conspiracy and rebellion the State is bound to break. There can be no fear of a religious war, and no footing for an ultramontane conspiracy, if the State will betimes enforce undivided allegiance as the basis of civil rights. But one more phantom seems to skirt our political horizon, under the fitful names of political centralization and Cæsarism. Of the strife between labor and capital I make no account as a special danger to American institutions. This is not a product of those institutions, but an importation from the Old World. It is not in America, as in Europe, political in its origin, nor socialistic or communistic in its aims. In America the working-man uses the machinery of politics, and especially uses the pliant and tricky politician, to gain his ends; for, in the United States, the working-man is a voter; but he is also a voter in France, in Germany, and, to a growing extent, in England. In America he does not, as in Europe, threaten the foundations of society he does not seek to change the form of government, but to use legislation more directly for what he conceives to be his own advantage. In the United States there are four checks upon socialism or communism that well-nigh neutralize its influence with the masses. The first check is in the facility with which any man can change his occupation, enter upon any thing for which he is competent, and so make his way onward and upward; and he who has taken his first step upward drops his levelling theories behind him.

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The second check is in the facility with which one can procure a piece of land, or a something that he may call his own; and he who has begun to acquire property no longer believes in the community of goods.

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The third check is in experience. "A burnt child dreads the fire." Now, the working-man has so often been used by the politician, and cheated by Unions, that he knows "their tricks and their manners,' and is shy of new-fangled theories for his relief. To-day he is

1 See Platform at end of the Lecture.

For a fuller discussion of the relations of the State to religion, see my Church and State in the United States. The laws recognize religion as under their protection, and tacitly assume the Christian religion to be that of the people as a whole; but they do not know a church as a confession, a communion, or a worship, but only as a corporation.

called upon to "vote himself a farm;" to-morrow, to vote that a day has but eight hours; next day, that the government shall "move the crops," or print money for him by the bushel. But he has seen so many of these bubbles burst, that he is chary of investments in soapsuds. Even the Grangers are finding out, that if they combine to raise wheat to an artificial price, and, in prospect of this fancy price, raise more wheat than the world can consume, the world will not buy, and they must drop their price below the old average to work the crop off their hands; and also that railways will not transport crops, unless paid for it; and, if railroads do not pay their owners, no more will be built. Thus one fallacy after another is set aside by the sure working of the laws of trade, just as the tide effaces castles and cities that children draw upon the sand. True, the element of humbug in human nature is something incalculable; and we must make large allowance for this in our estimate of a free State in which men can set up their humbugs ad libitum. It is with political speculation in America much as with what is called philosophical speculation in some other countries. Every new professor of the art has a patent system for a universe of his own, built of the fragments of his predecessors, or evolved from the depths of his inner consciousness. Sometimes he amazes the crowd as he lifts himself in his balloon so far above their vision, till they discover he is not in the clouds, but only in a fog; then a healthy breeze sweeps by, and both fog and philosophy are gone. It is this healthy breeze of common sense, springing from a free press and free discussion, that disperses popular illusions in the United States before they have poisoned the air with epidemic disease.

And hence the fourth check upon false theories of society and life in the United States is "the sober second thought of the people," their average good sense. A fisherman with whom I was accustomed to deal in New York used often to argue with me, that no man had a right to amass property above his neighbors, but all were entitled to an equal share, for which government should make a paternal provision. One day I purposely said, "This fish is not fresh."-"I assure you," he replied with

warmth, "it is fresh. I was up at three o'clock this morning, and ahead of everybody else at the fishing-smacks : so I had the best pick, and I know there is not another such lot of fish in New York.". "Then certainly I shall not buy of you; for I should make myself an enemy of society. You had no right to get ahead of other fishmen, and to have a better lot at a higher price than theirs. You should at once send them some of yours, or government should compel you to share your profits with your neighbors." The hearty laugh with which he said, "You have me there," exploded his communism; and I never heard of it again. Depend upon it, all such humbugs in the United States will be talked down, argued down, and finally laughed down.

There is one spectre that of late has swayed before us like the fog-giant of the Alps,-Cæsarism. Yet I mention this only out of respect to Mr. Sumner, who coined the term, and rang changes on it to his dying-day. Political centralization and imperial usurpation are impossible in the United States, if the people are simply true to the practice of local self-government. We have so many local centres of government, - town, city, county, state, - that no man nor party can rule the country by orders from Washington, nor by official machinery worked from Washington as its centre. Congress has none of the omnipo-. tence of the British Parliament over local affairs, the President none of the power of the central government at Versailles over municipal and communal appointments; and, outside the specific list of United-States officials, there is no way of getting at these local officers and administrations from Washington so as to usurp the appointment or control of them.

The military organization of the country gives no facilities for centralization or usurpation. The standing army is too small to overawe a single section of the country, if that section is resolutely organized for resistance; and it cannot be increased, except by vote of the people through their representatives. The army is not concentrated in Washington: the general holds his office for life, quite independent of the President. No man can perpetuate himself in office. He may deem himself necessary to the

government; but the people have only to vote another into his place, and the machinery and materials for usurpation are utterly wanting. Fears of Cæsarism and centralization are phantoms. One marvels that a statesman should be swayed by such morbid fancies, and scare the country with such crude alarms. The President can indeed manipulate the civil service to personal ends and to the public detriment; but this abuse is at most shortlived in the hands of any one person, and the remedy lies in establishing the civil service upon the permanent basis of competence and good behavior.

A party long in the ascendent may seek to monopolize power, and to concentrate the whole administration of the country in the hands of its own adherents; but any such attempt is sure to provoke re-action, and to return with interest upon the heads of its contrivers. Besides, there is a sure and practical remedy for this in a system of cumulative voting, by which party-lines shall be broken, and a just representation be secured to the minority in every election. Since the majority of to-day may become the minority of to-morrow, it is the interest of all parties alike to secure themselves from the tyranny of the majority. In view of all the evils now enumerated, there remains the cheering fact, that the government, while fixed in princi ples, is flexible and improvable in forms and methods. Nothing should be despaired of that can be improved, and that contains within itself provision for its own improve ment. The Constitution of the United States, by its provision for amendment, invites the people to make experience their law.

And for this there is need of training for the higher statesmanship. The breed of politicians has so degenerat ed, that the people would have none of them. The war taught us that true generalship lay in the scientific train

1 This phantom of Mr. Sumner's is offset by the jubilant announcement of a member of the British Parliament in 1861, that "the great American bubble had burst." Mr. Gladstone, who rebuked that utterance at the time, has publicly confessed the error of his own opinion-"too hastily and lightly formed"-that the Union should and would be divided, and his "graver error in declaring this opinion at a time when he held public office as a minister of a friendly power." When will statesmen learn not to utter crude opinions or flippant judgments? or, rather, when shall we have men in public life, who, being statesmen, would be incapable of uttering crudities and inanities?

ing of West Point, and our political blunders and failures have taught us to look to scientific training for successful statesmen. Already the leading universities have established professorships of political science with this end in view; and in a few years more we shall have men whom the State more wants for its service than they want office of the State.

But the essence of all improvement, as the ground of all hope, lies in the people themselves. The State has need of men; for in the republic only men can make and be the State. And here there is hope, in those ethical qualities of the American people that give to national life the natural and providential elements of stability. (1.) Their generosity of spirit. America has her full share of mean and calculating men: yet, after large experience in my own country, I must testify that the meanest men I have known in church and in affairs were not of native birth; and, after wide observation in many lands, I do candidly believe that my own countrymen have least of the mercenary spirit. Quick as they are to make money, they are as quick to use and give it for worthy and noble objects. Eager as they are to get riches, theirs is not the greed of gain, nor the lust of hoarding. As a rule in life, money is a means, not an end, for enjoyment, for improvement, for beneficence, not for sordid idolatry. The richest citizen of the United States had lived a blameless and upright life; had done somewhat for charities, literature, and public improvements: but, when he died, the entire press, reflecting the spirit of the people, mourned that he had so missed the aim of life in not giving more in proportion as he had acquired. The Americans honor generosity of spirit. (2.) Theirs is also a quick sense of justice as between themselves and toward others, — the business integrity that is above fraud, the social frankness that is above deceit. (3.) The spirit of peace and goodwill toward mankind, the sentiment of universal brotherhood, marks their private intercourse and their public acts. And as, perhaps, the spring of all the rest, they have (4) a profound susceptibility to religious impressions, and sense of religious obligation. I sketch these outlines of character as the ethical ground of stability in the national life.