freedom of men than vast empires. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge the peculiar advantages of great states. For the very reason that the desire of power is more intense in these communities than amongst ordinary men, the love of glory is also more developed in the hearts of certain citizens, who regard the applause of a great people as a reward worthy of their exertions, and an elevating encouragement to man. If we would learn why great nations contribute more powerfully to the increase of knowledge and the advance of civilization than small states, we shall discover an adequate cause in the more rapid and energetic circulation of ideas, and in those great cities which are the intellectual centres where all the rays of human genius are reflected and combined. To this it may be added, that most important discoveries demand a use of national power which the government of a small state is unable to make: in great nations, the government has more enlarged ideas, and is more completely disengaged from the routine of precedent and the selfishness of local feeling; its designs are conceived with more talent, and executed with more boldness.

In time of peace, the well-being of small nations is undoubtedly more general and complete; but they are apt to suffer more acutely from the calamities of war than those great empires whose distant frontiers may long avert the presence of the danger from the mass of the people, who are therefore more frequently afflicted than ruined by the

contest.

But in this matter, as in many others, the decisive argument is the necessity of the case. If none but small nations existed, I do not doubt that mankind would be more happy and more free; but the existence of great nations is unavoidable.

Political strength thus becomes a condition of national prosperity. It profits a state but little to be affluent and

free, if it is perpetually exposed to be pillaged or subjugated; its manufactures and commerce are of small advantage, if another nation has the empire of the seas and gives the law in all the markets of the globe. Small nations are often miserable, not because they are small, but because they are weak; and great empires prosper, less because they are great, than because they are strong. Physical strength is therefore one of the first conditions of the happiness, and even of the existence, of nations. Hence it occurs, that, unless very peculiar circumstances intervene, small nations are always united to large empires in the end, either by force or by their own consent. I know not a more deplorable condition than that of a people unable to defend itself or to provide for its own wants.

The Federal system was created with the intention of combining the different advantages which result from the magnitude and the littleness of nations; and a glance at the United States of America discovers the advantages which they have derived from its adoption.

In great centralized nations, the legislator is obliged to give a character of uniformity to the laws, which does not always suit the diversity of customs and of districts; as he takes no cognizance of special cases, he can only proceed upon general principles; and the population are obliged to conform to the exigencies of the legislation, since the legislation cannot adapt itself to the exigencies and the customs of the population; which is a great cause of trouble and misery. This disadvantage does not exist in confederations; Congress regulates the principal measures of the national government; and all the details of the administration are reserved to the provincial legislatures. One can hardly imagine how much this division of sovereignty contributes to the well-being of each of the States which compose the Union. In these small communities, which are never agitated by the desire of aggrandizement

or the care of self-defence, all public authority and private energy are turned towards internal improvements. The central government of each State, which is in immediate juxtaposition to the citizens, is daily apprised of the wants which arise in society; and new projects are proposed every year, which are discussed at town-meetings or by the legislature, and which are transmitted by the press to stimulate the zeal and to excite the interest of the citizens. This spirit of improvement is constantly alive in the American republics, without compromising their tranquillity; the ambition of power yields to the less refined and less dangerous desire for well-being. It is generally believed in America, that the existence and the permanence of the republican form of government in the New World depend upon the existence and the duration of the Federal system; and it is not unusual to attribute a large share of the misfortunes which have befallen the new States of South America to the injudicious erection of great republics, instead of a divided and confederate sovereignty.

It is incontestably true, that the tastes and the habits of republican government in the United States were first created in the townships and the provincial assemblies. In a small State, like that of Connecticut, for instance, where cutting a canal or laying down a road is a great political question, where the State has no army to pay and no wars to carry on, and where much wealth or much honor cannot be given to the rulers, no form of government can be more natural or more appropriate than a republic. But it is this same republican spirit, it is these manners and customs of a free people, which have been created and nurtured in the different States, which must be afterwards applied to the country at large. The public spirit of the Union is, so to speak, nothing more than an aggregate or summary of the patriotic zeal of the separate provinces. Every citizen of the United States transports,

so to speak, his attachment to his little republic into the common store of American patriotism. In defending the Union, he defends the increasing prosperity of his own State or county, the right of conducting its affairs, and the hope of causing measures of improvement to be adopted in it which may be favorable to his own interests; and these are motives which are wont to stir men more than the general interests of the country and the glory of the nation. On the other hand, if the temper and the manners of the inhabitants especially fitted them to promote the welfare of a great republic, the federal system renders their task less difficult. The confederation of all the American States presents none of the ordinary inconveniences resulting from great agglomerations of men. The Union is a great republic in extent, but the paucity of objects for which its government acts assimilates it to a small State. Its acts are important, but they are rare. As the sovereignty of the Union is limited and incomplete, its exercise is not dangerous to liberty; for it does not excite those insatiable desires of fame and power which have proved so fatal to great republics. As there is no common centre to the country, great capital cities, colossal wealth, abject poverty, and sudden revolutions are alike unknown; and political passion, instead of spreading over the land like a fire on the prairies, spends its strength against the interests and the individual passions of every State. "

Nevertheless, tangible objects and ideas circulate throughout the Union as freely as in a country inhabited by one people. Nothing checks the spirit of enterprise. The government invites the aid of all who have talents or knowledge to serve it. Inside of the frontiers of the Union, profound peace prevails, as within the heart of some great empire; abroad, it ranks with the most powerful nations of the earth: two thousand miles of coast are open to the commerce of the world; and as it holds the

keys of a New World, its flag is respected in the most remote seas. The Union is happy and free as a small people, and glorious and strong as a great nation.

WHY THE FEDERAL SYSTEM IS NOT PRACTICABLE FOR ALL NATIONS, AND HOW THE ANGLO-AMERICANS WERE ENABLED TO ADOPT IT.

Every Federal System has inherent Faults which baffle the Efforts of the Legislator. The Federal System is complex. — It demands a daily Exercise of the Intelligence of the Citizens. - Practical Knowledge of Government common amongst the Americans. - Relative Weakness of the Government of the Union another Defect inherent in the Federal System.The Americans have diminished without remedying it. — The Sovereignty of the separate States apparently weaker, but really stronger, than that of the Union.- Why.—Natural Causes of Union then must exist between Confederate Nations beside the Laws. What these Causes are amongst the Anglo-Americans.—Maine and Georgia, separated by a Distance of a thousand Miles, more naturally united than Normandy and Brittany. - War the main Peril of Confederations. - This proved even by the Example of the United States. The Union has no great Wars to fear. -Why.—Dangers which Europeans would incur if

they adopted the Federal System of the Americans.

WHEN a legislator succeeds, after many efforts, in exercising an indirect influence upon the destiny of nations, his genius is lauded by mankind, whilst, in point of fact, the geographical position of the country which he is unable to change, a social condition which arose without his co-operation, manners and opinions which he cannot trace to their source, and an origin with which he is unacquainted, exercise so irresistible an influence over the courses of society, that he is himself borne away by the current after an ineffectual resistance. Like the navigator, he may direct the vessel which bears him, but he can neither change its structure, nor raise the winds, nor lull the waters which swell beneath him.

I have shown the advantages which the Americans de

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