Justice & Law Quote by Thomas Francis Meagher

Meagher’s line is a jailbreak in grammatical form: he starts by granting England’s authority, then calmly detonates it. “Judged by the law of England” sounds like submission, a dutiful nod to procedure. Then comes the pivot - not into denial, but into a rival court. If English law can condemn him, Irish history can acquit him. That’s the move: shift the debate from legality to legitimacy, from statute books to a ledger of conquest, famine, dispossession, and failed uprisings. He isn’t pleading for mercy; he’s putting the empire on trial.

The specific intent is strategic. In 1848, on trial for sedition after the Young Ireland rising, Meagher knew the verdict was decided. So the speech isn’t meant to win in court; it’s meant to win in public memory. By accepting the technical “crime,” he avoids sounding evasive and makes his moral claim sharper. “Explains” is doing heavy lifting: it suggests causation, that rebellion is not an impulse but an outcome. “Justifies” goes further, insisting that oppression generates not only resistance but righteous resistance.

The subtext is anti-colonial rhetoric before the term existed. Meagher frames violence as compelled by historical circumstance, turning the empire’s favorite weapon - law - into an exposed instrument of power. It’s also martyr language, built to travel: a sentence that can be repeated at rallies, printed in pamphlets, remembered after the hanging that didn’t come (he was transported) and the later American reinvention that did.