grant; so he was removed, and a successor was appointed who performed the functions required in legislation, but no more. It was made plain that the office itself would be abolished in due course. The Senate, in turn, frustrated Government policy and had to be removed, to make way ultimately for a chamber that could not interfere with the decisions of the democratic House. When the Abdication crisis came in December, 1936, the Government was required to deal with a situation unparalleled in our history. The abdication of Edward VIII was accepted some twenty-four hours after he had ceased to be King of England; a point which in itself marked the constitutional independence claimed by the Irish State. Instead of accepting George VI as successor, it was enacted that henceforward the Speaker of the Dáil should sign Bills and perform other functions hitherto the duty of the King’s representative, the Governor-General— with herewith disappeared from the system. A second Act provided for recognition of the British Monarch as head of the British Commonwealth through whom the State might act in its external relations. The first Act established the Republican principle; the second was an act of Association. Both were carried without opposition. The odium which the Simpson affair had brought the British Monarchy at that hour bade obstruction. Even Unionists were glad to see the crisis passed with dignity and without conflict.
If the Abdication crisis had not come from without, the new situation would have been sought in the enactment of the new Constitution. Before that important measure was introduced, therefore, this had been achieved: The Irish State was substantially a Republic, and it was associated with the British Commonwealth, not by common citizens/tip, but by an Act of its own legislature which could be repealed at any time. The Constitution made a clean sweep of circumstances which conflicted with this position. This noble charter, dedicated to the glory of God and the honour of Ireland framed on Christian and democratic principles which have won universal approval from decent persons, Irish and foreign, was threshed out in detail and then submitted to a plebiscite of as much of the nation as was free to vote. The people themselves enacted it, and thus crowned it with the Sovereign authority of the nation. By virtue of the plebiscite, the continuity with the Sovereign State of 1922 was established, and the flaw in the Free State’s title was avoided. No trace of foreign authority remains in the State thus constituted. By an enabling clause, the Act of Association was taken over as the principle by which we are freely associated with the British Commonwealth.
Thus, in six years of power, Eamon de Valera so conducted national affairs as to accomplish without effective resistance, and peacefully that which the Second Dáil strove for, and what Lloyd George threatened “immediate and terrible war” to prevent. Step by step he recovered all the ground lost since the Government of the Republic opened the negotiations of 1921. He brought the nation back to its Sovereignty.
IX.—WHERE WE STAND
Not yet, however, was the nation’s task completed. Two things remained to be achieved. The first was to secure from Britain a formal recognition of the fait accompli. Her forces still occupied the ports of the Twenty-Six Counties, and she had not signified in any way that she regarded the Treaty clause, giving her control of Irish waters in war time, as lapsed. We have seen that this recognition of the new State’s sovereignty was won from England in the late agreement. She formally declared that the clauses were now no longer of effect, and she undertook to evacuate the ports by the end of this year. So far as the Twenty-Six Counties stand, therefore, we have arrived without qualification at the full Republican objective.
The second task is still to be achieved. It is the bringing of the Six Counties into the Sovereign State in fact as well as in right. When this is done, a completely free Ireland will stand erect, in proud dignity. It will be 