majority of which has a right to sovereignty. The majority of the
citizens of the United States were opposed to Secession, the majority of
the citizens of the Southern States were in favour of Secession; the
attempt to determine which side had right on its side by an appeal to
the "sovereignty of the majority" involved in this case, as it must in
every case, a _petitio principii_, for the very question at issue was
which of two majorities ought, as regarded the matter in hand, to be
considered the majority.

It would however be doing injustice to the argument from the will of the
people to dispose of it by dwelling upon the logical inconsistencies
inevitably involved in every attempt to determine a question of
practical politics by the application to it of _à priori_ dogmatism.
Formulas such as "the sovereignty of the people" often contain much
solid truth hidden under an inaccurate and a too absolute form of
expression. The assertion that the wish of the Irish people is decisive
as to the form of constitution to be maintained in Ireland covers two
genuine and in themselves rational convictions. The first is, that a
body of human beings who feel themselves, in consequence of their
inhabiting a common country, of their sharing a common history and the
like, inspired 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