206 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



Canada, to be dangerous to the most important interests of the United 

 States. The second asked that all claims of foreign states or citizens 

 for the loss of property during our Civil War be submitted to Congress 

 before being allowed by the executive department. 1 The third extended 

 the sympathy of the House to the people of Ireland in their efforts to 

 "maintain their independence." 2 



But why this encouragement to a revolutionary organization and 

 why such leniency toward the transgressors of our neutrality laws? 

 The American people were not in hearty sympathy either with the Irish 

 or their cause. "Certainly today the prayer of Ireland should be to 

 be delivered from herself," declared Harpers' Weekly late in 1865. 3 

 About the same time, The Nation* averred that, "Were the Fenian 

 movement to succeed, its result would be a worse condition in Ireland 



than at present Amongst the masses of Irish there are no materials 



for the foundation or administration of a government based on modern 

 ideas." "The Invasion of Canada," said the Providence Daily Journal 

 (June 5, 1866) "ended as sensible men generally supposed it would 

 end." "We believe," observed the Edinburg Review of April, 1868, 

 "that the dislike of the Irish by native Americans is rather increasing 

 than diminishing." It was not a high idealism of the Irish cause on 

 the part of Americans that led the government to assume the attitude 

 it did toward the Fenians. It was for two very different reasons that 

 Uncle Sam espoused the Fenian cause. The first of these was that the 

 Irish did their "full share" of voting, and the second was that by the 

 encouragement of this conspiracy the United States could force England 

 into settling certain of the vexed problems raised during the Civil War. 



The Irish vote up to this time had been cast almost solidly for the 

 Democrats but, by favoring the Fenian cause, since Johnson had appar- 

 ently opposed it, 5 the Republicans of the House sought to win over the 

 Irish vote to Republican ranks. Hence the resolution requesting the 



1 House Journal, ist sess., 40th Cong., p. 125. 



' House Journal, ist sess., 4othJCong., r p.Ji2 s^Congressional Globe, ist sess., 40th Cong., p. 392. 

 3 October 28, p. 1. 

 * September 28, 1865, p. 391. 



5 By issuing his warning proclamation and by ordering the arrest'of the returning army and, later, of all- 

 leaders of Fenian movement. 



