y to stereotype and increase
the causes of division between England and Ireland as to remove them.

A Federal Government is, of all constitutions, the most artificial. If
such a government is to be worked with anything like success, there must
exist among the citizens of the confederacy a spirit of genuine loyalty
to the Union. The "Unitarian" feeling of the people must distinctly
predominate over the sentiment in favour of "State rights." To require
this is to require a good deal more than the mere general submission to
the Government which is requisite for the prosperity of every State,
whatever be the nature of its polity. In a Federation every citizen is
influenced by a double allegiance. He owes fealty to the central
Government; he owes fealty also to his Canton or State. National
allegiance and local allegiance divide and perplex the feelings even of
loyal citizens. Unless the national sentiment predominate, the
Federation will go to pieces at any of those crises when the interest or
wishes of any of the States conflict with the interest or wishes of the
Union. So keen an observer and profound a critic as De Tocqueville
believed that both the American and the Swiss Federations would make
shipwreck on this rock. He was mistaken; he did not allow for the rapid
development of national sentiment. But his error was pardonable. The
leaders of the Sonderbund did prefer the interest of Lucerne to the
unity of Switzerland. Lee and Jackson were disloyal to the Union,
because they were loyal to Virginia. Leading officers of the United
States army, soldiers educated at Westpoint, trained the armies of the
Confederates. They were men of unblemished honour; they were, some of
them, not originally zealous in the cause of secession, but they
believed that their duty to their State--to Virginia, to South Carolina,
or to Georgia--was paramount over their duty to the Government at
Washington. If Virginia had stood by the Union, General Lee might, in
all probability, have been the conqueror of the Confederate States, of
which he was the hero. Ireland has had far graver causes for
disaffection towards the English Government than any of the reasons
alleged for the secession of Virginia; but Irish officers and Irish
soldiers have always been perfectly loyal to England. The reason of the
difference is obvious; the officers of the English army have never been
distracted by the difficulties of divided allegiance. Make Ireland one
of the St