, St. Patrick’s Day morning, the birth-of-a-country morning.
Mist rose from the grass in Phoenix Park, Dublin, to be burned away by the sun. The tock-tock of hammers on wood sounded through the still air as the final work was done on the viewing stands. Soldiers, in their new dark green uniforms, marched and stamped and saluted as they changed the guard and, my, but there was a new rhythm to their march.
“ ’Tis a grand day,” the captain of the old guard said.
“Aye — and a grand day for old Ireland,” said the captain of the new.
The city was waking, streamers of smoke lazing up from the myriad chimneypots. The clop of horses’ hooves sounded on cobbles as the bakers’ carts made their rounds. Above Sackville Street, across and down the street from the General Post Office, a man was standing at the open window of the Gresham Hotel, breathing in the fresh morning air. The lines of tension on his forehead, and around his eyes, eased a bit as he rubbed long fingers through his thick, and graying, beard.
“Come away from that window — you’ll get your death,” Mary called out from the depths of the feather bed.
“Yes, mother,” Abraham Lincoln said as he closed the window. “But it is a glorious day — how fitting for such a glorious occasion.”