a convention authorized to weld them into one body as respected Imperial powers. This was attempted to be done by the establishment of a central body called a Congress, consisting of delegates from the component States, and invested with all the powers designated above as Imperial and quasi-Imperial powers. The expenses incurred by the confederacy were to be defrayed out of a common fund, to be supplied by requisitions made on the several States. In effect, the confederacy of the thirteen States amounted to little more than an offensive and defensive alliance between thirteen independent nations, as the central power had States for its subjects and not individuals, and could only enforce the law against any disobedient State by calling on the twelve other States to make war on the refractory member of the union. A system dependent for its efficacy on the concurrence of so many separate communities contained in itself the seeds of dissolution, and it soon became apparent that one of two things must occur—either the American States must cease as such to be a nation, or the component members of that union must each be prepared to relinquish a further portion of the sovereign or quasi-sovereign powers which it possessed. Under those circumstances, what was the course taken by the thirteen States? They perceived that it was quite possible to maintain complete unity and compactness as a nation if, in addition to investing the Supreme Government with Imperial and quasi-Imperial powers, they added full power to impose federal taxes on the component States and established an Executive furnished with ample means to carry all federal powers into effect through the medium of federal officers. The government so formed consisted of a President and two elected Houses called Congress, and, as a balance-wheel of the Constitution, a Supreme Court was established, to which was confided the task of deciding in case of dispute all questions arising under the Constitution of the United States or relating to international law.
The Executive of the United States, with the President as its source and head, was furnished with full authority and power to enforce the federal laws. The army and navy were under its command, and it was provided with courts of justice, and subordinate officers to enforce the decrees of those courts throughout the length and breadth of the Union. Above all, a complete system of federal taxation supplied the Central Government with the necessary funds to perform effectually all the functions of a supreme national government.
The nature of the Constitution of the United States will be best understood by considering the position in which its subjects stand to the Central Government and their own State Governments. In effect, every inhabitant of the United States has a double nationality. He belongs to one great nation called the United States, or, as it would be more aptly called to show its absolute unity, the American Republic, having jurisdiction over the whole surface of ground comprised in the area of the United States. He is also a citizen of a smaller local and partially self-governing body—more important than a county, but not approaching the position of a nation—called a State.
It is no part of the object of this article to enter into the details of the American government, its advantages or defects. This much, however, is clear—the American Constitution has lasted nearly one hundred years, and shows no signs of decay or disruption. It has stood the strain of the greatest war of modern times, and has emerged from the conflict stronger than before. Even during the war the antagonism of the rebels was directed, not against the Union, but against the efforts of the Northern States to suppress slavery, or, in other words, to destroy, as the Southern States believed (not unjustly as the event showed), their property in slaves, and consequently the only means they had of making their estates profitable. One conclusion, then, we
may draw, that a nation in which the Imperial powers and the State powers are vested in different authorities is no less compact and powerful, as respects all national capacities, than a nation in which both classes of powers are wielded by the same functionaries; and one lesson more may be learnt from the American War of Secession—namely, that in a nation having such a division of powers, any conflict between the two classes results in the Supreme or Imperial powers prevailing over the Local governmental powers, and not in the latter invading or driving a wedge into the Supreme powers. In fact, the tendency in case of a struggle is towards an undue centralization of the nation by reason of the encroachment by the Supreme authority, rather than towards a weakening of the national unity by separatist action on the part of the constituent members of the nation.
In comparing the Constitution of the United States with the Constitution of the British Empire, we find an apparent resemblance in form as respects the Anglo-Saxon colonies, but underlying the surface a total difference of principle. The United States is an aggregate of homogeneous and contiguous States which, in order to weld themselves into a nation, gave up a portion of their rights to a central authority, reserving to themselves all powers of government which they did not expressly relinquish.
The British Empire is an aggregate of many communities under one common head, and is thus described by Mr. Burke in 1774, in language which may seem to have been somewhat too enthusiastic at the time when it was spoken, but at the present day does not more than do justice to an Empire which comprises one-sixth of the habitable globe in extent and population:—
"I look, I say, on the Imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which the colonies ought to enjoy under those rights, to be just the most reconcilable things in the world. The Parliament of Great Britain sits at the head of
her extensive Empire in two capacities: one as the local legislature of this island, providing for all things at home immediately and by no other instrument than the executive power; the other, and I think her nobler capacity, is what I call her Imperial character, in which, as from the throne of heaven, she superintends all the several Legislatures, and guides and controls them all without annihilating any. As all these provincial Legislatures are only co-ordinate with each other, they ought all to be subordinate to her, else they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor effectually afford mutual assistance."[9]
The means by which the possessions of Great Britain were acquired have been as various as the possessions themselves. The European, Asiatic, and African possessions became ours by conquest and cession; the American by conquest, treaty, and settlement; the Australasian by settlement, and by that dubious system of settlement known by the name of annexation. Now, what is the link which fastens each of these possessions to the mother country? Surely it is the inherent and indestructible right of the British Crown to exercise Imperial powers—in other words, the supremacy of the Queen and the British Parliament? What, again, is the common bond of union between these vast colonial possessions, differing in laws, in religion, and in the character of the population? The same answer must be given: the joint and several tie, so to speak, is the same —namely, the sovereignty of Great Britain. It is true that the mode in which the materials composing the British Empire have been cemented together is exactly the reverse of the manner of the construction of the American Union. In the case of the Union, independent States voluntarily relinquished a portion of their sovereignty to secure national unity, and entrusted the guardianship of that unity to a representative body chosen by themselves. Such a union