Politics & Power Quote by Thomas F. Meagher

Meagher is doing a two-front piece of political engineering: turning Irish rebellion into an American civic obligation, and turning Irish-American identity into a usable form of power. The genius of the line is its refusal to let the listener choose between loyalties. “Not only our duty to America, but also to Ireland” doesn’t frame allegiance as a zero-sum test; it frames Irish nationalist fundraising, recruitment, and lobbying as an extension of American virtue. That’s a shrewd move in a country where immigrants were routinely suspected of being insufficiently “American.”

The phrase “moral and material support” is equally calculated. Moral support flatters; it lets U.S. citizens imagine themselves as patrons of freedom, consistent with the republic’s self-image. Material support is the real ask: money, weapons, political cover, maybe bodies. By pairing them, Meagher makes the transactional feel principled.

Then there’s the loaded diction: “liberty-loving citizens of these United States.” He’s not appealing to Irishness alone; he’s appealing to the brand of America as the world’s anti-tyranny machine. It’s soft pressure, too. If you claim to love liberty, you’re already on the hook.

Context matters: Meagher was a revolutionary-turned-soldier who moved through the mid-19th-century Atlantic world of uprisings, exile, and diaspora politics. Irish independence couldn’t be won on the island alone; it required the leverage of emigrant communities with cash, votes, and influence. The subtext is blunt: Ireland’s republic will be built, in part, in American cities, through American generosity - and American self-regard.