-To Charles Kickham from O’Mahony- October 19, 1863
19 Oct
1863, New York. Headed 'Private'. 'My dear
friend, The accompanying documents2
will give you some idea of the changes I deem necessary to be adopted at our forthcoming
Convention [Chicago, Nov. 1863]. My reasons
for wishing any changes in our programme would take too long a time to
write down now; but you shall have them fully before you leave America for
Ireland. Enough to say for my personal motives that I am discontented with
Stephen's [sic] treatment of myself. Having long used my name and my
person as a shield against his private enemies and the enemies of the
organization, he has been for some time past making a scapegoat of me among
his partizans and blaming me for
shortcomings that were the inevitable
consequences of his own deserting me during the most trying crises of the
American organization. Lately moreover he has given countenance, if not instructions,
to certain parties in this city who have interfered with my action and maligned
my motives and my character, thus doing all that in him lay to prevent me from
accomplishing the very results for whose nonperformance
I am blamed by him. To this interference with my functions I can no longer
submit. Neither can I submit to dictatorial arrogance on his part when my
reason tells me that such arrogance, so far
from aiding, is actually impeding our
progress.
'As chief
officer of the American organization my powers must be put upon an even level
with his authority over the Irish. I will no longer consent to be accountable
to him for my official conduct. We must treat as equal to equal, when it is
necessary for us to treat at all, and as the presiding officers of equal and
independent organizations — organizations mutually aiding each other and
closely allied through their respective executives but still distinct in their
government and internal management.
'One great
advantage to be derived from this is that it will put the Fenian Brotherhood
beyond the reach of hostile churchmen. Becoming an American association
and basing our right of action upon our privileges
as American citizens
and keeping within the laws of these states, we can place ultramontane plotters
against human freedom in a very awkward predicament, and a very unsafe one
for them if they presume to
* Enclosures
(a), (b), (c)
below.
assail us.
The pretext of "secret society" being taken away from them they
will-be forced to assail us as a political organization. They must avow that
the papacy has made common cause with the tyrants of Europe to put down republican
propagandism, and that even Catholic Ireland
must be sacrificed to Protestant England lest the recoil of her resurrection
might shake the despotisms of the Old continent
and among them that of Rome. According to the laws of America the Fenian
Brotherhood is a strictly legal and constitutional body. If sin is in any way
connected with the breach of the statutes of the country we live in, even that
charge does not lie against us. We are free and soverign
citizens of the American Republic, and priests would be as much justified in
attempting to control our votes as such, and of making us their political tools
in the internal affairs of the Union, as in preventing us for [sic]
taking whatever measures we deem right for the liberation of any oppressed
nation under the sun. Were we to submit to their dictation in such a case Knownothingism would become a patriotic virtue and
our American-born fellow-citizens might justly declare us to be unworthy
of copartnership in the national sovereignty. We would be mere subjects
of England through the political adherents3
of Dr Cullen
or of the monarch of Rome; while our priests instead4 of being ministers of religion would
become the emissaries of foreign despots.
They are too wily ever to give any flagrant cause to be considered in this
light. The Americans are too "wide awake" to allow them to be really
so.
'This, and
it is a great one, churchmen being our most formidable enemies, will be a
benefit to be derived from having the Fenian Brotherhood independent of our
fellow-laborers in Ireland, where the organization must be "secret"
for some time to come, Here, all the good effects of secrecy may be realized by
having none but the executive officers in communication with our
Irish Brothers. The priests may assail those officers personally, if they
please, as connected with secret societies in other countries. But an
association of American citizens has a right to employ any persons it pleases
to transact its lawful business, and the business of the F.B. being to free Ireland its executive corps may
be legitimately empowered to treat with all parties likely to forward that
object, whether those parties be President Lincoln and his cabinet, the
emperors of Russia or France and tlieir
cabinets, which by the way are secret societies, or the members of the I.R.B. in Ireland or the Reds in Paris. The
priests themselves got up a secret society a few years since in Ireland, by
means of which they convertly [sic]
and in violation of the laws they
were living under enlisted soldiers and sent them to fight against the
Italians': [Remainder of letter missing].
Enclosures (3).
*-Statement signed by O’Mahony –October 18, 1863 / On the
other side is a statement signed by James Stephens-N/D
(a) Copy of letter, John O'Mahony, Head
Centre and General President of the Fenian Brotherhood, to the C.E. of the I.R.B. [James Stephens], 18 Oct. 1863,
6 Centre st, [New York], ip. Headed 'Official'. 'Brother, In virtue of my right as a free and
reasoning man I hereby resign into your hands my appointment as "supreme
organizer and Director of the I.R.B. in America",
which was given by you in the city of New York in the month of January 1859 but
which bears no date on its face to show when or where it was issued. The
clauses5 of the afor[e]said
instrument having been repeatedly violated to your knowledge I consider myself
perfectly discharged
3 Read adherence or through [being] the political adherents.
4 instant MS.
6 Asterisked
in MS, referring to footnote See copy on the other
side [i.e. Enclosure (b)].
from all obligations contracted
under it; save and except such as I may have
incurred
to my own constituents
in America'.
Endorsed: [By O'Donovan
Rossa], John O'Mahony
resigning letter to James Stephens 1863.
Copy of document appointing John
O'Mahony supreme organizer and Director of the I.R.B.
in America, [Jan. 1859]. ip. 'I the undersigned
by virtue of the powers vested in me by the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood at
home and abroad hereby appoint John O'Mahony, formerly of Kilbenny, county Limerick, and of Mullough near Carrick
on Suir, Ireland, supreme organizer and
Director of said I.R.B. in America. With him alone as Chic/Centre shall any conm'Mnication
be hzld from home, and I hereby notify
to the members of the Brotherhood in America that any one writing to Ireland
after having been made acquainted with this order shall be looked on and
treated as a traitor. This order is strictly carried out in Ireland, so
that any member in America receiving a letter from anybody professing to be a
member in Ireland is bound to make known to authorized Centre here the name of such
correspondent, that the men who trusted him may know they have to do with a perjurer,
between whom and the traitor there can be no real difference with us
at present. Signed James Stephens'.
[At bottom of page], The
signature is not affixed to the copy forwarded to Ireland;
for obvious reasons'.