As citizens of the United Kingdom, he held, they were more honourably situated than they could be as citizens of an Irish State within the Empire.

This was an attitude of mind which Ulster could endorse, although it did not fully represent Ulster's conviction: but this was the case which Sir Edward Carson always made on behalf of Ulster, and he made it as an Irishman whose personal interests and connections lay in the South of Ireland, not in the North.

His argument was the more persuasive because it was based on a view of Ireland's true interest--not of Ulster's only; and it was the harder on that account for Redmond to repel peremptorily.

More than this, between him and Redmond there was an old personal tie.

The Irish Bar is a true centre of intercourse between men of varying political and religious beliefs, and as junior barristers Edward Carson and John Redmond went the Munster circuit together.
All this lay behind the appeal which on February 11, 1914, was implied rather than expressed in the novel phrase and still more unaccustomed tone of a consummate orator.
"Believe me," Sir Edward Carson said, "whatever way you settle the Irish question" (and that phrase threw over the cry of "No Home Rule"), "there are only two ways to deal with Ulster.