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The
Document The Presbyterians, with their tradition of sturdy independence, the very backbone of Ulster Unionism, were well acquainted with the concept of the solemn covenant in the religious history of Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The concept came from that tradition but the content of the Ulster Covenant owed much to more recent events. Embedded in its phrases were the democratic ideas of Lord Randolph Churchill who, in 1886, declared that "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right" and of the Marquess of Salisbury, that Titan among Tory Prime Ministers, who proclaimed that "Parliament has a right to govern the people of Ulster, it has not a right to sell them into slavery." The Covenant text was the inspired creation of one man, Thomas Sinclair, a wealthy Belfast merchant, a convinced Presbyterian, a son of the twin traditions of the British Whigs and the American Revolution with their emphasis on human rights and ultimate freedom of action. Sinclair, a modest figure, has long been forgotten, but it was his finely constructed phrases which, in 1912, articulated eternal essential freedoms and thus gave him some claim to be modern Lister's Thomas Jefferson. No one can read Sinclair's text, the text of Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant, without being struck by its masterly construction: concise in its wording; comprehensive in its scope; reasonable in its tone, yet conveying a sense of cool determination. It was a document which, given its content and tone, could be signed by a wide range of people with a clear conscience.
It was central to the whole purpose of the Covenant that it should be regarded as binding by every individual who signed it. The Unionist leaders, calling on the people to prepare themselves for possibly unparalleled sacrifices, ensured that they knew what they were defending and to what they committed themselves. Before signing every person was given the opportunity to read the prominently- placed placards bearing the Covenant text which decorated all the signing centres.
The Ulster Day Committee dispatched to every local committee supplies of the blank Covenant sheets. Each sheet carried the full text of the Covenant -- already prominently displayed in the signing centre -- and allowed 10 men to sign and give their addresses.
Local committees were supplied by the Ulster Day Committee with quantities of the parallel women's Declaration, a document which allowed the women "to associate with the men of Ulster in their uncompromising opposition to the Home Rule Bill now before Parliament" Each sheet could take 10 names and addresses. The 218,206 men who signed the Covenant in Ulster were offered a souvenir of their commitment, a copy on parchment paper of the famous text. In many Ulster homes these souvenirs occupied pride of place and very many have survived. Today they should again be shown with pride as a lasting memorial to the tens of thousands of Ulstermen who faced a great crisis with great determination. This souvenir parchment was given to Joseph Carson of Maralin, Co. Down.
The 228,991 women who signed the parallel Declaration in Ulster were offered their own souvenir, a copy on parchment paper of the Declaration text. Asked to make no less a sacrifice than their men folk and motivated by the same ideals, these brave women should be remembered today no less than the men with whom they associated themselves.
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