Excerpt from The Constitutional and Parliamentary History of Ireland Till the Union<br><br>Irish Parliamentary and Constitutional history, speaking, as a political leader, not as an historical student. His statement, however, deals with facts and not with theories, and his description of the history,constitution, and powers of the Irish Parliament, in his speech at the Home Rule Conference in 1 873 is in remarkable accord with his description of the history, constitution, and powers of that Parliament, when speaking, not as an advocate of the restoration of Parliamentary institutions in Ireland, but as the leading Opponent of Mr. O'connell, in 1843, in the debate on Repeal of the Union in the Corporation of Dublin. I examined both speeches very carefully, and directed Mr. Butt's attention to their absolute agree ment in exposition of the history of the Irish Parliaments, which he acknowledged with gratification, stating that Mr. O'connell had said openly in the course of debate that Ireland would, in the future - Mr. Butt was then only in his thirtieth year - have in Mr. Butt a defender of Irish National rights, while he said to him in private that he would sooner or later be a great leader of the Irish Nation. Mr. Butt's outline of the history of the Irish Parliaments, which is unaffected by his political position in 1843 as an opponent of the Repeal of the Union, and in 1873 as an expounder of Home Rule, may be safely accepted as accurate and as an introduction to this work.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.