#sanction

The Poor-law, said to be for the relief of the people and the means of

their salvation, was the instrument of their destruction … That law, too,

laid down a form for evicting the people, and thus gave the sanction and

encouragement of legislation to exterminate them … calmly and quietly

from Westminster [seat of the British parliament] … did the decree go forth

which has made the temporary but terrible visitation of a potato rot the

means of exterminating, through the slow process of disease and houseless

starvation, nearly the half of the Irish.

~15 December 1849