Reilly and by Mitchel. Class coalitions attempted in past had failed, and they continued to insist on Lalor's plan. The path to insurrection Duffy's Creed By the spring of 1848, the scale of the catastrophe facing the country had persuaded all parties on the Council that independence was an existential issue; that the immediate need was for an Irish national government able to take control of national resources. In May 1848 Duffy published "The Creed of the Nation." If Irish independence was to come by force, it would be in the form of a Republic. The avoidance of deadly animosities between Irishmen was of course preferable.An independent Irish parliament, elected by widest possible suffrage, a responsible minister for Ireland [i.e. an Irish executive accountable to an Irish parliament] a Viceroy of Irish birth, would content the country... Such a parliament would inevitably establish Tenant Right, abolish the Established Church..., and endeavour to settle the claims of labour upon some solid and satisfactory basis. But one step further in the direction of Revolution... it would not go. Other peoples in Europe had been protected from starvation because their rulers were "of their own blood and race". That this was not the case for Ireland, was the source of its present tragedy. The Government made clear that its chosen response to the crisis in Ireland was coercion, not concession. Mitchel had been convicted under new martial law measures approved by Parliament (including by a number of "Old Ireland" MPs). On 9 July 1848 Duffy, with the Creed as evidence, was arrested for sedition. He managed to smuggle a few lines out to The Nation but the issue that would have carried his declaration, that there was no remedy now but the sword, was seized and the paper suppressed. 1848 Uprising Planning for an insurrection had already advanced. Mitchel, although the first to call for action, had scoffed at the necessity for systematic preparation. O'Brien, to Duffy's surprise, attempted the task. In March he had returned from a visit to revolutionary Paris with hopes of French assistance. (Among the leading republicans in France, Ledru-Rollin had been loud in his declaration of French support for the Irish cause). There was also talk of an Irish-American brigade and of a Chartist diversion in England (Allied with the Chartists, the Confederation had a relatively strong organised presence in Liverpool, Manchester and Salford). With Duffy's arrest, it