SELF-DETERMINATION • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Self-determination

... was as well entitled to be heard in regard to her own fate as the majority in Ireland as a whole. To the Nationalist claim that Ireland was a nation she replied that it was either two nations or none, and that if one of the two had a right to "self-determination," the other had it equally. Thus the axiom of democracy that government is by the majority was, as Maine said, "paralysed by the plea of nationality," since the contending parties appealed to the same principle without having any common ground as to ...

— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill