It is usurpation; by being consummated it does not become legitimate.

When its decrees are not resisted, it does not mean we accept them in principle--nor can we even pretend to accept them--but that the hour to resist has not yet come.

It is the strategy of war.
III We stand on the ground that the English Government in Ireland is founded in usurpation and as such deny its authority.

But if it be argued, assuming it as Ireland's case, that a usurped authority, gradually acquiesced in by the people, ultimately becomes the same as legitimate, the reply is still clear.

For ourselves we meet the assumption with a simple denial, appealing to Irish History for evidence that we never acquiesced in the English Usurpation.