the English
people through fifty generations furnished the second. It was through
English self-government, as I argued in my first lecture, that England
alone, among the great nations of Europe, was able to found durable and
self-supporting colonies. I have now to add that it was only England,
among all the great nations of Europe, that could send forth colonists
capable of dealing successfully with the difficult problem of forming
such a political aggregate as the United States have become. For
obviously the preservation of local self-government is essential to the
very idea of a federal union. Without the Town-Meeting, or its
equivalent in some form or other, the Federal Union would become _ipso
facto_ converted into a centralizing imperial government. Should
anything of this sort ever happen--should American towns ever come to be
ruled by prefects appointed at Washington, and should American States
ever become like the administrative departments of France, or even like
the counties of England at the present day--then the time will have come
when men may safely predict the break-up of the American political
system by reason of its overgrown dimensions and the diversity of
interests between its parts. States so unlike one another as Maine and
Louisiana and California cannot be held together by the stiff bonds of a
centralizing government. The durableness of the federal union lies in
its flexibility, and it is this flexibility which makes it the only kind
of government, according to modern ideas, that is permanently applicable
to a whole continent. If the United States were to-day a consolidated
republic like France, recent events in California might have disturbed
the peace of the country. But in the federal union, if California, as a
state sovereign within its own sphere, adopts a grotesque constitution
that aims at infringing on the rights of capitalists, the other states
are not directly affected. They may disapprove, but they have neither
the right nor the desire to interfere. Meanwhile the laws of nature
quietly operate to repair the blunder. Capital flows away from
California, and the business of the state is damaged, until presently
the ignorant demagogues lose favour, the silly constitution becomes a
dead-letter, and its formal repeal begins to be talked of. Not the
smallest ripple of excitement disturbs the profound peace of the country
at large. It is in this complete independence that is preserved by every
st