told out. It is our fashion so to tell them, against as well as for
ourselves; and the record of them may some day be among the means of
stirring us up to a policy more worthy of the name and fame of England.

It is true, indeed, that we lie under some heavy and, I fear, increasing
disadvantages, which amount almost to disabilities. Not, however, any
disadvantage respecting power, as power is commonly understood. But,
while America has a nearly homogeneous country, and an admirable
division of political labor between the States individually and the
Federal Government, we are, in public affairs, an overcharged and
overweighted people.[10]

We have undertaken the cares of empire upon a scale, and with a
diversity, unexampled in history; and, as it has not yet pleased
Providence to endow us with brain-force and animal strength in an
equally abnormal proportion, the consequence is that we perform the work
of government, as to many among its more important departments, in a
very superficial and slovenly manner. The affairs of the three
associated kingdoms, with their great diversities of law, interest, and
circumstance, make the government of them, even if they stood alone, a
business more voluminous, so to speak, than that of any other
thirty-three millions of civilized men. To lighten the cares of the
central legislature by judicious devolution, it is probable that much
might be done; but nothing is done, or even attempted to be done. The
greater colonies have happily attained to a virtual self-government; yet
the aggregate mass of business connected with our colonial possessions
continues to be very large. The Indian Empire is of itself a charge so
vast, and demanding so much thought and care, that if it were the sole
transmarine appendage to the crown, it would amply tax the best ordinary
stock of human energies. Notoriously it obtains from the Parliament only
a small fraction of the attention it deserves. Questions affecting
individuals, again, or small interests, or classes, excite here a
greater interest, and occupy a larger share of time, than, perhaps, in
any other community. In no country, I may add, are the interests of
persons or classes so favored when they compete with those of the
public; and in none are they more exacting, or more wakeful to turn this
advantage to the best account. With the vast extension of our enterprise
and our trade, comes a breadth of liability not less large, to consider
every thing