in their size or population. By the side of this system it was agreed that there should be a national Republican Government, whose States should be equal districts apportioned throughout the country on the basis of population; and that these should have a central branch of their own. It was only to a national Government so constituted that the States were willing to surrender their sovereignty, which each had claimed after the attainment of their independence of Great Britain, by united effort.

But just so soon as some of the States found, in process of time, that some of their separate interests were not adopted as the chief objects of the National Government, the surrendered Statesovereignty was theoretically resuscitated under the name of State-rights,' and they claimed a sufficient supremacy over the union to destroy it.

Under the union thus constituted there had been gradually formed a sufficient consolidation of commercial and other interests, to render a threat of withdrawal from it on the part of any State or States, the most formidable that could be made; and, although the secession clearly did not exist within the provisions of the national compact,

the disasters which it was foreseen must attend such an effort, led to the complete and cowardly surrender of the United States Government, for more than a generation, to the tyranny of the slaveholding interest.

In these days when the almost superstitious horror of what is vaguely termed Centralisation has to a large extent blinded public men to the fact that the good or the evil of it chiefly depends upon the kind of centre in which power is organised, it seems to me sufficient attention has not been given to the illustration of the dangers of extreme decentralisation, in a Republic, furnished by the history of the United States.

Through the degree of power left by the framers of the Constitution to the several States, each of these was made into a centre of political intrigue and ambition, and was encouraged to rivalry of, and finally to encroachment upon the powers of the general Government. They held in the Senate a power to negative the will of the whole people, as expressed through their representatives in the popular branch of the Legislature; and however the millions of the United States might vote, they could only bring to bear at the final

decision on any measure the same amount of legislative power as small communities ruled by local interests. The entire power in the Slave States resided in a slaveholding aristocracy of three hundred thousand; but these spread out through fifteen States were able-their votes being reinforced by the threats of disunion which secured the alliance of senators from contiguous States— to control the entire Union. They were able to plunge the country into what was called the Mexican War, but which really was a raid to rob a neighbouring country of certain territory desired for the purpose of extending slavery and giving it more votes in the Senate; they were able to devote the national forces to the work of crushing the extension of free labour into north-western territories ; they made the free States a hunting-ground on which the officers of the United States were compelled to hunt down and capture negroes seeking their liberty; they were able to corrupt by threats and bribes the pulpit and the press of the entire nation, and to render it a danger for any man to defend the commonest principles of justice or humanity.

Out of this abyss into which the system

founded on colonies had thrown the country, the United States was enabled to emerge only at the cost of the best blood in the nation. The free cities of Germany and Italy lost their liberties by the multiplication of principalities: the free people of America were only saved from a similar fate by the fact that, after all, the monarchical features which their Constitution had retained proved to be of but transient strength, compared with the elements which were purely Republican.

During the late civil war in America, we heard many prophets anticipating the event, and already eagerly pointing to the downfall of the Union as the natural result of Republicanism. But at no time since its foundation was the Republic ever threatened by anything but the lingering elements of Monarchy which it had unhappily retained.

The party which carried this State system to an extreme and by which the nation was ruled until plunged by it into civil war-was called by a singular misnomer, Democratic. Their democracy consisted in insisting on the equality of notoriously unequal surveyed lands, to the sacrifice of all real and human equality.

Unquestionably there is need that real local

interests shall be carefully attended to, and it is necessary that between the nation and the town, or even the family, there shall be a fine gradation of self-government, so far as such interests are concerned. The planet may have freedom of revolution on its own axis as well as its relationship to the solar system. Such municipal or local self-government is only endangered, however, when it is empowered to deal with affairs which belong to the general welfare. Its own ultimate security depends on its limitation, and on its submission to the larger need of the nation.

It

It is, above all, necessary for the solidarity of a Republic that in the adjustment of legislative districts their boundaries should not be coincident with any antiquarian or historical lines which would foster clannish pride or recollections. seems, for example, an object of legitimate reform that the English Parliament should distribute some of its work among local legislatures; but to resuscitate for this the ancient kingdoms of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales would be simple suicide.

Could there be a more cruel concession made by England to Ireland than that very Home Rule for which so earnest a demand is now