, it provides also a way by
which the people, if convinced, can remove its obstructions. A
protest, however, may be entered against a construction of the
Constitution which is liberal, by embracing all it can be constrained
to imply, and then immediately becomes strict in imposing these
ingeniously contrived fetters.

Meanwhile no moral obligation forbids developing our navy upon lines
and proportions adequate to the work it may be called upon to do.
Here, again, the crippling force is a public impression, which limits
our potential strength to the necessities of an imperfectly realized
situation. A navy "for defence only" is a popular catchword. When, if
ever, people recognize that we have three seaboards, that the
communication by water of one of them with the other two will depend
in a not remote future upon a strategic position hundreds of miles
distant from our nearest port,--the mouth of the Mississippi,--they
will see also that the word "defence," already too narrowly
understood, has its application at points far away from our own coast.

That the organization of military strength involves provocation to war
is a fallacy, which the experience of each succeeding year now
refutes. The immense armaments of Europe are onerous; but
nevertheless, by the mutual respect and caution they enforce, they
present a cheap alternative, certainly in misery, probably in money,
to the frequent devastating wars which preceded the era of general
military preparation. Our own impunity has resulted, not from our
weakness, but from the unimportance to our rivals of the points in
dispute, compared with their more immediate interests at home. With
the changes consequent upon the canal, this indifference will
diminish. We also shall be entangled in the affairs of the great
family of nations, and shall have to accept the attendant burdens.
Fortunately, as regards other states, we are an island power, and can
find our best precedents in the history of the people to whom the sea
has been a nursing mother.

POSSIBILITIES OF AN ANGLO-AMERICAN REUNION.

_July, 1894._

[The following article was requested by the Editor of the "North
American Review," as one of a number, by several persons, dealing
with the question of a formal political connection, proposed by
Mr. Andrew Carnegie, between the United States and the British
Empire, for the advancement of the general interests of the
English-speaking peoples.