Irish-American leaders feared losing native acceptance if O’Connell attacked slavery.

Evidence

O’Connell’s declarations aroused resentment in America; he noted in 1835 that “he had given the Americans some severe but merited reproofs, for which they had paid him wages in abuse and scurrility.” Among those who expressed their concern were a group of prominent Philadelphia Irish, in a letter to him in February 1838, responding to newspaper reports of a speech he had recently made at an antislavery meeting in London, in which he had reportedly spoken harshly of the American character. The sentiments attributed to him “had caused no inconsiderable excitement,” observed his correspondents. “In the United States,” they wrote, “there are hundreds of thousands of our countrymen and countrywomen who have by persecution been driven from the land of their nativity. Here they have been hospitably received and honourably admitted to all the rights, privileges and immunities of native Americans.” Noting that “there was not a man [among them] who does not admire and do willing homage to your principles,” they went on to remind O’Connell “how jealously and suspiciously we may be looked upon by our native American fellow citizens if the man, whom we have delighted to honour, shall by them believed to have en masse deemed them the basest of the base and the vilest of the vile.” They asked him to take the appropriate steps to remove from the Irish-Americans “the odium which … had been cast upon them …” In this letter, these spokesmen were giving voice, not for the last time, to the insecurities of an immigrant group whose claim to the “rights, privileges, and immunities of native Americans” was not as secure as they might have wished. — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 44

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the reader’s core thesis: the Irish claim to ‘rights, privileges, and immunities of native Americans’ was insecure, and pro-slavery alignment was their route to shore it up. — connects to: Even O’Connell rebuked Irish immigrants who romanticized Southern slave conditions — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 89; O’Connell threatened to strip American Irishmen of Irish identity if they tolerated slavery — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 99; Boston Irish publicly repudiated O’Connell’s antislavery stand to embrace slavery’s defenders — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 120 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Irish-American leaders suppressed Irish abolitionist solidarity to protect Repeal unity #expands (0.92) — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 82
• Abolitionists feared Irish immigrant papers would block Irish-black solidarity #expands (0.82) — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 66
• The Irish freedom struggle made common cause with American slaveholders. #complicates (0.78) — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 75
• Arriving in America corrupted the Irish into racial prejudice #qualifies (0.75) — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 7