These two sovereign bodies in negotiating the Treaty of Union acted with scrupulous, and on the Scotch side with punctilious, independence. Neither sovereign body would consent to be absorbed in the other. What they did agree to was to constitute a new State, namely, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and each to surrender their separate sovereignty in favour of a new sovereign, namely, the sovereign Parliament of the United Kingdom. The English Parliament no more became supreme in Scotland than the Scotch Parliament became supreme in England. The old Parliament of each country abdicated and lost its identity in the New Parliament of Great Britain. In theory the Treaty of Union between Great Britain and Ireland bore exactly the same character as the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland. But on this point I do not care strongly to insist, because at the present moment every part of Irish history excites controversy. When, however, the excitement of the day has passed by, no one will dispute that 22 Geo. III. c. 53 and 23 Geo. III. c. 28 constituted the renunciation by the British Parliament of sovereignty over Ireland. The difference between the limitation of sovereignty and the surrender of sovereignty has been pressed far enough for my present purpose; no principle of jurisprudence is more certain than that sovereignty implies the power of abdication, and no fact of history is more certain than that a sovereign Parliament has more than once abdicated or shared its powers. To argue or imply that because sovereignty is not limitable (which is true), it cannot be surrendered (which is palpably untrue) is to confuse together two distinct ideas, and is like arguing that because no man can while he lives give up, do what he will, his freedom of volition, therefore no man can commit suicide. The Parliament of the United Kingdom, further, whilst because it is a sovereign body it cannot impose any legal limit to the exercise of its own power, may so express an intention to use or not to use its power in a particular way as to excite expectations which it will be extremely difficult or hazardous to disappoint, and so may find itself morally fettered as to its subsequent legislative action.