Mitchel's response was not to join O'Connell in proclaiming himself "the friend of liberty in every clime, class and color" Rather, it was to insist on a racial distinction between the Irish and the "negro". This Duffy discovered in 1847 when he conceded temporary editorship of the "Nation" to Mitchel. He found that he had lent a journal, "recognised throughout the world as the mouthpiece of Irish rights", to "the monstrous task of applauding negro slavery and of denouncing the emancipation of the Jews" (another of O'Connell's liberal causes against which Mitchel stood with Carlyle).