s
been fought during the century, and come out of it victorious, and with
renewed strength, must, it is felt, be a constitution suited for all
nations who aspire to freedom. There is nothing therefore surprising in
the fact that Federalism is supposed to be the panacea for all social
evils, and all political perplexities, or that it should be thrust upon
our attention as the device for bringing England and her colonies into
closer connection, and (not perhaps quite consistently) for relaxing the
connection and terminating the feud between England and Ireland. We
should do well, therefore, to recollect what is the true nature of
Federalism. Federal government, whatever be its merits, is a mere
arrangement for the distribution of political power. It is an
arrangement which requires for its application certain well-defined
conditions.[32]

There must, in the first place, exist a body of countries; such, for
example, as the cantons of Switzerland, or the colonies of America, or
the provinces of Canada, so closely connected by locality, by history,
by race, or the like, as to be capable of bearing in the eyes of their
inhabitants an impress of common nationality. There must, in the second
place, be found among the people of the countries which it is proposed
to unite in Federal union, a very peculiar state of sentiment. They must
desire union; they must not desire unity. Federalism, in short, is in
its nature a scheme for bringing together into closer connection a set
of states, each of which desires, whilst retaining its individuality, to
form together with its neighbours one nation. It is not, at any rate as
it has hitherto been applied, a plan for disuniting the parts of a
united state. It may possibly be capable of this application;
experience, however, gives no guidance on this point,[33] and loyalty to
the central government is to the working of a Federal system as
necessary as loyalty on the part of individual citizens to their own
separate State. When, therefore, it is suggested that Federalism may
establish a satisfactory relation between England and Ireland, a doubt
naturally suggests itself whether the United Kingdom presents the
conditions necessary for the success of the Federal experiment. Whether
in the case of two countries, of which the one has no desire for State
rights and the other has no desire for union, the bases of a Federal
scheme are not wanting, is an inquiry which deserves consideration.
Politici