all the price it cost. The
unity of Germany gave intense gratification to natural feelings of
national pride. Yet there are probably many even in the Italian Kingdom
who sigh for the light taxes of the Bourbon or Papal rule, and Germans
who glory in the greatness of the Empire flee by thousands to the United
States that they may escape the burden of conscription. The
disappointment which naturally attends a great change would in the case
of Ireland be specially bitter. To what cause would the disappointment
be attributed? The answer is easy to find. If taxation increased--as it
probably would; if wealth did not increase--as it certainly would not;
if the sense of semi-independence did not produce the hope, the energy,
the new life, the regeneration which enthusiasts consider to be the
natural result of nationality--if anything, in short, failed to go
according to the hopes of men who had formed hopes which a miracle
itself could hardly satisfy--the blame for the non-fulfilment of
groundless anticipations would rest upon the Confederacy--that is in
other words, upon England. To suppose this, is not to attribute special
unreasonableness to Irishmen. If Italy had been forced to accept,
instead of her longed-for independence, the local self-government which
might be conceded to the State of an Austrian Federation, we may be
quite sure that the Grist Tax, the Sicilian Banditti, the intrigues of
France in Tunis, the perversity of the Pope, the poverty of Italian
workmen, the factiousness of Italian politicians, every evil, in short,
real or imaginary, under which Italy now suffers, or has suffered since
1870--would have been attributed to her connection with a Union presided
over by the Austrian Emperor. National independence, like every other
form of independence, has at least this merit, that it compels men to
take their fate into their own hands, and to feel that they themselves
or the circumstances of the world are the causes of their misfortunes.
Semi-independence makes it easy for men to attribute every mishap to the
absence of absolute freedom.

If the existence of a Federal constitution would of itself supply the
cause for discontent, it is of the very nature of such a constitution to
supply the occasions of dispute. Nothing can prevent the rise of burning
questions about Federal and State rights. Is nullification or secession,
or the refusal to pay Federal taxes a State right? If these questions
arise, by whom are th