existence within one government, which ought to be able to speak and act in the name and with the united strength of the nation, of distinct centres of force, organized political bodies into which part of the nation's strength has flowed, and whose resistance to the will of the majority of the whole nation is likely to be more effective than could be the resistance of individuals, because such bodies have each of them a government, a revenue, a militia, a local patriotism to unite them, whereas individual recalcitrants, however numerous, would be unorganized, and less likely to find a legal standing ground for opposition. The gravity of the first two of the four alleged faults has been exaggerated by most writers, who have assumed on rather scanty grounds that Federal governments are necessarily weak governments. History does not warrant so broad a proposition. Assuming, however, for the sake of argument, that troubles may be expected to flow from these four features of a Federal system, let us see how far America has experienced such

troubles.

I. In its early years, the Union was not successful in the management of its foreign relations. Few popular governments are, because a successful foreign policy needs in a world such as ours conditions which popular governments seldom enjoy. Some of the faults which marked American policy may however be set down to the Federal character of the government. In the days of Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, the Union put up with a great deal of ill-treatment from France as well as from England. It drifted rather than steered into the war of 1812. The conduct of that war was hampered by the opposition of the New England States. The Mexican war of 1846 was due to the slaveholders; but the combination among the Southern leaders which entrapped the nation into that conflict might have been equally successful in a unified country. Of late years the principle of abstention from Old World complications has been so heartily and consistently adhered to that the capacities of the Federal system for the conduct of foreign affairs have been little tried; and the likelihood of any danger from abroad is so slender that it may be practically ignored. But when a question of external policy arises which interests only one part of the Union, the existence of States feeling themselves specially affected may have a strong and probably an unfortunate influence. It is only in this way that the American government

can be deemed likely to suffer in its foreign relations from its Federal character.

II. For the purposes of domestic government the Federal authority is now, in ordinary times, sufficiently strong. However, as was remarked in last chapter, there have been occasions when the resistance of even a single State disclosed its weakness. Had a man less vigorous than Jackson occupied the presidential chair in 1832, South Carolina would probably have prevailed against the Union. In the Kansas troubles of 1855-56 the national executive played a sorry part; and even in the resolute hands of President Grant it was hampered in the re-establishment of order in the reconquered southern States by the rights which the Federal Constitution secured to those States. The only general conclusion on this point which can be drawn from history is that while the central government is likely to find less and less difficulty in enforcing its will against a State or disobedient subjects, because the prestige of its success in the Civil War has strengthened it, because the Union sentiment is still growing, and because the facilities of communication make the raising and moving of troops more easy, nevertheless recalcitrant States, or groups of States, still enjoy certain advantages for resistance, advantages due partly to their legal position, partly to their local sentiment, which rebels might not have in unified countries like England, France, or Italy.

III. Everybody knows that it was the Federal system and the doctrine of State sovereignty grounded thereon, and not expressly excluded, though certainly not recognized, by the Constitution, which led to the secession of 1861, and which gave European powers a plausible ground for recognizing the insurgent minority as belligerents. Nothing seems now less probable than another secession, not merely because the supposed legal basis for it has been abandoned, and because the advantages of continued union are more obvious than ever before, but because the precedent of the victory won by the North will discourage like attempts in the future.1 This is so strongly felt that it has not even been thought worth while to add to the Constitution an amendment negativing the right to secede.

1 The Roman Catholic cantons of Switzerland (or rather the majority of them) formed a separate league (the so-called Sonderbund) which it needed the war of 1846 to put down. And the effect of that war was, as in the parallel case of America, to tighten the Federal bond for the future.

The doctrine of the legal indestructibility of the Union is now well established. To establish it, however, cost thousands of millions of dollars and the lives of a million of men.

IV. The combination of States into groups was a familiar feature of politics before the war. South Carolina and the Gulf States constituted one such, and the most energetic, group; the New England States frequently acted as another, especially during the war of 1812. At present, though there are several sets of States whose common interests lead their representatives in Congress to act together, it is no longer the fashion for States to combine in an official way through their State organizations, and their doing so would excite reprehension. It is easier, safer, and more effective to act through the great national parties. Any considerable State interest (such as that of the silver-miners or cattle-men, or Protectionist manufacturers) can generally compel a party to conciliate it by threatening to forsake the party if neglected. Political action runs less in State channels than it did formerly, and the only really threatening form which the combined action of States could take, that of using for a common disloyal purpose State revenues and the machinery of State governments, has become, since the failure of secession, most improbable.

V. The want of uniformity in private law and methods of administration is an evil which different minds will judge by different standards. Some may think it a positive benefit to secure a variety which is interesting in itself and makes possible the trying of experiments from which the whole country may profit. Is variety within a country more a gain or a loss ? Diversity in coinage, in weights and measures, in the rules regarding bills and cheques and banking and commerce generally, is obviously inconvenient. Diversity in dress, in food, in the habits and usages of society, is almost as obviously a thing to rejoice over, because it diminishes the terrible monotony of life. Diversity in religious opinion and worship excited horror in the Middle Ages, but now passes unnoticed unless where accompanied by intolerance. In the United States the possible diversity of laws is immense. Each State can play whatever tricks it pleases with the law of family relations, of inheritance, of contracts, of torts, of crimes. But the actual diversity is not great, for all the States, save Louisiana, have taken the English common and 1 Subject to a few prohibitions contained in the Constitution. VOL. I

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statute law of 1776 as their point of departure, and have adhered to its main principles. A more complete uniformity as regards marriage and divorce might be desirable, for it is particularly awkward not to know whether you are married or not, nor whether you have been or can be divorced or not; and several States have tried bold experiments in divorce laws. But, on the whole, far less inconvenience than could have been expected seems to be caused by the varying laws of different States, partly because commercial law is the department in which the diversity is smallest, partly because American practitioners and judges have become expert in applying the rules for determining which law, where those of different States are in question, ought to be deemed to govern a given case.2

VI. He who is conducted over an iron-clad warship, and sees the infinite intricacy of the machinery and mechanical appliances which it contains and by which its engines, its guns, its turrets, its torpedoes, its apparatus for anchoring and making sail, are worked, is apt to think that it must break down in the rough practice of war. He is told, however, that the more is done by machinery, the more safely and easily does everything go on, because the machinery can be relied on to work accurately, and the performance by it of the heavier work leaves the crew free to attend to the general management of the vessel and her armament. So in studying the elaborate devices with which the Federal system of the United States has been equipped, one fancies that with so many authorities and bodies whose functions are intricately interlaced, and some of which may collide with others, there must be a great risk of break-downs and deadlocks, not to speak of an expense much exceeding that which is incident

1 Judge Cooley, however, observes to me that there is little substantial diversity in the laws of marriage in different States, the general rule everywhere being that no special ceremony is requisite, and the statutory forms not being deemed imperative. He adds that even as regards divorce far more trouble arises from frauds practised on the laws than from divergent provisions in the laws themselves. It may be observed that although the law of Scotland still differs in many material points from that of England and Ireland, having had a wholly different origin, British subjects and courts do not find the practical inconveniences arising from the diversities to be serious except as respects marriage and the succession to property. The mercantile law of the two

countries tends to become practically the same.

2 American jurists, and especially Mr. Justice Story, have done much to elucidate this difficult branch of law, to which the name of Private International Law is usually (though not very happily) applied.

to a simple centralized government. The Americans do not seem to feel this. They tell you that smoothness of working is secured by elaboration of device, that complex as the mechanism of their government may appear, the citizens have grown so familiar with it that its play is smooth and easy, attended with less trouble, and certainly with less suspicion on the part of the people, than would belong to a scheme which vested all powers in one administration and one legislature. The expense is admitted, but is considered no grave defect when compared with the waste which arises from untrustworthy officials and legislators whose depredations would, it is thought, be greater were their sphere of action wider, and the checks upon them fewer. He who examines a system of government from without is generally disposed to overrate the difficulties in working which its complexity causes. Few things, for instance, are harder than to explain to a person who has not been a student in one of the two ancient English universities the nature of their highly complex constitution and the relation of the colleges to the university. If he does apprehend it he pronounces it too intricate for the purposes it has to serve. To those who have grown up under it, nothing is simpler and more obvious.

There is a blemish characteristic of the American federation which Americans seldom notice because it seems to them unavoidable. This is the practice in selecting candidates for Federal office of regarding not so much the merits of the candidate as the effect which his nomination will have upon the vote of the State to which he belongs. Second-rate men are run for firstrate posts, not because the party which runs them overrates their capacity, but because it expects to carry their State either by their local influence or through the pleasure which the State feels in the prospect of seeing one of its own citizens in high office. This of course works in favour of the politicians who come from a large State. No doubt the leading men of a large State are prima facie more likely to be men of high ability than those of a small State, because the field of choice is wider, the competition probably keener. One is reminded of the story of the leading citizen in the isle of Seriphus who observed to Themistocles, "You would not have been famous had you been born in Seriphus," to which Themistocles replied, "Neither would you had you been born in Athens." The two great States of Virginia and Massachusetts reared one half of the men who won dis