lish a miniature copy of
English Parliamentary institutions. But in each case a faith which is
natural will also be pronounced by any candid judge to be unfounded.
Federalism has in its very essence, and even as it exists in America, at
least two special faults. It distracts the allegiance of citizens, and
what is even more to the present point, it does not provide sufficient
protection for the legal rights of unpopular minorities. There is not,
and never was, a word in the Articles of the Constitution forbidding
American citizens to criticise the institutions of the State. An
American Abolitionist had as much right to denounce slavery at Boston,
or for that matter at Charlestown, as an English Abolitionist had to
denounce slavery in London or Liverpool. It were ridiculous to maintain
that the right was one which either Lloyd Garrison or his disciples were
able to exercise. Mr. Godkin[40] has repeated with perfect fairness the
tale of the persecutions suffered by Prudence Crandall in Connecticut
because she chose in exercise of her legal and moral rights to educate
young women of colour. Mr. Godkin apparently draws, as I have already
pointed out, from the fact an inference--which I confess myself not well
able to follow--against all attempts to enforce an unpopular law. The
more natural conclusion is that the Federal Government was not able to
protect the rights of individuals against strong local sentiment. This
moral at any rate has an obvious application to any scheme of Federalism
for Ireland.

The experience of Canada, again, is adduced to prove that a Federal
constitution is compatible with loyalty to the British Crown. Why should
an arrangement which produces peace, prosperity, and loyalty across the
Atlantic not be applied to Ireland?

The answer is, that the case of Canada is as regards Federalism
irrelevant. Canada is not part of a British Federation. The Dominion as
a whole is simply a colony, standing essentially in the same relation to
England as Victoria or New South Wales. The laws of the Parliament that
meets at Ottawa need the Royal sanction, or, in other words, may be
vetoed, or rather not approved, by the English Ministry of the day. The
Act itself on which the existence of the Canadian constitution depends
is an Act of the British Parliament, and cannot be modified by any other
authority. The British Parliament is supreme in Canada as throughout the
British dominions; and Canada sends no representat