on the ground that the
Americans are loyal to the central authority, while in Ireland there is
a strong feeling of hostility to it, which would probably increase under
Home Rule. The Queen's writ, it has been remarked, cannot be said to run
in large parts of Ireland, while in every part of the United States the
Federal writ is implicitly obeyed, and the ministers of Federal
authority find ready aid and sympathy from the people. If I remember
rightly, the Duke of Argyll has been very emphatic in pointing out the
difference between giving local self-government to a community in which
the tendencies of popular feeling are "centrifugal," and giving it to
one in which these tendencies are "centripetal." The inference to be
drawn was, of course, that as long as Ireland disliked the Imperial
government the concession of Home Rule would be unsafe, and would only
become safe when the Irish people showed somewhat the same sort of
affection for the English connection which the people of the State of
New York now feel for the Constitution of the United States.

Among the multitude of those who have taken part in the controversy on
one side or the other, no one has, so far as I have observed, pointed
out that the state of feeling in America toward the central government
with which the state of feeling in Ireland towards the British
Government is now compared, did not exist when the American Constitution
was set up; that the political tendencies in America at that time were
centrifugal, not centripetal, and that the extraordinary love and
admiration with which Americans now regard the Federal government are
the result of eighty years' experience of its working. The first
Confederation was as much as the people could bear in the way of
surrendering local powers when the War of Independence came to an end.
It was its hopeless failure to provide peace and security which led to
the framing of the present Constitution. But even with this experience
still fresh, the adoption of the Constitution was no easy matter. I
shall not burden this article with historical citations showing the very
great difficulty which the framers of the Constitution had in inducing
the various States to adopt it, or the magnitude and variety of the
fears and suspicions with which, many of the most influential men in all
parts of the country regarded it. Any one who wishes to know how
numerous and diversified these fears and suspicions were, cannot do
better than