THE

PHILOSOPHY OF INTIMIDATION;

OR,

HISTORICAL SKETCHES

ON

THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE,

ITS DEFECTS AND REMEDIES.

BY THE

REV. WILLIAM BROWN, A.M.,

TOBERMORE.

His spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.

"To be invested with power without a will, is as great an insult to the understanding, as it is an injury to the interests of mankind. Nothing can more effectually tend to induce the people to abandon their claims to the first privileges of nature and society with disgust."— Oldfield.

'Among the best laws of recent days, are those which have

annulled the legislation of former times."-Lord Clarendon's Reply to the Corporation of Dublin.

PREFACE.

THE design of this Work is to exhibit the cause of the feature incident to the social condition of Ireland, that the tenant must vote as the landlord orders; and to point out the remedy for this painful state.

The cause is the dependant condition of the Irish tenant.

The sure remedy would be such a modification of the feudal laws bearing on land as would introduce free trade in land. Free trade in land would soon cause large portions of that property, now in hands of a few great proprietors, to flow into the hands of the many. These having what they could call their own, would soon think and act independently.

When feudalism became established in Ireland,