The main, though not the sole, object of a well-constituted polity is to place political power (whilst guarding against its abuse) in the hands of the men, or body of men, who from the nature of things, i.e. by wealth, education, position, numbers, or otherwise, form the most powerful portion of a given state.  The varying forms of the English Constitution have, on the whole, possessed the immense merit of giving at each period of our history political authority into the hands of the class, or classes, who made up the true strength of the nation.  Right has in a rough way been combined with might.  Wherever this is not the case, and genuine power is not endowed with political authority, there exists a sure cause of revolution; for sooner or later the natural forces of any society must assert their predominance.  No institution will stand which does not correspond with the nature of things.  Vain were all the efforts of party interest or of philanthropic enthusiasm to give to the Blacks political predominance in the Southern States.  Votes, ballot boxes, laws, federal arms, all were in vain.  By methods which no man will justify, but which no power could resist, the Whites have re-acquired political authority.  The nature of things could not be made obedient to the dogmas of democratic equality.  Now the gravest flaw of the new constitution, the disease from which it is certain to perish, is that, in opposition to the forces which ultimately must determine the destiny of the United Kingdom, it renders the strong elements of the community subordinate to the weak.

In Ireland Dublin is made supreme over Belfast, the South is made not the equal, but in effect the master of the North; ignorance is given dominion over education, poverty is allowed to dispose of wealth.  If Ireland were an independent state, or even a self-governed British colony, things would right themselves.  But the politicians who are to rule in Dublin will not depend upon their own resources or be checked by a sense of their own feebleness.  They will be constitutionally and legally entitled to the support of the British army; they will constitute the worst form of government of which the world has had experience, a government which relying for its existence on the aid of an external power finds in its very feebleness support for tyranny.  Murmurs are already heard of armed resistance.  These mutterings, we are told, are nothing but bluster.  It is at any rate that sort of “bluster” at which the justice and humanity of a loyal Englishman must take alarm.  I have not yet learnt to look without horror on the possibility of civil war, nor to picture to myself without emotion the situation of brave men compelled by the British army to obey rulers whose moral claim to allegiance they justly deny and whose power unaided by British arms they contemn.  Civil warfare created by English policy and despotism maintained by English arms must surely be to any Englishman objects of equal abhorrence.