AMERICAN HOME RULE

BY E.L. GODKIN


American experience has been frequently cited, in the course of the
controversy now raging in England over the Irish question, both by way
of warning and of example. For instance, I have found in the _Times_ as
well as in other journals--the _Spectator_, I think, among the
number--very contemptuous dismissals of the plan of offering Ireland a
government like that of an American State, on the ground that the
Americans are loyal to the central authority, while in Ireland there is
a strong feeling of hostility to it, which would probably increase under
Home Rule. The Queen's writ, it has been remarked, cannot be said to run
in large parts of Ireland, while in every part of the United States the
Federal writ is implicitly obeyed, and the ministers of Federal
authority find ready aid and sympathy from the people. If I remember
rightly, the Duke of Argyll has been very emphatic in pointing out the
difference between giving local self-government to a community in which
the tendencies of popular feeling are "centrifugal," and giving it to
one in which these tendencies are "centripetal." The inference to be
drawn was, of course, that as long as Ireland disliked the Imperial
government the concession of Home Rule would be unsafe, and would only
become safe when the Irish people showed somewhat the same sort of
affection for the English connection which the people of the State of
New York now feel for the Constitution of the United States.

Among the multitude of those who have taken part in the controversy on
one side or the other, no one has, so far as I have observed, pointed
out that the state of feeling in America toward the central government
with which the state of feeling in Ireland towards the British
Government is now compared, did not exist when the American Constitution
was set up; that the political tendencies in America at that time were
centrifugal, not centripetal, and that the extraordinary love and
admiration with which Americans now regard the Federal government are
the result of eighty years' experience of its working. The first
Confederation was as much as the people could bear in the way of
surrendering local powers when the War of Independence came to an end.
It was its hopeless failure to provide peace and security which led to
the framing of the present Constitution. But even with this experience
still fresh, the adoption of the Constitution was no easy matter. I
shall not burden this article with historical citations showing the very
great difficulty which the framers of the Constitution had in inducing
the various States to adopt it, or the magnitude and variety of the
fears and suspicions with which, many of the most influential men in all
parts of the country regarded it. Any one who wishes to know how
numerous and diversified these fears and suspicions were, cannot do
better than read the series of papers known as "The Federalist," written
mainly by Hamilton and Madison, to commend the new plan to the various
States. It was adopted almost as a matter of necessity, that is, as the
only way out of the Slough of Despond in which the Confederation had
plunged the union of the States; but the objections to it which were
felt at the beginning were only removed by actual trial. Hamilton's two
colleagues, as delegates from New York, Yates and Lansing, withdrew in
disgust from the Convention, as soon as the Constitution was outlined,
and did not return. The notion that the Constitution was produced by the
craving of the American people for something of that sort to love and
revere, and that it was not bestowed on them until they had given ample
assurance that they would lavish affection on it, has no foundation
whatever in fact. The devotion of Americans to the Union is, indeed, as
clear a case of cause and effect as is to be found in political history.
They have learned to like the Constitution because the country has
prospered under it, and because it has given them all the benefits of
national life without interference with local liberties. If they had not
set up a central government until the centrifugal sentiment had
disappeared from the States, and the feeling of loyalty for a central
authority had fully shown itself, they would assuredly never have set it
up at all.

Moreover, it has to be borne in mind that the adoption of the
Constitution did not involve the surrender of any local franchises, by
which the people of the various States set great store. The States
preserved fully four-fifths of their autonomy, or in fact nearly all of
it which closely concerned the daily lives of individuals. Set aside the
post-office, and a citizen of the State of New York, not engaged in
foreign trade, might, down to the outbreak of the Civil War, have passed
a long and busy life without once coming in contact with a United States
official, and without being made aware in any of his doings, by any
restriction or regulation, that he was living under any government but
that of his own State. If he went abroad he had to apply for a United
States passport. If he quarrelled with a foreigner, or with the citizen
of another State, he might be sued in the Federal Court. If he imported
foreign goods he had to pay duties to the collector of a Federal
Custom-house. If he invented something, or wrote a book, he had to
apply to the Department of the Interior for a patent or a copyright. But
how few there were in the first seventy years of American history who
had any of these experiences! No one supposes, or has ever supposed,
that had the Federalists demanded any very large sacrifice of local
franchises, or attempted to set up even a close approach to a
centralized Government, the adoption of the Constitution would have been
possible. If, for instance, such a transfer of both administration and
legislation to the central authority as took place in Ireland after the
Union had been proposed, it would have been rejected with derision. You
will get no American to argue with you on this point. If you ask him
whether he thinks it likely that a highly centralized government could
have been created in 1879--such a one, for example, as Ireland has been
under since 1800--or whether if created it would by this time have won
the affection of the people, or filled them with centripetal tendencies,
he will answer you with a smile.

The truth is that nowhere, any more than in Ireland, do people love
their Government from a sense of duty or because they crave an object of
political affection, or even because it exalts them in the eyes of
foreigners. They love it because they are happy or prosperous under it;
because it supplies security in the form best suited to their tastes and
habits, or in some manner ministers to their self-love. Loyalty to the
king as the Lord's anointed, without any sense either of favours
received or expected, has played a great part in European politics, I
admit; but, for reasons which I will not here take up space in stating,
a political arrangement, whether it be an elected monarch or a
constitution, cannot be made, in our day, to reign in men's hearts
except as the result of benefits so palpable that common people, as well
as political philosophers, can see them and count them.

Many of the opponents of Home Rule, too, point to the vigour with which
the United States Government put down the attempt made by the South to
break up the Union as an example of the American love of "imperial
unity," and of the spirit in which England should now meet the Irish
demands for local autonomy. This again is rather surprising, because you
will find no one in America who will maintain for one moment that troops
could have been raised in 1860 to undertake the conquest of the South
for the purpose of setting up a centralized administration, or, in other
words, for the purpose of wiping out State lines, or diminishing State
authority. No man or party proposed anything of this kind at the
outbreak of the war, or would have dared to propose it. The object for
which the North rose in arms, and which Lincoln had in view when he
called for troops, was the restoration of the Union just as it was when
South Carolina seceded, barring the extension of slavery into the
territories. During the first year of the war, certainly, the revolted
States might at any time have had peace on the _status quo_ basis, that
is, without the smallest diminution of their rights and immunities under
the Constitution. It was only when it became evident that the war would
have to be fought out to a finish, as the pugilists say--that is, that
it would have to end in a complete conquest of the Southern
territory--that the question, what would become of the States as a
political organization after the struggle was over, began to be debated
at all. What did become of them? How did Americans deal with Home Rule,
after it had been used to set on foot against the central authority what
the newspapers used to delight in calling "the greatest rebellion the
world ever saw"? The answer to these questions is, it seems to me, a
contribution of some value to the discussion of the Irish problem in its
present stage, if American precedents can throw any light whatever on
it.

There was a Joint Committee of both Houses of Congress appointed in
1866 to consider the condition of the South with reference to the safety
or expediency of admitting the States lately in rebellion to their old
relations to the Union, including representation in Congress. It
contained, besides such fanatical enemies of the South as Thaddeus
Stevens, such very conservative men as Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Grimes, Mr.
Morrill, and Mr. Conkling. Here is the account they gave of the
condition of Southern feeling one year after Lee's surrender:--

"Examining the evidence taken by your committee still further, in
connection with facts too notorious to be disputed, it appears that the
Southern press, with few exceptions, and those mostly of newspapers
recently established by Northern men, abounds with weekly and daily
abuse of the institutions and people of the loyal States; defends the
men who led, and the principles which incited, the rebellion; denounces
and reviles Southern men who adhered to the Union; and strives
constantly and unscrupulously, by every means in its power, to keep
alive the fire of hate and discord between the sections; calling upon
the President to violate his oath of office, overturn the Government by
force of arms, and drive the representatives of the people from their
seats in Congress. The national banner is openly insulted, and the
national airs scoffed at, not only by an ignorant populace, but at
public meetings, and once, among other notable instances, at a dinner
given in honour of a notorious rebel who had violated his oath and
abandoned his flag. The same individual is elected to an important
office in the leading city of his State, although an unpardoned rebel,
and so offensive that the President refuses to allow him to enter upon
his official duties. In another State the leading general of the rebel
armies is openly nominated for Governor by the Speaker of the House of
Delegates, and the nomination is hailed by the people with shouts of
satisfaction, and openly endorsed by the press....

"The evidence of an intense hostility to the Federal Union, and an
equally intense love of the late Confederacy, nurtured by the war is
decisive. While it appears that nearly all are willing to submit, at
least for the time being, to the Federal authority, it is equally clear
that the ruling motive is a desire to obtain the advantages which will
be derived from a representation in Congress. Officers of the Union army
on duty, and Northern men who go south to engage in business, are
generally detested and proscribed. Southern men who adhered to the Union
are bitterly hated and relentlessly persecuted. In some localities
prosecutions have been instituted in State courts against Union officers
for acts done in the line of official duty, and similar prosecutions are
threatened elsewhere as soon as the United States troops are removed.
All such demonstrations show a state of feeling against which it is
unmistakably necessary to guard.

"The testimony is conclusive that after the collapse of the Confederacy
the feeling of the people of the rebellious States was that of abject
submission. Having appealed to the tribunal of arms, they had no hope
except that by the magnanimity of their conquerors, their lives, and
possibly their property, might be preserved. Unfortunately the general
issue of pardons to persons who had been prominent in the rebellion, and
the feeling of kindliness and conciliation manifested by the Executive,
and very generally indicated through the Northern press, had the effect
to render whole communities forgetful of the crime they had committed,
defiant towards the Federal Government, and regardless of their duties
as citizens. The conciliatory measures of the Government do not seem