Let us then, my beloved countrymen, sacrifice our wicked and groundless animosities on the altar of our country...let us rally round the standard of … - Daniel O'Connell

Your enemies say—and let them say it—that I wish for a separation between England and Ireland. The charge is false; it is, to use a modern quotation, as "false as hell!" And the men who originated, and those who seek to inculcate it, know it to be a falsehood. There lives not a man less desirous of a separation between the two countries—there lives not a man more deeply convinced, that the connection between them, established upon the basis of one king and separate parliaments, would be of the utmost value to the peace and happiness of both countries, and to the liberties of the civilized world.

The principle of my political life … is, that all ameliorations and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.

From the day when first I entered the arena of politics until the present hour, I have never neglected an opportunity of impressing upon the minds of my fellow-countrymen the fact, that I was an apostle of that political sect who held that liberty was only to be attained under such agencies as were strictly consistent with the law and the constitution—that freedom was to be attained, not by the effusion of human blood, but by the constitutional combination of good and wise men; by perseverance in the courses of tranquillity and good order, and by an utter abhorrence of violence and bloodshed. It is my proudest boast, that throughout a long and eventful life, I have faithfully devoted myself to the promulgation of that principle, and, without vanity, I can assert, that I am the first public man who ever proclaimed it... I have preached under every contingency, and I have again and again declared my intention to abandon the cause of repeal if a single drop of human blood were shed by those who advocated the measure. I made the same principle the basis for the movement in favour of Catholic emancipation; and it was by a rigid adherence to that principle that I conducted the movement to a glorious and triumphant issue. It is my boast that Catholic emancipation, and every achievement of my political life was obtained without violence and bloodshed.