hardly be looked for except as the result of mighty though quiet and
subtle influences operating for a long time from without. From what
direction, and in what manner, such an irresistible though perfectly
pacific pressure is likely to be exerted in the future, I shall
endeavour to show in my next lecture. At present we have to observe that
the experiment of federal union on a grand scale required as its
conditions, _first_, a vast extent of unoccupied country which could be
settled without much warfare by men of the same race and speech, and
_secondly_, on the part of the settlers, a rich inheritance of political
training such as is afforded by long ages of self-government. The
Atlantic coast of North America, easily accessible to Europe, yet remote
enough to be freed from the political complications of the old world,
furnished the first of these conditions: the history of the English
people through fifty generations furnished the second. It was through
English self-government, as I argued in my first lecture, that England
alone, among the great nations of Europe, was able to found durable and
self-supporting colonies. I have now to add that it was only England,
among all the great nations of Europe, that could send forth colonists
capable of dealing successfully with the difficult problem of forming
such a political aggregate as the United States have become. For
obviously the preservation of local self-government is essential to the
very idea of a federal union. Without the Town-Meeting, or its
equivalent in some form or other, the Federal Union would become _ipso
facto_ converted into a centralizing imperial government. Should
anything of this sort ever happen--should American towns ever come to be
ruled by prefects appointed at Washington, and should American States
ever become like the administrative departments of France, or even like
the counties of England at the present day--then the time will have come
when men may safely predict the break-up of the American political
system by reason of its overgrown dimensions and the diversity of