made? Whether England should concede complete independence to Ireland may be a question; but to raise up in Ireland ambitions that at some point must be checked, to give embodiment to aspirations and interests which can no sooner reach their development than they will be certainly crushed, were the gift of weak indulgence, and by no means that of true generosity. For every concession the Northern people made to 'State-sovereignty' in the South several thousand Southerners had to be slain in the end.

It may be asked, What shall be the rule of adjustment between local interests and national interests? Who shall decide whether a particular tax is one that should be justly controlled by a national Legislature or by a distinct assembly? To this I reply that the only security against any encroachment of the whole on the parts, or of the parts on the whole, must rest, as it seems to me, upon the three fundamental principles which the constitutional fathers of the United States laid as corner-stones of Republican Government.

1. That local self-government shall be organised in such a way as that no district shall have any artificial superiority over another; and that such

district governments shall be made sufficiently flexible to undergo such modifications as growth or other changes in a community may render desirable.

2. These districts to be represented in a national Congress, which should be chosen by the entire people, pledged to hold merely local interests subordinate to the welfare of the whole nation.

3. There should be a written Constitution, clearly defining the powers both of the district and of the national legislatures. This Constitution should have a Supreme Court for its final interpretation, and an Executive Committee for its enforcement.

Having devised this simple Republican system, the founders of the American Constitution were compelled to compromise it, and, in order to establish the Union at all, to submit that it should bẹ overlaid by the antiquated and fictitious State system. Not only did they recognise the old and accidental boundaries of colonies as representing States, but they gave to these communities complete control of one equal branch of the National Legislature; and allotted them also a power over the election of the Executive, which virtually

deprived the people of the right to elect that officer. The representative districts do indeed vote for the President, but not directly; they vote for a list of State electors, and those named on the chosen list repair to Washington, and record their vote for the candidate they were elected to support. It follows, however, from this thrusting of the so-called State between the people and the presidential election, that the Executive may be chosen by a minority of the nation. For one State may have had its list of electors chosen by a bare majority of its citizens, while another may have elected its list almost unanimously. All the votes of the minority, however large, are thrown away simply because they could not elect their list of electors; on the other hand, all the surplus votes in a State above a bare majority are equally thrown away. Thus, suppose Ohio, Virginia, and Maryland have between them to elect A or B to be President, and cast votes as follows:

B has a majority of 19,999, and is-defeated. Ohio and Virginia have returned A's electors. As a matter of fact there have been several minority Presidents in the history of the United States.

It was, indeed, as will be shown further on, a grievous error that the election of the Executive should have been remitted to the people at all; but the evils consequent upon that error are only intensified where the choice may perhaps not even represent the genuine voice of the people.

—Such then, in part, has been the story of the State-superstition in America. But only in part; for the degree to which the growth of a high public feeling, a large national soul, has been impeded, cannot be estimated. For the first hundred years of American independence, we have heard men proudly calling themselves Virginians and Carolinians, and even Bostonians, but it is a recent experience to hear it said in the same tone, ‘I am an American.'

C

THE TWO CHAMBERS.

I.

It was not at all necessary, when it was determined that the States should have a distinct representation in the Congress, that they should also have a separate House. The State deputies might have sat in the same Chamber with the representatives of the people just as the knights of shires do with other members in the House of Commons. The separation of them into two Houses was accepted upon the precedent of the British Parliament, and on no real grounds whatever. Of the original States, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, two had but one legislative Chamber each, and the Confederation had no more. When the proposition was made to divide the Congress into two branches, three States, the great State of New York among them, recorded their votes against it, and the delegation of another, Maryland, was equally divided on the subject. There seems, however, to have been very little discussion of the matter, which was