about the legality of writs of assistance, and so forth, the
real issue was the deeper one of the fulfilment of self-government.
Could fully responsible self-government be reconciled with imperial
unity? Could any means be devised whereby the units in a fellowship of
free states might retain full control over their own affairs, and at
the same time effectively combine for common purposes? That was and is
the ultimate problem of British imperial organisation, as it was and is
the ultimate problem of international relations. But the problem,
though it now presented itself in a comparatively simple form, was
never fairly faced on either side of the Atlantic. For the mother and
her daughters too quickly reached the point of arguing about their
legal rights against one another, and when friends begin to argue about
their legal rights, the breach of their friendship is at hand. So the
dreary argument, which lasted for eleven years (1764-75), led to the
still more dreary war, which lasted for seven years (1775-82); and the
only family of free self-governing communities existing in the world
was broken up in bitterness. This was indeed a tragedy. For if the
great partnership of freedom could have been reorganised on conditions
that would have enabled it to hold together, the cause of liberty in
the world would have been made infinitely more secure.

The Revolution gave to the Americans the glory of establishing the
first fully democratic system of government on a national scale that
had yet existed in the world, and of demonstrating that by the
machinery of self-government a number of distinct and jealous
communities could be united for common purposes. The new American
Commonwealth became an inspiration for eager Liberals in the old world
as well as in the new, and its successful establishment formed the
strongest of arguments for the democratic idea in all lands. Unhappily
the pride of this great achievement helped to persuade the Americans
that they were different from the rest of the world, and unaffected by
its fortunes. They were apt to think of themselves as the inventors and
monopolists of political liberty. Cut off by a vast stretch of ocean
from the Old World, and having lost that contact with its affairs which
the relation with Britain had hitherto maintained, they followed but
dimly, and without much comprehension, the obscure and complex
struggles wherein the spirit of liberty was working out a new Europe,
in the