interests between its parts. States so unlike one another as Maine and
Louisiana and California cannot be held together by the stiff bonds of a
centralizing government. The durableness of the federal union lies in
its flexibility, and it is this flexibility which makes it the only kind
of government, according to modern ideas, that is permanently applicable
to a whole continent. If ¸the United States were to-day a consolidated
republic like France, recent events in California might have disturbed
the peace of the country. But in the federal union, if California, as a
state sovereign within its own sphere, adopts a grotesque constitution
that aims at infringing on the rights of capitalists, the other states
are not directly affected. They may disapprove, but they have neither
the right nor the desire to interfere. Meanwhile the laws of nature
quietly operate to repair the blunder. Capital flows away from
California, and the business of the state is damaged, until presently
the ignorant demagogues lose favour, the silly constitution becomes a
dead-letter, and its formal repeal begins to be talked of. Not the
smallest ripple of excitement disturbs the profound peace of the country
at large. It is in this complete independence that is preserved by every
state, in all matters save those in which the federal principle itself
is concerned, that we find the surest guaranty of the permanence of the
American political system. Obviously no race of men, save the race to
which habits of self-government and the skilful use of political
representation had come to be as second nature, could ever have
succeeded in founding such a system.


Yet even by men of English race, working with out let or hindrance from
any foreign source, and with the better part of a continent at their
disposal for a field to work in, so great a political problem as that of
the American Union has not been solved without much toil and trouble.