without peril to his life have
preached abolition in South Carolina; difficult indeed was the
enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law and small the practical respect
paid in Massachusetts to the doctrine of the Dred Scott Case. Unless all
reports are false, the Negro vote throughout the Southern States is at
this moment practically falsified, and little do the Constitutional
Amendments benefit a Negro in any case where his conduct offends
Southern principle or prejudice. For my present argument it matters
nothing whether the oppression of individuals or the defiance of law was
or was not, in all these cases, as it certainly was in some instances, a
violation to the supreme law of the land. If the law was violated then,
why should we expect Imperial law to be of more force in Ireland than
federal law in South Carolina, or in Massachusetts? If the rights of
individuals were not adequately protected by federal law against the
injustice of a particular State, then why expect that the provisions of
our new constitution, far less stringent as they are than the protective
provisions of the United States Constitution, should avail to protect
unpopular persons in Ireland against the legal tyranny of the Irish
Executive or the Irish Parliament?

Experience of federalism is not confined to the United States. The Swiss
Confederation is in Europe the most successful both of democratic and of
federal polities. The Swiss Executive exercises powers common to all
continental governments but of a description which no English Cabinet
could claim, and the Swiss Executive is made up of statesmen skilful
beyond measure in what may be called the diplomacy of federalism. Yet in
Switzerland, as in the United States, federal government means weak
government. Ticino is a small Canton, but from the days of Athenian
greatness small States have been the instructors of the world, and
Englishmen, hesitating over a political leap in the dark, would do well
to study the Ticinese revolution of September 11, 1890. The Radicals of
the Canton rose in insurrection, and deposed the lawful government by
violence; as Englishmen may remember, the contest though short involved
at least one murder. The Swiss Executive (called the Federal Council)
forthwith took steps to restore order and to reinstate the lawful
Cantonal government. Their own commissioner, a military officer, in
effect declined to put the overthrown government back in power. Order
was restored, but t