Michael Collins Quotes
The same effort that would get us Dominion Home Rule will get us a Republic.
He later settled for Home Rule in the Irish Treaty of 1922
Michael Collins, 1890-1922, Irish Revolutionist & Soldier, Finance Minister, Irish Free State, Statement to reports, 1921
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Texans wanted independence from Mexico and this quotation illustrates their three possible alternatives. Most Texans wanted to join the United State, but the United States was not very enthusiastic about having Texas. In a sense, Texas was made up of the malcontents, failures and riffraff from the United States. Many felt the nation was good to be rid of them. So initially, Texas was an independent republic. However, public and elite opinion began to change, and finally Texas was admitted.
In most revolutionary settings leaders have to persuade people who have voted with no success to turn to the rifle. In Ireland at this point, almost all the nationalsits knew that the rifle would help them but they were not sure that a vote would have the effect of a bullet.
He was executed by the English for his part in the Easter Uprising. Given to his daughter Nora Connolly on eve of his execution by the British.
Independence and Free Trade the two issues closest to his heart.
In 1837 and 1839 there were insurrections in Lower Canada against British rule. The British put down the rebellions and executed a few of the leaders.
In 1937 the U. S. Treasury Department commissioned a pair of large murals to decorate the lobby or the Ariel Rios Federal Building in Washington DC. On the mural was depicted a U. S. Mail Service from Alaska to Puerto Rico. It showed four Puerto Rican women reading a letter in the Inuit dialect presumably delivered from Alaska. The authorities loved the mural until they discovered the translation of the Inuit letter. This was a direct reference to the Puerto Rican Nationalist Independence Movement. That year 18 Puerto Rican Nationalists were killed and over 100 wounded when police fired into a crowd of demonstrators on March 21. Kent, a famous artist, planted a newspaper story with the translation and soon media all over the company were drawing attention to the Puerto Rican movement, just as Kent had intended.
While Adams was a little hyperbolic in his claim, the vast majority of the colonists who were protesting British policy and administration in 1775 were seeking reform, not separation from England. But what a difference a year made! British reaction radically changed the objectives of most colonists. See George Washington {613171} for a similar view.
He had been King of Portugal and then had come to the Portuguese colony of Brazil where he led a revolution against Portugal, declared independence from the “mother country, and was elected as Emperor of Brazil. The Colony was much larger and richer in natural resources than the “mother country.”
He attempted to broker an agreement between India’s Muslims and Hindus as to the form of the successor government.
He was arrested and renditioned to Pakistan a few hours later. Nonetheless, the secession succeeded and Bangladesh became an independent country.
Michael Collins was an Irish revolutionary, soldier, and politician who was a leading figure in the early-20th-century Irish struggle for independence. He was Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State from January 1922 until his assassination in August 1922.
