of American government, that our Federal Constitution can be more
concisely described, and (I believe) more quickly understood, than if
we had made it the subject of the first chapter instead of the last.
In conclusion, there have been added a few brief hints and suggestions
with reference to our political history. These remarks have been
intentionally limited. It is no part of the purpose of this book
to give an account of the doings of political parties under the
Constitution. But its study may fitly be supplemented by that of
Professor Alexander Johnston's "History of American Politics."

This arrangement not only proceeds from the simpler forms of
government to the more complex, but it follows the historical order of
development. From time immemorial, and down into the lowest strata
of savagery that have come within our ken, there have been clans and
tribes; and, as is here shown, a township was originally a stationary
clan, and a county was originally a stationary tribe. There were
townships and counties (or equivalent forms of organization) before
there were cities. In like manner there were townships, counties, and
cities long before there was anything in the world that could properly
be called a state. I have remarked below upon the way in which English
shires coalesced into little states, and in course of time the English
nation was formed by the union of such little states, which lost their
statehood (_i.e._, their functions of sovereignty, though not
their self-government within certain limits) in the process. Finally,
in America, we see an enormous nationality formed by the federation
of states which partially retain their statehood; and some of these
states are themselves of national dimensions, as, for example, New
York, which is nearly equal in area, quite equal in population, and
far superior in wealth, to Shakespeare's England.