Home Rule

Home Rule, in the United States, a system of state and municipal relations that enables the people of a city to create a charter for their own government. Prior to home rule, all city charters were legislative charters, that is, enactments by state legislatures in the form of special charters for individual cities or of a general charter for all or a group of cities. Problems created by legislative charters were the perception of state legislative interference in city affairs, a rigidity in municipal governmental systems, and a general inability on the part of legislatures dominated by rural elements to understand the needs of cities. Home rule charters were first authorized in the Missouri constitution of 1875. Similar action has since been taken in more than four-fifths of the states.

In British and Irish history, home rule was the slogan of the movement for Irish self-government in domestic affairs (see Irish Home Rule). The movement was founded by Isaac Butt in the early 1870s, but its major leader in Parliament was Charles Stewart Parnell, an Irish nationalist who won the support of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone tried unsuccessfully to pass home rule measures in 1886 and 1893. Home rule was finally made into law by Parliament in 1914 but not implemented until after World War I (1914-1918). By that time it had become superseded by the demand for Irish independence.