{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10112/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10112","id":"gutenberg_10112","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10112","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - American","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Politics","United States -- History -- Philosophy","United States -- Politics and government"],"text":"AMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS\n\nVIEWED FROM THE STANDPOINT OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY\n\nThree Lectures\n\nDELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN IN MAY 1880\n\nBY JOHN FISKE\n\n_Voici un fait enti\u00e8rement nouveau dans le monde, et dont l'imagination\nelle-m\u00eame ne saurait saisir la port\u00e9e._\n\n\nTOCQUEVILLE\n\n\nTO\n\nEDWARD LIVINGSTON YOUMANS\n\nNOBLEST OF MEN AND DEAREST OF FRIENDS\n\nWHOSE UNSELFISH AND UNTIRING WORK IN EDUCATING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN\nTHE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND PHILOSOPHY DESERVES THE GRATITUDE OF ALL MEN\n\nI dedicate this Book\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nIn the spring of 1879 I gave at the Old South Meeting-house in Boston a\ncourse of lectures on the discovery and colonization of America, and\npresently, through the kindness of my friend Professor Huxley, the\ncourse was repeated at University College in London. The lectures there\nwere attended by very large audiences, and awakened such an interest in\nAmerican history that I was invited to return to England in the\nfollowing year and treat of some of the philosophical aspects of my\nsubject in a course of lectures at the Royal Institution.\n\nIn the three lectures which were written in response to this invitation,\nand which are now published in this little volume, I have endeavoured to\nillustrate some of the fundamental ideas of American politics by setting\nforth their relations to the general history of mankind. It is\nimpossible thoroughly to grasp the meaning of any group of facts, in any\ndepartment of study, until we have duly compared them with allied groups\nof facts; and the political history of the American people can be\nrightly understood only when it is studied in connection with that\ngeneral process of political evolution which has been going on from the\nearliest times, and of which it is itself one of the most important and\nremarkable phases. The government of the United States is not the result\nof special creation, but of evolution. As the town-meetings of New\nEngland are lineally descended from the village assemblies of the early\nAryans; as our huge federal union was long ago foreshadowed in the\nlittle leagues of Greek cities and Swiss cantons; so the great political\nproblem which we are (thus far successfully) solving is the very same\nproblem upon which all civilized peoples have been working ever since\ncivilization began. How to insure peaceful concerted action throughout\nthe Whole, without infringing upon local and individual freedom in the\nParts,--this has ever been the chief aim of civilization, viewed on its\npolitical side; and we rate the failure or success of nations\npolitically according to their failure or success in attaining this\nsupreme end. When thus considered in the light of the comparative\nmethod, our American history acquires added dignity and interest, and a\nbroad and rational basis is secured for the detailed treatment of\npolitical questions.\n\nWhen viewed in this light, moreover, not only does American history\nbecome especially interesting to Englishmen, but English history is\nclothed with fresh interest for Americans. Mr. Freeman has done well in\ninsisting upon the fact that the history of the English people does not\nbegin with the Norman Conquest. In the deepest and widest sense, our\nAmerican history does not begin with the Declaration of Independence, or\neven with the settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth; but it descends in\nunbroken continuity from the days when stout Arminius in the forests of\nnorthern Germany successfully defied the might of imperial Rome. In a\nmore restricted sense, the statesmanship of Washington and Lincoln\nappears in the noblest light when regarded as the fruition of the\nvarious work of De Montfort and Cromwell and Chatham. The good fight\nbegun at Lewes and continued at Naseby and Quebec was fitly crowned at\nYorktown and at Appomattox. When we duly realize this, and further come\nto see how the two great branches of the English race have the common\nmission of establishing throughout the larger part of the earth a higher\ncivilization and more permanent political order than any that has gone\nbefore, we shall the better understand the true significance of the\nhistory which English-speaking men have so magnificently wrought out\nupon American soil.\n\nIn dealing concisely with a subject so vast, only brief hints and\nsuggestions can be expected; and I have not thought it worth while, for\nthe present at least, to change or amplify the manner of treatment. The\nlectures are printed exactly as they were delivered at the Royal\nInstitution, more than four years ago. On one point of detail some\nchange will very likely by and by be called for. In the lecture on the\nTown-meeting I have adopted the views of Sir Henry Maine as to the\ncommon holding of the arable land in the ancient German mark, and as to\nthe primitive character of the periodical redistribution of land in the\nRussian village community. It now seems highly probable that these views\nwill have to undergo serious modification in consequence of the valuable\nevidence lately brought forward by my friend Mr. Denman Ross, in his\nlearned and masterly treatise on \"The Early History of Landholding among\nthe Germans;\" but as I am not yet quite clear as to how far this\nmodification will go, and as it can in nowise affect the general drift\nof my argument, I have made no change in my incidental remarks on this\ndifficult and disputed question.\n\nIn describing some of the characteristic features of country life in New\nEngland, I had especially in mind the beautiful mountain village in\nwhich this preface is written, and in which for nearly a quarter of a\ncentury I have felt myself more at home than in any other spot in\nthe world.\n\nIn writing these lectures, designed as they were for a special occasion,\nno attempt was made to meet the ordinary requirements of popular\naudiences; yet they have been received in many places with unlooked-for\nfavour. The lecture on \"Manifest Destiny\" was three times repeated in\nLondon, and once in Edinburgh; seven times in Boston; four times in New\nYork; twice in Brooklyn, N.Y., Plainfield, N.J., and Madison, Wis.; once\nin Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati,\nIndianapolis, St. Louis, and Milwaukee; in Appleton and Waukesha, Wis.;\nPortland, Lewiston, and Brunswick, Me.; Lowell, Concord, Newburyport,\nPeabody, Stoneham, Maiden, Newton Highlands, and Martha's Vineyard,\nMass.; Middletown and Stamford, Conn.; Newburg and Poughkeepsie, N.Y.;\nOrange, N.J.; and at Cornell University and Haverford College. In\nseveral of these places the course was given.\n\nPETERSHAM, _September 13, 1884_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nI.\n\n_THE TOWN-MEETING._\n\nDifferences in outward aspect between a village in England and a village\nin Massachusetts. Life in a typical New England mountain village. Tenure\nof land, domestic service, absence of poverty and crime, universality of\nlabour and of culture, freedom of thought, complete democracy. This\nstate of things is to some extent passing away. Remarkable\ncharacteristics of the Puritan settlers of New England, and extent to\nwhich their characters and aims have influenced American history. Town\ngovernments in New England. Different meanings of the word \"city\" in\nEngland and America. Importance of local self-government in the\npolitical life of the United States. Origin of the town-meeting. Mr.\nFreeman on the cantonal assemblies of Switzerland. The old Teutonic\n\"mark,\" or dwelling-place of a clan. Political union originally based,\nnot on territorial contiguity, but on blood-relationship. Divisions of\nthe mark. Origin of the village Common. The _mark-mote_. Village\ncommunities in Russia and Hindustan. Difference between the despotism of\nRussia and that of France under the Old R\u00e9gime. Elements of sound\npolitical life fostered by the Russian village. Traces of the mark in\nEngland. Feudalization of Europe, and partial metamorphosis of the mark\nor township into the manor. Parallel transformation of the township, in\nsome of its features, into the parish. The court leet and the\nvestry-meeting. The New England town-meeting a revival of the ancient\nmark-mote.\n\nVicissitudes of local self-government in the various portions of the\nAryan world illustrated in the contrasted cases of France and England.\nSignificant contrast between the aristocracy of England and that of the\nContinent. Difference between the Teutonic conquests of Gaul and of\nBritain. Growth of centralization in France. Why the English have always\nbeen more successful than the French in founding colonies. Struggle\nbetween France and England for the possession of North America, and\nprodigious significance of the victory of England.\n\n\nII.\n\n_THE FEDERAL UNION_.\n\nWonderful greatness of ancient Athens. Causes of the political failure\nof Greek civilization. Early stages of political aggregation,--the\n_hundred_, the [Greek: _phratria_], the _curia_; the _shire_, the\n_deme_, and the _pagus_. Aggregation of clans into tribes. Differences\nin the mode of aggregation in Greece and Rome on the one hand, and in\nTeutonic countries on the other. The Ancient City. Origin of cities in\nHindustan, Germany, England, and the United States. Religious character\nof the ancient city. Burghership not granted to strangers. Consequences\nof the political difference between the Graeco-Roman city and the\nTeutonic shire. The _folk-mote_, or primary assembly, and the\n_witenagemote_, or assembly of notables. Origin of representative\ngovernment in the Teutonic shire. Representation unknown to the Greeks\nand Romans. The ancient city as a school for political training.\nIntensity of the jealousies and rivalries between adjacent\nself-governing groups of men. Smallness of simple social aggregates and\nuniversality of warfare in primitive times. For the formation of larger\nand more complex social aggregates, only two methods are\npracticable,--_conquest_ or _federation_. Greek attempts at employing\nthe higher method, that of federation. The Athenian hegemony and its\noverthrow. The Achaian and Aetolian leagues. In a low stage of political\ndevelopment the Roman method of _conquest with incorporation_ was the\nonly one practicable. Peculiarities of the Roman conquest of Italy.\nCauses of the universal dominion of Rome. Advantages and disadvantages\nof this dominion:--on the one hand the _pax romana_, and the breaking\ndown of primitive local superstitions and prejudices; on the other hand\nthe partial extinction of local self-government. Despotism inevitable in\nthe absence of representation. Causes of the political failure of the\nRoman system. Partial reversion of Europe, between the fifth and\neleventh centuries, towards a more primitive type of social structure.\nPower of Rome still wielded through the Church and the imperial\njurisprudence. Preservation of local self-government in England, and at\nthe two ends of the Rhine. The Dutch and Swiss federations. The lesson\nto be learned from Switzerland. Federation on a great scale could only\nbe attempted successfully by men of English political training, when\nworking without let or hindrance in a vast country not preoccupied by an\nold civilization. Without local self-government a great Federal Union is\nimpossible. Illustrations from American history. Difficulty of the\nproblem, and failure of the early attempts at federation in New\nEngland. Effects of the war for independence. The \"Articles of\nConfederation\" and the \"Constitution.\" Pacific implications of American\nfederalism.\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\"_MANIFEST DESTINY._\"\n\nThe Americans boast of the bigness of their country. How to \"bound\" the\nUnited States. \"Manifest Destiny\" of the \"Anglo-Saxon Race.\" The term\n\"Anglo-Saxon\" slovenly and misleading. Statements relating to the\n\"English Race\" have a common interest for Americans and for Englishmen.\nWork of the English race in the world. The prime feature of civilization\nis the diminution of warfare, which becomes possible only through the\nformation of great political aggregates in which the parts retain their\nlocal and individual freedom. In the earlier stages of civilization, the\npossibility of peace can be guaranteed only through war, but the\npreponderant military strength is gradually concentrated in the hands of\nthe most pacific communities, and by the continuance of this process the\npermanent peace of the world will ultimately be secured. Illustrations\nfrom the early struggles of European civilization with outer barbarism,\nand with aggressive civilizations of lower type. Greece and Persia.\nKeltic and Teutonic enemies of Rome. The defensible frontier of European\ncivilization carried northward and eastward to the Rhine by Caesar; to\nthe Oder by Charles the Great; to the Vistula by the Teutonic Knights;\nto the Volga and the Oxus by the Russians. Danger in the Dark Ages from\nHuns and Mongols on the one hand, from Mussulmans on the other. Immense\nincrease of the area and physical strength of European civilization,\nwhich can never again be in danger from outer barbarism. Effect of all\nthis secular turmoil upon the political institutions of Europe. It\nhindered the formation of closely coherent nations, and was at the same\ntime an obstacle to the preservation of popular liberties. Tendency\ntowards the _Asiaticization_ of European life. Opposing influences of\nthe Church, and of the Germanic tribal organizations. Military type of\nsociety on the Continent. Old Aryan self-government happily preserved in\nEngland. Strategic position of England favourable to the early\nelimination of warfare from her soil. Hence the exceptionally normal and\nplastic political development of the English race. Significant\ncoincidence of the discovery of America with the beginnings of the\nProtestant revolt against the asiaticizing tendency. Significance of the\nstruggle between Spain, France, and England for the possession of an\nenormous area of virgin soil which should insure to the conqueror an\nunprecedented opportunity for future development. The race which gained\ncontrol of North America must become the dominant race of the world, and\nits political ideas must prevail in the struggle for life. Moral\nsignificance of the rapid increase of the English race in America.\nFallacy of the notion that centralized governments are needed for very\nlarge nations. It is only through federalism, combined with local\nself-government, that the stability of so huge an aggregate as the\nUnited States can be permanently maintained. What the American\ngovernment really fought for in the late Civil War. Magnitude of the\nresults achieved. Unprecedented military strength shown by this most\npacific and industrial of peoples. Improbability of any future attempt\nto break up the Federal Union. Stupendous future of the English\nrace,--in Africa, in Australia, and in the islands of the Pacific\nOcean. Future of the English language. Probable further adoption of\nfederalism. Probable effects upon Europe of industrial competition with\nthe United States: impossibility of keeping up the present military\narmaments. The States of Europe will be forced, by pressure of\ncircumstances, into some kind of federal union. A similar process will\ngo on until the whole of mankind shall constitute a single political\nbody, and warfare shall disappear forever from the face of the earth.\n\n\n\n\n\nAMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n_THE TOWN-MEETING._\n\n\nThe traveller from the Old World, who has a few weeks at his disposal\nfor a visit to the United States, usually passes straight from one to\nanother of our principal cities, such as Boston, New York, Washington,\nor Chicago, stopping for a day or two perhaps at Niagara Falls,--or,\nperhaps, after traversing a distance like that which separates England\nfrom Mesopotamia, reaches the vast table-lands of the Far West and\ninspects their interesting fauna of antelopes and buffaloes, red Indians\nand Mormons. In a journey of this sort one gets a very superficial view\nof the peculiarities, physical and social, which characterize the\ndifferent portions of our country; and in this there is nothing to\ncomplain of, since the knowledge gained in a vacation-journey cannot\nwell be expected to be thorough or profound. The traveller, however,\nwho should visit the United States in a more leisurely way, with the\npurpose of increasing his knowledge of history and politics, would find\nit well to proceed somewhat differently. He would find himself richly\nrepaid for a sojourn in some insignificant place the very name of which\nis unknown beyond sea,--just as Mr. Mackenzie Wallace--whose book on\nRussia is a model of what such books should be--got so much invaluable\nexperience from his months of voluntary exile at Iv\u00e1nofka in the\nprovince of Novgorod. Out of the innumerable places which one might\nvisit in America, there are none which would better reward such careful\nobservation, or which are more full of interest for the comparative\nhistorian, than the rural towns and mountain villages of New England;\nthat part of English America which is oldest in civilization (though not\nin actual date of settlement), and which, while most completely English\nin blood and in traditions, is at the same time most completely American\nin so far as it has most distinctly illustrated and most successfully\nrepresented those political ideas which have given to American history\nits chief significance in the general work of civilization.\n\nThe United States are not unfrequently spoken of as a \"new country,\" in\nterms which would be appropriate if applied to Australia or New Zealand,\nand which are not inappropriate as applied to the vast region west of\nthe Mississippi River, where the white man had hardly set foot before\nthe beginning of the present century. New England, however, has a\nhistory which carries us back to the times of James I.; and while its\ncities are full of such bustling modern life as one sees in Liverpool or\nManchester or Glasgow, its rural towns show us much that is\nold-fashioned in aspect,--much that one can approach in an antiquarian\nspirit. We are there introduced to a phase of social life which is\nhighly interesting on its own account and which has played an important\npart in the world, yet which, if not actually passing away, is at least\nbecoming so rapidly modified as to afford a theme for grave reflections\nto those who have learned how to appreciate its value. As any\nfar-reaching change in the condition of landed property in England, due\nto agricultural causes, might seriously affect the position of one of\nthe noblest and most useful aristocracies that has ever existed; so, on\nthe other hand, as we consider the possible action of similar causes\nupon the _personnel_ and upon the occupations of rural New England, we\nare unwillingly forced to contemplate the possibility of a\ndeterioration in the character of the most perfect democracy the world\nhas ever seen.\n\nIn the outward aspect of a village in Massachusetts or Connecticut, the\nfeature which would be most likely first to impress itself upon the mind\nof a visitor from England is the manner in which the village is laid out\nand built. Neither in England nor anywhere else in western Europe have I\never met with a village of the New England type. In English villages one\nfinds small houses closely crowded together, sometimes in blocks of ten\nor a dozen, and inhabited by people belonging to the lower orders of\nsociety; while the fine houses of gentlemen stand quite apart in the\ncountry, perhaps out of sight of one another, and surrounded by very\nextensive grounds. The origin of the village, in a mere aggregation of\ntenants of the lord of the manor, is thus vividly suggested. In France\none is still more impressed, I think, with this closely packed structure\nof the village. In the New England village, on the other hand, the finer\nand the poorer houses stand side by side along the road. There are wide\nstraight streets overarched with spreading elms and maples, and on\neither side stand the houses, with little green lawns in front, called\nin rustic parlance \"door-yards.\" The finer houses may stand a thousand\nfeet apart from their neighbours on either side, while between the\npoorer ones there may be intervals of from twenty to one hundred feet,\nbut they are never found crowded together in blocks. Built in this\ncapacious fashion, a village of a thousand inhabitants may have a main\nstreet more than a mile in length, with half a dozen crossing streets\nlosing themselves gradually in long stretches of country road. The\nfinest houses are not ducal palaces, but may be compared with the\nordinary country-houses of gentlemen in England. The poorest houses are\nnever hovels, such as one sees in the Scotch Highlands. The picturesque\nand cosy cottage at Shottery, where Shakespeare used to do his courting,\nwill serve very well as a sample of the humblest sort of old-fashioned\nNew England farm-house. But most of the dwellings in the village come\nbetween these extremes. They are plain neat wooden houses, in\ncapaciousness more like villas than cottages. A New England village\nstreet, laid out in this way, is usually very picturesque and beautiful,\nand it is highly characteristic. In comparing it with things in Europe,\nwhere one rarely finds anything at all like it, one must go to something\nvery different from a village. As you stand in the Court of Heroes at\nVersailles and look down the broad and noble avenue that leads to\nParis, the effect of the vista is much like that of a New England\nvillage street. As American villages grow into cities, the increase in\nthe value of land usually tends to crowd the houses together into blocks\nas in a European city. But in some of our western cities founded and\nsettled by people from New England, this spacious fashion of building\nhas been retained for streets occupied by dwelling-houses. In\nCleveland--a city on the southern shore of Lake Erie, with a population\nabout equal to that of Edinburgh--there is a street some five or six\nmiles in length and five hundred feet in width, bordered on each side\nwith a double row of arching trees, and with handsome stone houses, of\nsufficient variety and freedom in architectural design, standing at\nintervals of from one to two hundred feet along the entire length of the\nstreet. The effect, it is needless to add, is very noble indeed. The\nvistas remind one of the nave and aisles of a huge cathedral.\n\nNow this generous way in which a New England village is built is very\nclosely associated with the historical origin of the village and with\nthe peculiar kind of political and social life by which it is\ncharacterized. First of all, it implies abundance of land. As a rule the\nhead of each family owns the house in which he lives and the ground on\nwhich it is built. The relation of landlord and tenant, though not\nunknown, is not commonly met with. No sort of social distinction or\npolitical privilege is associated with the ownership of land; and the\nlegal differences between real and personal property, especially as\nregards ease of transfer, have been reduced to the smallest minimum that\npractical convenience will allow. Each householder, therefore, though an\nabsolute proprietor, cannot be called a miniature lord of the manor,\nbecause there exists no permanent dependent class such as is implied in\nthe use of such a phrase. Each larger proprietor attends in person to\nthe cultivation of his own land, assisted perhaps by his own sons or by\nneighbours working for hire in the leisure left over from the care of\ntheir own smaller estates. So in the interior of the house there is\nusually no domestic service that is not performed by the mother of the\nfamily and the daughters. Yet in spite of this universality of manual\nlabour, the people are as far as possible from presenting the appearance\nof peasants. Poor or shabbily-dressed people are rarely seen, and there\nis no one in the village whom it would be proper to address in a\npatronizing tone, or who would not consider it a gross insult to be\noffered a shilling. As with poverty, so with dram-drinking and with\ncrime; all alike are conspicuous by their absence. In a village of one\nthousand inhabitants there will be a poor-house where five or six\ndecrepit old people are supported at the common charge; and there will\nbe one tavern where it is not easy to find anything stronger to drink\nthan light beer or cider. The danger from thieves is so slight that it\nis not always thought necessary to fasten the outer doors of the house\nat night. The universality of literary culture is as remarkable as the\nfreedom with which all persons engage in manual labour. The village of a\nthousand inhabitants will be very likely to have a public circulating\nlibrary, in which you may find Professor Huxley's \"Lay Sermons\" or Sir\nHenry Maine's \"Ancient Law\": it will surely have a high-school and half\na dozen schools for small children. A person unable to read and write is\nas great a rarity as an albino or a person with six fingers. The farmer\nwho threshes his own corn and cuts his own firewood has very likely a\npiano in his family sitting-room, with the _Atlantic Monthly_ on the\ntable and Milton and Tennyson, Gibbon and Macaulay on his shelves, while\nhis daughter, who has baked bread in the morning, is perhaps ready to\npaint on china in the afternoon. In former times theological questions\nlargely occupied the attention of the people; and there is probably no\npart of the world where the Bible has been more attentively read, or\nwhere the mysteries of Christian doctrine have to so great an extent\nbeen made the subject of earnest discussion in every household. Hence we\nfind in the New England of to-day a deep religious sense combined with\nsingular flexibility of mind and freedom of thought.\n\nA state of society so completely democratic as that here described has\nnot often been found in connection with a very high and complex\ncivilization. In contemplating these old mountain villages of New\nEngland, one descries slow modifications in the structure of society\nwhich threaten somewhat to lessen its dignity. The immense\nproductiveness of the soil in our western states, combined with\ncheapness of transportation, tends to affect seriously the agricultural\ninterests of New England as well as those of our mother-country. There\nis a visible tendency for farms to pass into the hands of proprietors of\nan inferior type to that of the former owners,--men who are content with\na lower standard of comfort and culture; while the sons of the old\nfarmers go off to the universities to prepare for a professional career,\nand the daughters marry merchants or lawyers in the cities. The\nmountain-streams of New England, too, afford so much water-power as to\nbring in ugly factories to disfigure the beautiful ravines, and to\nintroduce into the community a class of people very different from the\nlandholding descendants of the Puritans. When once a factory is\nestablished near a village, one no longer feels free to sleep with\ndoors unbolted.\n\nIt will be long, however, I trust, before the simple, earnest and\nindependent type of character that has been nurtured on the Blue Hills\nof Massachusetts and the White Hills of New Hampshire shall cease to\noperate like a powerful leaven upon the whole of American society. Much\nhas been said and sung in praise of the spirit of chivalry, which, after\nall, as a great historian reminds us, \"implies the arbitrary choice of\none or two virtues, to be practised in such an exaggerated degree as to\nbecome vices, while the ordinary laws of right and wrong are\nforgotten.\" [1] Quite enough has been said, too, in discredit of\nPuritanism,--its narrowness of aim, its ascetic proclivities, its quaint\naffectations of Hebraism. Yet these things were but the symptoms of the\nintensity of its reverence for that grand spirit of Hebraism, of which\nMr. Matthew Arnold speaks, to which we owe the Bible and Christianity.\nNo loftier ideal has ever been conceived than that of the Puritan who\nwould fain have made of the world a City of God. If we could sum up all\nthat England owes to Puritanism, the story would be a great one indeed.\nAs regards the United States, we may safely say that what is noblest in\nour history to-day, and of happiest augury for our social and political\nfuture, is the impress left upon the character of our people by the\nheroic men who came to New England early in the seventeenth century.\n\nThe settlement of New England by the Puritans occupies a peculiar\nposition in the annals of colonization, and without understanding this\nwe cannot properly appreciate the character of the purely democratic\nsociety which I have sought to describe. As a general rule colonies have\nbeen founded, either by governments or by private enterprise, for\npolitical or commercial reasons. The aim has been--on the part of\ngovernments--to annoy some rival power, or to get rid of criminals, or\nto open some new avenue of trade, or--on the part of the people--to\nescape from straitened circumstances at home, or to find a refuge from\nreligious persecution. In the settlement of New England none of these\nmotives were operative except the last, and that only to a slight\nextent. The Puritans who fled from Nottinghamshire to Holland in 1608,\nand twelve years afterwards crossed the ocean in the _Mayflower_, may be\nsaid to have been driven from England by persecution. But this was not\nthe case with the Puritans who between 1630 and 1650 went from\nLincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, and from Dorset and Devonshire, and\nfounded the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. These men left\ntheir homes at a time when Puritanism was waxing powerful and could not\nbe assailed with impunity. They belonged to the upper and middle classes\nof the society of that day, outside of the peerage. Mr. Freeman has\npointed out the importance of the change by which, after the Norman\nConquest, the Old-English nobility or _thegnhood_ was pushed down into\n\"a secondary place in the political and social scale.\" Of the\nfar-reaching effects of this change upon the whole subsequent history of\nthe English race I shall hereafter have occasion to speak. The proximate\neffect was that \"the ancient lords of the soil, thus thrust down into\nthe second rank, formed that great body of freeholders, the stout gentry\nand yeomanry of England, who were for so many ages the strength of the\nland.\" [2] It was from this ancient thegnhood that the Puritan settlers\nof New England were mainly descended. It is no unusual thing for a\nMassachusetts family to trace its pedigree to a lord of the manor in the\nthirteenth or fourteenth century. The leaders of the New England\nemigration were country gentlemen of good fortune, similar in position\nto such men as Hampden and Cromwell; a large proportion of them had\ntaken degrees at Cambridge. The rank and file were mostly intelligent\nand prosperous yeomen. The lowest ranks of society were not represented\nin the emigration; and all idle, shiftless, or disorderly people were\nrigorously refused admission into the new communities, the early history\nof which was therefore singularly free from anything like riot or\nmutiny. To an extent unparalleled, therefore, in the annals of\ncolonization, the settlers of New England were a body of _picked men_.\nTheir Puritanism was the natural outcome of their free-thinking,\ncombined with an earnestness of character which could constrain them to\nany sacrifices needful for realizing their high ideal of life. They gave\nup pleasant homes in England, and they left them with no feeling of\nrancour towards their native land, in order that, by dint of whatever\nhardship, they might establish in the American wilderness what should\napprove itself to their judgment as a god-fearing community. It matters\nlittle that their conceptions were in some respects narrow. In the\nunflinching adherence to duty which prompted their enterprise, and in\nthe sober intelligence with which it was carried out, we have, as I said\nbefore, the key to what is best in the history of the American people.\n\nOut of such a colonization as that here described nothing but a\ndemocratic society could very well come, save perhaps in case of a\nscarcity of arable land. Between the country gentleman and the yeoman\nwho has become a landed proprietor, the difference is not great enough\nto allow the establishment of permanent distinctions, social or\npolitical. Immediately on their arrival in New England, the settlers\nproceeded to form for themselves a government as purely democratic as\nany that has ever been seen in the world. Instead of scattering about\nover the country, the requirements of education and of public worship,\nas well as of defence against Indian attacks, obliged them to form small\nvillage communities. As these villages multiplied, the surface of the\ncountry came to be laid out in small districts (usually from six to ten\nmiles in length and breadth) called _townships_. Each township contained\nits village together with the woodlands surrounding it. In later days\ntwo or more villages have often grown up within the limits of the same\ntownship, and the road from one village to another is sometimes bordered\nwith homesteads and cultivated fields throughout nearly its whole\nlength. In the neighbourhood of Boston villages and small towns crowd\nclosely together for twenty miles in every direction; and all these will\nno doubt by and by grow together into a vast and complicated city, in\nsomewhat the same way that London has grown.\n\nFrom the outset the government of the township was vested in the\nTOWN-MEETING,--an institution which in its present form is said to be\npeculiar to New England, but which, as we shall see, has close analogies\nwith local self-governing bodies in other ages and countries. Once in\neach year--usually in the month of March--a meeting is held, at which\nevery adult male residing within the limits of the township is expected\nto be present, and is at liberty to address the meeting or to vote upon\nany question that may come up.\n\nIn the first years of the colonies it seems to have been attempted to\nhold town-meetings every month, and to discuss all the affairs of the\ncommunity in these assemblies; but this was soon found to be a cumbrous\nway of transacting public business, and as early as 1635 we find\n_selectmen_ chosen to administer the affairs of the township during the\nintervals between the assemblies. As the system has perfected itself, at\neach annual town-meeting there are chosen not less than three or more\nthan nine selectmen, according to the size of the township. Besides\nthese, there are chosen a town-clerk, a town-treasurer, a\nschool-committee, assessors of taxes, overseers of the poor, constables,\nsurveyors of highways, fence-viewers, and other officers. In very small\ntownships the selectmen themselves may act as assessors of taxes or\noverseers of the poor. The selectmen may appoint police-officers if such\nare required; they may act as a Board of Health; in addition to sundry\nspecific duties too numerous to mention here, they have the general\nsuperintendence of all public business save such as is expressly\nassigned to the other officers; and whenever circumstances may seem to\nrequire it they are authorized to call a town-meeting. The selectmen are\nthus the principal town-magistrates; and through the annual election\ntheir responsibility to the town is maintained at the maximum. Yet in\nmany New England towns re-election of the same persons year after year\nhas very commonly prevailed. I know of an instance where the office of\ntown-clerk was filled by three members of one family during one hundred\nand fourteen consecutive years.\n\nBesides choosing executive officers, the town-meeting has the power of\nenacting by-laws, of making appropriations of money for town-purposes,\nand of providing for miscellaneous emergencies by what might be termed\nspecial legislation. Besides the annual meeting held in the spring for\ntransacting all this local business, the selectmen are required to call\na meeting in the autumn of each year for the election of state and\ncounty officers, each second year for the election of representatives to\nthe federal Congress, and each fourth year for the election of the\nPresident of the United States.\n\nIt only remains to add that, as an assembly of the whole people becomes\nimpracticable in a large community, so when the population of a township\nhas grown to ten or twelve thousand, the town-meeting is discontinued,\nthe town is incorporated as a city, and its affairs are managed by a\nmayor, a board of aldermen, and a common council, according to the\nsystem adopted in London in the reign of Edward I. In America,\ntherefore, the distinction between cities and towns has nothing to do\nwith the presence or absence of a cathedral, but refers solely to\ndifferences in the communal or municipal government. In the city the\ncommon council, as a representative body, replaces (in a certain sense)\nthe town-meeting; a representative government is substituted for a pure\ndemocracy. But the city officers, like the selectmen of towns, are\nelected annually; and in no case (I believe) has municipal government\nfallen into the hands of a self-perpetuating body, as it has done in so\nmany instances in England owing to the unwise policy pursued by the\nTudors and Stuarts in their grants of charters.\n\nIt is only in New England that the township system is to be found in its\ncompleteness. In several southern and western states the administrative\nunit is the county, and local affairs are managed by county\ncommissioners elected by the people. Elsewhere we find a mixture of the\ncounty and township systems. In some of the western states settled by\nNew England people, town-meetings are held, though their powers are\nsomewhat less extensive than in New England. In the settlement of\nVirginia it was attempted to copy directly the parishes and vestries,\nboroughs and guilds of England. But in the southern states generally the\ngreat size of the plantations and the wide dispersion of the population\nhindered the growth of towns, so that it was impossible to have an\nadministrative unit smaller than the county. As Tocqueville said fifty\nyears ago, \"the farther south we go the less active does the business of\nthe township or parish become; the population exercises a less immediate\ninfluence on affairs; the power of the elected magistrate is augmented\nand that of the election diminished, while the public spirit of the\nlocal communities is less quickly awakened and less influential.\" This\nis almost equally true to-day; yet with all these differences in local\norganization, there is no part of our country in which the spirit of\nlocal self-government can be called weak or uncertain. I have described\nthe Town-meeting as it exists in the states where it first grew up and\nhas since chiefly flourished. But something very like the \"town-meeting\nprinciple\" lies at the bottom of all the political life of the United\nStates. To maintain vitality in the centre without sacrificing it in the\nparts; to preserve tranquillity in the mutual relations of forty\npowerful states, while keeping the people everywhere as far as possible\nin direct contact with the government; such is the political problem\nwhich the American Union exists for the purpose of solving; and of this\ngreat truth every American citizen is supposed to have some glimmering,\nhowever crude.\n\nIt has been said that the town-governments of New England were\nestablished without any conscious reference to precedent; but, however\nthis may be, they are certainly not without precedents and analogies, to\nenumerate which will carry us very far back in the history of the Aryan\nworld. At the beginning of his essay on the \"Growth of the English\nConstitution,\" Mr. Freeman gives an eloquent account of the May\nassemblies of Uri and Appenzell, when the whole people elect their\nmagistrates for the year and vote upon amendments to the old laws or\nupon the adoption of new ones. Such a sight Mr. Freeman seems to think\ncan be seen nowhere but in Switzerland, and he reckons it among the\nhighest privileges of his life to have looked upon it. But I am unable\nto see in what respect the town-meeting in Massachusetts differs from\nthe _Landesgemeinde_ or cantonal assembly in Switzerland, save that it\nis held in a town-hall and not in the open air, that it is conducted\nwith somewhat less of pageantry, and that the freemen who attend do not\ncarry arms even by way of ceremony. In the Swiss assembly, as Mr.\nFreeman truly observes, we see exemplified the most democratic phase of\nthe old Teutonic constitution as described in the \"Germania\" of\nTacitus, \"the earliest picture which history can give us of the\npolitical and social being of our own forefathers.\" The same remark, in\nprecisely the same terms, would be true of the town-meetings of New\nEngland. Political institutions, on the White Mountains and on the Alps,\nnot only closely resemble each other, but are connected by strict bonds\nof descent from a common original.\n\nThe most primitive self-governing body of which we have any knowledge is\nthe village-community of the ancient Teutons, of which such strict\ncounterparts are found in other parts of the Aryan world as to make it\napparent that in its essential features it must be an inheritance from\nprehistoric Aryan antiquity. In its Teutonic form the primitive\nvillage-community (or rather, the spot inhabited by it) is known as the\n_Mark_,--that is, a place defined by a boundary-line. One characteristic\nof the mark-community is that all its free members are in theory\nsupposed to be related to each other through descent from a common\nprogenitor; and in this respect the mark-community agrees with the\n_gens_, [Greek: _ginos_], or _clan_. The earliest form of political\nunion in the world is one which rests, not upon territorial contiguity,\nbut upon I blood-relationship, either real or assumed through the legal\nfiction of adoption. In the lowest savagery blood-relationship is the\nonly admissible or conceivable ground for sustained common action among\ngroups of men. Among peoples which wander about, supporting themselves\neither by hunting, or at a somewhat more advanced stage of development\nby the rearing of flocks and herds, a group of men, thus permanently\nassociated through ties of blood-relationship, is what we call a _clan_.\nWhen by the development of agricultural pursuits the nomadic mode of\nlife is brought to an end, when the clan remains stationary upon some\npiece of territory surrounded by a strip of forest-land, or other\nboundaries natural or artificial, then the clan becomes a\nmark-community. The profound linguistic researches of Pictet, Fick, and\nothers have made it probable that at the time when the Old-Aryan\nlanguage was broken up into the dialects from which the existing\nlanguages of Europe are descended, the Aryan tribes were passing from a\npurely pastoral stage of barbarism into an incipient agricultural stage,\nsomewhat like that which characterized the Iroquois tribes in America in\nthe seventeenth century. The comparative study of institutions leads to\nresults in harmony with this view, showing us the mark-community of our\nTeutonic ancestors with the clear traces of its origin in the more\nprimitive clan; though, with Mr. Kemble, I do not doubt that by the time\nof Tacitus the German tribes had long since reached the\nagricultural stage.\n\nTerritorially the old Teutonic mark consisted of three divisions. There\nwas the _village mark_, where the people lived in houses crowded closely\ntogether, no doubt for defensive purposes; there was the _arable mark_,\ndivided into as many lots as there were householders; and there was the\n_common mark_, or border-strip of untilled land, wherein all the\ninhabitants of the village had common rights of pasturage and of cutting\nfirewood. All this land originally was the property not of any one\nfamily or individual, but of the community. The study of the mark\ncarries us back to a time when there may have been private property in\nweapons, utensils, or trinkets, but not in real estate.[3] Of the three\nkinds of land the common mark, save where curtailed or usurped by lords\nin the days of feudalism, has generally remained public property to this\nday. The pleasant green commons or squares which occur in the midst of\ntowns and cities in England and the United States most probably\noriginated from the coalescence of adjacent mark-communities, whereby\nthe border-land used in common by all was brought into the centre of the\nnew aggregate. In towns of modern date this origin of the common is of\ncourse forgotten, and in accordance with the general law by which the\nuseful thing after discharging its functions survives for purposes of\nornament, it is introduced as a pleasure-ground. In old towns of New\nEngland, however, the little park where boys play ball or children and\nnurses \"take the air\" was once the common pasture of the town. Even\nBoston Common did not entirely cease to be a grazing-field until 1830.\nIt was in the village-mark, or assemblage of homesteads, that private\nproperty in real estate naturally began. In the Russian villages to-day\nthe homesteads are private property, while the cultivated land is owned\nin common. This was the case with the _arable mark_ of our ancestors.\nThe arable mark belonged to the community, and was temporarily divided\ninto as many fields as there were households, though the division was\nprobably not into equal parts: more likely, as in Russia to-day, the\nnumber of labourers in each household was taken into the account; and at\nirregular intervals, as fluctuations in population seemed to require it,\na thorough-going redivision was effected. In carrying out such\ndivisions and redivisions, as well as in all matters relating to\nvillage, ploughed field, or pasture, the mark-community was a law unto\nitself. Though individual freedom was by no means considerable, the\nlegal existence of the individual being almost entirely merged in that\nof his clan, the mark-community was a completely self-governing body.\nThe assembly of the mark-men, or members of the community, allotted land\nfor tillage, determined the law or declared the custom as to methods of\ntillage, fixed the dates for sowing and reaping, voted upon the\nadmission of new families into the village, and in general transacted\nwhat was then regarded as the public business of the community. In all\nessential respects this village assembly or _mark-mote_ would seem to\nhave resembled the town-meetings of New England.\n\nSuch was the mark-community of the ancient Teutons, as we gather partly\nfrom hints afforded by Tacitus and partly from the comparative study of\nEnglish, German, and Scandinavian institutions. In Russia and in\nHindustan we find the same primitive form of social organization\nexisting with very little change at the present day. Alike in Hindu and\nin Russian village-communities we find the group of habitations, each\ndespotically ruled by a _pater-familias;_ we find the pasture-land\nowned and enjoyed in common; and we find the arable land divided into\nseparate lots, which are cultivated according to minute regulations\nestablished by the community. But in India the occasional redistribution\nof lots survives only in a few localities, and as a mere tradition in\nothers; the arable mark has become private property, as well as the\nhomesteads. In Russia, on the other hand, re-allotments occur at\nirregular intervals averaging something like fifteen years. In India the\nlocal government is carried on in some places by a Council of Village\nElders, and in other places by a Headman whose office is sometimes\ndescribed as hereditary, but is more probably elective, the choice being\nconfined, as in the case of the old Teutonic kingship, to the members of\na particular family. In the Russian village, on the other hand, the\ngovernment is conducted by an assembly at which every head of a\nhousehold is expected to be present and vote on all matters of public\nconcern. This assembly elects the Village Elder, or chief executive\nofficer, the tax-collector, the watchman, and the communal herd-boy; it\ndirects the allotment of the arable land; and in general matters of\nlocal legislation its power is as great as that of the New England\ntown-meeting,--in some respects perhaps even greater, since the precise\nextent of its powers has never been determined by legislation, and\n(according to Mr. Wallace) \"there is no means of appealing against its\ndecisions.\" To those who are in the habit of regarding Russia simply as\na despotically-governed country, such a statement may seem surprising.\nTo those who, because the Russian government is called a bureaucracy,\nhave been led to think of it as analogous to the government of France\nunder the Old R\u00e9gime, it may seem incredible that the decisions of a\nvillage-assembly should not admit of appeal to a higher authority. But\nin point of fact, no two despotic governments could be less alike than\nthat of modern Russia and that of France under the Old R\u00e9gime. The\nRussian government is autocratic inasmuch as over the larger part of the\ncountry it has simply succeeded to the position of the Mongolian khans\nwho from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century held the Russian people\nin subjection. This Mongolian government was--to use a happy distinction\nsuggested by Sir Henry Maine--a tax-taking despotism, not a legislative\ndespotism. The conquerors exacted tribute, but did not interfere with\nthe laws and customs of the subject people. When the Russians drove out\nthe Mongols they exchanged a despotism which they hated for one in\nwhich they felt a national pride, but in one curious respect the\nposition of the people with reference to their rulers has remained the\nsame. The imperial government exacts from each village-community a tax\nin gross, for which the community as a whole is responsible, and which\nmay or may not be oppressive in amount; but the government has never\ninterfered with local legislation or with local customs. Thus in the\n_mir_, or village-community, the Russians still retain an element of\nsound political life, the importance of which appears when we consider\nthat five-sixths of the population of European Russia is comprised in\nthese communities. The tax assessed upon them by the imperial government\nis, however, a feature which--even more than their imperfect system of\nproperty and their low grade of mental culture--separates them by a\nworld-wide interval from the New England township, to the primeval\nembryonic stage of which they correspond.\n\nFrom these illustrations we see that the mark, or self-governing\nvillage-community, is an institution which must be referred back to\nearly Aryan times. Whether the mark ever existed in England, in anything\nlike the primitive form in which it is seen in the Russian _mir_, is\ndoubtful. Professor Stubbs (one of the greatest living authorities on\nsuch a subject) is inclined to think that the Teutonic settlers of\nBritain had passed beyond this stage before they migrated from\nGermany.[4] Nevertheless the traces of the mark, as all admit, are\nplentiful enough in England; and some of its features have survived down\nto modern times. In the great number of town-names that are formed from\npatronymics, such as _Walsingham_ \"the home of the Walsings,\"\n_Harlington_ \"the town of the Harlings,\" etc.,[5] we have unimpeachable\nevidence of a time when the town was regarded as the dwelling-place of a\nclan. Indeed, the comparative rarity of the word _mark_ in English laws,\ncharters, and local names (to which Professor Stubbs alludes) may be due\nto the fact that the word _town_ has precisely the same meaning. _Mark_\nmeans originally the belt of waste land encircling the village, and\nsecondarily the village with its periphery. _Town_ means originally a\nhedge or enclosure, and secondarily the spot that is enclosed: the\nmodern German _zaun_, a \"hedge,\" preserves the original meaning. But\ntraces of the mark in England are not found in etymology alone. I have\nalready alluded to the origin of the \"common\" in English towns. What is\nstill more important is that in some parts of England cultivation in\ncommon has continued until quite recently. The local legislation of the\nmark appears in the _tunscipesmot_,--a word which is simply Old-English\nfor \"town-meeting.\" In the shires where the Danes acquired a firm\nfoothold, the township was often called a \"by\"; and it had the power of\nenacting its own \"by-laws\" or town-laws, as New England townships have\nto-day. But above all, the assembly of the markmen has left vestiges of\nitself in the constitution of the parish and the manor. The mark or\ntownship, transformed by the process of feudalization, becomes the\nmanor. The process of feudalization, throughout western Europe in\ngeneral, was no doubt begun by the institution of Benefices, or \"grants\nof Roman provincial land by the chieftains of the\" Teutonic \"tribes\nwhich overran the Roman Empire; such grants being conferred on their\nassociates upon certain conditions, of which the commonest was military\nservice.\" [6] The feudal r\u00e9gime naturally reached its most complete\ndevelopment in France, which affords the most perfect example of a Roman\nterritory overrun and permanently held in possession by Teutonic\nconquerors. Other causes assisted the process, the most potent perhaps\nbeing the chaotic condition of European society during the break-up of\nthe Carolingian Empire and the Scandinavian and Hungarian invasions.\nLand was better protected when held of a powerful chieftain than when\nheld in one's own right; and hence the practice of commendation, by\nwhich free allodial proprietors were transformed into the tenants of a\nlord, became fashionable and was gradually extended to all kinds of\nestates. In England the effects of feudalization were different from\nwhat they were in France, but the process was still carried very far,\nespecially under the Norman kings. The theory grew up that all the\npublic land in the kingdom was the king's waste, and that all\nlandholders were the king's tenants. Similarly in every township the\ncommon land was the lord's waste and the landholders were the lord's\ntenants. Thus the township became transformed into the manor. Yet even\nby such a change as this the townsmen or tenants of the manor did not in\nEngland lose their self-government. \"The encroachments of the lord,\" as\nSir Henry Maine observes, \"were in proportion to the want of certainty\nin the rights of the community.\" The lord's proprietorship gave him no\nauthority to disturb customary rights. The old township-assembly\npartially survived in the Court Baron, Court Leet, and Customary Court\nof the Manor; and in these courts the arrangements for the common\nhusbandry were determined.\n\nThis metamorphosis of the township into the manor, however, was but\npartial: along with it went the partial metamorphosis of the township\ninto the parish, or district assigned to a priest. Professor Stubbs has\npointed out that \"the boundaries of the parish and the township or\ntownships with which it coincides are generally the same: in small\nparishes the idea and even the name of township is frequently, at the\npresent day, sunk in that of the parish; and all the business that is\nnot manorial is despatched in vestry-meetings, which are however\nprimarily meetings of the township for church purposes.\" [7] The parish\nofficers, including overseers of the poor, assessors, and way-wardens,\nare still elected in vestry-meeting by the freemen of the township. And\nwhile the jurisdiction of the manorial courts has been defined by\ncharter, or by the customary law existing at the time of the manorial\ngrant, \"all matters arising outside that jurisdiction come under the\nmanagement of the vestry.\"\n\nIn England, therefore, the free village-community, though perhaps\nnowhere found in its primitive integrity, has nevertheless survived in\npartially transfigured forms which have played no unimportant part in\nthe history of the English people. In one shape or another the assembly\nof freemen for purposes of local legislation has always existed. The\nPuritans who colonized New England, therefore, did not invent the\ntown-meeting. They were familiar already with the proceedings of the\nvestry-meeting and the manorial courts, but they were severed now from\nchurch and from aristocracy. So they had but to discard the\necclesiastical and lordly terminology, with such limitations as they\ninvolved, and to reintegrate the separate jurisdictions into one,--and\nforthwith the old assembly of the township, founded in immemorial\ntradition, but revivified by new thoughts and purposes gained through\nages of political training, emerged into fresh life and entered upon a\nmore glorious career.\n\nIt is not to an audience which speaks the English language that I need\nto argue the point that the preservation of local self-government is of\nthe highest importance for the maintenance of a rich and powerful\nnational life. As we contemplate the vicissitudes of local\nself-government in the various portions of the Aryan world, we see the\ncontrasted fortunes of France and England illustrating for us most\nforcibly the significance of this truth. For the preservation of local\nself-government in England various causes may be assigned; but of these\nthere are two which may be cited as especially prominent. In the first\nplace, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the Teutonic settlement of\nBritain, the civilization of England previous to the Norman Conquest was\nbut little affected by Roman ideas or institutions. In the second place\nthe thrusting down of the old thegnhood by the Norman Conquest (to which\nI have already alluded) checked the growth of a _noblesse_ or _adel_ of\nthe continental type,--a nobility raised above the common people like a\nseparate caste. For the old thegnhood, which might have grown into such\na caste, was pushed down into a secondary position, and the peerage\nwhich arose after the Conquest was something different from a\n_noblesse_. It was primarily a nobility of office rather than of rank or\nprivilege. The peers were those men who retained the right of summons to\nthe Great Council, or Witenagemote, which has survived as the House of\nLords. The peer was therefore the holder of a legislative and judicial\noffice, which only one of his children could inherit, from the very\nnature of the case, and which none of his children could share with him.\nHence the brothers and younger children of a peer were always commoners,\nand their interests were not remotely separated from those of other\ncommoners. Hence after the establishment of a House of Commons, their\nbest chance for a political career lay in representing the interests of\nthe people in the lower house. Hence between the upper and lower strata\nof English society there has always been kept up a circulation or\ninterchange of ideas and interests, and the effect of this upon English\nhistory has been prodigious. While on the continent a sovereign like\nCharles the Bold could use his nobility to extinguish the liberties of\nthe merchant towns of Flanders, nothing of the sort was ever possible in\nEngland. Throughout the Middle Ages, in every contest between the people\nand the crown, the weight of the peerage was thrown into the scale in\nfavour of popular liberties. But for this peculiar position of the\npeerage we might have had no Earl Simon; it is largely through it that\nrepresentative government and local liberties have been preserved to the\nEnglish race.\n\nIn France the course of events has brought about very different results.\nI shall defer to my next lecture the consideration of the vicissitudes\nof local self-government under the Roman Empire, because that point is\nreally incident upon the study of the formation of vast national\naggregates. Suffice it now to say that when the Teutons overcame Gaul,\nthey became rulers over a population which had been subjected for five\ncenturies to that slow but mighty process of trituration which the\nEmpire everywhere brought to bear upon local self-government. While the\nTeutons in Britain, moreover, enslaved their slightly romanized subjects\nand gave little heed to their language, religion, or customs; the\nTeutons in Gaul, on the other hand, quickly adopted the language and\nreligion of their intensely romanized subjects and acquired to some\nextent their way of looking at things. Hence in the early history of\nFrance there was no such stubborn mass of old Aryan liberties to be\ndealt with as in the early history of England. Nor was there any\npowerful middle class distributed through the country to defend such\nliberties as existed. Beneath the turbulent throng of Teutonic nobles,\namong whom the king was only the most exalted and not always the\nstrongest, there lay the Gallo-Roman population which had so long been\naccustomed to be ruled without representation by a distant government\nexercising its authority through innumerable prefects. Such Teutonic\nrank and file as there was became absorbed into this population; and\nexcept in sundry chartered towns there was nothing like a social stratum\ninterposed between the nobles and the common people.\n\nThe slow conversion of the feudal monarchy of the early Capetians into\nthe absolute despotism of Louis XIV. was accomplished by the king\ngradually _conquering_ his vassals one after another, and adding their\ndomains to his own. As one vassal territory after another was added to\nthe royal domain, the king sent prefects, responsible only to himself,\nto administer its local affairs, sedulously crushing out, so far as\npossible, the last vestiges of self-government. The nobles, deprived of\ntheir provincial rule, in great part flocked to Paris to become idle\ncourtiers. The means for carrying on the gigantic machinery of\ncentralized administration, and for supporting the court in its follies,\nwere wrung from the groaning peasantry with a cynical indifference like\nthat with which tribute is extorted by barbaric chieftains from a\nconquered enemy. And thus came about that abominable state of things\nwhich a century since was abruptly ended by one of the fiercest\nconvulsions of modern times. The prodigious superiority--in respect to\nnational vitality--of a freely governed country over one that is\ngoverned by a centralized despotism, is nowhere more brilliantly\nillustrated than in the contrasted fortunes of France and England as\n_colonizing_ nations. When we consider the declared rivalry between\nFrance and England in their plans for colonizing the barbarous regions\nof the earth, when we consider that the military power of the two\ncountries has been not far from equal, and that France has at times\nshown herself a maritime power by no means to be despised, it seems to\nme that her overwhelming and irretrievable defeat by England in the\nstruggle for colonial empire is one of the most striking and one of the\nmost instructive facts in all modern history. In my lectures of last\nyear (at University College) I showed that, in the struggle for the\npossession of North America, where the victory of England was so\ndecisive as to settle the question for all coming time, the causes of\nthe French failure are very plainly to be seen. The French colony in\nCanada was one of the most complete examples of a despotic government\nthat the world has ever seen. All the autocratic and bureaucratic ideas\nof Louis XIV. were here carried out without let or hindrance. It would\nbe incredible, were it not attested by such abundant evidence, that the\naffairs of any people could be subjected to such minute and sleepless\nsupervision as were the affairs of the French colonists in Canada. A man\ncould not even build his own house, or rear his own cattle, or sow his\nown seed, or reap his own grain, save under the supervision of prefects\nacting under instructions from the home government. No one was allowed\nto enter or leave the colony without permission, not from the colonists\nbut from the king. No farmer could visit Montreal or Quebec without\npermission. No Huguenot could set his foot on Canadian soil. No public\nmeetings of any kind were tolerated, nor were there any means of giving\nexpression to one's opinions on any subject. The details of all this,\nwhich may be read in Mr. Parkman's admirable work on \"The Old Regime in\nCanada,\" make a wonderful chapter of history. Never was a colony,\nmoreover, so loaded with bounties, so fostered, petted, and protected.\nThe result was absolute paralysis, political and social. When after a\ncentury of irritation and skirmishing the French in Canada came to a\nlife-and-death struggle with the self-governing colonists of New\nEngland, New York, and Virginia, the result for the French power in\nAmerica was instant and irretrievable annihilation. The town-meeting\npitted against the bureaucracy was like a Titan overthrowing a cripple.\nThe historic lesson owes its value to the fact that this ruin of the\nFrench scheme of colonial empire was due to no accidental circumstances,\nbut was involved in the very nature of the French political system.\nObviously it is impossible for a people to plant beyond sea a colony\nwhich shall be self-supporting, unless it has retained intact the power\nof self-government at home. It is to the self-government of England, and\nto no lesser cause, that we are to look for the secret of that boundless\nvitality which has given to men of English speech the uttermost parts of\nthe earth for an inheritance. The conquest of Canada first demonstrated\nthis truth, and when--in the two following lectures--we shall have made\nsome approach towards comprehending its full import, we shall all, I\nthink, be ready to admit that the triumph of Wolfe marks the greatest\nturning-point as yet discernible in modern history.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\n_THE FEDERAL UNION_.\n\nThe great history of Thukydides, which after twenty-three centuries\nstill ranks (in spite of Mr. Cobden) among our chief text-books of\npolitical wisdom, has often seemed to me one of the most mournful books\nin the world. At no other spot on the earth's surface, and at no other\ntime in the career of mankind, has the human intellect flowered with\nsuch luxuriance as at Athens during the eighty-five years which\nintervened between the victory of Marathon and the defeat of\n\u00c6gospotamos. In no other like interval of time, and in no other\ncommunity of like dimensions, has so much work been accomplished of\nwhich we can say with truth that it is [Greek: ktaema es aei],--an\neternal possession. It is impossible to conceive of a day so distant, or\nan era of culture so exalted, that the lessons taught by Athens shall\ncease to be of value, or that the writings of her great thinkers shall\ncease to be read with fresh profit and delight. We understand these\nthings far better to-day than did those monsters of erudition in the\nsixteenth century who studied the classics for philological purposes\nmainly. Indeed, the older the world grows, the more varied our\nexperience of practical politics, the more comprehensive our survey of\nuniversal history, the stronger our grasp upon the comparative method of\ninquiry, the more brilliant is the light thrown upon that brief day of\nAthenian greatness, and the more wonderful and admirable does it all\nseem. To see this glorious community overthrown, shorn of half its\nvirtue (to use the Homeric phrase), and thrust down into an inferior\nposition in the world, is a mournful spectacle indeed. And the book\nwhich sets before us, so impartially yet so eloquently, the innumerable\npetty misunderstandings and contemptible jealousies which brought about\nthis direful result, is one of the most mournful of books.\n\nWe may console ourselves, however, for the premature overthrow of the\npower of Athens, by the reflection that that power rested upon political\nconditions which could not in any case have been permanent or even\nlong-enduring. The entire political system of ancient Greece, based as\nit was upon the idea of the sovereign independence of each single city,\nwas one which could not fail sooner or later to exhaust itself through\nchronic anarchy. The only remedy lay either in some kind of permanent\nfederation, combined with representative government; or else in what we\nmight call \"incorporation and assimilation,\" after the Roman fashion.\nBut the incorporation of one town with another, though effected with\nbrilliant results in the early history of Attika, involved such a\ndisturbance of all the associations which in the Greek mind clustered\nabout the conception of a city that it was quite impracticable on any\nlarge or general scale. Schemes of federal union were put into\noperation, though too late to be of avail against the assaults of\nMacedonia and Rome. But as for the principle of representation, that\nseems to have been an invention of the Teutonic mind; no statesman of\nantiquity, either in Greece or at Rome, seems to have conceived the idea\nof a city sending delegates armed with plenary powers to represent its\ninterests in a general legislative assembly. To the Greek statesmen, no\ndoubt, this too would have seemed derogatory to the dignity of the\nsovereign city.\n\nThis feeling with which the ancient Greek statesmen, and to some extent\nthe Romans also, regarded the city, has become almost incomprehensible\nto the modern mind, so far removed are we from the political\ncircumstances which made such a feeling possible. Teutonic\ncivilization, indeed, has never passed through a stage in which the\nforemost position has been held by civic communities. Teutonic\ncivilization passed directly from the stage of tribal into that of\nnational organization, before any Teutonic city had acquired sufficient\nimportance to have claimed autonomy for itself; and at the time when\nTeutonic nationalities were forming, moreover, all the cities in Europe\nhad so long been accustomed to recognize a master outside of them in the\nperson of the Roman emperor that the very tradition of civic autonomy,\nas it existed in ancient Greece, had become extinct. This difference\nbetween the political basis of Teutonic and of Gr\u00e6co-Roman civilization\nis one of which it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance; and\nwhen thoroughly understood it goes farther, perhaps, than anything else\ntowards accounting for the successive failures of the Greek and Roman\npolitical systems, and towards inspiring us with confidence in the\nfuture stability of the political system which has been wrought out by\nthe genius of the English race.\n\nWe saw, in the preceding lecture, how the most primitive form of\npolitical association known to have existed is that of the _clan_, or\ngroup of families held together by ties of descent from a common\nancestor. We saw how the change from a nomadic to a stationary mode of\nlife, attendant upon the adoption of agricultural pursuits, converted\nthe clan into a _mark_ or village-community, something like those which\nexist to-day in Russia. The political progress of primitive society\nseems to have consisted largely in the coalescence of these small groups\ninto larger groups. The first series of compound groups resulting from\nthe coalescence of adjacent marks is that which was known in nearly all\nTeutonic lands as the _hundred_, in Athens as the [Greek: _phratria_] or\n_brotherhood_, in Rome as the _curia_. Yet alongside of the Roman group\ncalled the _curia_ there is a group whose name, the _century_, exactly\ntranslates the name of the Teutonic group; and, as Mr. Freeman says, it\nis difficult to believe that the Roman _century_ did not at the outset\nin some way correspond to the Teutonic _hundred_ as a stage in political\norganization. But both these terms, as we know them in history, are\nsurvivals from some prehistoric state of things; and whether they were\noriginally applied to a hundred of houses, or of families, or of\nwarriors, we do not know.[8] M. Geffroy, in his interesting essay on the\nGermania of Tacitus, suggests that the term _canton_ may have a similar\norigin.[9] The outlines of these primitive groups are, however, more\nobscure than those of the more primitive mark, because in most cases\nthey have been either crossed and effaced or at any rate diminished in\nimportance by the more highly compounded groups which came next in order\nof formation. Next above the _hundred_, in order of composition, comes\nthe group known in ancient Italy as the_pagus_, in Attika perhaps as the\n_deme_, in Germany and at first in England as the _gau_ or _ga_, at a\nlater date in England as the _shire_. Whatever its name, this group\nanswers to the _tribe_ regarded as settled upon a certain determinate\nterritory. Just as in the earlier nomadic life the aggregation of clans\nmakes ultimately the tribe, so in the more advanced agricultural life of\nour Aryan ancestors the aggregation of marks or village-communities\nmakes ultimately the _gau_ or _shire_. Properly speaking, the name\n_shire_ is descriptive of division and not of aggregation; but this term\ncame into use in England after the historic order of formation had been\nforgotten, and when the _shire_ was looked upon as a _piece_ of some\nlarger whole, such as the kingdom of Mercia or Wessex. Historically,\nhowever, the _shire_ was not made, like the _departments_ of modern\nFrance, by the division of the kingdom for administrative purposes, but\nthe kingdom was made by the union of shires that were previously\nautonomous. In the primitive process of aggregation, the _shire_ or\n_gau_, governed by its _witenagemote_ or \"meeting of wise men,\" and by\nits chief magistrate who was called _ealdorman_ in time of peace and\n_heretoga_, \"army-leader,\" _dux_, or _duke_, in time of war,--the\n_shire_, I say, in this form, is the largest and most complex political\nbody we find previous to the formation of kingdoms and nations. But in\nsaying this, we have already passed beyond the point at which we can\ninclude in the same general formula the process of political development\nin Teutonic countries on the one hand and in Greece and Rome on the\nother. Up as far as the formation of the tribe, territorially regarded,\nthe parallelism is preserved; but at this point there begins an\nall-important divergence. In the looser and more diffused society of the\nrural Teutons, the tribe is spread over a shire, and the aggregation of\nshires makes a kingdom, embracing cities, towns, and rural districts\nheld together by similar bonds of relationship to the central governing\npower. But in the society of the old Greeks and Italians, the\naggregation of tribes, crowded together on fortified hill-tops, makes\nthe _Ancient City_,--a very different thing, indeed, from the modern\ncity of later-Roman or Teutonic foundation. Let us consider, for a\nmoment, the difference.\n\nSir Henry Maine tells us that in Hindustan nearly all the great towns\nand cities have arisen either from the simple expansion or from the\nexpansion and coalescence of primitive village-communities; and such as\nhave not arisen in this way, including some of the greatest of Indian\ncities, have grown up about the intrenched camps of the Mogul\nemperors.[10] The case has been just the same in modern Europe. Some\nfamous cities of England and Germany--such as Chester and Lincoln,\nStrasburg and Maintz,--grew up about the camps of the Roman legions. But\nin general the Teutonic city has been formed by the expansion and\ncoalescence of thickly-peopled townships and hundreds. In the United\nStates nearly all cities have come from the growth and expansion of\nvillages, with such occasional cases of coalescence as that of Boston\nwith Roxbury and Charlestown. Now and then a city has been laid out as a\ncity _ab initio_, with full consciousness of its purpose, as a man would\nbuild a house; and this was the case not merely with Martin Chuzzlewit's\n\"Eden,\" but with the city of Washington, the seat of our federal\ngovernment. But, to go back to the early ages of England--the country\nwhich best exhibits the normal development of Teutonic institutions--the\npoint which I wish especially to emphasize is this: _in no case does the\ncity appear as equivalent to the dwelling-place of a tribe or of a\nconfederation of tribes_. In no case does citizenship, or burghership,\nappear to rest upon the basis of a real or assumed community of descent\nfrom a single real or mythical progenitor. In the primitive mark, as we\nhave seen, the bond which kept the community together and constituted it\na political unit was the bond of blood-relationship, real or assumed;\nbut this was not the case with the city or borough. The city did not\ncorrespond with the tribe, as the mark corresponded with the clan. The\naggregation of clans into tribes corresponded with the aggregation of\nmarks, not into _cities_ but into _shires_. The multitude of compound\npolitical units, by the further compounding of which a nation was to be\nformed, did not consist of cities but of shires. The city was simply a\npoint in the shire distinguished by greater density of population. The\nrelations sustained by the thinly-peopled rural townships and hundreds\nto the general government of the shire were co-ordinate with the\nrelations sustained to the same government by those thickly-peopled\ntownships and hundreds which upon their coalescence were known as cities\nor boroughs. Of course I am speaking now in a broad and general way, and\nwithout reference to such special privileges or immunities as cities and\nboroughs frequently obtained by royal charter in feudal times. Such\nspecial privileges--as for instance the exemption of boroughs from the\nordinary sessions of the county court, under Henry I.[11]--were in their\nnature grants from an external source, and were in nowise inherent in\nthe position or mode of origin of the Teutonic city. And they were,\nmoreover, posterior in date to that embryonic period of national growth\nof which I am now speaking. They do not affect in any way the\ncorrectness of my general statement, which is sufficiently illustrated\nby the fact that the oldest shire-motes, or county-assemblies, were\nattended by representatives from all the townships and hundreds in the\nshire, whether such townships and hundreds formed parts of boroughs\nor not.\n\nVery different from this was the embryonic growth of political society\nin ancient Greece and Italy. There the aggregation of clans into tribes\nand confederations of tribes resulted directly, as we have seen, in the\nCity. There burghership, with its political and social rights and\nduties, had its theoretical basis in descent from a common ancestor, or\nfrom a small group of closely-related common ancestors. The group of\nfellow-citizens was associated through its related groups of ancestral\nhousehold-deities, and through religious rites performed in common to\nwhich it would have been sacrilege to have admitted a stranger. Thus the\nAncient City was a religious as well as a political body, and in either\ncharacter it was complete in itself and it was sovereign. Thus in\nancient Greece and Italy the primitive clan-assembly or township-meeting\ndid not grow by aggregation into the assembly of the shire, but it\ndeveloped into the _comitia_ or _ecclesia_ of the city. The chief\nmagistrate was not the _ealdorman_ of early English history, but the\n_rex_ or _basileus_ who combined in himself the functions of king,\ngeneral, and priest. Thus, too, there was a severance, politically,\nbetween city and country such as the Teutonic world has never known. The\nrural districts surrounding a city might be subject to it, but could\nneither share its franchise nor claim a co-ordinate franchise with it.\nAthens, indeed, at an early period, went so far as to incorporate with\nitself Eleusis and Marathon and the other rural towns of Attika. In this\none respect Athens transgressed the bounds of ancient civic\norganization, and no doubt it gained greatly in power thereby. But\ngenerally in the Hellenic world the rural population in the\nneighbourhood of a great city were mere [Greek: _perioikoi_], or\n\"dwellers in the vicinity\"; the inhabitants of the city who had moved\nthither from some other city, both they and their descendants, were mere\n[Greek: metoikoi], or \"dwellers in the place\"; and neither the one class\nnor the other could acquire the rights and privileges of citizenship. A\nrevolution, indeed, went on at Athens, from the time of Solon to the\ntime of Kleisthenes, which essentially modified the old tribal divisions\nand admitted to the franchise all such families resident from time\nimmemorial as did not belong to the tribes of eupatrids by whom the city\nwas founded. But this change once accomplished, the civic exclusiveness\nof Athens remained very much what it was before. The popular assembly\nwas enlarged, and public harmony was secured; but Athenian burghership\nstill remained a privilege which could not be acquired by the native of\nany other city. Similar revolutions, with a similarly limited purpose\nand result, occurred at Sparta, Elis, and other Greek cities. At Rome,\nby a like revolution, the plebeians of the Capitoline and Aventine\nacquired parallel rights of citizenship with the patricians of the\noriginal city on the Palatine; but this revolution, as we shall\npresently see, had different results, leading ultimately to the\noverthrow of the city-system throughout the ancient world.\n\nThe deep-seated difference between the Teutonic political system based\non the shire and the Gr\u00e6co-Roman system based on the city is now, I\nthink, sufficiently apparent. Now from this fundamental difference have\ncome two consequences of enormous importance,--consequences of which it\nis hardly too much to say that, taken together, they furnish the key to\nthe whole history of European civilization as regarded purely from a\npolitical point of view.\n\nThe first of these consequences had no doubt a very humble origin in the\nmere difference between the shire and the city in territorial extent and\nin density of population. When people live near together it is easy for\nthem to attend a town-meeting, and the assembly by which public business\nis transacted is likely to remain a _primary assembly_, in the true\nsense of the term. But when people are dispersed over a wide tract of\ncountry, the primary assembly inevitably shrinks up into an assembly of\nsuch persons as can best afford the time and trouble of attending it, or\nwho have the strongest interest in going, or are most likely to be\nlistened to after they get there. Distance and difficulty, and in early\ntimes danger too, keep many people away. And though a shire is not a\nwide tract of country for most purposes, and according to modern ideas,\nit was nevertheless quite wide enough in former times to bring about the\nresult I have mentioned. In the times before the Norman conquest, if not\nbefore the completed union of England under Edgar, the shire-mote or\ncounty assembly, though in theory still a folk-mote or primary assembly,\nhad shrunk into what was virtually a witenagemote or assembly of the\nmost important persons in the county. But the several townships, in\norder to keep their fair share of control over county affairs, and not\nwishing to leave the matter to chance, sent to the meetings each its\n_representatives_ in the persons of the town-reeve and four \"discreet\nmen.\" I believe it has not been determined at what precise time this\nstep was taken, but it no doubt long antedates the Norman conquest. It\nis mentioned by Professor Stubbs as being already, in the reign of Henry\nIII., a custom of immemorial antiquity.[12] It was one of the greatest\nsteps ever taken in the political history of mankind. In these four\ndiscreet men we have the forerunners of the two burghers from each town\nwho were summoned by Earl Simon to the famous parliament of 1265, as\nwell as of the two knights from each shire whom the king had summoned\neleven years before. In these four discreet men sent to speak for their\ntownship in the old county assembly, we have the germ of institutions\nthat have ripened into the House of Commons and into the legislatures of\nmodern kingdoms and republics. In the system of representation thus\ninaugurated lay the future possibility of such gigantic political\naggregates as the United States of America.\n\nIn the ancient city, on the other hand, the extreme compactness of the\npolitical structure made representation unnecessary and prevented it\nfrom being thought of in circumstances where it might have proved of\nimmense value. In an aristocratic Greek city, like Sparta, all the\nmembers of the ruling class met together and voted in the assembly; in a\ndemocratic city, like Athens, all the free citizens met and voted; in\neach case the assembly was primary and not representative. The only\nexception, in all Greek antiquity, is one which emphatically proves the\nrule. The Amphiktyonic Council, an institution of prehistoric origin,\nconcerned mainly with religious affairs pertaining to the worship of the\nDelphic Apollo, furnished a precedent for a representative, and indeed\nfor a federal, assembly. Delegates from various Greek tribes and cities\nattended it. The fact that with such a suggestive precedent before their\neyes the Greeks never once hit upon the device of representation, even\nin their attempts at framing federal unions, shows how thoroughly their\nwhole political training had operated to exclude such a conception from\ntheir minds.\n\nThe second great consequence of the Graeco-Roman city-system was linked\nin many ways with this absence of the representative principle. In\nGreece the formation of political aggregates higher and more extensive\nthan the city was, until a late date, rendered impossible. The good and\nbad sides of this peculiar phase of civilization have been often enough\ncommented on by historians. On the one hand the democratic assembly of\nsuch an imperial city as Athens furnished a school of political training\nsuperior to anything else that the world has ever seen. It was something\nlike what the New England town-meeting would be if it were continually\nrequired to adjust complicated questions of international polity, if it\nwere carried on in the very centre or point of confluence of all\ncontemporary streams of culture, and if it were in the habit every few\ndays of listening to statesmen and orators like Hamilton or Webster,\njurists like Marshall, generals like Sherman, poets like Lowell,\nhistorians like Parkman. Nothing in all history has approached the\nhigh-wrought intensity and brilliancy of the political life of Athens.\n\nOn the other hand, the smallness of the independent city, as a political\naggregate, made it of little or no use in diminishing the liability to\nperpetual warfare which is the curse of all primitive communities. In a\ngroup of independent cities, such as made up the Hellenic world, the\ntendency to warfare is almost as strong, and the occasions for warfare\nare almost as frequent, as in a congeries of mutually hostile tribes of\nbarbarians. There is something almost lurid in the sharpness of contrast\nwith which the wonderful height of humanity attained by Hellas is set\noff against the fierce barbarism which characterized the relations of\nits cities to one another. It may be laid down as a general rule that in\nan early state of society, where the political aggregations are small,\nwarfare is universal and cruel. From the intensity of the jealousies and\nrivalries between adjacent self-governing groups of men, nothing short\nof chronic warfare can result, until some principle of union is evolved\nby which disputes can be settled in accordance with general principles\nadmitted by all. Among peoples that have never risen above the tribal\nstage of aggregation, such as the American Indians, war is the normal\ncondition of things, and there is nothing fit to be called\n_peace_,--there are only truces of brief and uncertain duration. Were it\nnot for this there would be somewhat less to be said in favour of great\nstates and kingdoms. As modern life grows more and more complicated and\ninterdependent, the Great State subserves innumerable useful purposes;\nbut in the history of civilization its first service, both in order of\ntime and in order of importance, consists in the diminution of the\nquantity of warfare and in the narrowing of its sphere. For within the\nterritorial limits of any great and permanent state, the tendency is for\nwarfare to become the exception and peace the rule. In this direction\nthe political careers of the Greek cities assisted the progress of\ncivilization but little.\n\nUnder the conditions of Graeco-Roman civic life there were but two\npracticable methods of forming a great state and diminishing the\nquantity of warfare. The one method was _conquest with incorporation_,\nthe other method was _federation_. Either one city might conquer all\nthe others and endow their citizens with its own franchise, or all the\ncities might give up part of their sovereignty to a federal body which\nshould have power to keep the peace, and should represent the civilized\nworld of the time in its relations with outlying barbaric peoples. Of\nthese two methods, obviously the latter is much the more effective, but\nit presupposes for its successful adoption a higher general state of\ncivilization than the former. Neither method was adopted by the Greeks\nin their day of greatness. The Spartan method of extending its power was\nconquest without incorporation: when Sparta conquered another Greek\ncity, she sent a _harmost_ to govern it like a tyrant; in other words\nshe virtually enslaved the subject city. The efforts of Athens tended\nmore in the direction of a peaceful federalism. In the great Delian\nconfederacy which developed into the maritime empire of Athens, the\n\u00c6gean cities were treated as allies rather than subjects. As regards\ntheir local affairs they were in no way interfered with, and could they\nhave been represented in some kind of a federal council at Athens, the\ncourse of Grecian history might have been wonderfully altered. As it\nwas, they were all deprived of one essential element of\nsovereignty,--the power of controlling their own military forces. Some\nof them, as Chios and Mitylene, furnished troops at the demand of\nAthens; others maintained no troops, but paid a fixed tribute to Athens\nin return for her protection. In either case they felt shorn of part of\ntheir dignity, though otherwise they had nothing to complain of; and\nduring the Peloponnesian war Athens had to reckon with their tendency to\nrevolt as well as with her Dorian enemies. Such a confederation was\nnaturally doomed to speedy overthrow.\n\nIn the century following the death of Alexander, in the closing age of\nHellenic independence, the federal idea appears in a much more advanced\nstage of elaboration, though in a part of Greece which had been held of\nlittle account in the great days of Athens and Sparta. Between the\nAchaian federation, framed in 274 B.C., and the United States of\nAmerica, there are some interesting points of resemblance which have\nbeen elaborately discussed by Mr. Freeman, in his \"History of Federal\nGovernment.\" About the same time the Aetolian League came into\nprominence in the north. Both these leagues were instances of true\nfederal government, and were not mere confederations; that is, the\ncentral government acted directly upon all the citizens and not merely\nupon the local governments. Each of these leagues had for its chief\nexecutive officer a General elected for one year, with powers similar to\nthose of an American President. In each the supreme assembly was a\nprimary assembly at which every citizen from every city of the league\nhad a right to be present, to speak, and to vote; but as a natural\nconsequence these assemblies shrank into comparatively aristocratic\nbodies. In \u00c6tolia, which was a group of mountain cantons similar to\nSwitzerland, the federal union was more complete than in Achaia, which\nwas a group of cities. In Achaia cases occurred in which a single city\nwas allowed to deal separately with foreign powers. Here, as in earlier\nGreek history, the instinct of autonomy was too powerful to admit of\ncomplete federation. Yet the career of the Achaian League was not an\ninglorious one. For nearly a century and a half it gave the Peloponnesos\na larger measure of orderly government than the country had ever known\nbefore, without infringing upon local liberties. It defied successfully\nthe threats and assaults of Macedonia, and yielded at last only to the\nall-conquering might of Rome.\n\nThus in so far as Greece contributed anything towards the formation of\ngreat and pacific political aggregates, she did it through attempts at\n_federation_. But in so low a state of political development as that\nwhich prevailed throughout the Mediterranean world in pre-Christian\ntimes, the more barbarous method of _conquest with incorporation_ was\nmore likely to be successful on a great scale. This was well illustrated\nin the history of Rome,--a civic community of the same generic type with\nSparta and Athens, but presenting specific differences of the highest\nimportance. The beginnings of Rome, unfortunately, are prehistoric. I\nhave often thought that if some beneficent fairy could grant us the\npower of somewhere raising the veil of oblivion which enshrouds the\nearliest ages of Aryan dominion in Europe, there is no place from which\nthe historian should be more glad to see it lifted than from Rome in the\ncenturies which saw the formation of the city, and which preceded the\nexpulsion of the kings. Even the legends, which were uncritically\naccepted from the days of Livy to those of our grandfathers, are\nprovokingly silent upon the very points as to which we would fain get at\nleast a hint. This much is plain, however, that in the embryonic stage\nof the Roman commonwealth some obscure processes of fusion or\ncommingling went on. The tribal population of Rome was more\nheterogeneous than that of the great cities of Greece, and its earliest\nmunicipal religion seems to have been an assemblage of various tribal\nreligions that had points of contact with other tribal religions\nthroughout large portions of the Gr\u00e6co-Italic world. As M. de Coulanges\nobserves,[13] Rome was almost the only city of antiquity which was not\nkept apart from other cities by its religion. There was hardly a people\nin Greece or Italy which it was restrained from admitting to\nparticipation in its municipal rites.\n\nHowever this may have been, it is certain that Rome early succeeded in\nfreeing itself from that insuperable prejudice which elsewhere prevented\nthe ancient city from admitting aliens to a share in its franchise. And\nin this victory over primeval political ideas lay the whole secret of\nRome's mighty career. The victory was not indeed completed until after\nthe terrible Social War of B.C. 90, but it was begun at least four\ncenturies earlier with the admission of the plebeians. At the\nconsummation of the conquest of Italy in B.C. 270 Roman burghership\nalready extended, in varying degrees of completeness, through the\ngreater part of Etruria and Campania, from the coast to the mountains;\nwhile all the rest of Italy was admitted to privileges for which ancient\nhistory had elsewhere furnished no precedent. Hence the invasion of\nHannibal half a century later, even with its stupendous victories of\nThrasymene and Cannae, effected nothing toward detaching the Italian\nsubjects from their allegiance to Rome; and herein we have a most\ninstructive contrast to the conduct of the communities subject to Athens\nat several critical moments of the Peloponnesian War. With this\nconsolidation of Italy, thus triumphantly demonstrated, the whole\nproblem of the conquering career of Rome was solved. All that came\nafterwards was simply a corollary from this. The concentration of all\nthe fighting power of the peninsula into the hands of the ruling city\nformed a stronger political aggregate than anything the world had as yet\nseen. It was not only proof against the efforts of the greatest military\ngenius of antiquity, but whenever it was brought into conflict with the\nlooser organizations of Greece, Africa, and Asia, or with the\nsemi-barbarous tribes of Spain and Gaul, the result of the struggle was\nvirtually predetermined. The universal dominion of Rome was inevitable,\nso soon as the political union of Italy had been accomplished. Among the\nRomans themselves there were those who thoroughly understood this point,\nas we may see from the interesting speech of the emperor Claudius in\nfavour of admitting Gauls to the senate.\n\nThe benefits conferred upon the world by the, universal dominion of Rome\nwere of quite inestimable value. First of these benefits, and (as it\nwere) the material basis of the others, was the prolonged peace that was\nenforced throughout large portions of the world where chronic warfare\nhad hitherto prevailed. The _pax romana_ has perhaps been sometimes\ndepicted in exaggerated colours; but as compared with all that had\npreceded, and with all that followed, down to the beginning of the\nnineteenth century, it deserved the encomiums it has received. The\nsecond benefit was the mingling and mutual destruction of the primitive\ntribal and municipal religions, thus clearing the way for\nChristianity,--a step which, regarded from a purely political point of\nview, was of immense importance for the further consolidation of society\nin Europe. The third benefit was the development of the Roman law into a\ngreat body of legal precepts and principles leavened throughout with\nethical principles of universal applicability, and the gradual\nsubstitution of this Roman law for the innumerable local usages of\nancient communities. Thus arose the idea of a common Christendom, of a\nbrotherhood of peoples associated both by common beliefs regarding the\nunseen world and by common principles of action in the daily affairs of\nlife. The common ethical and traditional basis thus established for the\nfuture development of the great nationalities of Europe is the most\nfundamental characteristic distinguishing modern from ancient history.\n\nWhile, however, it secured these benefits for mankind for all time to\ncome, the Roman political system in itself was one which could not\npossibly endure. That extension of the franchise which made Rome's\nconquests possible, was, after all, the extension of a franchise which\ncould only be practically enjoyed within the walls of the imperial city\nitself. From first to last the device of representation was never\nthought of, and from first to last the Roman _comitia_ remained a\nprimary assembly. The result was that, as the burgherhood enlarged, the\nassembly became a huge mob as little fitted for the transaction of\npublic business as a town-meeting of all the inhabitants of New York\nwould be. The functions which in Athens were performed by the assembly\nwere accordingly in Rome performed largely by the aristocratic senate;\nand for the conflicts consequently arising between the senatorial and\nthe popular parties it was difficult to find any adequate constitutional\ncheck. Outside of Italy, moreover, in the absence of a representative\nsystem, the Roman government was a despotism which, whether more or less\noppressive, could in the nature of things be nothing else than a\ndespotism. But nothing is more dangerous for a free people than the\nattempt to govern a dependent people despotically. The bad government\nkills out the good government as surely as slave-labour destroys\nfree-labour, or as a debased currency drives out a sound currency. The\nexistence of proconsuls in the provinces, with great armies at their\nbeck and call, brought about such results as might have been predicted,\nas soon as the growing anarchy at home furnished a valid excuse for\narmed interference. In the case of the Roman world, however, the result\nis not to be deplored, for it simply substituted a government that was\npracticable under the circumstances for one that had become demonstrably\nimpracticable.\n\nAs regards the provinces the change from senatorial to imperial\ngovernment at Rome was a great gain, inasmuch as it substituted an\norderly and responsible administration for irregular and irresponsible\nextortion. For a long time, too, it was no part of the imperial policy\nto interfere with local customs and privileges. But, in the absence of a\nrepresentative system, the centralizing tendency inseparable from the\nposition of such a government proved to be irresistible. And the\nstrength of this centralizing tendency was further enhanced by the\nmilitary character of the government which was necessitated by perpetual\nfrontier warfare against the barbarians. As year after year went by, the\nprovincial towns and cities were governed less and less by their local\nmagistrates, more and more by prefects responsible to the emperor only.\nThere were other co-operating causes, economical and social, for the\ndecline of the empire; but this change alone, which was consummated by\nthe time of Diocletian, was quite enough to burn out the candle of Roman\nstrength at both ends. With the decrease in the power of the local\ngovernments came an increase in the burdens of taxation and conscription\nthat were laid upon them.[14] And as \"the dislocation of commerce and\nindustry caused by the barbarian inroads, and the increasing demands of\nthe central administration for the payment of its countless officials\nand the maintenance of its troops, all went together,\" the load at last\nbecame greater \"than human nature could endure.\" By the time of the\ngreat invasions of the fifth century, local political life had gone far\ntowards extinction throughout Roman Europe, and the tribal organization\nof the Teutons prevailed in the struggle simply because it had come to\nbe politically stronger than any organization that was left to\noppose it.\n\nWe have now seen how the two great political systems that were founded\nupon the Ancient City both ended in failure, though both achieved\nenormous and lasting results. And we have seen how largely both these\npolitical failures were due to the absence of the principle of\nrepresentation from the public life of Greece and Rome. The chief\nproblem of civilization, from the political point of view, has always\nbeen how to secure concerted action among men on a great scale without\nsacrificing local independence. The ancient history of Europe shows that\nit is not possible to solve this problem without the aid of the\nprinciple of representation. Greece, until overcome by external force,\nsacredly maintained local self-government, but in securing permanent\nconcert of action it was conspicuously unsuccessful. Rome secured\nconcert of action on a gigantic scale, and transformed the thousand\nunconnected tribes and cities it conquered into an organized European\nworld, but in doing this it went far towards extinguishing local\nself-government. The advent of the Teutons upon the scene seems\ntherefore to have been necessary, if only to supply the indispensable\nelement without which the dilemma of civilization could not be\nsurmounted. The turbulence of Europe during the Teutonic migrations was\nso great and so long continued, that on a superficial view one might be\nexcused for regarding the good work of Rome as largely undone. And in\nthe feudal isolation of effort and apparent incapacity for combined\naction which characterized the different parts of Europe after the\ndownfall of the Carolingian empire, it might well have seemed that\npolitical society had reverted towards a primitive type of structure. In\ntruth, however, the retrogradation was much slighter than appeared on\nthe surface. Feudalism itself, with its curious net-work of fealties and\nobligations running through the fabric of society in every direction,\nwas by no means purely disintegrative in its tendencies. The mutual\nrelations of rival baronies were by no means like those of rival clans\nor tribes in pre-Roman days. The central power of Rome, though no longer\nexerted politically through curators and prefects, was no less effective\nin the potent hands of the clergy and in the traditions of the imperial\njurisprudence by which the legal ideas of mediaeval society were so\nstrongly coloured. So powerful, indeed, was this twofold influence of\nRome, that in the later Middle Ages, when the modern nationalities had\nfairly taken shape, it was the capacity for local self-government--in\nspite of all the Teutonic reinforcement it had had--that had suffered\nmuch more than the capacity for national consolidation. Among the great\nmodern nations it was only England--which in its political development\nhad remained more independent of the Roman law and the Roman church than\neven the Teutonic fatherland itself--it was only England that came out\nof the medi\u00e6val crucible with its Teutonic self-government substantially\nintact. On the main-land only two little spots, at the two extremities\nof the old Teutonic world, had fared equally well. At the mouth of the\nRhine the little Dutch communities were prepared to lead the attack in\nthe terrible battle for freedom with which the drama of modern history\nwas ushered in. In the impregnable mountain fastnesses of upper Germany\nthe Swiss cantons had bid defiance alike to Austrian tyrant and to\nBurgundian invader, and had preserved in its purest form the rustic\ndemocracy of their Aryan forefathers. By a curious coincidence, both\nthese free peoples, in their efforts towards national unity, were led to\nframe federal unions, and one of these political achievements is, from\nthe stand-point of universal history, of very great significance. The\nold League of High Germany, which earned immortal renown at Morgarten\nand Sempach, consisted of German-speaking cantons only. But in the\nfifteenth century the League won by force of arms a small bit of Italian\nterritory about Lake Lugano, and in the sixteenth the powerful city of\nBern annexed the Burgundian bishopric of Lausanne and rescued the free\ncity of Geneva from the clutches of the Duke of Savoy. Other Burgundian\npossessions of Savoy were seized by the canton of Freiburg; and after\nawhile all these subjects and allies were admitted on equal terms into\nthe confederation. The result is that modern Switzerland is made up of\nwhat might seem to be most discordant and unmanageable elements. Four\nlanguages--German, French, Italian, and Rhaetian--are spoken within the\nlimits of the confederacy; and in point of religion the cantons are\nsharply divided as Catholic and Protestant. Yet in spite of all this,\nSwitzerland is as thoroughly united in feeling as any nation in Europe.\nTo the German-speaking Catholic of Altdorf the German Catholics of\nBavaria are foreigners, while the French-speaking Protestants of Geneva\nare fellow-countrymen. Deeper down even than these deep-seated\ndifferences of speech and creed lies the feeling that comes from the\ncommon possession of a political freedom that is greater than that\npossessed by surrounding peoples. Such has been the happy outcome of the\nfirst attempt at federal union made by men of Teutonic descent. Complete\nindependence in local affairs, when combined with adequate\nrepresentation in the federal council, has effected such an intense\ncohesion of interests throughout the nation as no centralized\ngovernment, however cunningly devised, could ever have secured.\n\nUntil the nineteenth century, however, the federal form of government\nhad given no clear indication of its capacity for holding together great\nbodies of men, spread over vast territorial areas, in orderly and\npeaceful relations with one another. The empire of Trajan and Marcus\nAurelius still remained the greatest known example of political\naggregation; and men who argued from simple historic precedent without\nthat power of analyzing precedents which the comparative method has\nsupplied, came not unnaturally to the conclusions that great political\naggregates have an inherent tendency towards breaking up, and that great\npolitical aggregates cannot be maintained except by a strongly-\ncentralized administration and at the sacrifice of local self-\ngovernment. A century ago the very idea of a stable federation of forty\npowerful states, covering a territory nearly equal in area to the whole\nof Europe, carried on by a republican government elected by universal\nsuffrage, and guaranteeing to every tiniest village its full meed of\nlocal independence,--the very idea of all this would have been scouted\nas a thoroughly impracticable Utopian dream. And such scepticism would\nhave been quite justifiable, for European history did not seem to afford\nany precedents upon which such a forecast of the future could be\nlogically based. Between the various nations of Europe there has\ncertainly always existed an element of political community, bequeathed\nby the Roman empire, manifested during the Middle Ages in a common\nrelationship to the Church, and in modern times in a common adherence to\ncertain uncodified rules of international law, more or less im perfectly\ndefined and enforced. Between England and Spain, for example, or between\nFrance and Austria, there has never been such utter political severance\nas existed normally between Greece and Persia, or Rome and Carthage. But\nthis community of political inheritance in Europe, it is needless to\nsay, falls very far short of the degree of community implied in a\nfederal union; and so great is the diversity of language and of creed,\nand of local historic development with the deep-seated prejudices\nattendant thereupon, that the formation of a European federation could\nhardly be looked for except as the result of mighty though quiet and\nsubtle influences operating for a long time from without. From what\ndirection, and in what manner, such an irresistible though perfectly\npacific pressure is likely to be exerted in the future, I shall\nendeavour to show in my next lecture. At present we have to observe that\nthe experiment of federal union on a grand scale required as its\nconditions, _first_, a vast extent of unoccupied country which could be\nsettled without much warfare by men of the same race and speech, and\n_secondly_, on the part of the settlers, a rich inheritance of political\ntraining such as is afforded by long ages of self-government. The\nAtlantic coast of North America, easily accessible to Europe, yet remote\nenough to be freed from the political complications of the old world,\nfurnished the first of these conditions: the history of the English\npeople through fifty generations furnished the second. It was through\nEnglish self-government, as I argued in my first lecture, that England\nalone, among the great nations of Europe, was able to found durable and\nself-supporting colonies. I have now to add that it was only England,\namong all the great nations of Europe, that could send forth colonists\ncapable of dealing successfully with the difficult problem of forming\nsuch a political aggregate as the United States have become. For\nobviously the preservation of local self-government is essential to the\nvery idea of a federal union. Without the Town-Meeting, or its\nequivalent in some form or other, the Federal Union would become _ipso\nfacto_ converted into a centralizing imperial government. Should\nanything of this sort ever happen--should American towns ever come to be\nruled by prefects appointed at Washington, and should American States\never become like the administrative departments of France, or even like\nthe counties of England at the present day--then the time will have come\nwhen men may safely predict the break-up of the American political\nsystem by reason of its overgrown dimensions and the diversity of\ninterests between its parts. States so unlike one another as Maine and\nLouisiana and California cannot be held together by the stiff bonds of a\ncentralizing government. The durableness of the federal union lies in\nits flexibility, and it is this flexibility which makes it the only kind\nof government, according to modern ideas, that is permanently applicable\nto a whole continent. If \u00b8the United States were to-day a consolidated\nrepublic like France, recent events in California might have disturbed\nthe peace of the country. But in the federal union, if California, as a\nstate sovereign within its own sphere, adopts a grotesque constitution\nthat aims at infringing on the rights of capitalists, the other states\nare not directly affected. They may disapprove, but they have neither\nthe right nor the desire to interfere. Meanwhile the laws of nature\nquietly operate to repair the blunder. Capital flows away from\nCalifornia, and the business of the state is damaged, until presently\nthe ignorant demagogues lose favour, the silly constitution becomes a\ndead-letter, and its formal repeal begins to be talked of. Not the\nsmallest ripple of excitement disturbs the profound peace of the country\nat large. It is in this complete independence that is preserved by every\nstate, in all matters save those in which the federal principle itself\nis concerned, that we find the surest guaranty of the permanence of the\nAmerican political system. Obviously no race of men, save the race to\nwhich habits of self-government and the skilful use of political\nrepresentation had come to be as second nature, could ever have\nsucceeded in founding such a system.\n\n\nYet even by men of English race, working with out let or hindrance from\nany foreign source, and with the better part of a continent at their\ndisposal for a field to work in, so great a political problem as that of\nthe American Union has not been solved without much toil and trouble.\nThe great puzzle of civilization--how to secure permanent concert of\naction without sacrificing independence of action--is a puzzle which has\ntaxed the ingenuity of Americans as well as of older Aryan peoples. In\nthe year 1788 when our Federal Union was completed, the problem had\nalready occupied the minds of American statesmen for a century and a\nhalf,--that is to say, ever since the English settlement of\nMassachusetts. In 1643 a New England confederation was formed between\nMassachusetts and Connecticut, together with Plymouth since merged in\nMassachusetts and New Haven since merged in Connecticut. The\nconfederation was formed for defence against the French in Canada, the\nDutch on the Hudson river, and the Indians. But owing simply to the\ninequality in the sizes of these colonies--Massachusetts more than\noutweighing the other three combined--the practical working of this\nconfederacy was never very successful. In 1754, just before the outbreak\nof the great war which drove the French from America, a general Congress\nof the colonies was held at Albany, and a comprehensive scheme of union\nwas proposed by Benjamin Franklin, but nothing came of the project at\nthat time. The commercial rivalry between the colonies, and their\ndisputes over boundary lines, were then quite like the similar phenomena\nwith which Europe had so long been familiar. In 1756 Georgia and South\nCarolina actually came to blows over the navigation of the Savannah\nriver. The idea that the thirteen colonies could ever overcome their\nmutual jealousies so far as to unite in a single political body, was\nreceived at that time in England with a derision like that which a\nproposal for a permanent federation of European States would excite in\nmany minds to-day. It was confidently predicted that if the common\nallegiance to the British crown were once withdrawn, the colonies would\nforthwith proceed to destroy themselves with internecine war. In fact,\nhowever, it was the shaking off of allegiance to the British crown, and\nthe common trials and sufferings of the war of independence, that at\nlast welded the colonies together and made a federal union possible. As\nit was, the union was consummated only by degrees. By the Articles of\nConfederation, agreed on by Congress in 1777 but not adopted by all the\nStates until 1781, the federal government acted only upon the several\nstate governments and not directly upon individuals; there was no\nfederal judiciary for the decision of constitutional questions arising\nout of the relations between the states; and the Congress was not\nprovided with any efficient means of raising a revenue or of enforcing\nits legislative decrees. Under such a government the difficulty of\ninsuring concerted action was so great that, but for the transcendent\npersonal qualities of Washington, the bungling mismanagement of the\nBritish ministry, and the timely aid of the French fleet, the war of\nindependence would most likely have ended in failure. After the\nindependence of the colonies was acknowledged, the formation of a more\nperfect union was seen to be the only method of securing peace and\nmaking a nation which should be respected by foreign powers; and so in\n1788, after much discussion, the present Constitution of the United\nStates was adopted,--a constitution which satisfied very few people at\nthe time, and which was from beginning to end a series of compromises,\nyet which has proved in its working a masterpiece of political wisdom.\n\nThe first great compromise answered to the initial difficulty of\nsecuring approximate equality of weight in the federal councils between\nstates of unequal size. The simple device by which this difficulty was\nat last surmounted has proved effectual, although the inequalities\nbetween the states have greatly increased. To-day the population of New\nYork is more than eighty times that of Nevada. In area the state of\nRhode Island is smaller than Montenegro, while the state of Texas is\nlarger than the Austrian empire with Bavaria and W\u00fcrtemberg thrown in.\nYet New York and Nevada, Rhode Island and Texas, each send two senators\nto Washington, while on the other hand in the lower house each state has\na number of representatives proportioned to its population. The upper\nhouse of Congress is therefore a federal while the lower house is a\nnational body, and the government is brought into direct contact with\nthe people without endangering the equal rights of the several states.\n\nThe second great compromise of the American constitution consists in the\nseries of arrangements by which sovereignty is divided between the\nstates and the federal government. In all domestic legislation and\njurisdiction, civil and criminal, in all matters relating to tenure of\nproperty, marriage and divorce, the fulfilment of contracts and the\npunishment of malefactors, each separate state is as completely a\nsovereign state as France or Great Britain. In speaking to a British\naudience a concrete illustration may not be superfluous. If a criminal\nis condemned to death in Pennsylvania, the royal prerogative of pardon\nresides in the Governor of Pennsylvania: the President of the United\nStates has no more authority in the case than the Czar of Russia. Nor in\ncivil cases can an appeal lie from the state courts to the Supreme Court\nof the United States, save where express provision has been made in the\nConstitution. Within its own sphere the state is supreme. The chief\nattributes of sovereignty with which the several states have parted are\nthe coining of money, the carrying of mails, the imposition of tariff\ndues, the granting of patents and copyrights, the declaration of war,\nand the maintenance of a navy. The regular army is supported and\ncontrolled by the federal government, but each state maintains its own\nmilitia which it is bound to use in case of internal disturbance before\ncalling upon the central government for aid. In time of war, however,\nthese militias come under the control of the central government. Thus\nevery American citizen lives under two governments, the functions of\nwhich are clearly and intelligibly distinct.\n\nTo insure the stability of the federal union thus formed, the\nConstitution created a \"system of United States courts extending\nthroughout the states, empowered to define the boundaries of federal\nauthority, and to enforce its decisions by federal power.\" This\nomnipresent federal judiciary was undoubtedly the most important\ncreation of the statesmen who framed the Constitution. The closely-knit\nrelations which it established between the states contributed powerfully\nto the growth of a feeling of national solidarity throughout the whole\ncountry. The United States today cling together with a coherency far\ngreater than the coherency of any ordinary federation or league. Yet the\nprimary aspect of the federal Constitution was undoubtedly that of a\npermanent league, in which each state, while retaining its domestic\nsovereignty intact, renounced forever its right to make war upon its\nneighbours and relegated its international interests to the care of a\ncentral council in which all the states were alike represented and a\ncentral tribunal endowed with purely judicial functions of\ninterpretation. It was the first attempt in the history of the world, to\napply on a grand scale to the relations between states the same legal\nmethods of procedure which, as long applied in all civilized countries\nto the relations between individuals, have rendered private warfare\nobsolete. And it was so far successful that, during a period of\nseventy-two years in which the United States increased fourfold in\nextent, tenfold in population, and more than tenfold in wealth and\npower, the federal union maintained a state of peace more profound than\nthe _pax romana._\n\nTwenty years ago this unexampled state of peace was suddenly interrupted\nby a tremendous war, which in its results, however, has served only to\nbring out with fresh emphasis the pacific implications of federalism.\nWith the eleven revolted states at first completely conquered and then\nreinstated with full rights and privileges in the federal union, with\ntheir people accepting in good faith the results of the contest, with\ntheir leaders not executed as traitors but admitted again to seats in\nCongress and in the Cabinet, and with all this accomplished without any\nviolent constitutional changes,--I think we may fairly claim that the\nstrength of the pacific implications of federalism has been more\nstrikingly demonstrated than if there had been no war at all. Certainly\nthe world never beheld such a spectacle before. In my next and\nconcluding lecture I shall return to this point while summing up the\nargument and illustrating the part played by the English race in the\ngeneral history of civilization.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\n\"_MANIFEST DESTINY_.\"\n\nAmong the legends of our late Civil War there is a story of a\ndinner-party given by the Americans residing in Paris, at which were\npropounded sundry toasts concerning not so much the past and present as\nthe expected glories of the great American nation. In the general\ncharacter of these toasts geographical considerations were very\nprominent, and the principal fact which seemed to occupy the minds of\nthe speakers was the unprecedented _bigness_ of our country. \"Here's to\nthe United States,\" said the first speaker, \"bounded on the north by\nBritish America, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the east by the\nAtlantic, and on the west by the Pacific, Ocean.\" \"But,\" said the second\nspeaker, \"this is far too limited a view of the subject: in assigning\nour boundaries we must look to the great and glorious future which is\nprescribed for us by the Manifest Destiny of the Anglo-Saxon Race.\nHere's to the United States,--bounded on the north by the North Pole,\non the south by the South Pole, on the east by the rising and on the\nwest by the setting sun.\" Emphatic applause greeted this aspiring\nprophecy. But here arose the third speaker--a very serious gentleman\nfrom the Far West. \"If we are going,\" said this truly patriotic\nAmerican, \"to leave the historic past and present, and take our manifest\ndestiny into the account, why restrict ourselves within the narrow\nlimits assigned by our fellow-countryman who has just sat down? I give\nyou the United States,--bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, on\nthe south by the precession of the equinoxes, on the east by the\nprimeval chaos, and on the west by the Day of Judgment!\"\n\nI offer this anecdote at the outset by way of self-defence, inasmuch as\nI shall by and by have myself to introduce some considerations\nconcerning the future of our country, and of what some people, without\nthe fear of Mr. Freeman before their eyes, call the \"Anglo-Saxon\" race;\nand if it should happen to strike you that my calculations are\nunreasonably large, I hope you will remember that they are quite modest\nafter all, when compared with some others.\n\nThe \"manifest destiny\" of the \"Anglo-Saxon\" race and the huge dimensions\nof our country are favourite topics with Fourth-of-July orators, but\nthey are none the less interesting on that account when considered from\nthe point of view of the historian. To be a citizen of a great and\ngrowing state, or to belong to one of the dominant races of the world,\nis no doubt a legitimate source of patriotic pride, though there is\nperhaps an equal justification for such a feeling in being a citizen of\na tiny state like Holland, which, in spite of its small dimensions, has\nnevertheless achieved so much,--fighting at one time the battle of\nfreedom for the world, producing statesmen like William and Barneveldt,\ngenerals like Maurice, scholars like Erasmus and Grotius, and thinkers\nlike Spinoza, and taking the lead even to-day in the study of\nChristianity and in the interpretation of the Bible. But my course in\nthe present lecture is determined by historical or philosophical rather\nthan by patriotic interest, and I shall endeavour to characterize and\ngroup events as impartially as if my home were at Leyden in the Old\nWorld instead of Cambridge in the New.\n\nFirst of all, I shall take sides with Mr. Freeman in eschewing\naltogether the word \"Anglo-Saxon.\" The term is sufficiently absurd and\nmisleading as applied in England to the Old-English speech of our\nforefathers, or to that portion of English history which is included\nbetween the fifth and the eleventh centuries. But in America it is\nfrequently used, not indeed by scholars, but by popular writers and\nspeakers, in a still more loose and slovenly way. In the war of\nindependence our great-great-grandfathers, not yet having ceased to\nthink of themselves as Englishmen, used to distinguish themselves as\n\"Continentals,\" while the king's troops were known as the \"British.\" The\nquaint term \"Continental\" long ago fell into disuse, except in the slang\nphrase \"not worth a Continental\" which referred to the debased condition\nof our currency at the close of the Revolutionary War; but \"American\"\nand \"British\" might still serve the purpose sufficiently whenever it is\nnecessary to distinguish between the two great English nationalities.\nThe term \"English,\" however, is so often used with sole reference to\npeople and things in England as to have become in some measure\nantithetical to \"American;\" and when it is found desirable to include\nthe two in a general expression, one often hears in America the term\n\"Anglo-Saxon\" colloquially employed for this purpose. A more slovenly\nuse of language can hardly be imagined. Such a compound term as\n\"Anglo-American\" might perhaps be logically defensible, but that has\nalready become restricted to the English-descended inhabitants of the\nUnited States and Canada alone, in distinction from Spanish Americans\nand red Indians. It is never so used as to include Englishmen.\nRefraining from all such barbarisms, I prefer to call the English race\nby the name which it has always applied to itself, from the time when it\ninhabited the little district of Angeln on the Baltic coast of Sleswick\ndown to the time when it had begun to spread itself over three great\ncontinents. It is a race which has shown a rare capacity for absorbing\nslightly foreign elements and moulding them into conformity with a\npolitical type that was first wrought out through centuries of effort on\nBritish soil; and this capacity it has shown perhaps in a heightened\ndegree in the peculiar circumstances in which it has been placed in\nAmerica. The American has absorbed considerable quantities of closely\nkindred European blood, but he is rapidly assimilating it all, and in\nhis political habits and aptitudes he remains as thoroughly English as\nhis forefathers in the days of De Montfort, or Hampden, or Washington.\nPremising this, we may go on to consider some aspects of the work which\nthe English race has done and is doing in the world, and we need not\nfeel discouraged if, in order to do justice to the subject, we have to\ntake our start far back in ancient history. We shall begin, it may be\nsaid, somewhere near the primeval chaos, and though we shall indeed\nstop short of the day of judgment, we shall hope at all events to reach\nthe millennium.\n\nOur eloquent friends of the Paris dinner-party seem to have been\nstrongly impressed with the excellence of enormous political aggregates.\nWe, too, approaching the subject from a different point of view, have\nbeen led to see how desirable it is that self-governing groups of men\nshould be enabled to work together in permanent harmony and on a great\nscale. In this kind of political integration the work of civilization\nvery largely consists. We have seen how in its most primitive form\npolitical society is made up of small self-governing groups that are\nperpetually at war with one another. Now the process of change which we\ncall civilization means quite a number of things. But there is no doubt\nthat on its political side it means primarily the gradual substitution\nof a state of peace for a state of war. This change is the condition\nprecedent for all the other kinds of improvement that are connoted by\nsuch a term as \"civilization.\" Manifestly the development of industry is\nlargely dependent upon the cessation or restriction of warfare; and\nfurthermore, as the industrial phase of civilization slowly supplants\nthe military phase, men's characters undergo, though very slowly, a\ncorresponding change. Men become less inclined to destroy life or to\ninflict pain; or--to use the popular terminology which happens here to\ncoincide precisely with that of the Doctrine of Evolution--they become\nless _brutal_ and more _humane_. Obviously then the prime feature of the\nprocess called civilization is the general diminution of warfare. But we\nhave seen that a general diminution of warfare is rendered possible only\nby the union of small political groups into larger groups that are kept\ntogether by community of interests, and that can adjust their mutual\nrelations by legal discussion without coming to blows. In the preceding\nlecture we considered this process of political integration as variously\nexemplified by communities of Hellenic, of Roman, and of Teutonic race,\nand we saw how manifold were the difficulties which the process had to\nencounter. We saw how the Teutons--at least in Switzerland, England, and\nAmerica--had succeeded best through the retention of local\nself-government combined with central representation. We saw how the\nRomans failed of ultimate success because by weakening self-government\nthey weakened that community of interest which is essential to the\npermanence of a great political aggregate. We saw how the Greeks, after\npassing through their most glorious period in a state of chronic\nwarfare, had begun to achieve considerable success in forming a pacific\nfederation when their independent career was suddenly cut short by the\nRoman conqueror.\n\nThis last example introduces us to a fresh consideration, of very great\nimportance. It is not only that every progressive community has had to\nsolve, in one way or another, the problem of securing permanent concert\nof action without sacrificing local independence of action; but while\nengaged in this difficult work the community has had to defend itself\nagainst the attacks of other communities. In the case just cited, of the\nconquest of Greece by Rome, little harm was done perhaps. But under\ndifferent circumstances immense damage may have been done in this way,\nand the nearer we go to the beginnings of civilization the greater the\ndanger. At the dawn of history we see a few brilliant points of\ncivilization surrounded on every side by a midnight blackness of\nbarbarism. In order that the pacific community may be able to go on\ndoing its work, it must be strong enough and warlike enough to overcome\nits barbaric neighbours who have no notion whatever of keeping peace.\nThis is another of the seeming paradoxes of the history of\ncivilization, that for a very long time the possibility of peace can be\nguaranteed only through war. Obviously the permanent peace of the world\ncan be secured only through the gradual concentration of the\npreponderant military strength into the hands of the most pacific\ncommunities. With infinite toil and trouble this point has been slowly\ngained by mankind, through the circumstance that the very same political\naggregation of small primitive communities which makes them less\ndisposed to quarrel among themselves tends also to make them more than a\nmatch for the less coherent groups of their more barbarous neighbours.\nThe same concert of action which tends towards internal harmony tends\nalso towards external victory, and both ends are promoted by the\nco-operation of the same sets of causes. But for a long time all the\npolitical problems of the civilized world were complicated by the fact\nthat the community had to fight for its life. We seldom stop to reflect\nupon the imminent danger from outside attacks, whether from surrounding\nbarbarism or from neighbouring civilizations of lower type, amid which\nthe rich and high-toned civilizations of Greece and Rome were developed.\nWhen the king of Persia undertook to reduce Greece to the condition of a\nPersian satrapy, there was imminent danger that all the enormous\nfruition of Greek thought in the intellectual life of the European world\nmight have been nipped in the bud. And who can tell how often, in\nprehistoric times, some little gleam of civilization, less bright and\nsteady than this one had become, may have been quenched in slavery or\nmassacre? The greatest work which the Romans performed in the world was\nto assume the aggressive against menacing barbarism, to subdue it, to\ntame it, and to enlist its brute force on the side of law and order.\nThis was a murderous work, and in doing it the Romans became excessively\ncruel, but it had to be done by some one before you could expect to have\ngreat and peaceful civilizations like our own. The warfare of Rome is by\nno means adequately explained by the theory of a deliberate immoral\npolicy of aggression,--\"infernal,\" I believe, is the stronger adjective\nwhich Dr. Draper uses. The aggressive wars of Rome were largely dictated\nby just such considerations as those which a century ago made it\nnecessary for the English to put down the raids of the Scotch\nHighlanders, and which have since made it necessary for Russia to subdue\nthe Caucasus. It is not easy for a turbulent community to live next to\nan orderly one without continually stirring up frontier disturbances\nwhich call for stern repression from the orderly community. Such\nconsiderations go far towards explaining the military history of the\nRomans, and it is a history with which, on the whole, we ought to\nsympathize. In its European relations that history is the history of the\nmoving of the civilized frontier northward and eastward against the\ndisastrous encroachments of barbarous peoples. This great movement has,\non the whole, been steadily kept up, in spite of some apparent\nfluctuation in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era, and\nit is still going on to-day. It was a great gain for civilization when\nthe Romans overcame the Keltiberians of Spain, and taught them good\nmanners and the Latin language, and made it for their interest hereafter\nto fight against barbarians. The third European peninsula was thus won\nover to the side of law and order. Danger now remained on the north. The\nGauls had once sacked the city of Rome; hordes of Teutons had lately\nmenaced the very heart of civilization, but had been overthrown in\nmurderous combat by Caius Marius; another great Teutonic movement, led\nby Ariovistus, now threatened to precipitate the whole barbaric force of\nsouth-eastern Gaul upon the civilized world; and so it occurred to the\nprescient genius of Caesar to be beforehand and conquer Gaul, and\nenlist all its giant barbaric force on the side of civilization. This\ngreat work was as thoroughly done as anything that was ever done in\nhuman history, and we ought to be thankful to Caesar for it every day\nthat we live. The frontier to be defended against barbarism was now\nmoved away up to the Rhine, and was very much shortened; but above all,\nthe Gauls were made to feel themselves to be Romans. Their country\nbecame one of the chief strongholds of civilization and of Christianity;\nand when the frightful shock of barbarism came--the most formidable blow\nthat has ever been directed by barbaric brute force against European\ncivilization--it was in Gaul that it was repelled and that its force was\nspent. At the beginning of the fifth century an enormous horde of yellow\nMongolians, known as Huns, poured down into Europe with avowed intent to\nburn and destroy all the good work which Rome had wrought in the world;\nand terrible was the havoc they effected in the course of fifty years.\nIf Attila had carried his point, it has been thought that the work of\nEuropean civilization might have had to be begun over again. But near\nCh\u00e1lons-on-the-Marne, in the year 451, in one of the most obstinate\nstruggles of which history preserves the record, the career of the\n\"Scourge of God\" was arrested, and mainly by the prowess of Gauls and of\nVisigoths whom the genius of Rome had tamed. That was the last day on\nwhich barbarism was able to contend with civilization on equal terms. It\nwas no doubt a critical day for all future history; and for its\nfavourable issue we must largely thank the policy adopted by Caesar five\ncenturies before. By the end of the eighth century the great power of\nthe Franks had become enlisted in behalf of law and order, and the Roman\nthrone was occupied by a Frank,--the ablest man who had appeared in the\nworld since Caesar's death; and one of the worthiest achievements of\nCharles the Great was the conquest and conversion of pagan Germany,\nwhich threw the frontier against barbarism eastward as far as the Oder,\nand made it so much the easier to defend Europe. In the thirteenth\ncentury this frontier was permanently carried forward to the Vistula by\nthe Teutonic Knights who, under commission from the emperor Frederick\nII., overcame the heathen Prussians and Lithuanians; and now it began to\nbe shown how greatly the military strength of Europe had increased. In\nthis same century Batu, the grandson of Jinghis Khan, came down into\nEurope with a horde of more than a million Mongols, and tried to repeat\nthe experiment of Attila. Batu penetrated as far as Silesia, and won a\ngreat battle at Liegnitz in 1241, but in spite of his victory he had to\ndesist from the task of conquering Europe. Since the fifth century the\nphysical power of the civilized world had grown immensely; and the\nimpetus of this barbaric invasion was mainly spent upon Russia, the\ngrowth of which it succeeded in retarding for more than two centuries.\nFinally since the sixteenth century we have seen the Russians, redeemed\nfrom their Mongolian oppressors, and rich in many of the elements of a\nvigorous national life,--we have seen the Russians resume the aggressive\nin this conflict of ages, beginning to do for Central Asia in some sort\nwhat the Romans did for Europe. The frontier against barbarism, which\nC\u00e6sar left at the Rhine, has been carried eastward to the Volga, and is\nnow advancing even to the Oxus. The question has sometimes been raised\nwhether it would be possible for European civilization to be seriously\nthreatened by any future invasion of barbarism or of some lower type of\ncivilization. By barbarism certainly not: all the nomad strength of\nMongolian Asia would throw itself in vain against the insuperable\nbarrier constituted by Russia. But I have heard it quite seriously\nsuggested that if some future Attila or Jinghis were to wield as a unit\nthe entire military strength of the four hundred millions of Chinese,\npossessed with some suddenly-conceived idea of conquering the world,\neven as Omar and Abderrahman wielded as a unit the newly-welded power of\nthe Saracens in the seventh and eighth centuries, then perhaps a\nstaggering blow might yet be dealt against European civilization. I will\nnot waste precious time in considering this imaginary case, further than\nto remark that if the Chinese are ever going to try anything of this\nsort, they cannot afford to wait very long; for within another century,\nas we shall presently see, their very numbers will be surpassed by those\nof the English race alone. By that time all the elements of military\npredominance on the earth, including that of simple numerical\nsuperiority, will have been gathered into the hands not merely of men of\nEuropean descent in general, but more specifically into the hands of the\noffspring of the Teutonic tribes who conquered Britain in the fifth\ncentury. So far as the relations of civilization with barbarism are\nconcerned to-day, the only serious question is by what process of\nmodification the barbarous races are to maintain their foothold upon the\nearth at all. While once such people threatened the very continuance of\ncivilization, they now exist only on sufferance.\n\nIn this brief survey of the advancing frontier of European\ncivilization, I have said nothing about the danger that has from time to\ntime been threatened by the followers of Mohammed,--of the overthrow of\nthe Saracens in Gaul by the grandfather of Charles the Great, or their\noverthrow at Constantinople by the image-breaking Leo, of the great\nmedi\u00e6val Crusades, or of the mischievous but futile career of the Turks.\nFor if I were to attempt to draw this outline with anything like\ncompleteness, I should have no room left for the conclusion of my\nargument. Considering my position thus far as sufficiently illustrated,\nlet us go on to contemplate for a moment some of the effects of all this\nsecular turmoil upon the political development of the progressive\nnations of Europe. I think we may safely lay it down, as a large and\ngeneral rule, that all this prodigious warfare required to free the\ncivilized world from peril of barbarian attack served greatly to\nincrease the difficulty of solving the great initial problem of\ncivilization. In the first place, the turbulence thus arising was a\nserious obstacle to the formation of closely-coherent political\naggregates; as we see exemplified in the terrible convulsions of the\nfifth and sixth centuries, and again in the ascendency acquired by the\nisolating features of feudalism between the time of Charles the Great\nand the time of Louis VI. of France. In the second place, this\nperpetual turbulence was a serious obstacle to the preservation of\npopular liberties. It is a very difficult thing for a free people to\nmaintain its free, constitution if it has to keep perpetually fighting\nfor its life. The \"one-man-power.\" less fit for, carrying on the\npeaceful pursuits of life, is sure to be brought into the foreground in\na state of endless warfare. It is a still more difficult thing for a\nfree people to maintain its free constitution when it undertakes to\ngovern a dependent people despotically, as has been wont to happen when\na portion of the barbaric world has been overcome and annexed to the\ncivilized world. Under the weight, of these two difficulties combined,\nthe free institutions of the ancient Romans succumbed, and their\ngovernment gradually passed into the hands of a kind of close\ncorporation more despotic than anything else of the sort that Europe has\never seen. This despotic character--this tendency, if you will pardon\nthe phrase, towards the _Asiaticization_ of European life--was continued\nby inheritance in the Roman Church, the influence of which was\nbeneficent so long as it constituted a wholesome check to the isolating\ntendencies of feudalism, but began to become noxious the moment these\ntendencies yielded to the centralizing monarchical tendency in nearly\nall parts of Europe. The asiaticizing tendency of Roman political life\nhad become so powerful by the fourth century, and has since been so\npowerfully propagated through the Church, that we ought to be glad that\nthe Teutons came into the empire as masters rather than as subjects. As\nthe Germanic tribes got possession of the government in one part of\nEurope after another, they brought with them free institutions again.\nThe political ideas of the Goths in Spain, of the Lombards in Italy, and\nof the Franks and Burgundians in Gaul, were as distinctly free as those\nof the Angles in Britain. But as the outcome of the long and\nuninterrupted turmoil of the Middle Ages, society throughout the\ncontinent of Europe remained predominantly military in type, and this\nfact greatly increased the tendency towards despotism which was\nbequeathed by Rome. After the close of the thirteenth century the whole\npower of the Church was finally thrown into the scale against the\nliberties of the people; and as the result of all these forces combined,\nwe find that at the time when America was discovered government was\nhardening into despotism in all the great countries of Europe except\nEngland. Even in England the tendency towards despotism had begun to\nbecome quite conspicuous after the wholesale slaughter of the great\nbarons and the confiscation of their estates which took place in the\nWars of the Roses. The constitutional history of England during the\nTudor and Stuart periods is mainly the history of the persistent effort\nof the English sovereign to free himself from constitutional checks, as\nhis brother sovereigns on the continent were doing. But how different\nthe result! How enormous the political difference between William III.\nand Louis XIV., compared with the difference between Henry VIII. and\nFrancis I.! The close of the seventeenth century, which marks the\nculmination of the asiaticizing tendency in Europe, saw despotism both\npolitical and religious firmly established in France and Spain and\nItaly, and in half of Germany; while the rest of Germany seemed to have\nexhausted itself in the attempt to throw off the incubus. But in England\nthis same epoch saw freedom both political and religious established on\nso firm a foundation as never again to be shaken, never again with\nimpunity to be threatened, so long as the language of Locke and Milton\nand Sydney shall remain a living speech on the lips of men. Now this\nwonderful difference between the career of popular liberty in England\nand on the Continent was due no doubt to a complicated variety of\ncauses, one or two of which I have already sought to point out. In my\nfirst lecture I alluded to the curious combination of circumstances\nwhich prevented anything like a severance of interests between the upper\nand the lower ranks of society; and something was also said about the\nfeebleness of the grasp of imperial Rome upon Britain compared with its\ngrasp upon the continent of Europe. But what I wish now to point\nout--since we are looking at the military aspect of the subject--is the\nenormous advantage of what we may call the _strategic position_ of\nEngland in the long medi\u00e6val struggle between civilization and\nbarbarism. In Professor Stubbs's admirable collection of charters and\ndocuments illustrative of English history, we read that \"on the 6th of\nJuly [1264] the whole force of the country was summoned to London for\nthe 3d of August, to resist the army which was coming from France under\nthe queen and her son Edmund. _The invading fleet was prevented by the\nweather from sailing until too late in the season_.... The papal legate,\nGuy Foulquois, who soon after became Clement IV., threatened the barons\nwith excommunication, but the bull containing the sentence was taken by\nthe men of Dover as soon as it arrived, and was thrown into the\nsea.\" [15] As I read this, I think of the sturdy men of Connecticut,\nbeating the drum to prevent the reading of the royal order of James II.\ndepriving the colony of the control of its own militia, and feel with\npride that the indomitable spirit of English liberty is alike\nindomitable in every land where men of English race have set their feet\nas masters. But as the success of Americans in withstanding the\nunconstitutional pretensions of the crown was greatly favoured by the\nbarrier of the ocean, so the success of Englishmen in defying the\nenemies of their freedom has no doubt been greatly favoured by the\nbarrier of the British channel. The war between Henry III. and the\nbarons was an event in English history no less critical than the war\nbetween Charles I. and the parliament four centuries later; and British\nand Americans alike have every reason to be thankful that a great French\narmy was not able to get across the channel in August, 1264. Nor was\nthis the only time when the insular position of England did goodly\nservice in maintaining its liberties and its internal peace. We cannot\nforget how Lord Howard of Effingham, aided also by the weather, defeated\nthe armada that boasted itself \"invincible,\" sent to strangle freedom in\nits chosen home by the most execrable and ruthless tyrant that Europe\nhas ever seen, a tyrant whose victory would have meant not simply the\nusurpation of the English crown but the establishment of the Spanish\nInquisition at Westminster Hall. Nor can we forget with what longing\neyes the Corsican barbarian who wielded for mischief the forces of\nFrance in 1805 looked across from Boulogne at the shores of the one\nEuropean land that never in word or deed granted him homage. But in\nthese latter days England has had no need of stormy weather to aid the\nprowess of the sea-kings who are her natural defenders. It is impossible\nfor the thoughtful student of history to walk across Trafalgar Square,\nand gaze on the image of the mightiest naval hero that ever lived, on\nthe summit of his lofty column and guarded by the royal lions, looking\ndown towards the government-house of the land that he freed from the\ndread of Napoleonic invasion and towards that ancient church wherein the\nmost sacred memories of English talent and English toil are clustered\ntogether,--it is impossible, I say, to look at this, and not admire both\nthe artistic instinct that devised so happy a symbolism, and the rare\ngood-fortune of our Teutonic ancestors in securing a territorial\nposition so readily defensible against the assaults of despotic powers.\nBut it was not merely in the simple facility of warding off external\nattack that the insular position of England was so serviceable. This\nease in warding off external attack had its most marked effect upon the\ninternal polity of the nation. It never became necessary for the English\ngovernment to keep up a great standing army. For purposes of external\ndefence a navy was all-sufficient; and there is this practical\ndifference between a permanent army and a permanent navy. Both are\noriginally designed for purposes of external defence; but the one can\nreadily be used for purposes of internal oppression, and the other\ncannot. Nobody ever heard of a navy putting up an empire at auction and\nknocking down the throne of the world to a Didius Julianus. When,\ntherefore, a country is effectually screened by water from external\nattack, it is screened in a way that permits its normal political\ndevelopment to go on internally without those manifold military\nhinderances that have ordinarily been so obstructive in the history of\ncivilization. Hence we not only see why, after the Norman Conquest had\noperated to increase its unity and its strength, England enjoyed a far\ngreater amount of security and was far more peaceful than any other\ncountry in Europe; but we also see why society never assumed the\nmilitary type in England which it assumed upon the continent; we see how\nit was that the bonds of feudalism were far looser here than elsewhere,\nand therefore how it happened that nowhere else was the condition of the\ncommon people so good politically. We now begin to see, moreover, how\nthoroughly Professor Stubbs and Mr. Freeman are justified in insisting\nupon the fact that the political institutions of the Germans of Tacitus\nhave had a more normal and uninterrupted development in England than\nanywhere else. Nowhere, indeed, in the whole history of the human race,\ncan we point to such a well-rounded and unbroken continuity of political\nlife as we find in the thousand years of English history that have\nelapsed since the victory of William the Norman at Senlac. In England\nthe free government of the primitive Aryans has been to this day\nuninterruptedly maintained, though everywhere lost or seriously impaired\non the continent of Europe, except in remote Scandinavia and impregnable\nSwitzerland. But obviously, if in the conflict of ages between\ncivilization and barbarism England had occupied such an inferior\nstrategic position as that occupied by Hungary or Poland or Spain, if\nher territory had been liable once or twice in a century to be overrun\nby fanatical Saracens or beastly Mongols, no such remarkable and quite\nexceptional result could have been achieved. Having duly fathomed the\nsignificance of this strategic position of the English race while\nconfined within the limits of the British islands, we are now prepared\nto consider the significance of the stupendous expansion of the English\nrace which first became possible through the discovery and settlement of\nNorth America. I said, at the close of my first lecture, that the\nvictory of Wolfe at Quebec marks the greatest turning-point as yet\ndiscernible in all modern history. At the first blush such an\nunqualified statement may have sounded as if an American student of\nhistory were inclined to attach an undue value to events that have\nhappened upon his own soil. After the survey of universal history which\nwe have now taken, however, I am fully prepared to show that the\nconquest of the North American continent by men of English race was\nunquestionably the most prodigious event in the political annals of man\nkind. Let us consider, for a moment, the cardinal facts which this\nEnglish conquest and settlement of North America involved.\n\nChronologically the discovery of America coincides precisely with the\nclose of the Middle Ages, and with the opening of the drama of what is\ncalled _modern_ history. The coincidence is in many ways significant.\nThe close of the Middle Ages--as we have seen--was characterized by the\nincreasing power of the crown in all the great countries of Europe, and\nby strong symptoms of popular restlessness in view of this increasing\npower. It was characterized also by the great Protestant outbreak\nagainst the despotic pretensions of the Church, which once, in its\nantagonism to the rival temporal power, had befriended the liberties of\nthe people, but now (especially since the death of Boniface VIII.)\nsought to enthrall them with a tyranny far worse than that of\nirresponsible king or emperor. As we have seen Aryan civilization in\nEurope struggling for many centuries to prove itself superior to the\nassaults of outer barbarism, so here we find a decisive struggle\nbeginning between the antagonist tendencies which had grown up in the\nmidst of this civilization. Having at length won the privilege of living\nwithout risk of slaughter and pillage at the hands of Saracens or\nMongols, the question now arose whether the people of Europe should go\non and apply their intelligence freely to the problem of making life as\nrich and fruitful as possible in varied material and spiritual\nachievement, or should fall forever into the barren and monotonous way\nof living and thinking which has always distinguished the half-civilized\npopulations of Asia. This--and nothing less than this, I think--was the\npractical political question really at stake in the sixteenth century\nbetween Protestantism and Catholicism. Holland and England entered the\nlists in behalf of the one solution of this question, while Spain and\nthe Pope defended the other, and the issue was fought out on European\nsoil, as we have seen, with varying success. But the discovery of\nAmerica now came to open up an enormous region in which whatever seed of\ncivilization should be planted was sure to grow to such enormous\ndimensions as by and by to exert a controlling influence upon all such\ncontroversies. It was for Spain, France, and England to contend for the\npossession of this vast region, and to prove by the result of the\nstruggle which kind of civilization was endowed with the higher and\nsturdier political life. The race which here should gain the victory was\nclearly destined hereafter to take the lead in the world, though the\nrival powers could not in those days fully appreciate this fact. They\nwho founded colonies in America as trading-stations or military outposts\nprobably did not foresee that these colonies must by and by become\nimperial states far greater in physical mass than the states which\nplanted them. It is not likely that they were philosophers enough to\nforesee that this prodigious physical development would mean that the\npolitical ideas of the parent state should acquire a hundred-fold power\nand seminal influence in the future work of the world. It was not until\nthe American Resolution that this began to be dimly realized by a few\nprescient thinkers. It is by no means so fully realized even now that a\nclear and thorough-going statement of it has not somewhat an air of\nnovelty. When the highly-civilized community, representing the ripest\npolitical ideas of England, was planted in America, removed from the\nmanifold and complicated checks we have just been studying in the\nhistory of the Old World, the growth was portentously rapid and steady.\nThere were no Attilas now to stand in the way,--only a Philip or a\nPontiac. The assaults of barbarism constituted only a petty annoyance as\ncompared with the conflict of ages which had gone on in Europe. There\nwas no occasion for society to assume a military aspect. Principles of\nself-government were at once put into operation, and no one thought of\ncalling them in question. When the neighbouring civilization of inferior\ntype--I allude to the French in Canada--began to become seriously\ntroublesome, it was struck down at a blow. When the mother-country,\nunder the guidance of an ignorant king and short-sighted ministers,\nundertook to act upon the antiquated theory that the new communities\nwere merely groups of trading-stations, the political bond of connection\nwas severed; yet the war which ensued was not like the war which had but\njust now been so gloriously ended by the victory of Wolfe. It was not a\nstruggle between two different peoples, like the French of the Old\nRegime and the English, each representing antagonistic theories of how\npolitical life ought to be conducted. But, like the Barons' War of the\nthirteenth century and the Parliament's War of the seventeenth, it was a\nstruggle sustained by a part of the English people in behalf of\nprinciples that time has shown to be equally dear to all. And so the\nissue only made it apparent to an astonished world that instead of _one_\nthere were now _two Englands_, alike prepared to work with might and\nmain toward the political regeneration of mankind.\n\nLet us consider now to what conclusions the rapidity and unabated\nsteadiness of the increase of the English race in America must lead us\nas we go on to forecast the future. Carlyle somewhere speaks slightingly\nof the fact that the Americans double their numbers every twenty years,\nas if to have forty million dollar-hunters in the world were any better\nthan to have twenty million dollar-hunters! The implication that\nAmericans are nothing but dollar-hunters, and are thereby\ndistinguishable from the rest of mankind, would not perhaps bear too\nelaborate scrutiny. But during the present lecture we have been\nconsidering the gradual transfer of the preponderance of physical\nstrength from the hands of the war-loving portion of the human race into\nthe hands of the peace-loving portion,--into the hands of the\ndollar-hunters, if you please, but out of the hands of the\nscalp-hunters. Obviously to double the numbers of a pre-eminently\nindustrious, peaceful, orderly, and free-thinking community, is somewhat\nto increase the weight in the world of the tendencies that go towards\nmaking communities free and orderly and peaceful and industrious. So\nthat, from this point of view, the fact we are speaking of is well worth\nconsidering, even for its physical dimensions. I do not know whether the\nUnited States could support a population everywhere as dense as that of\nBelgium; so I will suppose that, with ordinary improvement in\ncultivation and in the industrial arts, we might support a population\nhalf as dense as that of Belgium,--and this is no doubt an extremely\nmoderate supposition. Now a very simple operation in arithmetic will\nshow that this means a population of fifteen hundred millions, or more\nthan the population of the whole world at the present date. Another\nvery simple operation in arithmetic will show that if we were to go on\ndoubling our numbers, even once in every twenty-five years, we should\nreach that stupendous figure at about the close of the twentieth\ncentury,--that is, in the days of our great-greatgrandchildren. I do not\npredict any such result, for there are discernible economic reasons for\nbelieving that there will be a diminution in the rate of increase. The\nrate must nevertheless continue to be very great, in the absence of such\ncauses as formerly retarded the growth of population in Europe. Our\nmodern wars are hideous enough, no doubt, but they are short. They are\nsettled with a few heavy blows, and the loss of life and property\noccasioned by them is but trifling when compared with the awful ruin and\ndesolation wrought by the perpetual and protracted contests of antiquity\nand of the Middle Ages. Chronic warfare, both private and public,\nperiodic famines, and sweeping pestilences like the Black Death,--these\nwere the things which formerly shortened human life and kept down\npopulation. In the absence of such causes, and with the abundant\ncapacity of our country for feeding its people, I think it an extremely\nmoderate statement if we say that by the end of the next century the\nEnglish race in the United States will number at least six or seven\nhundred millions.\n\nIt used to be said that so huge a people as this could not be kept\ntogether as a single national aggregate,--or, if kept together at all,\ncould only be so by means of a powerful centralized government, like\nthat of ancient Rome under the emperors. I think we are now prepared to\nsee that this is a great mistake. If the Roman Empire could have\npossessed that political vitality in all its parts which is secured to\nthe United States by the principles of equal representation and of\nlimited state sovereignty, it might well have defied all the shocks\nwhich tribally-organized barbarism could ever have directed against it.\nAs it was, its strong centralized government did _not_ save it from\npolitical disintegration. One of its weakest political features was\nprecisely this,--that its \"strong centralized government\" was a kind of\nclose corporation, governing a score of provinces in its own interest\nrather than in the interest of the provincials. In contrast with such a\nsystem as that of the Roman Empire, the skilfully elaborated American\nsystem of federalism appears as one of the most important contributions\nthat the English race has made to the general work of civilization. The\nworking out of this feature in our national constitution, by Hamilton\nand Madison and their associates, was the finest specimen of\nconstructive statesmanship that the world has ever seen. Not that these\nstatesmen originated the principle, but they gave form and expression to\nthe principle which was latent in the circumstances under which the\ngroup of American colonies had grown up, and which suggested itself so\nforcibly that the clear vision of these thinkers did not fail to seize\nupon it as the fundamental principle upon which alone could the affairs\nof a great people, spreading over a vast continent, be kept in a\ncondition approaching to something like permanent peace. Stated broadly,\nso as to acquire somewhat the force of a universal proposition, the\nprinciple of federalism is just this:--that the people of a state shall\nhave full and entire control of their own domestic affairs, which\ndirectly concern them only, and which they will naturally manage with\nmore intelligence and with more zeal than any distant governing body\ncould possibly exercise; but that, as regards matters of common concern\nbetween a group of states, a decision shall in every case be reached,\nnot by brutal warfare or by weary diplomacy, but by the systematic\nlegislation of a central government which represents both states and\npeople, and whose decisions can always be enforced, if necessary, by\nthe combined physical power of all the states. This principle, in\nvarious practical applications, is so familiar to Americans to-day that\nwe seldom pause to admire it, any more than we stop to admire the air\nwhich we breathe or the sun which gives us light and life. Yet I believe\nthat if no other political result than this could to-day be pointed out\nas coming from the colonization of America by Englishmen, we should\nstill be justified in regarding that event as one of the most important\nin the history of mankind. For obviously the principle of federalism, as\nthus broadly stated, contains within itself the seeds of permanent peace\nbetween nations; and to this glorious end I believe it will come in the\nfulness of time.\n\nAnd now we may begin to see distinctly what it was that the American\ngovernment fought for in the late civil war,--a point which at the time\nwas by no means clearly apprehended outside the United States. We used\nto hear it often said, while that war was going on, that we were\nfighting not so much for the emancipation of the negro as for the\nmaintenance of our federal union; and I well remember that to many who\nwere burning to see our country purged of the folly and iniquity of\nnegro slavery this used to seem like taking a low and unrighteous view\nof the case. From the stand-point of universal history it was\nnevertheless the correct and proper view. The emancipation of the negro,\nas an incidental result of the struggle, was a priceless gain which was\ngreeted warmly by all right-minded people. But deeper down than this\nquestion, far more subtly interwoven with the innermost fibres of our\nnational well-being, far heavier laden too with weighty consequences for\nthe future weal of all mankind, was the question whether this great\npacific principle of union joined with independence should be overthrown\nby the first deep-seated social difficulty it had to encounter, or\nshould stand as an example of priceless value to other ages and to other\nlands. The solution was well worth the effort it cost. There have been\nmany useless wars, but this was not one of them, for more than most wars\nthat have been, it was fought in the direct interest of peace, and the\nvictory so dearly purchased and so humanely used was an earnest of\nfuture peace and happiness for the world.\n\nThe object, therefore, for which the American government fought, was the\nperpetual maintenance of that peculiar state of things which the federal\nunion had created,--a state of things in which, throughout the whole\nvast territory over which the Union holds sway, questions between\nstates, like questions between individuals, must be settled by legal\nargument and judicial decisions and not by wager of battle. Far better\nto demonstrate this point once for all, at whatever cost, than to be\nburdened hereafter, like the states of Europe, with frontier fortresses\nand standing armies and all the barbaric apparatus of mutual suspicion!\nFor so great an end did this most pacific people engage in an obstinate\nwar, and never did any war so thoroughly illustrate how military power\nmay be wielded, when necessary, by a people that has passed entirely\nfrom the military into the industrial stage of civilization. The events\nfalsified all the predictions that were drawn from the contemplation of\nsocieties less advanced politically. It was thought that so peaceful a\npeople could not raise a great army on demand; yet within a twelvemonth\nthe government had raised five hundred thousand men by voluntary\nenlistment. It was thought that a territory involving military\noperations at points as far apart as Paris and Moscow could never be\nthoroughly conquered; yet in April 1865 the federal armies might have\ninarched from end to end of the Gulf States without meeting any force to\noppose them. It was thought that the maintenance of a great army would\nbeget a military temper in the Americans and lead to manifestations of\nBonapartism,--domestic usurpation and foreign aggression; yet the moment\nthe work was done the great army vanished, and a force of twenty-five\nthousand men was found sufficient for the military needs of the whole\ncountry. It was thought that eleven states which had struggled so hard\nto escape from the federal tie could not be re-admitted to voluntary\nco-operation in the general government, but must henceforth be held as\nconquered territory,--a most dangerous experiment for any free people to\ntry. Yet within a dozen years we find the old federal relations resumed\nin all their completeness, and the disunion party powerless and\ndiscredited in the very states where once it had wrought such mischief.\nNay more, we even see a curiously disputed presidential election, in\nwhich the votes of the southern states were given almost with unanimity\nto one of the candidates, decided quietly by a court of arbitration; and\nwe see a universal acquiescence in the decision, even in spite of a\ngeneral belief that an extraordinary combination of legal subtleties\nresulted in adjudging the presidency to the candidate who was not\nreally elected.\n\nSuch has been the result of the first great attempt to break up the\nfederal union in America. It is not probable that another attempt can\never be made with anything like an equal chance of success. Here were\neleven states, geographically contiguous, governed by groups of men who\nfor half a century had pursued a well-defined policy in common, united\namong themselves and marked off from most of the other states by a\ndifference far more deeply rooted in the groundwork of society than any\nmere economic difference,--the difference between slave-labour and\nfree-labour. These eleven states, moreover, held such an economic\nrelationship with England that they counted upon compelling the naval\npower of England to be used in their behalf. And finally it had not yet\nbeen demonstrated that the maintenance of the federal union was\nsomething for which the great mass of the people would cheerfully fight.\nNever could the experiment of secession be tried, apparently, under\nfairer auspices; yet how tremendous the defeat! It was a defeat that\nwrought conviction,--the conviction that no matter how grave the\npolitical questions that may arise hereafter, they must be settled in\naccordance with the legal methods the Constitution has provided, and\nthat no state can be allowed to break the peace. It is the thoroughness\nof this conviction that has so greatly facilitated the reinstatement of\nthe revolted states in their old federal relations; and the good sense\nand good faith with which the southern people, in spite of the chagrin\nof defeat, have accepted the situation and acted upon it, is something\nunprecedented in history, and calls for the warmest sympathy and\nadmiration on the part of their brethren of the north. The federal\nprinciple in America has passed through this fearful ordeal and come out\nstronger than ever; and we trust it will not again be put to so severe a\ntest. But with this principle unimpaired, there is no reason why any\nfurther increase of territory or of population should overtask the\nresources of our government.\n\nIn the United States of America a century hence we shall therefore\ndoubtless have a political aggregation immeasurably surpassing in power\nand in dimensions any empire that has as yet existed. But we must now\nconsider for a moment the probable future career of the English race in\nother parts of the world. The colonization of North America by\nEnglishmen had its direct effects upon the eastern as well as upon the\nwestern side of the Atlantic. The immense growth of the commercial and\nnaval strength of England between the time of Cromwell and the time of\nthe elder Pitt was intimately connected with the colonization of North\nAmerica and the establishment of plantations in the West Indies. These\ncircumstances reacted powerfully upon the material development of\nEngland, multiplying manifold the dimensions of her foreign trade,\nincreasing proportionately her commercial marine, and giving her in the\neighteenth century the dominion over the seas. Endowed with this\nmaritime supremacy, she has with an unerring instinct proceeded to seize\nupon the keys of empire in all parts of the world,--Gibraltar, Malta,\nthe isthmus of Suez, Aden, Ceylon, the coasts of Australia, island after\nisland in the Pacific,--every station, in short, that commands the\npathways of maritime commerce, or guards the approaches to the barbarous\ncountries which she is beginning to regard as in some way her natural\nheritage. Any well-filled album of postage-stamps is an eloquent\ncommentary on this maritime supremacy of England. It is enough to turn\none's head to look over her colonial blue-books. The natural outcome of\nall this overflowing vitality it is not difficult to foresee. No one can\ncarefully watch what is going on in Africa to-day without recognizing it\nas the same sort of thing which was going on in North America in the\nseventeenth century; and it cannot fail to bring forth similar results\nin course of time. Here is a vast country, rich in beautiful scenery and\nin resources of timber and minerals, with a salubrious climate and\nfertile soil, with great navigable rivers and inland lakes, which will\nnot much longer be left in control of tawny lions and long-eared\nelephants and negro fetich-worshippers. Already five flourishing English\nstates have been established in the south, besides the settlements on\nthe Gold Coast and those at Aden commanding the Red Sea. English\nexplorers work their way, with infinite hardship, through its\nuntravelled wilds, and track the courses of the Congo and the Nile as\ntheir forefathers tracked the Potomac and the Hudson. The work of La\nSalle and Smith is finding its counterpart in the labours of Baker and\nLivingstone. Who can doubt that within two or three centuries the\nAfrican continent will be occupied by a mighty nation of English\ndescent, and covered with populous cities and flourishing farms, with\nrailroads and telegraphs and other devices of civilization as yet\nundreamed of?\n\nIf we look next to Australia, we find a country of more than two-thirds\nthe area of the United States, with a temperate climate and immense\nresources, agricultural and mineral,--a country sparsely peopled by a\nrace of irredeemable savages hardly above the level of brutes. Here\nEngland within the present century has planted six greatly thriving\nstates, concerning which I have not time to say much, but one fact will\nserve as a specimen. When in America we wish to illustrate in one word\nthe wonderful growth of our so-called north-western states, we refer to\nChicago,--a city of half-a-million inhabitants standing on a spot which\nfifty years ago was an uninhabited marsh. In Australia the city of\nMelbourne was founded in 1837, the year when the present queen of\nEngland began to reign, and the state of which it is the capital was\nhence called Victoria. This city, now[16] just forty-three years old,\nhas a population half as great as that of Chicago, has a public library\nof 200,000 volumes, and has a university with at least one professor of\nworld-wide renown. When we see, by the way, within a period of five\nyears and at such remote points upon the earth's surface, such erudite\nand ponderous works in the English language issuing from the press as\nthose of Professor Hearn of Melbourne, of Bishop Colenso of Natal, and\nof Mr. Hubert Bancroft of San Francisco,--even such a little commonplace\nfact as this is fraught with wonderful significance when we think of all\nthat it implies. Then there is New Zealand, with its climate of\nperpetual spring, where the English race is now multiplying faster than\nanywhere else in the world unless it be in Texas and Minnesota. And\nthere are in the Pacific Ocean many rich and fertile spots where we\nshall very soon see the same things going on.\n\nIt is not necessary to dwell upon such considerations as these. It is\nenough to point to the general conclusion, that the work which the\nEnglish race began when it colonized North America is destined to go on\nuntil every land on the earth's surface that is not already the seat of\nan old civilization shall become English in its language, in its\npolitical habits and traditions, and to a predominant extent in the\nblood of its people. The day is at hand when, four-fifths of the human\nrace will trace its pedigree to English forefathers, as four-fifths of\nthe white people in the United States trace their pedigree to-day. The\nrace thus spread over both hemispheres, and from the rising to the\nsetting sun, will not fail to keep that sovereignty of the sea and that\ncommercial supremacy which it began to acquire when England first\nstretched its arm across the Atlantic to the shores of Virginia and\nMassachusetts. The language spoken by these great communities will not\nbe sundered into dialects like the language of the ancient Romans, but\nperpetual intercommunication and the universal habit of reading and\nwriting will preserve its integrity; and the world's business will be\ntransacted by English-speaking people to so great an extent, that\nwhatever language any man may have learned in his infancy he will find\nit necessary sooner or later to learn to express his thoughts in\nEnglish. And in this way it is by no means improbable that, as Grimm the\nGerman and Candolle the Frenchman long since foretold, the language of\nShakespeare may ultimately become the language of mankind.\n\nIn view of these considerations as to the stupendous future of the\nEnglish race, does it not seem very probable that in due course of time\nEurope--which has learned some valuable lessons from America\nalready--will find it worth while to adopt the lesson of federalism?\nProbably the European states, in order to preserve their relative weight\nin the general polity of the world, will find it necessary to do so. In\nthat most critical period of American history between the winning of\nindependence and the framing of the Constitution, one of the strongest\nof the motives which led the confederated states to sacrifice part of\ntheir sovereignty by entering into a federal union was their keen sense\nof their weakness when taken severally. In physical strength such a\nstate as Massachusetts at that time amounted to little more than Hamburg\nor Bremen; but the thirteen states taken together made a nation of\nrespectable power. Even the wonderful progress we have made in a century\nhas not essentially changed this relation of things. Our greatest state,\nNew York, taken singly, is about the equivalent of Belgium; our weakest\nstate, Nevada, would scarcely be a match for tha county of Dorset; yet\nthe United States, taken together, are probably at this moment the\nstrongest nation in the world.\n\nNow a century hence, with a population of six hundred millions in the\nUnited States, and a hundred and fifty millions in Australia and New\nZealand, to say nothing of the increase of power in other parts of the\nEnglish-speaking world, the relative weights will be very different from\nwhat they were in 1788. The population of Europe will not increase in\nanything like the same proportion, and a very considerable part of the\nincrease will be transferred by emigration to the English-speaking world\noutside of Europe. By the end of the twentieth century such nations as\nFrance and Germany can only claim such a relative position in the\npolitical world as Holland and Switzerland now occupy. Their greatness\nin thought and scholarship, in industrial and aesthetic art, will\ndoubtless continue unabated. But their political weights will severally\nhave come to be insignificant; and as we now look back, with historic\ncuriosity, to the days when Holland was navally and commercially the\nrival of England, so people will then need to be reminded that there was\nactually once a time when little France was the most powerful nation on\nthe earth. It will then become as desirable for the states of Europe to\nenter into a federal union as it was for the states of North America a\ncentury ago.\n\nIt is only by thus adopting the lesson of federalism that Europe can do\naway with the chances of useless warfare which remain so long as its\ndifferent states own no allegiance to any common authority. War, as we\nhave seen, is with barbarous races both a necessity and a favourite\noccupation. As long as civilization comes into contact with barbarism,\nit remains a too frequent necessity. But as between civilized and\nChristian nations it is a wretched absurdity. One sympathizes keenly\nwith wars such as that which Russia has lately concluded, for setting\nfree a kindred race endowed with capacity for progress, and for humbling\nthe worthless barbarian who during four centuries has wrought such\nincalculable damage to the European world. But a sanguinary struggle for\nthe Rhine frontier, between two civilized Christian nations who have\neach enough work to do in ithe world without engaging in such a strife\nas this, will, I am sure, be by and by condemned by the general opinion\nof mankind. Such questions will have to be settled by discussion in some\nsort of federal council or parliament, if Europe would keep pace with\nAmerica in the advance towards universal law and order. All will admit\nthat such a state of things is a great desideratum: let us see if it is\nreally quite so utopian as it may seem at the first glance. No doubt the\nlord who dwelt in Haddon Hall in the fifteenth century would have\nthought it very absurd if you had told him that within four hundred\nyears it would not be necessary for country gentlemen to live in great\nstone dungeons with little cross-barred windows and loopholes from which\nto shoot at people going by. Yet to-day a country gentleman in some\nparts of Massachusetts may sleep securely without locking his\nfront-door. We have not yet done away with robbery and murder, but we\nhave at least made private warfare illegal; we have arrayed public\nopinion against it to such an extent that the police-court usually makes\nshort shrift for the misguided man who tries to wreak vengeance on his\nenemy. Is it too much to hope that by and by we may similarly put public\nwarfare under the ban? I think not. Already in America, as wre have\nseen, it has become customary to deal with questions between states just\nas we would deal with questions between individuals. This we have seen\nto be the real purport of American federalism. To have established such\na system ovrer one great continent is to have made a very good beginning\ntowards establishing it over the world. To establish such a system in\nEurope will no doubt be difficult, for here we have to deal with an\nimmense complication of prejudices, intensified by linguistic and\nethnological differences. Nevertheless the pacific pressure exerted upon\nEurope by America is becoming so great that it will doubtless before\nlong overcome all these obstacles. I refer to the industrial competition\nbetween the old and the new worlds, which has become so conspicuous\nwithin the last ten years. Agriculturally Minnesota, Nebraska, and\nKansas are already formidable competitors with England, France, and\nGermany; but this is but the beginning. It is but the first spray from\nthe tremendous wave of economic competition that is gathering in the\nMississippi valley. By and by, when our shameful tariff--falsely called\n\"protective\"--shall have been done away with, and our manufacturers\nshall produce superior articles at less cost of raw material, we shall\nbegin to compete with European countries in all the markets of the\nworld; and the competition in manufactures will become as keen as it is\nnow beginning to be in agriculture. This time will not be long in\ncoming, for our tariff-system has already begun to be discussed, and in\nthe light of our present knowledge discussion means its doom. Born of\ncrass ignorance and self-defeating greed, it cannot bear the light. When\nthis curse to American labour--scarcely less blighting than the; curse\nof negro slavery--shall have been once removed, the economic pressure\nexerted upon Europe by the United States will soon become very great\nindeed. It will not be long before this economic pressure will make it\nsimply impossible for the states of Europe to keep up such military\narmaments as they are now maintaining. The disparity between the United\nStates, with a standing army of only twenty-five thousand men withdrawn\nfrom industrial pursuits, and the states of Europe, with their standing\narmies amounting to four millions of men, is something that cannot\npossibly be kept up. The economic competition will become so keen that\nEuropean armies will have to be disbanded, the swords will have to be\nturned into ploughshares, and _thus_ the victory of the industrial over\nthe military type of civilization will at last become complete. But to\ndisband the great armies of Europe will necessarily involve the forcing\nof the great states of Europe into some sort of federal relation, in\nwhich Congresses--already held on rare occasions--will become more\nfrequent, in which the principles of international law will acquire a\nmore definite sanction, and in which the combined physical power of all\nthe states will constitute (as it now does in America) a permanent\nthreat against any state that dares to wish for selfish reasons to break\nthe peace. In some such way as this, I believe, the industrial\ndevelopment of the English race outside of Europe will by and by enforce\nfederalism upon Europe. As regards the serious difficulties that grow\nout of prejudices attendant upon differences in language, race, and\ncreed, a most valuable lesson is furnished us by the history of\nSwitzerland. I am inclined to think that the greatest contribution which\nSwitzerland has made to the general progress of civilization has been to\nshow us how such obstacles can be surmounted, even on a small scale. To\nsurmount them on a great scale will soon become the political problem of\nEurope; and it is America which has set the example and indicated\nthe method.\n\nThus we may foresee in general outline how, through the gradual\nconcentration of the preponderance of physical power into the hands of\nthe most pacific communities, the wretched business of warfare must\nfinally become obsolete all over the globe. The element of distance is\nnow fast becoming eliminated from political problems, and the history of\nhuman progress politically will continue in the future to be what it has\nbeen in the past,--the history of the successive union of groups of men\ninto larger and more complex aggregates. As this process goes on, it may\nafter many more ages of political experience become apparent that there\nis really no reason, in the nature of things, why the whole of mankind\nshould not constitute politically one huge federation,--each little\ngroup managing its local affairs in entire independence, but relegating\nall questions of international interest to the decision of one central\ntribunal supported by the public opinion of the entire human race. I\nbelieve that the time will come when such a state of things will exist\nupon the earth, when it will be possible (with our friends of the Paris\ndinner-party) to speak of the UNITED STATES as stretching from pole to\npole,--or, with Tennyson, to celebrate the \"parliament of man and the\nfederation of the world.\" Indeed, only when such a state of things has\nbegun to be realized, can Civilization, as sharply demarcated from\nBarbarism, be said to have fairly begun. Only then can the world be said\nto have become truly Christian. Many ages of toil and doubt and\nperplexity will no doubt pass by before such a desideratum is reached.\nMeanwhile it is pleasant to feel that the dispassionate contemplation of\ngreat masses of historical facts goes far towards confirming our faith\nin this ultimate triumph of good over evil. Our survey began with\npictures of horrid slaughter and desolation: it ends with the picture of\na world covered with cheerful homesteads, blessed with a sabbath of\nperpetual peace.\n\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Freeman, \"Norman Conquest,\" v. 482.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Freeman, \"Comparative Politics,\" 264.]\n\n[Footnote 3: This is disputed, however. See Ross, \"Early History of\nLandholding among the Germans.\"]\n\n[Footnote 4: Stubbs, \"Constitutional History,\" i. 84.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Kemble, \"Saxons in England,\" i. 59.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Maine, \"Village Communities,\" Lond., 1871, p. 132.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Stubbs, \"Constitutional History,\" i. 85.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Freeman, \"Comparative Politics,\" 118.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Geffroy, \"Rome et les Barbares,\" 209.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Maine, \"Village Communities,\" 118.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Stubbs, \"Constitutional History,\" i. 625.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Stubbs, \"Select Charters,\" 401.]\n\n[Footnote 13: \"La Cit\u00e9 Antique,\" 441.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Arnold, \"Roman Provincial Administration,\" 237.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Stubbs, \"Select Charters,\" 401.]\n\n[Footnote 16: In 1880.]\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\nAbderrahman\nAchaian league\nAden\nAdoption\nAetolian league\nAfrica, English colonies in\nAlbany Congress\nAmphiktyonic Council\nAngeln\nAngles\nAnglo-American\nAnglo-Saxon\nAppomattox\nArable mark\nAriovistus\nArmada, the Invincible\nArmies of Europe will be disbanded\nArminius\nArnold, M.\nAsiaticization\nAthens, grandeur of\n  incorporated demes of Attika,\n  old tribal divisions modified,\n  school of political training\n  maritime empire of\nAttila\nAustralia\nAustria\n\nBaker, Sir S.\nBancroft, Hubert\nBarons, war of the\nBasileus\nBatu\nBelgium\nBenefices\nBern\nBonaparte, N.\nBonapartism\nBoroughs, special privileges of\nBoston, growth of\n  its Common\nBoundaries of United States\nBurgundians\nBy-laws\n\nCaesar, J.\nCalifornia, social experiments in\nCanada under Old R\u00e9gime\nCandolle, A. de,\nCanton,\nCarlyle on dollar-hunters,\nCentralized government, weakness of,\nCentury,\nCeylon,\nCh\u00e2lons, battle of,\nCharles I.,\nCharles the Bold,\nCharles Martel,\nCharles the Great,\nChatham, Lord,\nChester,\nChicago,\nChinese,\nChristianity,\nChurch, mediaeval,\nCities in England and America,\n  origin of,\nCity, the ancient,\nCivilization, its primary phase,\n  long threatened by neighbouring barbarism,\nClan-system of political union,\nClaudius, emperor,\nClement IV.,\nCleveland, city of.\nColenso, J.W.\nColonies, how founded,\nComitia,\nCommendation,\nCommons, House of,\nCommons, origin of,\nCommunal farming in England,\nCommunal landholding,\nCompetition, industrial, between Europe and America,\nConfederation, articles of,\nConnecticut, men of, defy James II.,\nConstitution of the United States,\nContinentals and British,\nCromwell, O.,\nCuria,\n\n\nDelian confederacy,\nDerne,\nDepartments of France,\nDependencies, danger of governing them despotically,\nDidius Julianus,\nDiocletian,\nDomestic service in a New England village,\nDorset,\nDover, men of, throw papal bull into sea,\nDuke,\nDutch republic,\n\n\nEaldorman,\nEcclesia,\nEden, Chuzzlewit's,\nElectoral commission,\nEmancipation of slaves,\nEngland, maritime supremacy of\nEnglish colonization\n  language, future of\n  self-government, how preserved,\n  villages\n\nFamines\nFederal union on great scale,\n  conditions of\n  its durableness lies in its flexibility\nFederalism, pacific implications of\n  will be adopted by Europe\nFederation and conquest\nFederations in Greece\nFeudal system, origin of\nFick, A.\nFrance, political development of\n  contrasted with England as a colonizer\nFrance and Germany, their late war\n  their political weight a century hence\nFrancis I.\nFranklin, B.\nFranks\nFreeman, E.A.\nFreiburg\nFrench villages\n\nGau\nGaul, Roman conquest of\nGeneva\nGens\nGeorgia\nGermany conquered and converted by Charles the Great\nGibraltar\nGoths\nGreat states, method of forming,\n  notion of their having an inherent tendency to break up\n  difficulty of forming\nGrimm, J.\n\nHaddon Hall\nHamburg\nHamilton, A.\nHampden, J.\nHannibal's invasion of Italy\nHearn, Professor\nHenry VIII.\nHeretoga\nHindustan, village communities in\n  cities in\nHolland\nHoward of Effingham\nHundred\nHungary\nHunnish invasion of Europe\n\nIncorporation\nIroquois tribes\n\nJames II.\nJinghis Khan,\nJudiciary, federal,\n\nKansas,\nKemble, J.,\nKingship among ancient Teutons,\n\nLa Salle, R.,\nLausanne,\nLeo's defeat of the Saracens,\nLewes, battle of,\nLiegnitz, battle of,\nLincoln, A.,\nLincoln, city of,\nLivingstone, Dr.,\nLombards,\nLondon, growth of,\nLouis VI.,\nLouis XIV.,\n\n\nMadison, J.,\nMaine, Sir II.,\nMaintz,\nMalta,\nManorial courts,\nManors, origin of,\nMarch meetings in New England,\nMarius, C.,\nMark,\n  in England,\n  meaning of the word,\nMark-mote,\nMassachusetts,\nMay assemblies in Switzerland,\nMelbourne, city of,\nMiddle Ages, turbulence of,\nMilitary strength of civilized world, its increase,\nMinnesota,\nMir, or Russian village,\nMongolian Khans in Russia,\nMongols,\nMontenegro,\nMontfort, S. de,\n\n\nNaseby, battle of,\nNavies less dangerous than standing armies,\nNebraska,\nNelson's statue in Trafalgar Square,\nNevada,\nNew England confederacy,\nNew York,\nNew Zealand,\nNorman conquest,\nNorth America, struggle for possession of,\n\n\nOmar,\n\n\nPagus,\nParis, American dinner-party in,\nParish, its relation to township,\nParkman, F.\nPax romana\nPeace of the world, how secured,\nPeerage of England\nPeloponnesian war\nPersian war against Greece\nPestilences\nPetersham\nPhilip, King\nPhratries\nPictet, A.\nPoland\nPontiac\nPopulation of United States a century hence\nPrivate property in land\nProblem of political civilization\nProtestantism and Catholicism, political question at stake between\nPrussia conquered by Teutonic knights\nPuritanism\nPuritans of New England, their origin\n\n\nQuebec, Wolfe's victory at\n\n\nRebellion against Charles I.\nRedivision of arable lands\nRe-election of town officers\nRepresentation unknown to Greeks and Romans\n  origin of\n  federal, in United States\nRex\nRhode Island\nRoman law\nRome, plebeian revolution at\n  early stages of\n  secret of its power\n  advantages of its dominion\n  causes of its political failure,\n  powerful influence of, in Middle Ages\n  meaning of its great wars\nRoses, wars of the\nRoss, D.\nRussia, Mongolian conquest of\n  village communities in\n  its late war against the Turks\n  its despotic government contrasted with that of France under Old R\u00e9gime\n\n\nSARACENS\nScandinavia\nSecession, war of\nSelectmen\nSelf-government preserved in England\n  lost in France\nShakespeare\nShires\nShottery, cottage at\nSmith, J.\nSocial war\nSouth Carolina\nSpain, Roman conquest of\nSparta\nState sovereignty in America\nStrasburg\nStrategic position of England\nStubbs, W.\nSuez\nSwiss cantonal assemblies\nSwitzerland, lesson of its history\n  self-government preserved in\n\nTacitus\nTariff in America\nTax-taking despotisms\nTennyson, A.\nTeutonic civilization contrasted with Graeco-Roman\nTeutonic knights\nTeutonic village communities\nTexas\nThegnhood\nThirty Years' War\nThukydides\nTocqueville\nTourist in United States\nTown, meaning of the word\nTown-meetings, origin of\nTown-names formed from patronymics\nTownship in New England,\n  in western states\nTribe and shire\nTurks\n\nVersailles\nVestry-meetings\nVictoria, Australia\nVillage-mark\nVillages of New England\nVirginia, parishes in\nVisigoths\n\nWallace, D.M.\nWar of independence\nWarfare, universal in early times\n  how diminished\n  interferes with political development\n  less destructive now than in ancient times\n  how effectively waged by the most pacific of peoples\nWashington, city of\nWashington, G.\nWilliam III.\nWitenagemote\nWolfe's victory at Quebec\n\nYorktown\n\n\nTHE END.","title":"American Political Ideas Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":32171}