ever, considerations for the future; and the future is only
for those who are worthy of it--and not always even for such. Already a
considerable change has been wrought; and that change is registered with
all its faults in the present draft Constitution. The nation that caused
the change is the same nation still, in spite of sad scattering of its
national strength. It is still an ancient nation: not a colony: never a
colony: deeply conscious of its historic heirlooms and prescriptive
dignities. Ireland is still a mother-country, fully resolved to employ her
empire of memory and love for the purposes which she and it judge worthy.
Her place and power in the Community will prove to be of no mean degree,
and of no small meaning for the nations outside that Community, as well
for the peoples and nations within it, if she rally her strength around
her and prove worthy of her destiny. When she shall have conferred a
Constitution upon herself, within the limits of her contractual obligation
in the Treaty, she will not have foresworn her heritage (unless she elect
to do so); she will not have diminished her strength (unless she choose to
dissipate it); but she will be able by a persistent purpose, of which she
has already given her pledges, to contribute in the future as she
contributed in the past, with a security that has not been allowed her for
many centuries, to the benefit of nations. And it is to this end I
dedicate this little book.

The Irish Constitution

I.

WHAT IS A CONSTITUTION?

During the early days of the second French Republic a customer entered a
bookseller's and asked: "Have you a copy of the French Constitution?" "We
do not," the bookseller politely replied, "deal in periodical literature."

Now, to any student of history such a story is a sure indication of the
time of which it is told. He need not inquire to know that the time was
one of revolution, change, and unsettlement. He also knows the mind of the
people of that time, for insecure conditions beget a nervous, restless
fear. And these things are significant. They reveal a quality of
constitution-making that is not always, or easily, remembered. For
whatever changes may proceed in legislation--however many and rapid they
be--as long as the Constitution, written or unwritten, remains intact, the
State at least is stable and its foundations are secure.

Plainly, therefore, nothing should be written into a Constitution that is
of a temporar