with a feeling of common nationality, have, if not a right, at lowest a strong claim to be governed as a separate nation.  This is the doctrine of nationality which, be it noted, though often confused with, is at bottom different from, the dogma of the supremacy of the majority.  That the doctrine of nationality is, when reasonably put, conformable with obvious principles of utility may be readily admitted; but it is a doctrine which can only be accepted with considerable qualifications.  Its validity was denied both theoretically and practically, and, in the judgment of most English democrats, not to say of most European Liberals, denied justly and righteously by the Northern States of America, when the Southern States claimed the benefit of its application.  The argument moreover from the principle of nationality in reference to the present controversy proves too much.  If the Irish people are a nation, this may give them a right to independence, but it can never in itself give them a moral claim to dictate the particular terms of union with England.  The second conviction which underlies the argument from the will of the people is of far more serious import than any reasoning drawn from even so respectable a formula as the doctrine of nationality.  The dogma that the will of the people must be obeyed often expresses the rational belief that under all polities, and especially under the system of popular government, institutions derive their life, and laws their constraining power, not from the will of the law-giver, or from the strength of the army, but from their correspondence with the permanent wishes and habits of the people.  Home Rule, to put this matter in its strongest form, means, it may be said, the application to Ireland of the very principle on which the English constitution rests—­that a people must be ruled in accordance with their own permanent ideas of right and of justice, and that unless this be done, law, because it commands no loyalty, ensures no obedience.  The whole history of the connection between the two islands which make up the United Kingdom is a warning of the wretchedness, the calamities, the wickedness and the ruin which follow upon the attempt to violate this fundamental principle not only of popular, but of all good and just government.  Home Rule may appear to be an innovation.  It is in this point of view simply a return to the essential ideas of English constitutionalism, it is an attempt to escape from the false path which has been pursued for centuries, and to return to the broad highway of government in accordance with popular sympathy.  At this point, however, the argument from the will of the people merges in the much stronger and more serious train of reasoning derived from the teaching of history.

[Sidenote:  3.  Argument from Irish history.]

The argument from Irish history.—­Appeals to the lessons of the past are at times in the mouths of Home Rulers, as also of their opponents, a noxious revival of ancient passions, or (it may be) nothing better than the use of an unreal form of rhetoric; yet a supporter of Home Rule may use the argument from Irish history in a way which is at once legitimate and telling.