At Parliament's Government of Ireland Bill Committee meeting of 18 June 1912, Robert McMordie argued against the third Home Rule Bill. McMordie, Lord Mayor of Belfast and Unionist Member of Parliament for East Belfast, declared that Ulster's unionists would not accept Home Rule on any terms, implying they were seriously considering militant opposition if the bill passed. McMordie asserted Home Rule would sweep away available capital, thereby destroying the linen and shipbuilding industries in Ulster. He also predicted a large number of Ulster Protestants, faced with the conditions of Home Rule, would immigrate to the United States:

McMordie's argument was that links forged with the United States over two and a half centuries of migration from Ulster would continue to play important roles in Ireland's future. McMordie emphasized threats of renewed American migration, which would drain Ireland of the Ulstermen whom he saw as the nation's most industrious, economically successful citizens. They would settle in the United States, a country which, with the help of Ulster emigrants, rivalled Britain as a world power in the years before the First World War. They would aid America in increasing its economic, technological, and military might. Moreover, Ulster emigrants in America provided an important precedent for the actions of Ulster unionists: Ulster emigrants had successfully defied the British during the American Revolution, and Ulstermen in Ireland would defy the British and Irish nationalists who attempted to force Home Rule upon them.

McMordie's speech used the United States as a symbol to justify unionist actions and implicitly threaten the British. America was intertwined with his basic arguments against Home Rule such as the dangers presented by self-government to Ulster's economy. Moreover, McMordie's rhetorical use of America represented only a single aspect of the multifaceted Ulster unionist approaches and attitudes toward the United States. During the Home Rule period from 1880 to 1920, Ulster unionists employed a complex combination of political thought, rhetoric, and action involving the United States.