"This larger history of Ireland is unknown in England, to the loss of both countries. But there can be no understanding of the country unless we recognize the deepest passion of the race, the soul that has been fashioned in that long spiritual and intellectual history. Economic questions and political discontents are important, because until they are rightly settled the greater matter of material life are withered and broken. But after a century of conflicts over the material problems of land, and local government, and an Irish Parliament, the national uprising of today has made it clear that the greater demand which lies above and beyond all others, is that Ireland shall have the power to establish a true national civilization, and a culture worthy of the tradition which is the proudest inheritance of the race. "Ireland desires 'to possess her own soul, so that it may be at liberty and rest, and free to contribute to the higher development of neighboring races and of the human race generally.'"-("Ireland," pp. 13-14.) [III] (a) The Renunciation Act, 1783 The Colonial Parliament of Ireland represented only the English in Ireland, It was co-eval with the English Parliament, however, and strove to maintain its independence through the centuries. By the 18th century the attitude of the Colonists had become more assertively Irish and the contest for supremacy between the two Parliaments, accordingly became more intense. The Renunciation Act, of 1783, was regarded as finally ending the struggle with victory for the Irish Parliament. Under this Act the English Parliament explicitly acknowledged the right and title of the people of Ireland to govern themselves, and definitely renounced forever English pretensions thereto. Following is copy of the Act: (RENUNCIATION ACT, 1783) "GEORGE III. (ANNO VICESIMO TERTIO) CAP. XXVIII. An act for removing and preventing all doubts which have arisen, or may arise, concerning the exclusive rights of the parliament and courts of IRELAND in matters of legislation and judicature; and for preventing any writ of error or appeal from any of his Majesty's courts in that kingdom from being received, heard and adjudged, in any of his Majesty's courts in the kingdom of GREAT BRITAIN. WHEREAS, by an act of the last session of this present parliament (intituled An Act to appeal an act, made in the sixth year of the reign of his late majesty King George the First, intituled, An act for the better securing the dependency of the kingdom of IRELAND upon the crown of GREAT BRITAIN;) it was enacted, That the said last mentioned act, and all matters and things therein contained, should be repealed; and whereas doubts have arisen whether the provisions of the said act are sufficient to secure to the people of IRELAND the rights claimed by them to be bound only by laws enacted by his Majesty and the parliament of that kingdom, in all cases whatever, and to have all actions and suits at law or in equity, which may be instituted in that kingdom, decided in his Majesty's courts therein finally, and without appeal from thence; therefore, for removing all doubts respecting the same, may it please your Majesty that it may be declared and enacted; and be it declared and enacted by the King's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same That the said right claimed by the people of Ireland to be bound only by laws enacted by his Majesty and the parliament of that kingdom, in all cases whatever, and to have all actions and suits at law or in equity, which may be instituted in that kingdom, decided in his Majesty's courts therein finally, and without appeal from thence, shall be, and it is hereby declared to be established, and ascertained forever, and shall, at no time hereafter, be questioned or questionable. "II. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That no writ of error or appeal shall be received or adjudged, or any other proceeding be had by or in any of his Majesty's courts in this kingdom, in any action or suit at law or in equity, instituted in any of his Majesty's courts in the kingdom of Ireland; and that all such writs, appeals or proceedings, shall be, and they are hereby declared null and void to all intents and purposes; and that all records, transcripts of records or proceedings, which have been transmitted from Ireland to Great Britain, by virtue of any writ of error or appeal, and upon which no judgment has been given or decree pronounced before the first day of June, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, shall, upon application made by or in behalf of the party in whose favor judgment was given, or decree pronounced, in Ireland, be delivered to such party, or any person by him authorized to apply for and receive the same." This Act and the Treaty of Limerick (1691) stand out chief among Britain's many "scraps of paper," in her relations with the Irish Nation. [III] (b) The So-Called "United Kingdom" and No argument is more frequently used by British Ministers as an excuse for refusing the people of Ireland the right of self-determination than the argument that for Ireland to declare herself independent would be "secession" similar to the attempted secession of the Southern States from the American Union. How audaciously false this analogy is can only be realized by those who know how different in moral binding force was the forced Act of Union that created the so-called "United Kingdom" and the voluntary contract which united the states of America. No English statesman or jurist has been able to maintain that the Act of Union was a contract binding on the Irish people. W. E. GLADSTONE, former Prime Minister of England, speaking at Liverpool, on June 28, 1886, said: "There is no blacker or fouler transaction in the history of man than the making of the union between Great Britain and Ireland. ** * The carrying of it was nothing in the world but an artful combination of fraud and force, applied in the basest manner to the attainment of an end which all Ireland detested. * A more base proceeding, a more vile proceeding, is not recorded, in my judgment, in any page of history. * * * * And, in the House of Commons, London, on April 16, 1886, he said: "We used the whole civil government of Ireland as an engine of wholesale corruption. I will only say that we obtained that Union against the sense of every class of the community, by wholesale bribery and unblushing intimidation." At West Calder, in 1893, Mr. Gladstone said: "The Act of Union was carried by means so indescribably foul and vile that it can have no moral title for existence whatsoever." And, again, on January 28, 1897, he said: "Union with Ireland has no moral force it rests on no moral basis. That is the line I would always take were I an Irishman. That is the line which as an Englishman I now take." And, elsewhere, he spoke of the means by which the "Union" was carried as "unspeakably criminal." A. V. DICEY, English jurist, in politics a Unionist, was compelled to admit that: "The Union was passed under circumstances which would have made any other conveyance null and void.” W. E. H. LECKY, the historian, also a Unionist, said of it: "In a country where the sentiment of nationality was as intense as in any part of Europe, it destroyed the national legislature contrary to the manifest wish of the people, and by means so corrupt, treacherous and shameful that they are never likely to be forgotten. The Union of 1800 was not only a great crime, but was also like most crimes-a great blunder." No one will hold that such statements as these have been made by the advocates of the South in the Civil War. Lest they appear to be wild or irresponsible exaggerations it is perhaps better to enter into some details: The Act of Union which created the "United Kingdom" and to which the British appeal when they talk of an analogy between the case of Ireland seeking her independence and the case of the Southern States seceding, was invalid, not only because it was a direct violation of the Act of Renunciation (Appendix [III]) passed 17 years before, but also because: 1. It was passed by a Parliament whose members were in no sense representatives of the Irish people. 2. These members did not vote freely for it, but were bribed and intimidated by the British Ministers. 3. It was ultra vires for the Parliament to pass such legislation even if it had been representative of the people and had its members been ever so anxious of their own accord to pass it. They were not competent legally to do so. The Parliament was intended, as Lord Plunkett warned them, to make "laws", not "legislatures." Only the sovereign people could vote away their own sovereignty. 4. It was passed against the will and in spite of the protests of the Irish people, who were prevented by a regime of military terror from resisting it. It is not necessary to dwell on the non-representative character of the Irish Parliament. In England itself, Parliament did not begin to be representative of the people until the reform act of 1832. Students of English history do not need to be informed of its character, previous to that date. Conditions were similar in the case of the Irish Parliament, only the latter was a colonial or settler parliament as well as an ascendancy class parliament of the most restricted type. It did not represent even the Protestant minority resident in Ireland. It represented only a few noble families and great proprietors, and those on the English government payroll in Ireland: "British clerks and officers were smuggled into her Parliament to vote away the constitution of a country to which they were strangers, and in which they had neither interest nor connection. They were employed to cancel the royal charter of the Irish Nation, guaranteed by the British Government, sanctioned by the British legislature, and unequivocally confirmed by the words, the signature, and the Great Seal of their Monarch." This is the account of a contemporary Irish historian, Sir Jonah Barrington. The actual facts of the passing of the "Union" were set forth by Earl Grey, a former British Prime Minister, speaking in the English Parliament, April 2, 1800, he said: "I do not mean to speak disrespectfully of the Irish Parliament. But the facts are notorious. "There were three hundred members in all, and one hundred and twenty of these strenuously opposed the measure (Act of Union), among whom were two-thirds of the county members, the representatives of the City of Dublin, and almost all the towns which it is proposed shall send members to the Imperial Parliament. "One hundred and sixty-two voted in favor of the Union-of these, one hundred and sixteen were placemen, some of them were English Generals on the Staff, without one foot of ground in Ireland and completely dependent upon (English) Government. "Is there any ground then to presume that even the Parliament of Ireland thinks as the Rt. Hon. gentleman supposes; or that, acting only from a regard to the good of their country, the members would not have reprobated the measure as strongly and as unanimously as the rest of the people (of Ireland)? "But this is not all. First, let us reflect upon the arts which have been used since the last session of the Irish Parliament, to pack a majority in the House of Commons (of Ireland). All holding offices under Government, even the most intimate friends of the Minister, who had uniformly supported his administration till the present occasion, if they hesitated to vote as directed, were dismissed from office and stripped of their employments. "Even this step was found ineffectual and other arts were had recourse to, which I cannot name in this place; all will easily conjecture. I defy any man to lay his hand upon his heart and say that he believes the Parliament of Ireland was sincerely in favor of the measure.” The legal competency of Parliament to pass the Act of Union was denied by the chief Irish lawyers. The Attorney General, SAURIN, said: 66* * * You cannot make it obligatory on conscience; it will be obeyed as long as England is strong, but resistance to it will be in the abstract, a duty; and the exhibition of that resistance will be a mere question of prudence." Lord Chief Justice BUSHE: "I look upon it (the Union) as England reclaiming in a moment of our weakness that domination which we extorted from her in a moment of our virtue a domination which she uniformly abused, which invariably oppressed and impoverished us and from the cessation of which we date all our prosperity." MR. FITZGERALD, ex-Prime-Sergeant-at-Law, raised the vital constitutional question, and said: "It is not, in my opinion, within the moral competence of Parliament, to destroy and extinguish itself, and with it the rights and liberties of those who created it. The constituent parts of a State are obliged to hold their public faith with each other, and with all those who derive any serious interest under their engagements; such a compact may, with respect to Great Britain, be a union; but with respect to Ireland, it will be a revolution, and a revolution of a most alarming nature." LORD PLUNKETT, later Lord Chancellor, was most explicit of all. His exact words were: ་ "I, in the most express terms, deny the competency of Parliament to do this act. I warn you, do not dare to lay your hands upon the Constitution. I tell you, that if, circumstanced as you are, you pass this act, it will be a mere nullity; and no man in Ireland will be bound to obey it. I make the assertion deliberately. I repeat it: I call on any man who hears me to take down my words. You have not been elected for this purpose. You are appointed to make laws. and not legislatures. You are appointed to exercise the function of Legislators, and not to transfer them. You are appointed to act under the Constitution, and not to alter it; and if you do so, your act is a dissolution of the Government-you resolve society into its original elements, and no man in the land is bound to obey you. You may extinguish yourselves, but Parliament you cannot extinguish. It is enthroned in the hearts of the people; it is enthroned in the sanctuary of the Constitution; it is immutable as the island it protects. In these opinions the Irish lawyers are fully borne out by international authorities such as Grotius and Locke: GROTIUS Says: * * ** "If the supreme power shall really attempt to hand over the kingdom or put it into subjections to another, I have no doubt, that in this it may be lawfully resisted. For as I have said before, it is in that case another government, another holding of it; which change the people have a right to oppose.-("Rights of War and Peace," I., IV., 10.) LOCKE, in Chap. XIX, section 217, of his Treatise on Civil Government, says: "The delivery also of the people into subjection of a foreign power, either by the Prince or by the Legislature, is a dissolution of the Government. For the end why people entered into society being |