We have now seen how the two great political systems that were founded upon the Ancient City both ended in failure, though both achieved enormous and lasting results. And we have seen how largely both these political failures were due to the absence of the principle of representation from the public life of Greece and Rome. The chief problem of civilization, from the political point of view, has always been how to secure concerted action among men on a great scale without sacrificing local independence. The ancient history of Europe shows that it is not possible to solve this problem without the aid of the principle of representation. Greece, until overcome by external force, sacredly maintained local self-government, but in securing permanent concert of action it was conspicuously unsuccessful. Rome secured concert of action on a gigantic scale, and transformed the thousand unconnected tribes and cities it conquered into an organized European world, but in doing this it went far towards extinguishing local self-government. The advent of the Teutons upon the scene seems therefore to have been necessary, if only to supply the indispensable element without which the dilemma of civilization could not be surmounted. The turbulence of Europe during the Teutonic migrations was so great and so long continued, that on a superficial view one might be excused for regarding the good work of Rome as largely undone. And in the feudal isolation of effort and apparent incapacity for combined action which characterized the different parts of Europe after the downfall of the Carolingian empire, it might well have seemed that political society had reverted towards a primitive type of structure. In truth, however, the retrogradation was much slighter than appeared on the surface. Feudalism itself, with its curious net-work of fealties and obligations running through the fabric of society in every direction, was by no means purely disintegrative in its tendencies. The mutual relations of rival baronies were by no means like those of rival clans or tribes in pre-Roman days. The central power of Rome, though no longer exerted politically through curators and prefects, was no less effective in the potent hands of the clergy and in the traditions of the imperial jurisprudence by which the legal ideas of mediaeval society were so strongly coloured. So powerful, indeed, was this twofold influence of Rome, that in the later Middle Ages, when the modern nationalities had fairly taken shape, it was the capacity for local self-government--in spite of all the Teutonic reinforcement it had had--that had suffered much more than the capacity for national consolidation. Among the great modern nations it was only England--which in its political development had remained more independent of the Roman law and the Roman church than even the Teutonic fatherland itself--it was only England that came out of the mediæval crucible with its Teutonic self-government substantially intact. On the main-land only two little spots, at the two extremities of the old Teutonic world, had fared equally well. At the mouth of the Rhine the little Dutch communities were prepared to lead the attack in the terrible battle for freedom with which the drama of modern history was ushered in. In the impregnable mountain fastnesses of upper Germany the Swiss cantons had bid defiance alike to Austrian tyrant and to Burgundian invader, and had preserved in its purest form the rustic democracy of their Aryan forefathers. By a curious coincidence, both these free peoples, in their efforts towards national unity, were led to frame federal unions, and one of these political achievements is, from the stand-point of universal history, of very great significance. The old League of High Germany, which earned immortal renown at Morgarten and Sempach, consisted of German-speaking cantons only. But in the fifteenth century the League won by force of arms a small bit of Italian territory about Lake Lugano, and in the sixteenth the powerful city of Bern annexed the Burgundian bishopric of Lausanne and rescued the free city of Geneva from the clutches of the Duke of Savoy. Other Burgundian possessions of Savoy were seized by the canton of Freiburg; and after awhile all these subjects and allies were admitted on equal terms into the confederation. The result is that modern Switzerland is made up of what might seem to be most discordant and unmanageable elements. Four languages--German, French, Italian, and Rhaetian--are spoken within the limits of the confederacy; and in point of religion the cantons are sharply divided as Catholic and Protestant. Yet in spite of all this, Switzerland is as thoroughly united in feeling as any nation in Europe. To the German-speaking Catholic of Altdorf the German Catholics of Bavaria are foreigners, while the French-speaking Protestants of Geneva are fellow-countrymen. Deeper down even than these deep-seated differences of speech and creed lies the feeling that comes from the common possession of a political freedom that is greater than that possessed by surrounding peoples. Such has been the happy outcome of the first attempt at federal union made by men of Teutonic descent. Complete independence in local affairs, when combined with adequate representation in the federal council, has effected such an intense cohesion of interests throughout the nation as no centralized government, however cunningly devised, could ever have secured.
Until the nineteenth century, however, the federal form of government had given no clear indication of its capacity for holding together great bodies of men, spread over vast territorial areas, in orderly and peaceful relations with one another. The empire of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius still remained the greatest known example of political aggregation; and men who argued from simple historic precedent without that power of analyzing precedents which the comparative method has supplied, came not unnaturally to the conclusions that great political aggregates have an inherent tendency towards breaking up, and that great political aggregates cannot be maintained except by a strongly-centralized administration and at the sacrifice of local self-government. A century ago the very idea of a stable federation of forty powerful states, covering a territory nearly equal in area to the whole of Europe, carried on by a republican government elected by universal suffrage, and guaranteeing to every tiniest village its full meed of local independence,--the very idea of all this would have been scouted as a thoroughly impracticable Utopian dream. And such scepticism would have been quite justifiable, for European history did not seem to afford any precedents upon which such a forecast of the future could be logically based. Between the various nations of Europe there has certainly always existed an element of political community, bequeathed by the Roman empire, manifested during the Middle Ages in a common relationship to the Church, and in modern times in a common adherence to certain uncodified rules of international law, more or less im perfectly defined and enforced. Between England and Spain, for example, or between France and Austria, there has never been such utter political severance as existed normally between Greece and Persia, or Rome and Carthage. But this community of political inheritance in Europe, it is needless to say, falls very far short of the degree of community implied in a federal union; and so great is the diversity of language and of creed, and of local historic development with the deep-seated prejudices attendant thereupon, that the formation of a European federation could hardly be looked for except as the result of mighty though quiet and subtle influences operating for a long time from without. From what direction, and in what manner, such an irresistible though perfectly pacific pressure is likely to be exerted in the future, I shall endeavour to show in my next lecture. At present we have to observe that the experiment of federal union on a grand scale required as its conditions, first, a vast extent of unoccupied country which could be settled without much warfare by men of the same race and speech, and secondly, on the part of the settlers, a rich inheritance of political training such as is afforded by long ages of self-government. The Atlantic coast of North America, easily accessible to Europe, yet remote enough to be freed from the political complications of the old world, furnished the first of these conditions: the history of the English people through fifty generations furnished the second. It was through English self-government, as I argued in my first lecture, that England alone, among the great nations of Europe, was able to found durable and self-supporting colonies. I have now to add that it was only England, among all the great nations of Europe, that could send forth colonists capable of dealing successfully with the difficult problem of forming such a political aggregate as the United States have become. For obviously the preservation of local self-government is essential to the very idea of a federal union. Without the Town-Meeting, or its equivalent in some form or other, the Federal Union would become ipso facto converted into a centralizing imperial government. Should anything of this sort ever happen--should American towns ever come to be ruled by prefects appointed at Washington, and should American States ever become like the administrative departments of France, or even like the counties of England at the present day--then the time will have come when men may safely predict the break-up of the American political system by reason of its overgrown dimensions and the diversity of interests between its parts. States so unlike one another as Maine and Louisiana and California cannot be held together by the stiff bonds of a centralizing government. The durableness of the federal union lies in its flexibility, and it is this flexibility which makes it the only kind of government, according to modern ideas, that is permanently applicable to a whole continent. If ¸the United States were to-day a consolidated republic like France, recent events in California might have disturbed the peace of the country. But in the federal union, if California, as a state sovereign within its own sphere, adopts a grotesque constitution that aims at infringing on the rights of capitalists, the other states are not directly affected. They may disapprove, but they have neither the right nor the desire to interfere. Meanwhile the laws of nature quietly operate to repair the blunder. Capital flows away from California, and the business of the state is damaged, until presently the ignorant demagogues lose favour, the silly constitution becomes a dead-letter, and its formal repeal begins to be talked of. Not the smallest ripple of excitement disturbs the profound peace of the country at large. It is in this complete independence that is preserved by every state, in all matters save those in which the federal principle itself is concerned, that we find the surest guaranty of the permanence of the American political system. Obviously no race of men, save the race to which habits of self-government and the skilful use of political representation had come to be as second nature, could ever have succeeded in founding such a system.
Yet even by men of English race, working with out let or hindrance from any foreign source, and with the better part of a continent at their disposal for a field to work in, so great a political problem as that of the American Union has not been solved without much toil and trouble. The great puzzle of civilization--how to secure permanent concert of action without sacrificing independence of action--is a puzzle which has taxed the ingenuity of Americans as well as of older Aryan peoples. In the year 1788 when our Federal Union was completed, the problem had already occupied the minds of American statesmen for a century and a half,--that is to say, ever since the English settlement of Massachusetts. In 1643 a New England confederation was formed between Massachusetts and Connecticut, together with Plymouth since merged in Massachusetts and New Haven since merged in Connecticut. The confederation was formed for defence against the French in Canada, the Dutch on the Hudson river, and the Indians. But owing simply to the inequality in the sizes of these colonies--Massachusetts more than outweighing the other three combined--the practical working of this confederacy was never very successful. In 1754, just before the outbreak of the great war which drove the French from America, a general Congress of the colonies was held at Albany, and a comprehensive scheme of union was proposed by Benjamin Franklin, but nothing came of the project at that time. The commercial rivalry between the colonies, and their disputes over boundary lines, were then quite like the similar phenomena with which Europe had so long been familiar. In 1756 Georgia and South Carolina actually came to blows over the navigation of the Savannah river. The idea that the thirteen colonies could ever overcome their mutual jealousies so far as to unite in a single political body, was received at that time in England with a derision like that which a proposal for a permanent federation of European States would excite in many minds to-day. It was confidently predicted that if the common allegiance to the British crown were once withdrawn, the colonies would forthwith proceed to destroy themselves with internecine war. In fact, however, it was the shaking off of allegiance to the British crown, and the common trials and sufferings of the war of independence, that at last welded the colonies together and made a federal union possible. As it was, the union was consummated only by degrees. By the Articles of Confederation, agreed on by Congress in 1777 but not adopted by all the States until 1781, the federal government acted only upon the several state governments and not directly upon individuals; there was no federal judiciary for the decision of constitutional questions arising out of the relations between the states; and the Congress was not provided with any efficient means of raising a revenue or of enforcing its legislative decrees. Under such a government the difficulty of insuring concerted action was so great that, but for the transcendent personal qualities of Washington, the bungling mismanagement of the British ministry, and the timely aid of the French fleet, the war of independence would most likely have ended in failure. After the independence of the colonies was acknowledged, the formation of a more perfect union was seen to be the only method of securing peace and making a nation which should be respected by foreign powers; and so in 1788, after much discussion, the present Constitution of the United States was adopted,--a constitution which satisfied very few people at the time, and which was from beginning to end a series of compromises, yet which has proved in its working a masterpiece of political wisdom.
The first great compromise answered to the initial difficulty of securing approximate equality of weight in the federal councils between states of unequal size. The simple device by which this difficulty was at last surmounted has proved effectual, although the inequalities between the states have greatly increased. To-day the population of New York is more than eighty times that of Nevada. In area the state of Rhode Island is smaller than Montenegro, while the state of Texas is larger than the Austrian empire with Bavaria and Würtemberg thrown in. Yet New York and Nevada, Rhode Island and Texas, each send two senators to Washington, while on the other hand in the lower house each state has a number of representatives proportioned to its population. The upper house of Congress is therefore a federal while the lower house is a national body, and the government is brought into direct contact with the people without endangering the equal rights of the several states.
The second great compromise of the American constitution consists in the series of arrangements by which sovereignty is divided between the states and the federal government. In all domestic legislation and jurisdiction, civil and criminal, in all matters relating to tenure of property, marriage and divorce, the fulfilment of contracts and the punishment of malefactors, each separate state is as completely a sovereign state as France or Great Britain. In speaking to a British audience a concrete illustration may not be superfluous. If a criminal is condemned to death in Pennsylvania, the royal prerogative of pardon resides in the Governor of Pennsylvania: the President of the United States has no more authority in the case than the Czar of Russia. Nor in civil cases can an appeal lie from the state courts to the Supreme Court of the United States, save where express provision has been made in the Constitution. Within its own sphere the state is supreme. The chief attributes of sovereignty with which the several states have parted are the coining of money, the carrying of mails, the imposition of tariff dues, the granting of patents and copyrights, the declaration of war, and the maintenance of a navy. The regular army is supported and controlled by the federal government, but each state maintains its own militia which it is bound to use in case of internal disturbance before calling upon the central government for aid. In time of war, however, these militias come under the control of the central government. Thus every American citizen lives under two governments, the functions of which are clearly and intelligibly distinct.
To insure the stability of the federal union thus formed, the Constitution created a "system of United States courts extending throughout the states, empowered to define the boundaries of federal authority, and to enforce its decisions by federal power." This omnipresent federal judiciary was undoubtedly the most important creation of the statesmen who framed the Constitution. The closely-knit relations which it established between the states contributed powerfully to the growth of a feeling of national solidarity throughout the whole country. The United States today cling together with a coherency far greater than the coherency of any ordinary federation or league. Yet the primary aspect of the federal Constitution was undoubtedly that of a permanent league, in which each state, while retaining its domestic sovereignty intact, renounced forever its right to make war upon its neighbours and relegated its international interests to the care of a central council in which all the states were alike represented and a central tribunal endowed with purely judicial functions of interpretation. It was the first attempt in the history of the world, to apply on a grand scale to the relations between states the same legal methods of procedure which, as long applied in all civilized countries to the relations between individuals, have rendered private warfare obsolete. And it was so far successful that, during a period of seventy-two years in which the United States increased fourfold in extent, tenfold in population, and more than tenfold in wealth and power, the federal union maintained a state of peace more profound than the pax romana.
Twenty years ago this unexampled state of peace was suddenly interrupted by a tremendous war, which in its results, however, has served only to bring out with fresh emphasis the pacific implications of federalism. With the eleven revolted states at first completely conquered and then reinstated with full rights and privileges in the federal union, with their people accepting in good faith the results of the contest, with their leaders not executed as traitors but admitted again to seats in Congress and in the Cabinet, and with all this accomplished without any violent constitutional changes,--I think we may fairly claim that the strength of the pacific implications of federalism has been more strikingly demonstrated than if there had been no war at all. Certainly the world never beheld such a spectacle before. In my next and concluding lecture I shall return to this point while summing up the argument and illustrating the part played by the English race in the general history of civilization.