not been able to escape this influence appears frequently in
his discussions of federalism. He, of course, thoroughly understands the
federal system as a jurist, but when he comes to discuss it as a
politician he has evidently some difficulty in seeing how a government
with a power to enforce _any_ commands can be restrained by contract
from enforcing _all_ commands which may seem to be expedient or
salutary. Consequently the cool way in which the Federal Government here
looks on at local disorders seems to him a sign, not of the fidelity of
the President and Congress to the federal pact, but of some inherent
weakness in the federal system.

The true way to judge the federal system, however, either in the United
States or elsewhere, is by observing the manner in which it has
performed the duties assigned to it by the Constitution. If the
Government at Washington performs these faithfully, its failure to
prevent lawlessness in New York or the oppression of minorities in
Connecticut is of no more consequence than its failure to put down
brigandage in Macedonia. Possibly it would have been better to saddle it
with greater responsibility for local peace; but the fact is that the
framers of the Constitution decided not to do so. They did not mean to
set up a government which would see that every man living under it got
his due. They could not have got the States to accept such a
government. They meant to set up a government which should represent
the nation worthily in all its relations with foreigners, which should
carry on war effectively, protect life and property on the high seas,
furnish a proper currency, put down all resistance to its lawful
authority, and secure each State against domestic violence on the demand
of its Legislature.

There is no common form for federal contracts, and no rules describing
what such a contract must contain in order that the Government may be
federal and not unitarian. There is no hard and fast line which must,
under the federal system, divide the jurisdiction of the central
Government from the jurisdiction of each State Government. The way in
which the power is divided between the two must necessarily depend on
the traditions, manners, aims, and needs of the people of the various
localities. The federal system is not a system manufactured on a
regulation model, which can be sent over the world like iron huts or
steam launches, in detached pieces, to be put together when the scene of
op