Editing Daniel O'Connell (section)

===Church and state===
O'Connell's personal principles reflected the influences of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] and of radical and democratic thinkers some of whom he had encountered in London and in [[Freemasonry|masonic lodges]]. He was greatly influenced by [[William Godwin]]'s ''[[Enquiry Concerning Political Justice]]'' (public opinion the root of all power, civil liberty and equality the bedrock of social stability),<ref>{{cite book |last1=MacDonagh |first1=Oliver |title=The Emancipist: Daniel O'Connell, 1830–1847 |date=1989 |publisher=St Martin's Press |location=New York |isbn=9780297796374 |page=19}}</ref> and was, for a period, converted to [[Deism]] by his reading of [[Thomas Paine]]'s ''[[The Age of Reason]]''.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hachey |first1=Thomas |last2=McCaffrey |first2=Lawrence |title=Perspectives on Irish Nationalism |date=1989 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |location=Lexington |isbn=9780813101880 |page=105}}</ref>

By 1809, he had returned to the Church, "becoming thereafter more devout by the year".<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Hoppen |first=K Theodore |date=1999 |title=Riding of Tiger: Daniel O'Connell, Reform and Popular Politics in Ireland 1800–1847 |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/3837/100p121.pdf |journal=Proceedings of the British Academy |issue=100 |pages=121–143}}</ref>{{rp|123}} Yet in 1820s, he was still regarded by some as an "English rationalist [[utilitarianism|utilitarian]]",<ref>{{cite book |last1=Clifford |first1=Brendan |title=Spotlights on Irish History |date=1997 |publisher=Aubane Historical Society |location=Millstreet, Cork |isbn=0952108151 |page=90}}</ref> a "Benthamite".<ref>{{cite book |last1=McCaffrey |first1=Lawrence J. |title=The Irish Question 1800–1920 |date=1968 |publisher=University of Kentucky |location=Lexingtson |isbn=9780813108551 |page=37 |url=https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_european_history/3/ |access-date=16 September 2020 |archive-date=16 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200916194415/https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_european_history/3/ |url-status=live }}</ref> For a time [[Jeremy Bentham]] and O'Connell did become personal friends as well as political allies.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Crimmins |first1=James E. |year=1997 |title=Jeremy Bentham and Daniel O'Connell: Their Correspondence and Radical Alliance, 1828–1831 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2640071 |url-status=live |journal=The Historical Journal |volume=40 |issue=2 |page=361 |doi= |jstor= |s2cid= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=16 September 2020}}</ref>

At Westminster O'Connell played a major part in the passage of the [[Reform Act 1832]] and in the [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833]] (an international cause in which he continued to campaign).<ref name="Kinealy">{{cite journal |last1=Kinealy |first1=Christine |title=The Liberator: Daniel O'Connell and Anti-Slavery |journal=History Today |date=12 December 2007 |volume=57 |issue=12}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Kinealy |first=Christine |url= |title=Daniel O'Connell and the Anti-Slavery Movement: 'The Saddest People the Sun Sees' |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-31609-1 |location=London |pages= |language=en}}</ref> He spoke in defence of the [[Tolpuddle Martyrs]], censured flogging in the army and opposed the [[Death penalty in the United States|death penalty]] for all but murder.<ref name=":4" />{{rp|138}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McGowen |first=Randall |date=2003 |title=History, Culture and the Death Penalty: The British Debates, 1840-70 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41299271 |journal=Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=(229–249) 237 |issn=0315-7997}}</ref> He welcomed the [[revolutions of 1830]] in [[Belgium]] and France,<ref name="Kinealy" /> and advocated "a complete severance of the Church from the State".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=O'Farrell|first=Fegus|title=Daniel O'Connell and Henry Cooke: The Conflict of Civil and Religious Liberty in Modern Ireland|journal=Irish Review|number=1|year=1986|pages=20–27 [24–25]|doi=10.2307/29735245|jstor=29735245}}</ref> Such liberalism (as "thorough", [[William Ewart Gladstone]] suggested, as that of an English liberal with "no Ireland to think of")<ref>{{Cite book |last=Matthew |first=H. C. G. |title=National questions: Reflection on Daniel O'Connell and Contemporary Ireland |publisher=Wolfhound Press |isbn=0863278132 |editor-last=Comerford |editor-first=R. V. |location=Dublin |publication-date=2000 |page=25  |chapter=Gladstone, O'Connell and Home Rule}}</ref> made all the more intolerable to O'Connell the charge that as "Papists" he and his co-religionists could not be trusted with the defence of constitutional liberties.

O'Connell protested that, while "sincerely Catholic", he did not "receive" his politics "from Rome".<ref name="Luby 1870 418">{{Cite book |title=The life and times of Daniel O'Connell |last=Luby |first=Thomas Clarke |publisher=Cameron, Ferguson & Company |year=1870 |location=Glasgow |pages=418 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sKTIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA418 |access-date=22 August 2020 |archive-date=31 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210731120651/https://books.google.com/books?id=sKTIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA418 |url-status=live }}</ref> At the same time, he insisted on the political independence of the Church. In 1808 "friends of emancipation", [[Henry Grattan]] among them, proposed that fears of [[Popery]] might be allayed if the Crown were accorded the same right exercised by continental monarchs, a [[Royal veto of the appointment of bishops|veto on the confirmation of Catholic bishops]]. Even when, in 1814, the [[Roman Curia|Curia]] itself (then in a silent alliance with Britain against [[Napoleon]]) proposed that bishops be "personally acceptable to the king", O'Connell was unyielding in his opposition. Refusing any instruction from Rome as to "the manner of their emancipation", O'Connell declared that Irish Catholics should be content to "remain forever without emancipation" rather than allow the king and his ministers "to interfere" with the Pope's appointment of their senior clergy.<ref name="Luby 1870 418" /><ref>{{cite journal |last1=MacDonagh |first1=Oliver |title=The Politicization of the Irish Catholic Bishops, 1800–1850 |journal=The Historical Journal |year=1975 |volume=18 |issue=1 |page=40 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X00008669 |jstor=2638467|s2cid=159877081 }}</ref>