rights and liberties of the nation; every subdivision forming a
stronghold of resistance by the people against unjust or wicked
rulers. Take notice that any system of government is excellent in
the precise degree in which it naturally trains the people in
political independence, and habituates them to take an active part
in governing themselves. Whatever plan of government does this is
good--no matter what it may be called; and that which avoids this
is necessarily bad.

What Mr. Nordhoff thus set forth has been universally acknowledged as
the cardinal merit of local self-government; and in addition to this
cardinal merit it has been recognized by all competent students of our
history that our system of self-governing States has proved itself of
inestimable benefit in another way. It has rendered possible the
trying of important experiments in social and governmental policy;
experiments which it would have been sometimes dangerous, and still
more frequently politically impossible, to inaugurate on a national
scale. When these experiments have proved successful, State after
State has followed the example set by one or a few among their number;
when they have been disappointing in their results, the rest of the
Union has profited by the warning. But, highly important as is this
aspect of State independence, the most essential benefits of it are
the training in self-government which is emphasized in the above
quotation from Mr. Nordhoff, and the adaptation of laws to the
particular needs and the particular character of the people of the
various States. That modern conditions have inevitably led to a vast
enlargement of the powers of the central government, no thinking
person can deny. It would be folly to attempt to stick to the exact
division of State functions as against national which was natural when
the Union was first formed. The railroad, the telegraph, and the