This statement exhibits both laxity of language and laxity of thought, but it gives a definition of the objects proposed to himself by a genuine Home Ruler which is sufficiently definite, for the ends of my argument. Home Rule is, for our present purpose, Federalism. We may therefore, assume that it involves the adoption throughout the present United Kingdom of a constitution in principle, though not in detail, like that of the United States. The United Kingdom would, if Mr. McCarthy's proposals were adopted, be transformed into a confederacy; the different States, say Great Britain and Ireland, or England, Scotland, and Ireland, would bear to the whole union the same relation which Virginia and New York bear to the United States; they would bear towards each other the same relation which Virginia bears to New York, or which they both bear towards Massachusetts. Such a constitution has, it must be at once admitted, no necessary connection with Republicanism. The King or Queen of England for the time being would occupy the position of a hereditary president; this arrangement would, as Mr. Butt seems to have perceived, increase rather than diminish the authority of the Crown. It must, on the other hand, be noted that Federalism necessarily involves the formation of a new constitution, not for Ireland only, but for the whole of the United Kingdom. It is necessary to insist upon this point. For half the fallacies of the arguments for Home Rule rest upon the idea that Home Rule is a matter affecting Ireland alone. 'Irish Federalism,' the title of a pamphlet by Mr. Butt, is a term involving something like self-contradiction. The misnomer is curious and full of instruction. Whoever wishes to understand the relation of Federalism to the English Constitution and to English interests must give some attention to the nature of a Federal Union. [Sidenote: Characteristics of Federalism.] A Federal constitution must, from its very nature, be marked by the following characteristics.