AMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS

VIEWED FROM THE STANDPOINT OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY

Three Lectures

DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN IN MAY 1880

BY JOHN FISKE

_Voici un fait entièrement nouveau dans le monde, et dont l'imaginationelle-même ne saurait saisir la portée. _

TOCQUEVILLE

TO

EDWARD LIVINGSTON YOUMANS

NOBLEST OF MEN AND DEAREST OF FRIENDS

WHOSE UNSELFISH AND UNTIRING WORK IN EDUCATING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE INTHE PRINCIPLES OF SOUND PHILOSOPHY DESERVES THE GRATITUDE OF ALL MEN

I dedicate this Book

PREFACE. 

In the spring of 1879 I gave at the Old South Meeting-house in Boston acourse of lectures on the discovery and colonization of America, andpresently, through the kindness of my friend Professor Huxley, thecourse was repeated at University College in London. The lectures therewere attended by very large audiences, and awakened such an interest inAmerican history that I was invited to return to England in thefollowing year and treat of some of the philosophical aspects of mysubject in a course of lectures at the Royal Institution. 

In the three lectures which were written in response to this invitation, and which are now published in this little volume, I have endeavoured toillustrate some of the fundamental ideas of American politics by settingforth their relations to the general history of mankind. It isimpossible thoroughly to grasp the meaning of any group of facts, in anydepartment of study, until we have duly compared them with allied groupsof facts; and the political history of the American people can berightly understood only when it is studied in connection with thatgeneral process of political evolution which has been going on from theearliest times, and of which it is itself one of the most important andremarkable phases. The government of the United States is not the resultof special creation, but of evolution. As the town-meetings of NewEngland are lineally descended from the village assemblies of the earlyAryans; as our huge federal union was long ago foreshadowed in thelittle leagues of Greek cities and Swiss cantons; so the great politicalproblem which we are (thus far successfully) solving is the very sameproblem upon which all civilized peoples have been working ever sincecivilization began. How to insure peaceful concerted action throughoutthe Whole, without infringing upon local and individual freedom in theParts, --this has ever been the chief aim of civilization, viewed on itspolitical side; and we rate the failure or success of nationspolitically according to their failure or success in attaining thissupreme end. When thus considered in the light of the comparativemethod, our American history acquires added dignity and interest, and abroad and rational basis is secured for the detailed treatment ofpolitical questions. 

When viewed in this light, moreover, not only does American historybecome especially interesting to Englishmen, but English history isclothed with fresh interest for Americans. Mr. Freeman has done well ininsisting upon the fact that the history of the English people does notbegin with the Norman Conquest. In the deepest and widest sense, ourAmerican history does not begin with the Declaration of Independence, oreven with the settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth; but it descends inunbroken continuity from the days when stout Arminius in the forests ofnorthern Germany successfully defied the might of imperial Rome. In amore restricted sense, the statesmanship of Washington and Lincolnappears in the noblest light when regarded as the fruition of thevarious work of De Montfort and Cromwell and Chatham. The good fightbegun at Lewes and continued at Naseby and Quebec was fitly crowned atYorktown and at Appomattox. When we duly realize this, and further cometo see how the two great branches of the English race have the commonmission of establishing throughout the larger part of the earth a highercivilization and more permanent political order than any that has gonebefore, we shall the better understand the true significance of thehistory which English-speaking men have so magnificently wrought outupon American soil. 

In dealing concisely with a subject so vast, only brief hints andsuggestions can be expected; and I have not thought it worth while, forthe present at least, to change or amplify the manner of treatment. Thelectures are printed exactly as they were delivered at the RoyalInstitution, more than four years ago. On one point of detail somechange will very likely by and by be called for. In the lecture on theTown-meeting I have adopted the views of Sir Henry Maine as to thecommon holding of the arable land in the ancient German mark, and as tothe primitive character of the periodical redistribution of land in theRussian village community. It now seems highly probable that these viewswill have to undergo serious modification in consequence of the valuableevidence lately brought forward by my friend Mr. Denman Ross, in hislearned and masterly treatise on "The Early History of Landholding amongthe Germans;" but as I am not yet quite clear as to how far thismodification will go, and as it can in nowise affect the general driftof my argument, I have made no change in my incidental remarks on thisdifficult and disputed question. 

In describing some of the characteristic features of country life in NewEngland, I had especially in mind the beautiful mountain village inwhich this preface is written, and in which for nearly a quarter of acentury I have felt myself more at home than in any other spot inthe world. 

In writing these lectures, designed as they were for a special occasion, no attempt was made to meet the ordinary requirements of popularaudiences; yet they have been received in many places with unlooked-forfavour. The lecture on "Manifest Destiny" was three times repeated inLondon, and once in Edinburgh; seven times in Boston; four times in NewYork; twice in Brooklyn, N. Y. , Plainfield, N. J. , and Madison, Wis. ; oncein Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Milwaukee; in Appleton and Waukesha, Wis. ;Portland, Lewiston, and Brunswick, Me. ; Lowell, Concord, Newburyport, Peabody, Stoneham, Maiden, Newton Highlands, and Martha's Vineyard, Mass. ; Middletown and Stamford, Conn. ; Newburg and Poughkeepsie, N. Y. ;Orange, N. J. ; and at Cornell University and Haverford College. Inseveral of these places the course was given. 

PETERSHAM, _September 13, 1884_. 

CONTENTS

I. 

_THE TOWN-MEETING. _

Differences in outward aspect between a village in England and a villagein Massachusetts. Life in a typical New England mountain village. Tenureof land, domestic service, absence of poverty and crime, universality oflabour and of culture, freedom of thought, complete democracy. Thisstate of things is to some extent passing away. Remarkablecharacteristics of the Puritan settlers of New England, and extent towhich their characters and aims have influenced American history. Towngovernments in New England. Different meanings of the word "city" inEngland and America. Importance of local self-government in thepolitical life of the United States. Origin of the town-meeting. Mr. Freeman on the cantonal assemblies of Switzerland. The old Teutonic"mark, " or dwelling-place of a clan. Political union originally based, not on territorial contiguity, but on blood-relationship. Divisions ofthe mark. Origin of the village Common. The _mark-mote_. Villagecommunities in Russia and Hindustan. Difference between the despotism ofRussia and that of France under the Old Régime. Elements of soundpolitical life fostered by the Russian village. Traces of the mark inEngland. Feudalization of Europe, and partial metamorphosis of the markor township into the manor. Parallel transformation of the township, insome of its features, into the parish. The court leet and thevestry-meeting. The New England town-meeting a revival of the ancientmark-mote. 

Vicissitudes of local self-government in the various portions of theAryan world illustrated in the contrasted cases of France and England. Significant contrast between the aristocracy of England and that of theContinent. Difference between the Teutonic conquests of Gaul and ofBritain. Growth of centralization in France. Why the English have alwaysbeen more successful than the French in founding colonies. Strugglebetween France and England for the possession of North America, andprodigious significance of the victory of England. 

II. 

_THE FEDERAL UNION_. 

Wonderful greatness of ancient Athens. Causes of the political failureof Greek civilization. Early stages of political aggregation, --the_hundred_, the [Greek: _phratria_], the _curia_; the _shire_, the_deme_, and the _pagus_. Aggregation of clans into tribes. Differencesin the mode of aggregation in Greece and Rome on the one hand, and inTeutonic countries on the other. The Ancient City. Origin of cities inHindustan, Germany, England, and the United States. Religious characterof the ancient city. Burghership not granted to strangers. Consequencesof the political difference between the Graeco-Roman city and theTeutonic shire. The _folk-mote_, or primary assembly, and the_witenagemote_, or assembly of notables. Origin of representativegovernment in the Teutonic shire. Representation unknown to the Greeksand Romans. The ancient city as a school for political training. Intensity of the jealousies and rivalries between adjacentself-governing groups of men. Smallness of simple social aggregates anduniversality of warfare in primitive times. For the formation of largerand more complex social aggregates, only two methods arepracticable, --_conquest_ or _federation_. Greek attempts at employingthe higher method, that of federation. The Athenian hegemony and itsoverthrow. The Achaian and Aetolian leagues. In a low stage of politicaldevelopment the Roman method of _conquest with incorporation_ was theonly one practicable. Peculiarities of the Roman conquest of Italy. Causes of the universal dominion of Rome. Advantages and disadvantagesof this dominion:--on the one hand the _pax romana_, and the breakingdown of primitive local superstitions and prejudices; on the other handthe partial extinction of local self-government. Despotism inevitable inthe absence of representation. Causes of the political failure of theRoman system. Partial reversion of Europe, between the fifth andeleventh centuries, towards a more primitive type of social structure. Power of Rome still wielded through the Church and the imperialjurisprudence. Preservation of local self-government in England, and atthe two ends of the Rhine. The Dutch and Swiss federations. The lessonto be learned from Switzerland. Federation on a great scale could onlybe attempted successfully by men of English political training, whenworking without let or hindrance in a vast country not preoccupied by anold civilization. Without local self-government a great Federal Union isimpossible. Illustrations from American history. Difficulty of theproblem, and failure of the early attempts at federation in NewEngland. Effects of the war for independence. The "Articles ofConfederation" and the "Constitution. " Pacific implications of Americanfederalism. 

III. 

"_MANIFEST DESTINY. _"

The Americans boast of the bigness of their country. How to "bound" theUnited States. "Manifest Destiny" of the "Anglo-Saxon Race. " The term"Anglo-Saxon" slovenly and misleading. Statements relating to the"English Race" have a common interest for Americans and for Englishmen. Work of the English race in the world. The prime feature of civilizationis the diminution of warfare, which becomes possible only through theformation of great political aggregates in which the parts retain theirlocal and individual freedom. In the earlier stages of civilization, thepossibility of peace can be guaranteed only through war, but thepreponderant military strength is gradually concentrated in the hands ofthe most pacific communities, and by the continuance of this process thepermanent peace of the world will ultimately be secured. Illustrationsfrom the early struggles of European civilization with outer barbarism, and with aggressive civilizations of lower type. Greece and Persia. Keltic and Teutonic enemies of Rome. The defensible frontier of Europeancivilization carried northward and eastward to the Rhine by Caesar; tothe Oder by Charles the Great; to the Vistula by the Teutonic Knights;to the Volga and the Oxus by the Russians. Danger in the Dark Ages fromHuns and Mongols on the one hand, from Mussulmans on the other. Immenseincrease of the area and physical strength of European civilization, which can never again be in danger from outer barbarism. Effect of allthis secular turmoil upon the political institutions of Europe. Ithindered the formation of closely coherent nations, and was at the sametime an obstacle to the preservation of popular liberties. Tendencytowards the _Asiaticization_ of European life. Opposing influences ofthe Church, and of the Germanic tribal organizations. Military type ofsociety on the Continent. Old Aryan self-government happily preserved inEngland. Strategic position of England favourable to the earlyelimination of warfare from her soil. Hence the exceptionally normal andplastic political development of the English race. Significantcoincidence of the discovery of America with the beginnings of theProtestant revolt against the asiaticizing tendency. Significance of thestruggle between Spain, France, and England for the possession of anenormous area of virgin soil which should insure to the conqueror anunprecedented opportunity for future development. The race which gainedcontrol of North America must become the dominant race of the world, andits political ideas must prevail in the struggle for life. Moralsignificance of the rapid increase of the English race in America. Fallacy of the notion that centralized governments are needed for verylarge nations. It is only through federalism, combined with localself-government, that the stability of so huge an aggregate as theUnited States can be permanently maintained. What the Americangovernment really fought for in the late Civil War. Magnitude of theresults achieved. Unprecedented military strength shown by this mostpacific and industrial of peoples. Improbability of any future attemptto break up the Federal Union. Stupendous future of the Englishrace, --in Africa, in Australia, and in the islands of the PacificOcean. Future of the English language. Probable further adoption offederalism. Probable effects upon Europe of industrial competition withthe United States: impossibility of keeping up the present militaryarmaments. The States of Europe will be forced, by pressure ofcircumstances, into some kind of federal union. A similar process willgo on until the whole of mankind shall constitute a single politicalbody, and warfare shall disappear forever from the face of the earth. 

AMERICAN POLITICAL IDEAS. 

I. 

_THE TOWN-MEETING. _

The traveller from the Old World, who has a few weeks at his disposalfor a visit to the United States, usually passes straight from one toanother of our principal cities, such as Boston, New York, Washington, or Chicago, stopping for a day or two perhaps at Niagara Falls, --or, perhaps, after traversing a distance like that which separates Englandfrom Mesopotamia, reaches the vast table-lands of the Far West andinspects their interesting fauna of antelopes and buffaloes, red Indiansand Mormons. In a journey of this sort one gets a very superficial viewof the peculiarities, physical and social, which characterize thedifferent portions of our country; and in this there is nothing tocomplain of, since the knowledge gained in a vacation-journey cannotwell be expected to be thorough or profound. The traveller, however, who should visit the United States in a more leisurely way, with thepurpose of increasing his knowledge of history and politics, would findit well to proceed somewhat differently. He would find himself richlyrepaid for a sojourn in some insignificant place the very name of whichis unknown beyond sea, --just as Mr. Mackenzie Wallace--whose book onRussia is a model of what such books should be--got so much invaluableexperience from his months of voluntary exile at Ivánofka in theprovince of Novgorod. Out of the innumerable places which one mightvisit in America, there are none which would better reward such carefulobservation, or which are more full of interest for the comparativehistorian, than the rural towns and mountain villages of New England;that part of English America which is oldest in civilization (though notin actual date of settlement), and which, while most completely Englishin blood and in traditions, is at the same time most completely Americanin so far as it has most distinctly illustrated and most successfullyrepresented those political ideas which have given to American historyits chief significance in the general work of civilization. 

The United States are not unfrequently spoken of as a "new country, " interms which would be appropriate if applied to Australia or New Zealand, and which are not inappropriate as applied to the vast region west ofthe Mississippi River, where the white man had hardly set foot beforethe beginning of the present century. New England, however, has ahistory which carries us back to the times of James I. ; and while itscities are full of such bustling modern life as one sees in Liverpool orManchester or Glasgow, its rural towns show us much that isold-fashioned in aspect, --much that one can approach in an antiquarianspirit. We are there introduced to a phase of social life which ishighly interesting on its own account and which has played an importantpart in the world, yet which, if not actually passing away, is at leastbecoming so rapidly modified as to afford a theme for grave reflectionsto those who have learned how to appreciate its value. As anyfar-reaching change in the condition of landed property in England, dueto agricultural causes, might seriously affect the position of one ofthe noblest and most useful aristocracies that has ever existed; so, onthe other hand, as we consider the possible action of similar causesupon the _personnel_ and upon the occupations of rural New England, weare unwillingly forced to contemplate the possibility of adeterioration in the character of the most perfect democracy the worldhas ever seen. 

In the outward aspect of a village in Massachusetts or Connecticut, thefeature which would be most likely first to impress itself upon the mindof a visitor from England is the manner in which the village is laid outand built. Neither in England nor anywhere else in western Europe have Iever met with a village of the New England type. In English villages onefinds small houses closely crowded together, sometimes in blocks of tenor a dozen, and inhabited by people belonging to the lower orders ofsociety; while the fine houses of gentlemen stand quite apart in thecountry, perhaps out of sight of one another, and surrounded by veryextensive grounds. The origin of the village, in a mere aggregation oftenants of the lord of the manor, is thus vividly suggested. In Franceone is still more impressed, I think, with this closely packed structureof the village. In the New England village, on the other hand, the finerand the poorer houses stand side by side along the road. There are widestraight streets overarched with spreading elms and maples, and oneither side stand the houses, with little green lawns in front, calledin rustic parlance "door-yards. " The finer houses may stand a thousandfeet apart from their neighbours on either side, while between thepoorer ones there may be intervals of from twenty to one hundred feet, but they are never found crowded together in blocks. Built in thiscapacious fashion, a village of a thousand inhabitants may have a mainstreet more than a mile in length, with half a dozen crossing streetslosing themselves gradually in long stretches of country road. Thefinest houses are not ducal palaces, but may be compared with theordinary country-houses of gentlemen in England. The poorest houses arenever hovels, such as one sees in the Scotch Highlands. The picturesqueand cosy cottage at Shottery, where Shakespeare used to do his courting, will serve very well as a sample of the humblest sort of old-fashionedNew England farm-house. But most of the dwellings in the village comebetween these extremes. They are plain neat wooden houses, incapaciousness more like villas than cottages. A New England villagestreet, laid out in this way, is usually very picturesque and beautiful, and it is highly characteristic. In comparing it with things in Europe, where one rarely finds anything at all like it, one must go to somethingvery different from a village. As you stand in the Court of Heroes atVersailles and look down the broad and noble avenue that leads toParis, the effect of the vista is much like that of a New Englandvillage street. As American villages grow into cities, the increase inthe value of land usually tends to crowd the houses together into blocksas in a European city. But in some of our western cities founded andsettled by people from New England, this spacious fashion of buildinghas been retained for streets occupied by dwelling-houses. InCleveland--a city on the southern shore of Lake Erie, with a populationabout equal to that of Edinburgh--there is a street some five or sixmiles in length and five hundred feet in width, bordered on each sidewith a double row of arching trees, and with handsome stone houses, ofsufficient variety and freedom in architectural design, standing atintervals of from one to two hundred feet along the entire length of thestreet. The effect, it is needless to add, is very noble indeed. Thevistas remind one of the nave and aisles of a huge cathedral. 

Now this generous way in which a New England village is built is veryclosely associated with the historical origin of the village and withthe peculiar kind of political and social life by which it ischaracterized. First of all, it implies abundance of land. As a rule thehead of each family owns the house in which he lives and the ground onwhich it is built. The relation of landlord and tenant, though notunknown, is not commonly met with. No sort of social distinction orpolitical privilege is associated with the ownership of land; and thelegal differences between real and personal property, especially asregards ease of transfer, have been reduced to the smallest minimum thatpractical convenience will allow. Each householder, therefore, though anabsolute proprietor, cannot be called a miniature lord of the manor, because there exists no permanent dependent class such as is implied inthe use of such a phrase. Each larger proprietor attends in person tothe cultivation of his own land, assisted perhaps by his own sons or byneighbours working for hire in the leisure left over from the care oftheir own smaller estates. So in the interior of the house there isusually no domestic service that is not performed by the mother of thefamily and the daughters. Yet in spite of this universality of manuallabour, the people are as far as possible from presenting the appearanceof peasants. Poor or shabbily-dressed people are rarely seen, and thereis no one in the village whom it would be proper to address in apatronizing tone, or who would not consider it a gross insult to beoffered a shilling. As with poverty, so with dram-drinking and withcrime; all alike are conspicuous by their absence. In a village of onethousand inhabitants there will be a poor-house where five or sixdecrepit old people are supported at the common charge; and there willbe one tavern where it is not easy to find anything stronger to drinkthan light beer or cider. The danger from thieves is so slight that itis not always thought necessary to fasten the outer doors of the houseat night. The universality of literary culture is as remarkable as thefreedom with which all persons engage in manual labour. The village of athousand inhabitants will be very likely to have a public circulatinglibrary, in which you may find Professor Huxley's "Lay Sermons" or SirHenry Maine's "Ancient Law": it will surely have a high-school and halfa dozen schools for small children. A person unable to read and write isas great a rarity as an albino or a person with six fingers. The farmerwho threshes his own corn and cuts his own firewood has very likely apiano in his family sitting-room, with the _Atlantic Monthly_ on thetable and Milton and Tennyson, Gibbon and Macaulay on his shelves, whilehis daughter, who has baked bread in the morning, is perhaps ready topaint on china in the afternoon. In former times theological questionslargely occupied the attention of the people; and there is probably nopart of the world where the Bible has been more attentively read, orwhere the mysteries of Christian doctrine have to so great an extentbeen made the subject of earnest discussion in every household. Hence wefind in the New England of to-day a deep religious sense combined withsingular flexibility of mind and freedom of thought. 

A state of society so completely democratic as that here described hasnot often been found in connection with a very high and complexcivilization. In contemplating these old mountain villages of NewEngland, one descries slow modifications in the structure of societywhich threaten somewhat to lessen its dignity. The immenseproductiveness of the soil in our western states, combined withcheapness of transportation, tends to affect seriously the agriculturalinterests of New England as well as those of our mother-country. Thereis a visible tendency for farms to pass into the hands of proprietors ofan inferior type to that of the former owners, --men who are content witha lower standard of comfort and culture; while the sons of the oldfarmers go off to the universities to prepare for a professional career, and the daughters marry merchants or lawyers in the cities. Themountain-streams of New England, too, afford so much water-power as tobring in ugly factories to disfigure the beautiful ravines, and tointroduce into the community a class of people very different from thelandholding descendants of the Puritans. When once a factory isestablished near a village, one no longer feels free to sleep withdoors unbolted. 

It will be long, however, I trust, before the simple, earnest andindependent type of character that has been nurtured on the Blue Hillsof Massachusetts and the White Hills of New Hampshire shall cease tooperate like a powerful leaven upon the whole of American society. Muchhas been said and sung in praise of the spirit of chivalry, which, afterall, as a great historian reminds us, "implies the arbitrary choice ofone or two virtues, to be practised in such an exaggerated degree as tobecome vices, while the ordinary laws of right and wrong areforgotten. " [1] Quite enough has been said, too, in discredit ofPuritanism, --its narrowness of aim, its ascetic proclivities, its quaintaffectations of Hebraism. Yet these things were but the symptoms of theintensity of its reverence for that grand spirit of Hebraism, of whichMr. Matthew Arnold speaks, to which we owe the Bible and Christianity. No loftier ideal has ever been conceived than that of the Puritan whowould fain have made of the world a City of God. If we could sum up allthat England owes to Puritanism, the story would be a great one indeed. As regards the United States, we may safely say that what is noblest inour history to-day, and of happiest augury for our social and politicalfuture, is the impress left upon the character of our people by theheroic men who came to New England early in the seventeenth century. 

The settlement of New England by the Puritans occupies a peculiarposition in the annals of colonization, and without understanding thiswe cannot properly appreciate the character of the purely democraticsociety which I have sought to describe. As a general rule colonies havebeen founded, either by governments or by private enterprise, forpolitical or commercial reasons. The aim has been--on the part ofgovernments--to annoy some rival power, or to get rid of criminals, orto open some new avenue of trade, or--on the part of the people--toescape from straitened circumstances at home, or to find a refuge fromreligious persecution. In the settlement of New England none of thesemotives were operative except the last, and that only to a slightextent. The Puritans who fled from Nottinghamshire to Holland in 1608, and twelve years afterwards crossed the ocean in the _Mayflower_, may besaid to have been driven from England by persecution. But this was notthe case with the Puritans who between 1630 and 1650 went fromLincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, and from Dorset and Devonshire, andfounded the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. These men lefttheir homes at a time when Puritanism was waxing powerful and could notbe assailed with impunity. They belonged to the upper and middle classesof the society of that day, outside of the peerage. Mr. Freeman haspointed out the importance of the change by which, after the NormanConquest, the Old-English nobility or _thegnhood_ was pushed down into"a secondary place in the political and social scale. " Of thefar-reaching effects of this change upon the whole subsequent history ofthe English race I shall hereafter have occasion to speak. The proximateeffect was that "the ancient lords of the soil, thus thrust down intothe second rank, formed that great body of freeholders, the stout gentryand yeomanry of England, who were for so many ages the strength of theland. " [2] It was from this ancient thegnhood that the Puritan settlersof New England were mainly descended. It is no unusual thing for aMassachusetts family to trace its pedigree to a lord of the manor in thethirteenth or fourteenth century. The leaders of the New Englandemigration were country gentlemen of good fortune, similar in positionto such men as Hampden and Cromwell; a large proportion of them hadtaken degrees at Cambridge. The rank and file were mostly intelligentand prosperous yeomen. The lowest ranks of society were not representedin the emigration; and all idle, shiftless, or disorderly people wererigorously refused admission into the new communities, the early historyof which was therefore singularly free from anything like riot ormutiny. To an extent unparalleled, therefore, in the annals ofcolonization, the settlers of New England were a body of _picked men_. Their Puritanism was the natural outcome of their free-thinking, combined with an earnestness of character which could constrain them toany sacrifices needful for realizing their high ideal of life. They gaveup pleasant homes in England, and they left them with no feeling ofrancour towards their native land, in order that, by dint of whateverhardship, they might establish in the American wilderness what shouldapprove itself to their judgment as a god-fearing community. It matterslittle that their conceptions were in some respects narrow. In theunflinching adherence to duty which prompted their enterprise, and inthe sober intelligence with which it was carried out, we have, as I saidbefore, the key to what is best in the history of the American people. 

Out of such a colonization as that here described nothing but ademocratic society could very well come, save perhaps in case of ascarcity of arable land. Between the country gentleman and the yeomanwho has become a landed proprietor, the difference is not great enoughto allow the establishment of permanent distinctions, social orpolitical. Immediately on their arrival in New England, the settlersproceeded to form for themselves a government as purely democratic asany that has ever been seen in the world. Instead of scattering aboutover the country, the requirements of education and of public worship, as well as of defence against Indian attacks, obliged them to form smallvillage communities. As these villages multiplied, the surface of thecountry came to be laid out in small districts (usually from six to tenmiles in length and breadth) called _townships_. Each township containedits village together with the woodlands surrounding it. In later daystwo or more villages have often grown up within the limits of the sametownship, and the road from one village to another is sometimes borderedwith homesteads and cultivated fields throughout nearly its wholelength. In the neighbourhood of Boston villages and small towns crowdclosely together for twenty miles in every direction; and all these willno doubt by and by grow together into a vast and complicated city, insomewhat the same way that London has grown. 

From the outset the government of the township was vested in theTOWN-MEETING, --an institution which in its present form is said to bepeculiar to New England, but which, as we shall see, has close analogieswith local self-governing bodies in other ages and countries. Once ineach year--usually in the month of March--a meeting is held, at whichevery adult male residing within the limits of the township is expectedto be present, and is at liberty to address the meeting or to vote uponany question that may come up. 

In the first years of the colonies it seems to have been attempted tohold town-meetings every month, and to discuss all the affairs of thecommunity in these assemblies; but this was soon found to be a cumbrousway of transacting public business, and as early as 1635 we find_selectmen_ chosen to administer the affairs of the township during theintervals between the assemblies. As the system has perfected itself, ateach annual town-meeting there are chosen not less than three or morethan nine selectmen, according to the size of the township. Besidesthese, there are chosen a town-clerk, a town-treasurer, aschool-committee, assessors of taxes, overseers of the poor, constables, surveyors of highways, fence-viewers, and other officers. In very smalltownships the selectmen themselves may act as assessors of taxes oroverseers of the poor. The selectmen may appoint police-officers if suchare required; they may act as a Board of Health; in addition to sundryspecific duties too numerous to mention here, they have the generalsuperintendence of all public business save such as is expresslyassigned to the other officers; and whenever circumstances may seem torequire it they are authorized to call a town-meeting. The selectmen arethus the principal town-magistrates; and through the annual electiontheir responsibility to the town is maintained at the maximum. Yet inmany New England towns re-election of the same persons year after yearhas very commonly prevailed. I know of an instance where the office oftown-clerk was filled by three members of one family during one hundredand fourteen consecutive years. 

Besides choosing executive officers, the town-meeting has the power ofenacting by-laws, of making appropriations of money for town-purposes, and of providing for miscellaneous emergencies by what might be termedspecial legislation. Besides the annual meeting held in the spring fortransacting all this local business, the selectmen are required to calla meeting in the autumn of each year for the election of state andcounty officers, each second year for the election of representatives tothe federal Congress, and each fourth year for the election of thePresident of the United States. 

It only remains to add that, as an assembly of the whole people becomesimpracticable in a large community, so when the population of a townshiphas grown to ten or twelve thousand, the town-meeting is discontinued, the town is incorporated as a city, and its affairs are managed by amayor, a board of aldermen, and a common council, according to thesystem adopted in London in the reign of Edward I. In America, therefore, the distinction between cities and towns has nothing to dowith the presence or absence of a cathedral, but refers solely todifferences in the communal or municipal government. In the city thecommon council, as a representative body, replaces (in a certain sense)the town-meeting; a representative government is substituted for a puredemocracy. But the city officers, like the selectmen of towns, areelected annually; and in no case (I believe) has municipal governmentfallen into the hands of a self-perpetuating body, as it has done in somany instances in England owing to the unwise policy pursued by theTudors and Stuarts in their grants of charters. 

It is only in New England that the township system is to be found in itscompleteness. In several southern and western states the administrativeunit is the county, and local affairs are managed by countycommissioners elected by the people. Elsewhere we find a mixture of thecounty and township systems. In some of the western states settled byNew England people, town-meetings are held, though their powers aresomewhat less extensive than in New England. In the settlement ofVirginia it was attempted to copy directly the parishes and vestries, boroughs and guilds of England. But in the southern states generally thegreat size of the plantations and the wide dispersion of the populationhindered the growth of towns, so that it was impossible to have anadministrative unit smaller than the county. As Tocqueville said fiftyyears ago, "the farther south we go the less active does the business ofthe township or parish become; the population exercises a less immediateinfluence on affairs; the power of the elected magistrate is augmentedand that of the election diminished, while the public spirit of thelocal communities is less quickly awakened and less influential. " Thisis almost equally true to-day; yet with all these differences in localorganization, there is no part of our country in which the spirit oflocal self-government can be called weak or uncertain. I have describedthe Town-meeting as it exists in the states where it first grew up andhas since chiefly flourished. But something very like the "town-meetingprinciple" lies at the bottom of all the political life of the UnitedStates. To maintain vitality in the centre without sacrificing it in theparts; to preserve tranquillity in the mutual relations of fortypowerful states, while keeping the people everywhere as far as possiblein direct contact with the government; such is the political problemwhich the American Union exists for the purpose of solving; and of thisgreat truth every American citizen is supposed to have some glimmering, however crude. 

It has been said that the town-governments of New England wereestablished without any conscious reference to precedent; but, howeverthis may be, they are certainly not without precedents and analogies, toenumerate which will carry us very far back in the history of the Aryanworld. At the beginning of his essay on the "Growth of the EnglishConstitution, " Mr. Freeman gives an eloquent account of the Mayassemblies of Uri and Appenzell, when the whole people elect theirmagistrates for the year and vote upon amendments to the old laws orupon the adoption of new ones. Such a sight Mr. Freeman seems to thinkcan be seen nowhere but in Switzerland, and he reckons it among thehighest privileges of his life to have looked upon it. But I am unableto see in what respect the town-meeting in Massachusetts differs fromthe _Landesgemeinde_ or cantonal assembly in Switzerland, save that itis held in a town-hall and not in the open air, that it is conductedwith somewhat less of pageantry, and that the freemen who attend do notcarry arms even by way of ceremony. In the Swiss assembly, as Mr. Freeman truly observes, we see exemplified the most democratic phase ofthe old Teutonic constitution as described in the "Germania" ofTacitus, "the earliest picture which history can give us of thepolitical and social being of our own forefathers. " The same remark, inprecisely the same terms, would be true of the town-meetings of NewEngland. Political institutions, on the White Mountains and on the Alps, not only closely resemble each other, but are connected by strict bondsof descent from a common original. 

The most primitive self-governing body of which we have any knowledge isthe village-community of the ancient Teutons, of which such strictcounterparts are found in other parts of the Aryan world as to make itapparent that in its essential features it must be an inheritance fromprehistoric Aryan antiquity. In its Teutonic form the primitivevillage-community (or rather, the spot inhabited by it) is known as the_Mark_, --that is, a place defined by a boundary-line. One characteristicof the mark-community is that all its free members are in theorysupposed to be related to each other through descent from a commonprogenitor; and in this respect the mark-community agrees with the_gens_, [Greek: _ginos_], or _clan_. The earliest form of politicalunion in the world is one which rests, not upon territorial contiguity, but upon I blood-relationship, either real or assumed through the legalfiction of adoption. In the lowest savagery blood-relationship is theonly admissible or conceivable ground for sustained common action amonggroups of men. Among peoples which wander about, supporting themselveseither by hunting, or at a somewhat more advanced stage of developmentby the rearing of flocks and herds, a group of men, thus permanentlyassociated through ties of blood-relationship, is what we call a _clan_. When by the development of agricultural pursuits the nomadic mode oflife is brought to an end, when the clan remains stationary upon somepiece of territory surrounded by a strip of forest-land, or otherboundaries natural or artificial, then the clan becomes amark-community. The profound linguistic researches of Pictet, Fick, andothers have made it probable that at the time when the Old-Aryanlanguage was broken up into the dialects from which the existinglanguages of Europe are descended, the Aryan tribes were passing from apurely pastoral stage of barbarism into an incipient agricultural stage, somewhat like that which characterized the Iroquois tribes in America inthe seventeenth century. The comparative study of institutions leads toresults in harmony with this view, showing us the mark-community of ourTeutonic ancestors with the clear traces of its origin in the moreprimitive clan; though, with Mr. Kemble, I do not doubt that by the timeof Tacitus the German tribes had long since reached theagricultural stage. 

Territorially the old Teutonic mark consisted of three divisions. Therewas the _village mark_, where the people lived in houses crowded closelytogether, no doubt for defensive purposes; there was the _arable mark_, divided into as many lots as there were householders; and there was the_common mark_, or border-strip of untilled land, wherein all theinhabitants of the village had common rights of pasturage and of cuttingfirewood. All this land originally was the property not of any onefamily or individual, but of the community. The study of the markcarries us back to a time when there may have been private property inweapons, utensils, or trinkets, but not in real estate. [3] Of the threekinds of land the common mark, save where curtailed or usurped by lordsin the days of feudalism, has generally remained public property to thisday. The pleasant green commons or squares which occur in the midst oftowns and cities in England and the United States most probablyoriginated from the coalescence of adjacent mark-communities, wherebythe border-land used in common by all was brought into the centre of thenew aggregate. In towns of modern date this origin of the common is ofcourse forgotten, and in accordance with the general law by which theuseful thing after discharging its functions survives for purposes ofornament, it is introduced as a pleasure-ground. In old towns of NewEngland, however, the little park where boys play ball or children andnurses "take the air" was once the common pasture of the town. EvenBoston Common did not entirely cease to be a grazing-field until 1830. It was in the village-mark, or assemblage of homesteads, that privateproperty in real estate naturally began. In the Russian villages to-daythe homesteads are private property, while the cultivated land is ownedin common. This was the case with the _arable mark_ of our ancestors. The arable mark belonged to the community, and was temporarily dividedinto as many fields as there were households, though the division wasprobably not into equal parts: more likely, as in Russia to-day, thenumber of labourers in each household was taken into the account; and atirregular intervals, as fluctuations in population seemed to require it, a thorough-going redivision was effected. In carrying out suchdivisions and redivisions, as well as in all matters relating tovillage, ploughed field, or pasture, the mark-community was a law untoitself. Though individual freedom was by no means considerable, thelegal existence of the individual being almost entirely merged in thatof his clan, the mark-community was a completely self-governing body. The assembly of the mark-men, or members of the community, allotted landfor tillage, determined the law or declared the custom as to methods oftillage, fixed the dates for sowing and reaping, voted upon theadmission of new families into the village, and in general transactedwhat was then regarded as the public business of the community. In allessential respects this village assembly or _mark-mote_ would seem tohave resembled the town-meetings of New England. 

Such was the mark-community of the ancient Teutons, as we gather partlyfrom hints afforded by Tacitus and partly from the comparative study ofEnglish, German, and Scandinavian institutions. In Russia and inHindustan we find the same primitive form of social organizationexisting with very little change at the present day. Alike in Hindu andin Russian village-communities we find the group of habitations, eachdespotically ruled by a _pater-familias;_ we find the pasture-landowned and enjoyed in common; and we find the arable land divided intoseparate lots, which are cultivated according to minute regulationsestablished by the community. But in India the occasional redistributionof lots survives only in a few localities, and as a mere tradition inothers; the arable mark has become private property, as well as thehomesteads. In Russia, on the other hand, re-allotments occur atirregular intervals averaging something like fifteen years. In India thelocal government is carried on in some places by a Council of VillageElders, and in other places by a Headman whose office is sometimesdescribed as hereditary, but is more probably elective, the choice beingconfined, as in the case of the old Teutonic kingship, to the members ofa particular family. In the Russian village, on the other hand, thegovernment is conducted by an assembly at which every head of ahousehold is expected to be present and vote on all matters of publicconcern. This assembly elects the Village Elder, or chief executiveofficer, the tax-collector, the watchman, and the communal herd-boy; itdirects the allotment of the arable land; and in general matters oflocal legislation its power is as great as that of the New Englandtown-meeting, --in some respects perhaps even greater, since the preciseextent of its powers has never been determined by legislation, and(according to Mr. Wallace) "there is no means of appealing against itsdecisions. " To those who are in the habit of regarding Russia simply asa despotically-governed country, such a statement may seem surprising. To those who, because the Russian government is called a bureaucracy, have been led to think of it as analogous to the government of Franceunder the Old Régime, it may seem incredible that the decisions of avillage-assembly should not admit of appeal to a higher authority. Butin point of fact, no two despotic governments could be less alike thanthat of modern Russia and that of France under the Old Régime. TheRussian government is autocratic inasmuch as over the larger part of thecountry it has simply succeeded to the position of the Mongolian khanswho from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century held the Russian peoplein subjection. This Mongolian government was--to use a happy distinctionsuggested by Sir Henry Maine--a tax-taking despotism, not a legislativedespotism. The conquerors exacted tribute, but did not interfere withthe laws and customs of the subject people. When the Russians drove outthe Mongols they exchanged a despotism which they hated for one inwhich they felt a national pride, but in one curious respect theposition of the people with reference to their rulers has remained thesame. The imperial government exacts from each village-community a taxin gross, for which the community as a whole is responsible, and whichmay or may not be oppressive in amount; but the government has neverinterfered with local legislation or with local customs. Thus in the_mir_, or village-community, the Russians still retain an element ofsound political life, the importance of which appears when we considerthat five-sixths of the population of European Russia is comprised inthese communities. The tax assessed upon them by the imperial governmentis, however, a feature which--even more than their imperfect system ofproperty and their low grade of mental culture--separates them by aworld-wide interval from the New England township, to the primevalembryonic stage of which they correspond. 

From these illustrations we see that the mark, or self-governingvillage-community, is an institution which must be referred back toearly Aryan times. Whether the mark ever existed in England, in anythinglike the primitive form in which it is seen in the Russian _mir_, isdoubtful. Professor Stubbs (one of the greatest living authorities onsuch a subject) is inclined to think that the Teutonic settlers ofBritain had passed beyond this stage before they migrated fromGermany. [4] Nevertheless the traces of the mark, as all admit, areplentiful enough in England; and some of its features have survived downto modern times. In the great number of town-names that are formed frompatronymics, such as _Walsingham_ "the home of the Walsings, "_Harlington_ "the town of the Harlings, " etc. , [5] we have unimpeachableevidence of a time when the town was regarded as the dwelling-place of aclan. Indeed, the comparative rarity of the word _mark_ in English laws, charters, and local names (to which Professor Stubbs alludes) may be dueto the fact that the word _town_ has precisely the same meaning. _Mark_means originally the belt of waste land encircling the village, andsecondarily the village with its periphery. _Town_ means originally ahedge or enclosure, and secondarily the spot that is enclosed: themodern German _zaun_, a "hedge, " preserves the original meaning. Buttraces of the mark in England are not found in etymology alone. I havealready alluded to the origin of the "common" in English towns. What isstill more important is that in some parts of England cultivation incommon has continued until quite recently. The local legislation of themark appears in the _tunscipesmot_, --a word which is simply Old-Englishfor "town-meeting. " In the shires where the Danes acquired a firmfoothold, the township was often called a "by"; and it had the power ofenacting its own "by-laws" or town-laws, as New England townships haveto-day. But above all, the assembly of the markmen has left vestiges ofitself in the constitution of the parish and the manor. The mark ortownship, transformed by the process of feudalization, becomes themanor. The process of feudalization, throughout western Europe ingeneral, was no doubt begun by the institution of Benefices, or "grantsof Roman provincial land by the chieftains of the" Teutonic "tribeswhich overran the Roman Empire; such grants being conferred on theirassociates upon certain conditions, of which the commonest was militaryservice. " [6] The feudal régime naturally reached its most completedevelopment in France, which affords the most perfect example of a Romanterritory overrun and permanently held in possession by Teutonicconquerors. Other causes assisted the process, the most potent perhapsbeing the chaotic condition of European society during the break-up ofthe Carolingian Empire and the Scandinavian and Hungarian invasions. Land was better protected when held of a powerful chieftain than whenheld in one's own right; and hence the practice of commendation, bywhich free allodial proprietors were transformed into the tenants of alord, became fashionable and was gradually extended to all kinds ofestates. In England the effects of feudalization were different fromwhat they were in France, but the process was still carried very far, especially under the Norman kings. The theory grew up that all thepublic land in the kingdom was the king's waste, and that alllandholders were the king's tenants. Similarly in every township thecommon land was the lord's waste and the landholders were the lord'stenants. Thus the township became transformed into the manor. Yet evenby such a change as this the townsmen or tenants of the manor did not inEngland lose their self-government. "The encroachments of the lord, " asSir Henry Maine observes, "were in proportion to the want of certaintyin the rights of the community. " The lord's proprietorship gave him noauthority to disturb customary rights. The old township-assemblypartially survived in the Court Baron, Court Leet, and Customary Courtof the Manor; and in these courts the arrangements for the commonhusbandry were determined. 

This metamorphosis of the township into the manor, however, was butpartial: along with it went the partial metamorphosis of the townshipinto the parish, or district assigned to a priest. Professor Stubbs haspointed out that "the boundaries of the parish and the township ortownships with which it coincides are generally the same: in smallparishes the idea and even the name of township is frequently, at thepresent day, sunk in that of the parish; and all the business that isnot manorial is despatched in vestry-meetings, which are howeverprimarily meetings of the township for church purposes. " [7] The parishofficers, including overseers of the poor, assessors, and way-wardens, are still elected in vestry-meeting by the freemen of the township. Andwhile the jurisdiction of the manorial courts has been defined bycharter, or by the customary law existing at the time of the manorialgrant, "all matters arising outside that jurisdiction come under themanagement of the vestry. "

In England, therefore, the free village-community, though perhapsnowhere found in its primitive integrity, has nevertheless survived inpartially transfigured forms which have played no unimportant part inthe history of the English people. In one shape or another the assemblyof freemen for purposes of local legislation has always existed. ThePuritans who colonized New England, therefore, did not invent thetown-meeting. They were familiar already with the proceedings of thevestry-meeting and the manorial courts, but they were severed now fromchurch and from aristocracy. So they had but to discard theecclesiastical and lordly terminology, with such limitations as theyinvolved, and to reintegrate the separate jurisdictions into one, --andforthwith the old assembly of the township, founded in immemorialtradition, but revivified by new thoughts and purposes gained throughages of political training, emerged into fresh life and entered upon amore glorious career. 

It is not to an audience which speaks the English language that I needto argue the point that the preservation of local self-government is ofthe highest importance for the maintenance of a rich and powerfulnational life. As we contemplate the vicissitudes of localself-government in the various portions of the Aryan world, we see thecontrasted fortunes of France and England illustrating for us mostforcibly the significance of this truth. For the preservation of localself-government in England various causes may be assigned; but of thesethere are two which may be cited as especially prominent. In the firstplace, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the Teutonic settlement ofBritain, the civilization of England previous to the Norman Conquest wasbut little affected by Roman ideas or institutions. In the second placethe thrusting down of the old thegnhood by the Norman Conquest (to whichI have already alluded) checked the growth of a _noblesse_ or _adel_ ofthe continental type, --a nobility raised above the common people like aseparate caste. For the old thegnhood, which might have grown into sucha caste, was pushed down into a secondary position, and the peeragewhich arose after the Conquest was something different from a_noblesse_. It was primarily a nobility of office rather than of rank orprivilege. The peers were those men who retained the right of summons tothe Great Council, or Witenagemote, which has survived as the House ofLords. The peer was therefore the holder of a legislative and judicialoffice, which only one of his children could inherit, from the verynature of the case, and which none of his children could share with him. Hence the brothers and younger children of a peer were always commoners, and their interests were not remotely separated from those of othercommoners. Hence after the establishment of a House of Commons, theirbest chance for a political career lay in representing the interests ofthe people in the lower house. Hence between the upper and lower strataof English society there has always been kept up a circulation orinterchange of ideas and interests, and the effect of this upon Englishhistory has been prodigious. While on the continent a sovereign likeCharles the Bold could use his nobility to extinguish the liberties ofthe merchant towns of Flanders, nothing of the sort was ever possible inEngland. Throughout the Middle Ages, in every contest between the peopleand the crown, the weight of the peerage was thrown into the scale infavour of popular liberties. But for this peculiar position of thepeerage we might have had no Earl Simon; it is largely through it thatrepresentative government and local liberties have been preserved to theEnglish race. 

In France the course of events has brought about very different results. I shall defer to my next lecture the consideration of the vicissitudesof local self-government under the Roman Empire, because that point isreally incident upon the study of the formation of vast nationalaggregates. Suffice it now to say that when the Teutons overcame Gaul, they became rulers over a population which had been subjected for fivecenturies to that slow but mighty process of trituration which theEmpire everywhere brought to bear upon local self-government. While theTeutons in Britain, moreover, enslaved their slightly romanized subjectsand gave little heed to their language, religion, or customs; theTeutons in Gaul, on the other hand, quickly adopted the language andreligion of their intensely romanized subjects and acquired to someextent their way of looking at things. Hence in the early history ofFrance there was no such stubborn mass of old Aryan liberties to bedealt with as in the early history of England. Nor was there anypowerful middle class distributed through the country to defend suchliberties as existed. Beneath the turbulent throng of Teutonic nobles, among whom the king was only the most exalted and not always thestrongest, there lay the Gallo-Roman population which had so long beenaccustomed to be ruled without representation by a distant governmentexercising its authority through innumerable prefects. Such Teutonicrank and file as there was became absorbed into this population; andexcept in sundry chartered towns there was nothing like a social stratuminterposed between the nobles and the common people. 

The slow conversion of the feudal monarchy of the early Capetians intothe absolute despotism of Louis XIV. Was accomplished by the kinggradually _conquering_ his vassals one after another, and adding theirdomains to his own. As one vassal territory after another was added tothe royal domain, the king sent prefects, responsible only to himself, to administer its local affairs, sedulously crushing out, so far aspossible, the last vestiges of self-government. The nobles, deprived oftheir provincial rule, in great part flocked to Paris to become idlecourtiers. The means for carrying on the gigantic machinery ofcentralized administration, and for supporting the court in its follies, were wrung from the groaning peasantry with a cynical indifference likethat with which tribute is extorted by barbaric chieftains from aconquered enemy. And thus came about that abominable state of thingswhich a century since was abruptly ended by one of the fiercestconvulsions of modern times. The prodigious superiority--in respect tonational vitality--of a freely governed country over one that isgoverned by a centralized despotism, is nowhere more brilliantlyillustrated than in the contrasted fortunes of France and England as_colonizing_ nations. When we consider the declared rivalry betweenFrance and England in their plans for colonizing the barbarous regionsof the earth, when we consider that the military power of the twocountries has been not far from equal, and that France has at timesshown herself a maritime power by no means to be despised, it seems tome that her overwhelming and irretrievable defeat by England in thestruggle for colonial empire is one of the most striking and one of themost instructive facts in all modern history. In my lectures of lastyear (at University College) I showed that, in the struggle for thepossession of North America, where the victory of England was sodecisive as to settle the question for all coming time, the causes ofthe French failure are very plainly to be seen. The French colony inCanada was one of the most complete examples of a despotic governmentthat the world has ever seen. All the autocratic and bureaucratic ideasof Louis XIV. Were here carried out without let or hindrance. It wouldbe incredible, were it not attested by such abundant evidence, that theaffairs of any people could be subjected to such minute and sleeplesssupervision as were the affairs of the French colonists in Canada. A mancould not even build his own house, or rear his own cattle, or sow hisown seed, or reap his own grain, save under the supervision of prefectsacting under instructions from the home government. No one was allowedto enter or leave the colony without permission, not from the colonistsbut from the king. No farmer could visit Montreal or Quebec withoutpermission. No Huguenot could set his foot on Canadian soil. No publicmeetings of any kind were tolerated, nor were there any means of givingexpression to one's opinions on any subject. The details of all this, which may be read in Mr. Parkman's admirable work on "The Old Regime inCanada, " make a wonderful chapter of history. Never was a colony, moreover, so loaded with bounties, so fostered, petted, and protected. The result was absolute paralysis, political and social. When after acentury of irritation and skirmishing the French in Canada came to alife-and-death struggle with the self-governing colonists of NewEngland, New York, and Virginia, the result for the French power inAmerica was instant and irretrievable annihilation. The town-meetingpitted against the bureaucracy was like a Titan overthrowing a cripple. The historic lesson owes its value to the fact that this ruin of theFrench scheme of colonial empire was due to no accidental circumstances, but was involved in the very nature of the French political system. Obviously it is impossible for a people to plant beyond sea a colonywhich shall be self-supporting, unless it has retained intact the powerof self-government at home. It is to the self-government of England, andto no lesser cause, that we are to look for the secret of that boundlessvitality which has given to men of English speech the uttermost parts ofthe earth for an inheritance. The conquest of Canada first demonstratedthis truth, and when--in the two following lectures--we shall have madesome approach towards comprehending its full import, we shall all, Ithink, be ready to admit that the triumph of Wolfe marks the greatestturning-point as yet discernible in modern history. 

II. 

_THE FEDERAL UNION_. 

The great history of Thukydides, which after twenty-three centuriesstill ranks (in spite of Mr. Cobden) among our chief text-books ofpolitical wisdom, has often seemed to me one of the most mournful booksin the world. At no other spot on the earth's surface, and at no othertime in the career of mankind, has the human intellect flowered withsuch luxuriance as at Athens during the eighty-five years whichintervened between the victory of Marathon and the defeat ofÆgospotamos. In no other like interval of time, and in no othercommunity of like dimensions, has so much work been accomplished ofwhich we can say with truth that it is [Greek: ktaema es aei], --aneternal possession. It is impossible to conceive of a day so distant, oran era of culture so exalted, that the lessons taught by Athens shallcease to be of value, or that the writings of her great thinkers shallcease to be read with fresh profit and delight. We understand thesethings far better to-day than did those monsters of erudition in thesixteenth century who studied the classics for philological purposesmainly. Indeed, the older the world grows, the more varied ourexperience of practical politics, the more comprehensive our survey ofuniversal history, the stronger our grasp upon the comparative method ofinquiry, the more brilliant is the light thrown upon that brief day ofAthenian greatness, and the more wonderful and admirable does it allseem. To see this glorious community overthrown, shorn of half itsvirtue (to use the Homeric phrase), and thrust down into an inferiorposition in the world, is a mournful spectacle indeed. And the bookwhich sets before us, so impartially yet so eloquently, the innumerablepetty misunderstandings and contemptible jealousies which brought aboutthis direful result, is one of the most mournful of books. 

We may console ourselves, however, for the premature overthrow of thepower of Athens, by the reflection that that power rested upon politicalconditions which could not in any case have been permanent or evenlong-enduring. The entire political system of ancient Greece, based asit was upon the idea of the sovereign independence of each single city, was one which could not fail sooner or later to exhaust itself throughchronic anarchy. The only remedy lay either in some kind of permanentfederation, combined with representative government; or else in what wemight call "incorporation and assimilation, " after the Roman fashion. But the incorporation of one town with another, though effected withbrilliant results in the early history of Attika, involved such adisturbance of all the associations which in the Greek mind clusteredabout the conception of a city that it was quite impracticable on anylarge or general scale. Schemes of federal union were put intooperation, though too late to be of avail against the assaults ofMacedonia and Rome. But as for the principle of representation, thatseems to have been an invention of the Teutonic mind; no statesman ofantiquity, either in Greece or at Rome, seems to have conceived the ideaof a city sending delegates armed with plenary powers to represent itsinterests in a general legislative assembly. To the Greek statesmen, nodoubt, this too would have seemed derogatory to the dignity of thesovereign city. 

This feeling with which the ancient Greek statesmen, and to some extentthe Romans also, regarded the city, has become almost incomprehensibleto the modern mind, so far removed are we from the politicalcircumstances which made such a feeling possible. Teutoniccivilization, indeed, has never passed through a stage in which theforemost position has been held by civic communities. Teutoniccivilization passed directly from the stage of tribal into that ofnational organization, before any Teutonic city had acquired sufficientimportance to have claimed autonomy for itself; and at the time whenTeutonic nationalities were forming, moreover, all the cities in Europehad so long been accustomed to recognize a master outside of them in theperson of the Roman emperor that the very tradition of civic autonomy, as it existed in ancient Greece, had become extinct. This differencebetween the political basis of Teutonic and of Græco-Roman civilizationis one of which it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance; andwhen thoroughly understood it goes farther, perhaps, than anything elsetowards accounting for the successive failures of the Greek and Romanpolitical systems, and towards inspiring us with confidence in thefuture stability of the political system which has been wrought out bythe genius of the English race. 

We saw, in the preceding lecture, how the most primitive form ofpolitical association known to have existed is that of the _clan_, orgroup of families held together by ties of descent from a commonancestor. We saw how the change from a nomadic to a stationary mode oflife, attendant upon the adoption of agricultural pursuits, convertedthe clan into a _mark_ or village-community, something like those whichexist to-day in Russia. The political progress of primitive societyseems to have consisted largely in the coalescence of these small groupsinto larger groups. The first series of compound groups resulting fromthe coalescence of adjacent marks is that which was known in nearly allTeutonic lands as the _hundred_, in Athens as the [Greek: _phratria_] or_brotherhood_, in Rome as the _curia_. Yet alongside of the Roman groupcalled the _curia_ there is a group whose name, the _century_, exactlytranslates the name of the Teutonic group; and, as Mr. Freeman says, itis difficult to believe that the Roman _century_ did not at the outsetin some way correspond to the Teutonic _hundred_ as a stage in politicalorganization. But both these terms, as we know them in history, aresurvivals from some prehistoric state of things; and whether they wereoriginally applied to a hundred of houses, or of families, or ofwarriors, we do not know. [8] M. Geffroy, in his interesting essay on theGermania of Tacitus, suggests that the term _canton_ may have a similarorigin. [9] The outlines of these primitive groups are, however, moreobscure than those of the more primitive mark, because in most casesthey have been either crossed and effaced or at any rate diminished inimportance by the more highly compounded groups which came next in orderof formation. Next above the _hundred_, in order of composition, comesthe group known in ancient Italy as the_pagus_, in Attika perhaps as the_deme_, in Germany and at first in England as the _gau_ or _ga_, at alater date in England as the _shire_. Whatever its name, this groupanswers to the _tribe_ regarded as settled upon a certain determinateterritory. Just as in the earlier nomadic life the aggregation of clansmakes ultimately the tribe, so in the more advanced agricultural life ofour Aryan ancestors the aggregation of marks or village-communitiesmakes ultimately the _gau_ or _shire_. Properly speaking, the name_shire_ is descriptive of division and not of aggregation; but this termcame into use in England after the historic order of formation had beenforgotten, and when the _shire_ was looked upon as a _piece_ of somelarger whole, such as the kingdom of Mercia or Wessex. Historically, however, the _shire_ was not made, like the _departments_ of modernFrance, by the division of the kingdom for administrative purposes, butthe kingdom was made by the union of shires that were previouslyautonomous. In the primitive process of aggregation, the _shire_ or_gau_, governed by its _witenagemote_ or "meeting of wise men, " and byits chief magistrate who was called _ealdorman_ in time of peace and_heretoga_, "army-leader, " _dux_, or _duke_, in time of war, --the_shire_, I say, in this form, is the largest and most complex politicalbody we find previous to the formation of kingdoms and nations. But insaying this, we have already passed beyond the point at which we caninclude in the same general formula the process of political developmentin Teutonic countries on the one hand and in Greece and Rome on theother. Up as far as the formation of the tribe, territorially regarded, the parallelism is preserved; but at this point there begins anall-important divergence. In the looser and more diffused society of therural Teutons, the tribe is spread over a shire, and the aggregation ofshires makes a kingdom, embracing cities, towns, and rural districtsheld together by similar bonds of relationship to the central governingpower. But in the society of the old Greeks and Italians, theaggregation of tribes, crowded together on fortified hill-tops, makesthe _Ancient City_, --a very different thing, indeed, from the moderncity of later-Roman or Teutonic foundation. Let us consider, for amoment, the difference. 

Sir Henry Maine tells us that in Hindustan nearly all the great townsand cities have arisen either from the simple expansion or from theexpansion and coalescence of primitive village-communities; and such ashave not arisen in this way, including some of the greatest of Indiancities, have grown up about the intrenched camps of the Mogulemperors. [10] The case has been just the same in modern Europe. Somefamous cities of England and Germany--such as Chester and Lincoln, Strasburg and Maintz, --grew up about the camps of the Roman legions. Butin general the Teutonic city has been formed by the expansion andcoalescence of thickly-peopled townships and hundreds. In the UnitedStates nearly all cities have come from the growth and expansion ofvillages, with such occasional cases of coalescence as that of Bostonwith Roxbury and Charlestown. Now and then a city has been laid out as acity _ab initio_, with full consciousness of its purpose, as a man wouldbuild a house; and this was the case not merely with Martin Chuzzlewit's"Eden, " but with the city of Washington, the seat of our federalgovernment. But, to go back to the early ages of England--the countrywhich best exhibits the normal development of Teutonic institutions--thepoint which I wish especially to emphasize is this: _in no case does thecity appear as equivalent to the dwelling-place of a tribe or of aconfederation of tribes_. In no case does citizenship, or burghership, appear to rest upon the basis of a real or assumed community of descentfrom a single real or mythical progenitor. In the primitive mark, as wehave seen, the bond which kept the community together and constituted ita political unit was the bond of blood-relationship, real or assumed;but this was not the case with the city or borough. The city did notcorrespond with the tribe, as the mark corresponded with the clan. Theaggregation of clans into tribes corresponded with the aggregation ofmarks, not into _cities_ but into _shires_. The multitude of compoundpolitical units, by the further compounding of which a nation was to beformed, did not consist of cities but of shires. The city was simply apoint in the shire distinguished by greater density of population. Therelations sustained by the thinly-peopled rural townships and hundredsto the general government of the shire were co-ordinate with therelations sustained to the same government by those thickly-peopledtownships and hundreds which upon their coalescence were known as citiesor boroughs. Of course I am speaking now in a broad and general way, andwithout reference to such special privileges or immunities as cities andboroughs frequently obtained by royal charter in feudal times. Suchspecial privileges--as for instance the exemption of boroughs from theordinary sessions of the county court, under Henry I. [11]--were in theirnature grants from an external source, and were in nowise inherent inthe position or mode of origin of the Teutonic city. And they were, moreover, posterior in date to that embryonic period of national growthof which I am now speaking. They do not affect in any way thecorrectness of my general statement, which is sufficiently illustratedby the fact that the oldest shire-motes, or county-assemblies, wereattended by representatives from all the townships and hundreds in theshire, whether such townships and hundreds formed parts of boroughsor not. 

Very different from this was the embryonic growth of political societyin ancient Greece and Italy. There the aggregation of clans into tribesand confederations of tribes resulted directly, as we have seen, in theCity. There burghership, with its political and social rights andduties, had its theoretical basis in descent from a common ancestor, orfrom a small group of closely-related common ancestors. The group offellow-citizens was associated through its related groups of ancestralhousehold-deities, and through religious rites performed in common towhich it would have been sacrilege to have admitted a stranger. Thus theAncient City was a religious as well as a political body, and in eithercharacter it was complete in itself and it was sovereign. Thus inancient Greece and Italy the primitive clan-assembly or township-meetingdid not grow by aggregation into the assembly of the shire, but itdeveloped into the _comitia_ or _ecclesia_ of the city. The chiefmagistrate was not the _ealdorman_ of early English history, but the_rex_ or _basileus_ who combined in himself the functions of king, general, and priest. Thus, too, there was a severance, politically, between city and country such as the Teutonic world has never known. Therural districts surrounding a city might be subject to it, but couldneither share its franchise nor claim a co-ordinate franchise with it. Athens, indeed, at an early period, went so far as to incorporate withitself Eleusis and Marathon and the other rural towns of Attika. In thisone respect Athens transgressed the bounds of ancient civicorganization, and no doubt it gained greatly in power thereby. Butgenerally in the Hellenic world the rural population in theneighbourhood of a great city were mere [Greek: _perioikoi_], or"dwellers in the vicinity"; the inhabitants of the city who had movedthither from some other city, both they and their descendants, were mere[Greek: metoikoi], or "dwellers in the place"; and neither the one classnor the other could acquire the rights and privileges of citizenship. Arevolution, indeed, went on at Athens, from the time of Solon to thetime of Kleisthenes, which essentially modified the old tribal divisionsand admitted to the franchise all such families resident from timeimmemorial as did not belong to the tribes of eupatrids by whom the citywas founded. But this change once accomplished, the civic exclusivenessof Athens remained very much what it was before. The popular assemblywas enlarged, and public harmony was secured; but Athenian burghershipstill remained a privilege which could not be acquired by the native ofany other city. Similar revolutions, with a similarly limited purposeand result, occurred at Sparta, Elis, and other Greek cities. At Rome, by a like revolution, the plebeians of the Capitoline and Aventineacquired parallel rights of citizenship with the patricians of theoriginal city on the Palatine; but this revolution, as we shallpresently see, had different results, leading ultimately to theoverthrow of the city-system throughout the ancient world. 

The deep-seated difference between the Teutonic political system basedon the shire and the Græco-Roman system based on the city is now, Ithink, sufficiently apparent. Now from this fundamental difference havecome two consequences of enormous importance, --consequences of which itis hardly too much to say that, taken together, they furnish the key tothe whole history of European civilization as regarded purely from apolitical point of view. 

The first of these consequences had no doubt a very humble origin in themere difference between the shire and the city in territorial extent andin density of population. When people live near together it is easy forthem to attend a town-meeting, and the assembly by which public businessis transacted is likely to remain a _primary assembly_, in the truesense of the term. But when people are dispersed over a wide tract ofcountry, the primary assembly inevitably shrinks up into an assembly ofsuch persons as can best afford the time and trouble of attending it, orwho have the strongest interest in going, or are most likely to belistened to after they get there. Distance and difficulty, and in earlytimes danger too, keep many people away. And though a shire is not awide tract of country for most purposes, and according to modern ideas, it was nevertheless quite wide enough in former times to bring about theresult I have mentioned. In the times before the Norman conquest, if notbefore the completed union of England under Edgar, the shire-mote orcounty assembly, though in theory still a folk-mote or primary assembly, had shrunk into what was virtually a witenagemote or assembly of themost important persons in the county. But the several townships, inorder to keep their fair share of control over county affairs, and notwishing to leave the matter to chance, sent to the meetings each its_representatives_ in the persons of the town-reeve and four "discreetmen. " I believe it has not been determined at what precise time thisstep was taken, but it no doubt long antedates the Norman conquest. Itis mentioned by Professor Stubbs as being already, in the reign of HenryIII. , a custom of immemorial antiquity. [12] It was one of the greateststeps ever taken in the political history of mankind. In these fourdiscreet men we have the forerunners of the two burghers from each townwho were summoned by Earl Simon to the famous parliament of 1265, aswell as of the two knights from each shire whom the king had summonedeleven years before. In these four discreet men sent to speak for theirtownship in the old county assembly, we have the germ of institutionsthat have ripened into the House of Commons and into the legislatures ofmodern kingdoms and republics. In the system of representation thusinaugurated lay the future possibility of such gigantic politicalaggregates as the United States of America. 

In the ancient city, on the other hand, the extreme compactness of thepolitical structure made representation unnecessary and prevented itfrom being thought of in circumstances where it might have proved ofimmense value. In an aristocratic Greek city, like Sparta, all themembers of the ruling class met together and voted in the assembly; in ademocratic city, like Athens, all the free citizens met and voted; ineach case the assembly was primary and not representative. The onlyexception, in all Greek antiquity, is one which emphatically proves therule. The Amphiktyonic Council, an institution of prehistoric origin, concerned mainly with religious affairs pertaining to the worship of theDelphic Apollo, furnished a precedent for a representative, and indeedfor a federal, assembly. Delegates from various Greek tribes and citiesattended it. The fact that with such a suggestive precedent before theireyes the Greeks never once hit upon the device of representation, evenin their attempts at framing federal unions, shows how thoroughly theirwhole political training had operated to exclude such a conception fromtheir minds. 

The second great consequence of the Graeco-Roman city-system was linkedin many ways with this absence of the representative principle. InGreece the formation of political aggregates higher and more extensivethan the city was, until a late date, rendered impossible. The good andbad sides of this peculiar phase of civilization have been often enoughcommented on by historians. On the one hand the democratic assembly ofsuch an imperial city as Athens furnished a school of political trainingsuperior to anything else that the world has ever seen. It was somethinglike what the New England town-meeting would be if it were continuallyrequired to adjust complicated questions of international polity, if itwere carried on in the very centre or point of confluence of allcontemporary streams of culture, and if it were in the habit every fewdays of listening to statesmen and orators like Hamilton or Webster, jurists like Marshall, generals like Sherman, poets like Lowell, historians like Parkman. Nothing in all history has approached thehigh-wrought intensity and brilliancy of the political life of Athens. 

On the other hand, the smallness of the independent city, as a politicalaggregate, made it of little or no use in diminishing the liability toperpetual warfare which is the curse of all primitive communities. In agroup of independent cities, such as made up the Hellenic world, thetendency to warfare is almost as strong, and the occasions for warfareare almost as frequent, as in a congeries of mutually hostile tribes ofbarbarians. There is something almost lurid in the sharpness of contrastwith which the wonderful height of humanity attained by Hellas is setoff against the fierce barbarism which characterized the relations ofits cities to one another. It may be laid down as a general rule that inan early state of society, where the political aggregations are small, warfare is universal and cruel. From the intensity of the jealousies andrivalries between adjacent self-governing groups of men, nothing shortof chronic warfare can result, until some principle of union is evolvedby which disputes can be settled in accordance with general principlesadmitted by all. Among peoples that have never risen above the tribalstage of aggregation, such as the American Indians, war is the normalcondition of things, and there is nothing fit to be called_peace_, --there are only truces of brief and uncertain duration. Were itnot for this there would be somewhat less to be said in favour of greatstates and kingdoms. As modern life grows more and more complicated andinterdependent, the Great State subserves innumerable useful purposes;but in the history of civilization its first service, both in order oftime and in order of importance, consists in the diminution of thequantity of warfare and in the narrowing of its sphere. For within theterritorial limits of any great and permanent state, the tendency is forwarfare to become the exception and peace the rule. In this directionthe political careers of the Greek cities assisted the progress ofcivilization but little. 

Under the conditions of Graeco-Roman civic life there were but twopracticable methods of forming a great state and diminishing thequantity of warfare. The one method was _conquest with incorporation_, the other method was _federation_. Either one city might conquer allthe others and endow their citizens with its own franchise, or all thecities might give up part of their sovereignty to a federal body whichshould have power to keep the peace, and should represent the civilizedworld of the time in its relations with outlying barbaric peoples. Ofthese two methods, obviously the latter is much the more effective, butit presupposes for its successful adoption a higher general state ofcivilization than the former. Neither method was adopted by the Greeksin their day of greatness. The Spartan method of extending its power wasconquest without incorporation: when Sparta conquered another Greekcity, she sent a _harmost_ to govern it like a tyrant; in other wordsshe virtually enslaved the subject city. The efforts of Athens tendedmore in the direction of a peaceful federalism. In the great Delianconfederacy which developed into the maritime empire of Athens, theÆgean cities were treated as allies rather than subjects. As regardstheir local affairs they were in no way interfered with, and could theyhave been represented in some kind of a federal council at Athens, thecourse of Grecian history might have been wonderfully altered. As itwas, they were all deprived of one essential element ofsovereignty, --the power of controlling their own military forces. Someof them, as Chios and Mitylene, furnished troops at the demand ofAthens; others maintained no troops, but paid a fixed tribute to Athensin return for her protection. In either case they felt shorn of part oftheir dignity, though otherwise they had nothing to complain of; andduring the Peloponnesian war Athens had to reckon with their tendency torevolt as well as with her Dorian enemies. Such a confederation wasnaturally doomed to speedy overthrow. 

In the century following the death of Alexander, in the closing age ofHellenic independence, the federal idea appears in a much more advancedstage of elaboration, though in a part of Greece which had been held oflittle account in the great days of Athens and Sparta. Between theAchaian federation, framed in 274 B. C. , and the United States ofAmerica, there are some interesting points of resemblance which havebeen elaborately discussed by Mr. Freeman, in his "History of FederalGovernment. " About the same time the Aetolian League came intoprominence in the north. Both these leagues were instances of truefederal government, and were not mere confederations; that is, thecentral government acted directly upon all the citizens and not merelyupon the local governments. Each of these leagues had for its chiefexecutive officer a General elected for one year, with powers similar tothose of an American President. In each the supreme assembly was aprimary assembly at which every citizen from every city of the leaguehad a right to be present, to speak, and to vote; but as a naturalconsequence these assemblies shrank into comparatively aristocraticbodies. In Ætolia, which was a group of mountain cantons similar toSwitzerland, the federal union was more complete than in Achaia, whichwas a group of cities. In Achaia cases occurred in which a single citywas allowed to deal separately with foreign powers. Here, as in earlierGreek history, the instinct of autonomy was too powerful to admit ofcomplete federation. Yet the career of the Achaian League was not aninglorious one. For nearly a century and a half it gave the Peloponnesosa larger measure of orderly government than the country had ever knownbefore, without infringing upon local liberties. It defied successfullythe threats and assaults of Macedonia, and yielded at last only to theall-conquering might of Rome. 

Thus in so far as Greece contributed anything towards the formation ofgreat and pacific political aggregates, she did it through attempts at_federation_. But in so low a state of political development as thatwhich prevailed throughout the Mediterranean world in pre-Christiantimes, the more barbarous method of _conquest with incorporation_ wasmore likely to be successful on a great scale. This was well illustratedin the history of Rome, --a civic community of the same generic type withSparta and Athens, but presenting specific differences of the highestimportance. The beginnings of Rome, unfortunately, are prehistoric. Ihave often thought that if some beneficent fairy could grant us thepower of somewhere raising the veil of oblivion which enshrouds theearliest ages of Aryan dominion in Europe, there is no place from whichthe historian should be more glad to see it lifted than from Rome in thecenturies which saw the formation of the city, and which preceded theexpulsion of the kings. Even the legends, which were uncriticallyaccepted from the days of Livy to those of our grandfathers, areprovokingly silent upon the very points as to which we would fain get atleast a hint. This much is plain, however, that in the embryonic stageof the Roman commonwealth some obscure processes of fusion orcommingling went on. The tribal population of Rome was moreheterogeneous than that of the great cities of Greece, and its earliestmunicipal religion seems to have been an assemblage of various tribalreligions that had points of contact with other tribal religionsthroughout large portions of the Græco-Italic world. As M. De Coulangesobserves, [13] Rome was almost the only city of antiquity which was notkept apart from other cities by its religion. There was hardly a peoplein Greece or Italy which it was restrained from admitting toparticipation in its municipal rites. 

However this may have been, it is certain that Rome early succeeded infreeing itself from that insuperable prejudice which elsewhere preventedthe ancient city from admitting aliens to a share in its franchise. Andin this victory over primeval political ideas lay the whole secret ofRome's mighty career. The victory was not indeed completed until afterthe terrible Social War of B. C. 90, but it was begun at least fourcenturies earlier with the admission of the plebeians. At theconsummation of the conquest of Italy in B. C. 270 Roman burghershipalready extended, in varying degrees of completeness, through thegreater part of Etruria and Campania, from the coast to the mountains;while all the rest of Italy was admitted to privileges for which ancienthistory had elsewhere furnished no precedent. Hence the invasion ofHannibal half a century later, even with its stupendous victories ofThrasymene and Cannae, effected nothing toward detaching the Italiansubjects from their allegiance to Rome; and herein we have a mostinstructive contrast to the conduct of the communities subject to Athensat several critical moments of the Peloponnesian War. With thisconsolidation of Italy, thus triumphantly demonstrated, the wholeproblem of the conquering career of Rome was solved. All that cameafterwards was simply a corollary from this. The concentration of allthe fighting power of the peninsula into the hands of the ruling cityformed a stronger political aggregate than anything the world had as yetseen. It was not only proof against the efforts of the greatest militarygenius of antiquity, but whenever it was brought into conflict with thelooser organizations of Greece, Africa, and Asia, or with thesemi-barbarous tribes of Spain and Gaul, the result of the struggle wasvirtually predetermined. The universal dominion of Rome was inevitable, so soon as the political union of Italy had been accomplished. Among theRomans themselves there were those who thoroughly understood this point, as we may see from the interesting speech of the emperor Claudius infavour of admitting Gauls to the senate. 

The benefits conferred upon the world by the, universal dominion of Romewere of quite inestimable value. First of these benefits, and (as itwere) the material basis of the others, was the prolonged peace that wasenforced throughout large portions of the world where chronic warfarehad hitherto prevailed. The _pax romana_ has perhaps been sometimesdepicted in exaggerated colours; but as compared with all that hadpreceded, and with all that followed, down to the beginning of thenineteenth century, it deserved the encomiums it has received. Thesecond benefit was the mingling and mutual destruction of the primitivetribal and municipal religions, thus clearing the way forChristianity, --a step which, regarded from a purely political point ofview, was of immense importance for the further consolidation of societyin Europe. The third benefit was the development of the Roman law into agreat body of legal precepts and principles leavened throughout withethical principles of universal applicability, and the gradualsubstitution of this Roman law for the innumerable local usages ofancient communities. Thus arose the idea of a common Christendom, of abrotherhood of peoples associated both by common beliefs regarding theunseen world and by common principles of action in the daily affairs oflife. The common ethical and traditional basis thus established for thefuture development of the great nationalities of Europe is the mostfundamental characteristic distinguishing modern from ancient history. 

While, however, it secured these benefits for mankind for all time tocome, the Roman political system in itself was one which could notpossibly endure. That extension of the franchise which made Rome'sconquests possible, was, after all, the extension of a franchise whichcould only be practically enjoyed within the walls of the imperial cityitself. From first to last the device of representation was neverthought of, and from first to last the Roman _comitia_ remained aprimary assembly. The result was that, as the burgherhood enlarged, theassembly became a huge mob as little fitted for the transaction ofpublic business as a town-meeting of all the inhabitants of New Yorkwould be. The functions which in Athens were performed by the assemblywere accordingly in Rome performed largely by the aristocratic senate;and for the conflicts consequently arising between the senatorial andthe popular parties it was difficult to find any adequate constitutionalcheck. Outside of Italy, moreover, in the absence of a representativesystem, the Roman government was a despotism which, whether more or lessoppressive, could in the nature of things be nothing else than adespotism. But nothing is more dangerous for a free people than theattempt to govern a dependent people despotically. The bad governmentkills out the good government as surely as slave-labour destroysfree-labour, or as a debased currency drives out a sound currency. Theexistence of proconsuls in the provinces, with great armies at theirbeck and call, brought about such results as might have been predicted, as soon as the growing anarchy at home furnished a valid excuse forarmed interference. In the case of the Roman world, however, the resultis not to be deplored, for it simply substituted a government that waspracticable under the circumstances for one that had become demonstrablyimpracticable. 

As regards the provinces the change from senatorial to imperialgovernment at Rome was a great gain, inasmuch as it substituted anorderly and responsible administration for irregular and irresponsibleextortion. For a long time, too, it was no part of the imperial policyto interfere with local customs and privileges. But, in the absence of arepresentative system, the centralizing tendency inseparable from theposition of such a government proved to be irresistible. And thestrength of this centralizing tendency was further enhanced by themilitary character of the government which was necessitated by perpetualfrontier warfare against the barbarians. As year after year went by, theprovincial towns and cities were governed less and less by their localmagistrates, more and more by prefects responsible to the emperor only. There were other co-operating causes, economical and social, for thedecline of the empire; but this change alone, which was consummated bythe time of Diocletian, was quite enough to burn out the candle of Romanstrength at both ends. With the decrease in the power of the localgovernments came an increase in the burdens of taxation and conscriptionthat were laid upon them. [14] And as "the dislocation of commerce andindustry caused by the barbarian inroads, and the increasing demands ofthe central administration for the payment of its countless officialsand the maintenance of its troops, all went together, " the load at lastbecame greater "than human nature could endure. " By the time of thegreat invasions of the fifth century, local political life had gone fartowards extinction throughout Roman Europe, and the tribal organizationof the Teutons prevailed in the struggle simply because it had come tobe politically stronger than any organization that was left tooppose it. 

We have now seen how the two great political systems that were foundedupon the Ancient City both ended in failure, though both achievedenormous and lasting results. And we have seen how largely both thesepolitical failures were due to the absence of the principle ofrepresentation from the public life of Greece and Rome. The chiefproblem of civilization, from the political point of view, has alwaysbeen how to secure concerted action among men on a great scale withoutsacrificing local independence. The ancient history of Europe shows thatit is not possible to solve this problem without the aid of theprinciple of representation. Greece, until overcome by external force, sacredly maintained local self-government, but in securing permanentconcert of action it was conspicuously unsuccessful. Rome securedconcert of action on a gigantic scale, and transformed the thousandunconnected tribes and cities it conquered into an organized Europeanworld, but in doing this it went far towards extinguishing localself-government. The advent of the Teutons upon the scene seemstherefore to have been necessary, if only to supply the indispensableelement without which the dilemma of civilization could not besurmounted. The turbulence of Europe during the Teutonic migrations wasso great and so long continued, that on a superficial view one might beexcused for regarding the good work of Rome as largely undone. And inthe feudal isolation of effort and apparent incapacity for combinedaction which characterized the different parts of Europe after thedownfall of the Carolingian empire, it might well have seemed thatpolitical society had reverted towards a primitive type of structure. Intruth, however, the retrogradation was much slighter than appeared onthe surface. Feudalism itself, with its curious net-work of fealties andobligations running through the fabric of society in every direction, was by no means purely disintegrative in its tendencies. The mutualrelations of rival baronies were by no means like those of rival clansor tribes in pre-Roman days. The central power of Rome, though no longerexerted politically through curators and prefects, was no less effectivein the potent hands of the clergy and in the traditions of the imperialjurisprudence by which the legal ideas of mediaeval society were sostrongly coloured. So powerful, indeed, was this twofold influence ofRome, that in the later Middle Ages, when the modern nationalities hadfairly taken shape, it was the capacity for local self-government--inspite of all the Teutonic reinforcement it had had--that had sufferedmuch more than the capacity for national consolidation. Among the greatmodern nations it was only England--which in its political developmenthad remained more independent of the Roman law and the Roman church thaneven the Teutonic fatherland itself--it was only England that came outof the mediæval crucible with its Teutonic self-government substantiallyintact. On the main-land only two little spots, at the two extremitiesof the old Teutonic world, had fared equally well. At the mouth of theRhine the little Dutch communities were prepared to lead the attack inthe terrible battle for freedom with which the drama of modern historywas ushered in. In the impregnable mountain fastnesses of upper Germanythe Swiss cantons had bid defiance alike to Austrian tyrant and toBurgundian invader, and had preserved in its purest form the rusticdemocracy of their Aryan forefathers. By a curious coincidence, boththese free peoples, in their efforts towards national unity, were led toframe federal unions, and one of these political achievements is, fromthe stand-point of universal history, of very great significance. Theold League of High Germany, which earned immortal renown at Morgartenand Sempach, consisted of German-speaking cantons only. But in thefifteenth century the League won by force of arms a small bit of Italianterritory about Lake Lugano, and in the sixteenth the powerful city ofBern annexed the Burgundian bishopric of Lausanne and rescued the freecity of Geneva from the clutches of the Duke of Savoy. Other Burgundianpossessions of Savoy were seized by the canton of Freiburg; and afterawhile all these subjects and allies were admitted on equal terms intothe confederation. The result is that modern Switzerland is made up ofwhat might seem to be most discordant and unmanageable elements. Fourlanguages--German, French, Italian, and Rhaetian--are spoken within thelimits of the confederacy; and in point of religion the cantons aresharply divided as Catholic and Protestant. Yet in spite of all this, Switzerland is as thoroughly united in feeling as any nation in Europe. To the German-speaking Catholic of Altdorf the German Catholics ofBavaria are foreigners, while the French-speaking Protestants of Genevaare fellow-countrymen. Deeper down even than these deep-seateddifferences of speech and creed lies the feeling that comes from thecommon possession of a political freedom that is greater than thatpossessed by surrounding peoples. Such has been the happy outcome of thefirst attempt at federal union made by men of Teutonic descent. Completeindependence in local affairs, when combined with adequaterepresentation in the federal council, has effected such an intensecohesion of interests throughout the nation as no centralizedgovernment, however cunningly devised, could ever have secured. 

Until the nineteenth century, however, the federal form of governmenthad given no clear indication of its capacity for holding together greatbodies of men, spread over vast territorial areas, in orderly andpeaceful relations with one another. The empire of Trajan and MarcusAurelius still remained the greatest known example of politicalaggregation; and men who argued from simple historic precedent withoutthat power of analyzing precedents which the comparative method hassupplied, came not unnaturally to the conclusions that great politicalaggregates have an inherent tendency towards breaking up, and that greatpolitical aggregates cannot be maintained except by a strongly-centralized administration and at the sacrifice of local self-government. A century ago the very idea of a stable federation of fortypowerful states, covering a territory nearly equal in area to the wholeof Europe, carried on by a republican government elected by universalsuffrage, and guaranteeing to every tiniest village its full meed oflocal independence, --the very idea of all this would have been scoutedas a thoroughly impracticable Utopian dream. And such scepticism wouldhave been quite justifiable, for European history did not seem to affordany precedents upon which such a forecast of the future could belogically based. Between the various nations of Europe there hascertainly always existed an element of political community, bequeathedby the Roman empire, manifested during the Middle Ages in a commonrelationship to the Church, and in modern times in a common adherence tocertain uncodified rules of international law, more or less im perfectlydefined and enforced. Between England and Spain, for example, or betweenFrance and Austria, there has never been such utter political severanceas existed normally between Greece and Persia, or Rome and Carthage. Butthis community of political inheritance in Europe, it is needless tosay, falls very far short of the degree of community implied in afederal union; and so great is the diversity of language and of creed, and of local historic development with the deep-seated prejudicesattendant thereupon, that the formation of a European federation couldhardly be looked for except as the result of mighty though quiet andsubtle influences operating for a long time from without. From whatdirection, and in what manner, such an irresistible though perfectlypacific pressure is likely to be exerted in the future, I shallendeavour to show in my next lecture. At present we have to observe thatthe experiment of federal union on a grand scale required as itsconditions, _first_, a vast extent of unoccupied country which could besettled without much warfare by men of the same race and speech, and_secondly_, on the part of the settlers, a rich inheritance of politicaltraining such as is afforded by long ages of self-government. TheAtlantic coast of North America, easily accessible to Europe, yet remoteenough to be freed from the political complications of the old world, furnished the first of these conditions: the history of the Englishpeople through fifty generations furnished the second. It was throughEnglish self-government, as I argued in my first lecture, that Englandalone, among the great nations of Europe, was able to found durable andself-supporting colonies. I have now to add that it was only England, among all the great nations of Europe, that could send forth colonistscapable of dealing successfully with the difficult problem of formingsuch a political aggregate as the United States have become. Forobviously the preservation of local self-government is essential to thevery idea of a federal union. Without the Town-Meeting, or itsequivalent in some form or other, the Federal Union would become _ipsofacto_ converted into a centralizing imperial government. Shouldanything of this sort ever happen--should American towns ever come to beruled by prefects appointed at Washington, and should American Statesever become like the administrative departments of France, or even likethe counties of England at the present day--then the time will have comewhen men may safely predict the break-up of the American politicalsystem by reason of its overgrown dimensions and the diversity ofinterests between its parts. States so unlike one another as Maine andLouisiana and California cannot be held together by the stiff bonds of acentralizing government. The durableness of the federal union lies inits flexibility, and it is this flexibility which makes it the only kindof government, according to modern ideas, that is permanently applicableto a whole continent. If ¸the United States were to-day a consolidatedrepublic like France, recent events in California might have disturbedthe peace of the country. But in the federal union, if California, as astate sovereign within its own sphere, adopts a grotesque constitutionthat aims at infringing on the rights of capitalists, the other statesare not directly affected. They may disapprove, but they have neitherthe right nor the desire to interfere. Meanwhile the laws of naturequietly operate to repair the blunder. Capital flows away fromCalifornia, and the business of the state is damaged, until presentlythe ignorant demagogues lose favour, the silly constitution becomes adead-letter, and its formal repeal begins to be talked of. Not thesmallest ripple of excitement disturbs the profound peace of the countryat large. It is in this complete independence that is preserved by everystate, in all matters save those in which the federal principle itselfis concerned, that we find the surest guaranty of the permanence of theAmerican political system. Obviously no race of men, save the race towhich habits of self-government and the skilful use of politicalrepresentation had come to be as second nature, could ever havesucceeded in founding such a system. 

Yet even by men of English race, working with out let or hindrance fromany foreign source, and with the better part of a continent at theirdisposal for a field to work in, so great a political problem as that ofthe American Union has not been solved without much toil and trouble. The great puzzle of civilization--how to secure permanent concert ofaction without sacrificing independence of action--is a puzzle which hastaxed the ingenuity of Americans as well as of older Aryan peoples. Inthe year 1788 when our Federal Union was completed, the problem hadalready occupied the minds of American statesmen for a century and ahalf, --that is to say, ever since the English settlement ofMassachusetts. In 1643 a New England confederation was formed betweenMassachusetts and Connecticut, together with Plymouth since merged inMassachusetts and New Haven since merged in Connecticut. Theconfederation was formed for defence against the French in Canada, theDutch on the Hudson river, and the Indians. But owing simply to theinequality in the sizes of these colonies--Massachusetts more thanoutweighing the other three combined--the practical working of thisconfederacy was never very successful. In 1754, just before the outbreakof the great war which drove the French from America, a general Congressof the colonies was held at Albany, and a comprehensive scheme of unionwas proposed by Benjamin Franklin, but nothing came of the project atthat time. The commercial rivalry between the colonies, and theirdisputes over boundary lines, were then quite like the similar phenomenawith which Europe had so long been familiar. In 1756 Georgia and SouthCarolina actually came to blows over the navigation of the Savannahriver. The idea that the thirteen colonies could ever overcome theirmutual jealousies so far as to unite in a single political body, wasreceived at that time in England with a derision like that which aproposal for a permanent federation of European States would excite inmany minds to-day. It was confidently predicted that if the commonallegiance to the British crown were once withdrawn, the colonies wouldforthwith proceed to destroy themselves with internecine war. In fact, however, it was the shaking off of allegiance to the British crown, andthe common trials and sufferings of the war of independence, that atlast welded the colonies together and made a federal union possible. Asit was, the union was consummated only by degrees. By the Articles ofConfederation, agreed on by Congress in 1777 but not adopted by all theStates until 1781, the federal government acted only upon the severalstate governments and not directly upon individuals; there was nofederal judiciary for the decision of constitutional questions arisingout of the relations between the states; and the Congress was notprovided with any efficient means of raising a revenue or of enforcingits legislative decrees. Under such a government the difficulty ofinsuring concerted action was so great that, but for the transcendentpersonal qualities of Washington, the bungling mismanagement of theBritish ministry, and the timely aid of the French fleet, the war ofindependence would most likely have ended in failure. After theindependence of the colonies was acknowledged, the formation of a moreperfect union was seen to be the only method of securing peace andmaking a nation which should be respected by foreign powers; and so in1788, after much discussion, the present Constitution of the UnitedStates was adopted, --a constitution which satisfied very few people atthe time, and which was from beginning to end a series of compromises, yet which has proved in its working a masterpiece of political wisdom. 

The first great compromise answered to the initial difficulty ofsecuring approximate equality of weight in the federal councils betweenstates of unequal size. The simple device by which this difficulty wasat last surmounted has proved effectual, although the inequalitiesbetween the states have greatly increased. To-day the population of NewYork is more than eighty times that of Nevada. In area the state ofRhode Island is smaller than Montenegro, while the state of Texas islarger than the Austrian empire with Bavaria and Würtemberg thrown in. Yet New York and Nevada, Rhode Island and Texas, each send two senatorsto Washington, while on the other hand in the lower house each state hasa number of representatives proportioned to its population. The upperhouse of Congress is therefore a federal while the lower house is anational body, and the government is brought into direct contact withthe people without endangering the equal rights of the several states. 

The second great compromise of the American constitution consists in theseries of arrangements by which sovereignty is divided between thestates and the federal government. In all domestic legislation andjurisdiction, civil and criminal, in all matters relating to tenure ofproperty, marriage and divorce, the fulfilment of contracts and thepunishment of malefactors, each separate state is as completely asovereign state as France or Great Britain. In speaking to a Britishaudience a concrete illustration may not be superfluous. If a criminalis condemned to death in Pennsylvania, the royal prerogative of pardonresides in the Governor of Pennsylvania: the President of the UnitedStates has no more authority in the case than the Czar of Russia. Nor incivil cases can an appeal lie from the state courts to the Supreme Courtof the United States, save where express provision has been made in theConstitution. Within its own sphere the state is supreme. The chiefattributes of sovereignty with which the several states have parted arethe coining of money, the carrying of mails, the imposition of tariffdues, the granting of patents and copyrights, the declaration of war, and the maintenance of a navy. The regular army is supported andcontrolled by the federal government, but each state maintains its ownmilitia which it is bound to use in case of internal disturbance beforecalling upon the central government for aid. In time of war, however, these militias come under the control of the central government. Thusevery American citizen lives under two governments, the functions ofwhich are clearly and intelligibly distinct. 

To insure the stability of the federal union thus formed, theConstitution created a "system of United States courts extendingthroughout the states, empowered to define the boundaries of federalauthority, and to enforce its decisions by federal power. " Thisomnipresent federal judiciary was undoubtedly the most importantcreation of the statesmen who framed the Constitution. The closely-knitrelations which it established between the states contributed powerfullyto the growth of a feeling of national solidarity throughout the wholecountry. The United States today cling together with a coherency fargreater than the coherency of any ordinary federation or league. Yet theprimary aspect of the federal Constitution was undoubtedly that of apermanent league, in which each state, while retaining its domesticsovereignty intact, renounced forever its right to make war upon itsneighbours and relegated its international interests to the care of acentral council in which all the states were alike represented and acentral tribunal endowed with purely judicial functions ofinterpretation. It was the first attempt in the history of the world, toapply on a grand scale to the relations between states the same legalmethods of procedure which, as long applied in all civilized countriesto the relations between individuals, have rendered private warfareobsolete. And it was so far successful that, during a period ofseventy-two years in which the United States increased fourfold inextent, tenfold in population, and more than tenfold in wealth andpower, the federal union maintained a state of peace more profound thanthe _pax romana. _

Twenty years ago this unexampled state of peace was suddenly interruptedby a tremendous war, which in its results, however, has served only tobring out with fresh emphasis the pacific implications of federalism. With the eleven revolted states at first completely conquered and thenreinstated with full rights and privileges in the federal union, withtheir people accepting in good faith the results of the contest, withtheir leaders not executed as traitors but admitted again to seats inCongress and in the Cabinet, and with all this accomplished without anyviolent constitutional changes, --I think we may fairly claim that thestrength of the pacific implications of federalism has been morestrikingly demonstrated than if there had been no war at all. Certainlythe world never beheld such a spectacle before. In my next andconcluding lecture I shall return to this point while summing up theargument and illustrating the part played by the English race in thegeneral history of civilization. 

III. 

"_MANIFEST DESTINY_. "

Among the legends of our late Civil War there is a story of adinner-party given by the Americans residing in Paris, at which werepropounded sundry toasts concerning not so much the past and present asthe expected glories of the great American nation. In the generalcharacter of these toasts geographical considerations were veryprominent, and the principal fact which seemed to occupy the minds ofthe speakers was the unprecedented _bigness_ of our country. "Here's tothe United States, " said the first speaker, "bounded on the north byBritish America, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the east by theAtlantic, and on the west by the Pacific, Ocean. " "But, " said the secondspeaker, "this is far too limited a view of the subject: in assigningour boundaries we must look to the great and glorious future which isprescribed for us by the Manifest Destiny of the Anglo-Saxon Race. Here's to the United States, --bounded on the north by the North Pole, on the south by the South Pole, on the east by the rising and on thewest by the setting sun. " Emphatic applause greeted this aspiringprophecy. But here arose the third speaker--a very serious gentlemanfrom the Far West. "If we are going, " said this truly patrioticAmerican, "to leave the historic past and present, and take our manifestdestiny into the account, why restrict ourselves within the narrowlimits assigned by our fellow-countryman who has just sat down? I giveyou the United States, --bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, onthe south by the precession of the equinoxes, on the east by theprimeval chaos, and on the west by the Day of Judgment!"

I offer this anecdote at the outset by way of self-defence, inasmuch asI shall by and by have myself to introduce some considerationsconcerning the future of our country, and of what some people, withoutthe fear of Mr. Freeman before their eyes, call the "Anglo-Saxon" race;and if it should happen to strike you that my calculations areunreasonably large, I hope you will remember that they are quite modestafter all, when compared with some others. 

The "manifest destiny" of the "Anglo-Saxon" race and the huge dimensionsof our country are favourite topics with Fourth-of-July orators, butthey are none the less interesting on that account when considered fromthe point of view of the historian. To be a citizen of a great andgrowing state, or to belong to one of the dominant races of the world, is no doubt a legitimate source of patriotic pride, though there isperhaps an equal justification for such a feeling in being a citizen ofa tiny state like Holland, which, in spite of its small dimensions, hasnevertheless achieved so much, --fighting at one time the battle offreedom for the world, producing statesmen like William and Barneveldt, generals like Maurice, scholars like Erasmus and Grotius, and thinkerslike Spinoza, and taking the lead even to-day in the study ofChristianity and in the interpretation of the Bible. But my course inthe present lecture is determined by historical or philosophical ratherthan by patriotic interest, and I shall endeavour to characterize andgroup events as impartially as if my home were at Leyden in the OldWorld instead of Cambridge in the New. 

First of all, I shall take sides with Mr. Freeman in eschewingaltogether the word "Anglo-Saxon. " The term is sufficiently absurd andmisleading as applied in England to the Old-English speech of ourforefathers, or to that portion of English history which is includedbetween the fifth and the eleventh centuries. But in America it isfrequently used, not indeed by scholars, but by popular writers andspeakers, in a still more loose and slovenly way. In the war ofindependence our great-great-grandfathers, not yet having ceased tothink of themselves as Englishmen, used to distinguish themselves as"Continentals, " while the king's troops were known as the "British. " Thequaint term "Continental" long ago fell into disuse, except in the slangphrase "not worth a Continental" which referred to the debased conditionof our currency at the close of the Revolutionary War; but "American"and "British" might still serve the purpose sufficiently whenever it isnecessary to distinguish between the two great English nationalities. The term "English, " however, is so often used with sole reference topeople and things in England as to have become in some measureantithetical to "American;" and when it is found desirable to includethe two in a general expression, one often hears in America the term"Anglo-Saxon" colloquially employed for this purpose. A more slovenlyuse of language can hardly be imagined. Such a compound term as"Anglo-American" might perhaps be logically defensible, but that hasalready become restricted to the English-descended inhabitants of theUnited States and Canada alone, in distinction from Spanish Americansand red Indians. It is never so used as to include Englishmen. Refraining from all such barbarisms, I prefer to call the English raceby the name which it has always applied to itself, from the time when itinhabited the little district of Angeln on the Baltic coast of Sleswickdown to the time when it had begun to spread itself over three greatcontinents. It is a race which has shown a rare capacity for absorbingslightly foreign elements and moulding them into conformity with apolitical type that was first wrought out through centuries of effort onBritish soil; and this capacity it has shown perhaps in a heighteneddegree in the peculiar circumstances in which it has been placed inAmerica. The American has absorbed considerable quantities of closelykindred European blood, but he is rapidly assimilating it all, and inhis political habits and aptitudes he remains as thoroughly English ashis forefathers in the days of De Montfort, or Hampden, or Washington. Premising this, we may go on to consider some aspects of the work whichthe English race has done and is doing in the world, and we need notfeel discouraged if, in order to do justice to the subject, we have totake our start far back in ancient history. We shall begin, it may besaid, somewhere near the primeval chaos, and though we shall indeedstop short of the day of judgment, we shall hope at all events to reachthe millennium. 

Our eloquent friends of the Paris dinner-party seem to have beenstrongly impressed with the excellence of enormous political aggregates. We, too, approaching the subject from a different point of view, havebeen led to see how desirable it is that self-governing groups of menshould be enabled to work together in permanent harmony and on a greatscale. In this kind of political integration the work of civilizationvery largely consists. We have seen how in its most primitive formpolitical society is made up of small self-governing groups that areperpetually at war with one another. Now the process of change which wecall civilization means quite a number of things. But there is no doubtthat on its political side it means primarily the gradual substitutionof a state of peace for a state of war. This change is the conditionprecedent for all the other kinds of improvement that are connoted bysuch a term as "civilization. " Manifestly the development of industry islargely dependent upon the cessation or restriction of warfare; andfurthermore, as the industrial phase of civilization slowly supplantsthe military phase, men's characters undergo, though very slowly, acorresponding change. Men become less inclined to destroy life or toinflict pain; or--to use the popular terminology which happens here tocoincide precisely with that of the Doctrine of Evolution--they becomeless _brutal_ and more _humane_. Obviously then the prime feature of theprocess called civilization is the general diminution of warfare. But wehave seen that a general diminution of warfare is rendered possible onlyby the union of small political groups into larger groups that are kepttogether by community of interests, and that can adjust their mutualrelations by legal discussion without coming to blows. In the precedinglecture we considered this process of political integration as variouslyexemplified by communities of Hellenic, of Roman, and of Teutonic race, and we saw how manifold were the difficulties which the process had toencounter. We saw how the Teutons--at least in Switzerland, England, andAmerica--had succeeded best through the retention of localself-government combined with central representation. We saw how theRomans failed of ultimate success because by weakening self-governmentthey weakened that community of interest which is essential to thepermanence of a great political aggregate. We saw how the Greeks, afterpassing through their most glorious period in a state of chronicwarfare, had begun to achieve considerable success in forming a pacificfederation when their independent career was suddenly cut short by theRoman conqueror. 

This last example introduces us to a fresh consideration, of very greatimportance. It is not only that every progressive community has had tosolve, in one way or another, the problem of securing permanent concertof action without sacrificing local independence of action; but whileengaged in this difficult work the community has had to defend itselfagainst the attacks of other communities. In the case just cited, of theconquest of Greece by Rome, little harm was done perhaps. But underdifferent circumstances immense damage may have been done in this way, and the nearer we go to the beginnings of civilization the greater thedanger. At the dawn of history we see a few brilliant points ofcivilization surrounded on every side by a midnight blackness ofbarbarism. In order that the pacific community may be able to go ondoing its work, it must be strong enough and warlike enough to overcomeits barbaric neighbours who have no notion whatever of keeping peace. This is another of the seeming paradoxes of the history ofcivilization, that for a very long time the possibility of peace can beguaranteed only through war. Obviously the permanent peace of the worldcan be secured only through the gradual concentration of thepreponderant military strength into the hands of the most pacificcommunities. With infinite toil and trouble this point has been slowlygained by mankind, through the circumstance that the very same politicalaggregation of small primitive communities which makes them lessdisposed to quarrel among themselves tends also to make them more than amatch for the less coherent groups of their more barbarous neighbours. The same concert of action which tends towards internal harmony tendsalso towards external victory, and both ends are promoted by theco-operation of the same sets of causes. But for a long time all thepolitical problems of the civilized world were complicated by the factthat the community had to fight for its life. We seldom stop to reflectupon the imminent danger from outside attacks, whether from surroundingbarbarism or from neighbouring civilizations of lower type, amid whichthe rich and high-toned civilizations of Greece and Rome were developed. When the king of Persia undertook to reduce Greece to the condition of aPersian satrapy, there was imminent danger that all the enormousfruition of Greek thought in the intellectual life of the European worldmight have been nipped in the bud. And who can tell how often, inprehistoric times, some little gleam of civilization, less bright andsteady than this one had become, may have been quenched in slavery ormassacre? The greatest work which the Romans performed in the world wasto assume the aggressive against menacing barbarism, to subdue it, totame it, and to enlist its brute force on the side of law and order. This was a murderous work, and in doing it the Romans became excessivelycruel, but it had to be done by some one before you could expect to havegreat and peaceful civilizations like our own. The warfare of Rome is byno means adequately explained by the theory of a deliberate immoralpolicy of aggression, --"infernal, " I believe, is the stronger adjectivewhich Dr. Draper uses. The aggressive wars of Rome were largely dictatedby just such considerations as those which a century ago made itnecessary for the English to put down the raids of the ScotchHighlanders, and which have since made it necessary for Russia to subduethe Caucasus. It is not easy for a turbulent community to live next toan orderly one without continually stirring up frontier disturbanceswhich call for stern repression from the orderly community. Suchconsiderations go far towards explaining the military history of theRomans, and it is a history with which, on the whole, we ought tosympathize. In its European relations that history is the history of themoving of the civilized frontier northward and eastward against thedisastrous encroachments of barbarous peoples. This great movement has, on the whole, been steadily kept up, in spite of some apparentfluctuation in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era, andit is still going on to-day. It was a great gain for civilization whenthe Romans overcame the Keltiberians of Spain, and taught them goodmanners and the Latin language, and made it for their interest hereafterto fight against barbarians. The third European peninsula was thus wonover to the side of law and order. Danger now remained on the north. TheGauls had once sacked the city of Rome; hordes of Teutons had latelymenaced the very heart of civilization, but had been overthrown inmurderous combat by Caius Marius; another great Teutonic movement, ledby Ariovistus, now threatened to precipitate the whole barbaric force ofsouth-eastern Gaul upon the civilized world; and so it occurred to theprescient genius of Caesar to be beforehand and conquer Gaul, andenlist all its giant barbaric force on the side of civilization. Thisgreat work was as thoroughly done as anything that was ever done inhuman history, and we ought to be thankful to Caesar for it every daythat we live. The frontier to be defended against barbarism was nowmoved away up to the Rhine, and was very much shortened; but above all, the Gauls were made to feel themselves to be Romans. Their countrybecame one of the chief strongholds of civilization and of Christianity;and when the frightful shock of barbarism came--the most formidable blowthat has ever been directed by barbaric brute force against Europeancivilization--it was in Gaul that it was repelled and that its force wasspent. At the beginning of the fifth century an enormous horde of yellowMongolians, known as Huns, poured down into Europe with avowed intent toburn and destroy all the good work which Rome had wrought in the world;and terrible was the havoc they effected in the course of fifty years. If Attila had carried his point, it has been thought that the work ofEuropean civilization might have had to be begun over again. But nearChálons-on-the-Marne, in the year 451, in one of the most obstinatestruggles of which history preserves the record, the career of the"Scourge of God" was arrested, and mainly by the prowess of Gauls and ofVisigoths whom the genius of Rome had tamed. That was the last day onwhich barbarism was able to contend with civilization on equal terms. Itwas no doubt a critical day for all future history; and for itsfavourable issue we must largely thank the policy adopted by Caesar fivecenturies before. By the end of the eighth century the great power ofthe Franks had become enlisted in behalf of law and order, and the Romanthrone was occupied by a Frank, --the ablest man who had appeared in theworld since Caesar's death; and one of the worthiest achievements ofCharles the Great was the conquest and conversion of pagan Germany, which threw the frontier against barbarism eastward as far as the Oder, and made it so much the easier to defend Europe. In the thirteenthcentury this frontier was permanently carried forward to the Vistula bythe Teutonic Knights who, under commission from the emperor FrederickII. , overcame the heathen Prussians and Lithuanians; and now it began tobe shown how greatly the military strength of Europe had increased. Inthis same century Batu, the grandson of Jinghis Khan, came down intoEurope with a horde of more than a million Mongols, and tried to repeatthe experiment of Attila. Batu penetrated as far as Silesia, and won agreat battle at Liegnitz in 1241, but in spite of his victory he had todesist from the task of conquering Europe. Since the fifth century thephysical power of the civilized world had grown immensely; and theimpetus of this barbaric invasion was mainly spent upon Russia, thegrowth of which it succeeded in retarding for more than two centuries. Finally since the sixteenth century we have seen the Russians, redeemedfrom their Mongolian oppressors, and rich in many of the elements of avigorous national life, --we have seen the Russians resume the aggressivein this conflict of ages, beginning to do for Central Asia in some sortwhat the Romans did for Europe. The frontier against barbarism, whichCæsar left at the Rhine, has been carried eastward to the Volga, and isnow advancing even to the Oxus. The question has sometimes been raisedwhether it would be possible for European civilization to be seriouslythreatened by any future invasion of barbarism or of some lower type ofcivilization. By barbarism certainly not: all the nomad strength ofMongolian Asia would throw itself in vain against the insuperablebarrier constituted by Russia. But I have heard it quite seriouslysuggested that if some future Attila or Jinghis were to wield as a unitthe entire military strength of the four hundred millions of Chinese, possessed with some suddenly-conceived idea of conquering the world, even as Omar and Abderrahman wielded as a unit the newly-welded power ofthe Saracens in the seventh and eighth centuries, then perhaps astaggering blow might yet be dealt against European civilization. I willnot waste precious time in considering this imaginary case, further thanto remark that if the Chinese are ever going to try anything of thissort, they cannot afford to wait very long; for within another century, as we shall presently see, their very numbers will be surpassed by thoseof the English race alone. By that time all the elements of militarypredominance on the earth, including that of simple numericalsuperiority, will have been gathered into the hands not merely of men ofEuropean descent in general, but more specifically into the hands of theoffspring of the Teutonic tribes who conquered Britain in the fifthcentury. So far as the relations of civilization with barbarism areconcerned to-day, the only serious question is by what process ofmodification the barbarous races are to maintain their foothold upon theearth at all. While once such people threatened the very continuance ofcivilization, they now exist only on sufferance. 

In this brief survey of the advancing frontier of Europeancivilization, I have said nothing about the danger that has from time totime been threatened by the followers of Mohammed, --of the overthrow ofthe Saracens in Gaul by the grandfather of Charles the Great, or theiroverthrow at Constantinople by the image-breaking Leo, of the greatmediæval Crusades, or of the mischievous but futile career of the Turks. For if I were to attempt to draw this outline with anything likecompleteness, I should have no room left for the conclusion of myargument. Considering my position thus far as sufficiently illustrated, let us go on to contemplate for a moment some of the effects of all thissecular turmoil upon the political development of the progressivenations of Europe. I think we may safely lay it down, as a large andgeneral rule, that all this prodigious warfare required to free thecivilized world from peril of barbarian attack served greatly toincrease the difficulty of solving the great initial problem ofcivilization. In the first place, the turbulence thus arising was aserious obstacle to the formation of closely-coherent politicalaggregates; as we see exemplified in the terrible convulsions of thefifth and sixth centuries, and again in the ascendency acquired by theisolating features of feudalism between the time of Charles the Greatand the time of Louis VI. Of France. In the second place, thisperpetual turbulence was a serious obstacle to the preservation ofpopular liberties. It is a very difficult thing for a free people tomaintain its free, constitution if it has to keep perpetually fightingfor its life. The "one-man-power. " less fit for, carrying on thepeaceful pursuits of life, is sure to be brought into the foreground ina state of endless warfare. It is a still more difficult thing for afree people to maintain its free constitution when it undertakes togovern a dependent people despotically, as has been wont to happen whena portion of the barbaric world has been overcome and annexed to thecivilized world. Under the weight, of these two difficulties combined, the free institutions of the ancient Romans succumbed, and theirgovernment gradually passed into the hands of a kind of closecorporation more despotic than anything else of the sort that Europe hasever seen. This despotic character--this tendency, if you will pardonthe phrase, towards the _Asiaticization_ of European life--was continuedby inheritance in the Roman Church, the influence of which wasbeneficent so long as it constituted a wholesome check to the isolatingtendencies of feudalism, but began to become noxious the moment thesetendencies yielded to the centralizing monarchical tendency in nearlyall parts of Europe. The asiaticizing tendency of Roman political lifehad become so powerful by the fourth century, and has since been sopowerfully propagated through the Church, that we ought to be glad thatthe Teutons came into the empire as masters rather than as subjects. Asthe Germanic tribes got possession of the government in one part ofEurope after another, they brought with them free institutions again. The political ideas of the Goths in Spain, of the Lombards in Italy, andof the Franks and Burgundians in Gaul, were as distinctly free as thoseof the Angles in Britain. But as the outcome of the long anduninterrupted turmoil of the Middle Ages, society throughout thecontinent of Europe remained predominantly military in type, and thisfact greatly increased the tendency towards despotism which wasbequeathed by Rome. After the close of the thirteenth century the wholepower of the Church was finally thrown into the scale against theliberties of the people; and as the result of all these forces combined, we find that at the time when America was discovered government washardening into despotism in all the great countries of Europe exceptEngland. Even in England the tendency towards despotism had begun tobecome quite conspicuous after the wholesale slaughter of the greatbarons and the confiscation of their estates which took place in theWars of the Roses. The constitutional history of England during theTudor and Stuart periods is mainly the history of the persistent effortof the English sovereign to free himself from constitutional checks, ashis brother sovereigns on the continent were doing. But how differentthe result! How enormous the political difference between William III. And Louis XIV. , compared with the difference between Henry VIII. AndFrancis I. ! The close of the seventeenth century, which marks theculmination of the asiaticizing tendency in Europe, saw despotism bothpolitical and religious firmly established in France and Spain andItaly, and in half of Germany; while the rest of Germany seemed to haveexhausted itself in the attempt to throw off the incubus. But in Englandthis same epoch saw freedom both political and religious established onso firm a foundation as never again to be shaken, never again withimpunity to be threatened, so long as the language of Locke and Miltonand Sydney shall remain a living speech on the lips of men. Now thiswonderful difference between the career of popular liberty in Englandand on the Continent was due no doubt to a complicated variety ofcauses, one or two of which I have already sought to point out. In myfirst lecture I alluded to the curious combination of circumstanceswhich prevented anything like a severance of interests between the upperand the lower ranks of society; and something was also said about thefeebleness of the grasp of imperial Rome upon Britain compared with itsgrasp upon the continent of Europe. But what I wish now to pointout--since we are looking at the military aspect of the subject--is theenormous advantage of what we may call the _strategic position_ ofEngland in the long mediæval struggle between civilization andbarbarism. In Professor Stubbs's admirable collection of charters anddocuments illustrative of English history, we read that "on the 6th ofJuly [1264] the whole force of the country was summoned to London forthe 3d of August, to resist the army which was coming from France underthe queen and her son Edmund. _The invading fleet was prevented by theweather from sailing until too late in the season_. . . . The papal legate, Guy Foulquois, who soon after became Clement IV. , threatened the baronswith excommunication, but the bull containing the sentence was taken bythe men of Dover as soon as it arrived, and was thrown into thesea. " [15] As I read this, I think of the sturdy men of Connecticut, beating the drum to prevent the reading of the royal order of James II. Depriving the colony of the control of its own militia, and feel withpride that the indomitable spirit of English liberty is alikeindomitable in every land where men of English race have set their feetas masters. But as the success of Americans in withstanding theunconstitutional pretensions of the crown was greatly favoured by thebarrier of the ocean, so the success of Englishmen in defying theenemies of their freedom has no doubt been greatly favoured by thebarrier of the British channel. The war between Henry III. And thebarons was an event in English history no less critical than the warbetween Charles I. And the parliament four centuries later; and Britishand Americans alike have every reason to be thankful that a great Frencharmy was not able to get across the channel in August, 1264. Nor wasthis the only time when the insular position of England did goodlyservice in maintaining its liberties and its internal peace. We cannotforget how Lord Howard of Effingham, aided also by the weather, defeatedthe armada that boasted itself "invincible, " sent to strangle freedom inits chosen home by the most execrable and ruthless tyrant that Europehas ever seen, a tyrant whose victory would have meant not simply theusurpation of the English crown but the establishment of the SpanishInquisition at Westminster Hall. Nor can we forget with what longingeyes the Corsican barbarian who wielded for mischief the forces ofFrance in 1805 looked across from Boulogne at the shores of the oneEuropean land that never in word or deed granted him homage. But inthese latter days England has had no need of stormy weather to aid theprowess of the sea-kings who are her natural defenders. It is impossiblefor the thoughtful student of history to walk across Trafalgar Square, and gaze on the image of the mightiest naval hero that ever lived, onthe summit of his lofty column and guarded by the royal lions, lookingdown towards the government-house of the land that he freed from thedread of Napoleonic invasion and towards that ancient church wherein themost sacred memories of English talent and English toil are clusteredtogether, --it is impossible, I say, to look at this, and not admire boththe artistic instinct that devised so happy a symbolism, and the raregood-fortune of our Teutonic ancestors in securing a territorialposition so readily defensible against the assaults of despotic powers. But it was not merely in the simple facility of warding off externalattack that the insular position of England was so serviceable. Thisease in warding off external attack had its most marked effect upon theinternal polity of the nation. It never became necessary for the Englishgovernment to keep up a great standing army. For purposes of externaldefence a navy was all-sufficient; and there is this practicaldifference between a permanent army and a permanent navy. Both areoriginally designed for purposes of external defence; but the one canreadily be used for purposes of internal oppression, and the othercannot. Nobody ever heard of a navy putting up an empire at auction andknocking down the throne of the world to a Didius Julianus. When, therefore, a country is effectually screened by water from externalattack, it is screened in a way that permits its normal politicaldevelopment to go on internally without those manifold militaryhinderances that have ordinarily been so obstructive in the history ofcivilization. Hence we not only see why, after the Norman Conquest hadoperated to increase its unity and its strength, England enjoyed a fargreater amount of security and was far more peaceful than any othercountry in Europe; but we also see why society never assumed themilitary type in England which it assumed upon the continent; we see howit was that the bonds of feudalism were far looser here than elsewhere, and therefore how it happened that nowhere else was the condition of thecommon people so good politically. We now begin to see, moreover, howthoroughly Professor Stubbs and Mr. Freeman are justified in insistingupon the fact that the political institutions of the Germans of Tacitushave had a more normal and uninterrupted development in England thananywhere else. Nowhere, indeed, in the whole history of the human race, can we point to such a well-rounded and unbroken continuity of politicallife as we find in the thousand years of English history that haveelapsed since the victory of William the Norman at Senlac. In Englandthe free government of the primitive Aryans has been to this dayuninterruptedly maintained, though everywhere lost or seriously impairedon the continent of Europe, except in remote Scandinavia and impregnableSwitzerland. But obviously, if in the conflict of ages betweencivilization and barbarism England had occupied such an inferiorstrategic position as that occupied by Hungary or Poland or Spain, ifher territory had been liable once or twice in a century to be overrunby fanatical Saracens or beastly Mongols, no such remarkable and quiteexceptional result could have been achieved. Having duly fathomed thesignificance of this strategic position of the English race whileconfined within the limits of the British islands, we are now preparedto consider the significance of the stupendous expansion of the Englishrace which first became possible through the discovery and settlement ofNorth America. I said, at the close of my first lecture, that thevictory of Wolfe at Quebec marks the greatest turning-point as yetdiscernible in all modern history. At the first blush such anunqualified statement may have sounded as if an American student ofhistory were inclined to attach an undue value to events that havehappened upon his own soil. After the survey of universal history whichwe have now taken, however, I am fully prepared to show that theconquest of the North American continent by men of English race wasunquestionably the most prodigious event in the political annals of mankind. Let us consider, for a moment, the cardinal facts which thisEnglish conquest and settlement of North America involved. 

Chronologically the discovery of America coincides precisely with theclose of the Middle Ages, and with the opening of the drama of what iscalled _modern_ history. The coincidence is in many ways significant. The close of the Middle Ages--as we have seen--was characterized by theincreasing power of the crown in all the great countries of Europe, andby strong symptoms of popular restlessness in view of this increasingpower. It was characterized also by the great Protestant outbreakagainst the despotic pretensions of the Church, which once, in itsantagonism to the rival temporal power, had befriended the liberties ofthe people, but now (especially since the death of Boniface VIII. )sought to enthrall them with a tyranny far worse than that ofirresponsible king or emperor. As we have seen Aryan civilization inEurope struggling for many centuries to prove itself superior to theassaults of outer barbarism, so here we find a decisive strugglebeginning between the antagonist tendencies which had grown up in themidst of this civilization. Having at length won the privilege of livingwithout risk of slaughter and pillage at the hands of Saracens orMongols, the question now arose whether the people of Europe should goon and apply their intelligence freely to the problem of making life asrich and fruitful as possible in varied material and spiritualachievement, or should fall forever into the barren and monotonous wayof living and thinking which has always distinguished the half-civilizedpopulations of Asia. This--and nothing less than this, I think--was thepractical political question really at stake in the sixteenth centurybetween Protestantism and Catholicism. Holland and England entered thelists in behalf of the one solution of this question, while Spain andthe Pope defended the other, and the issue was fought out on Europeansoil, as we have seen, with varying success. But the discovery ofAmerica now came to open up an enormous region in which whatever seed ofcivilization should be planted was sure to grow to such enormousdimensions as by and by to exert a controlling influence upon all suchcontroversies. It was for Spain, France, and England to contend for thepossession of this vast region, and to prove by the result of thestruggle which kind of civilization was endowed with the higher andsturdier political life. The race which here should gain the victory wasclearly destined hereafter to take the lead in the world, though therival powers could not in those days fully appreciate this fact. Theywho founded colonies in America as trading-stations or military outpostsprobably did not foresee that these colonies must by and by becomeimperial states far greater in physical mass than the states whichplanted them. It is not likely that they were philosophers enough toforesee that this prodigious physical development would mean that thepolitical ideas of the parent state should acquire a hundred-fold powerand seminal influence in the future work of the world. It was not untilthe American Resolution that this began to be dimly realized by a fewprescient thinkers. It is by no means so fully realized even now that aclear and thorough-going statement of it has not somewhat an air ofnovelty. When the highly-civilized community, representing the ripestpolitical ideas of England, was planted in America, removed from themanifold and complicated checks we have just been studying in thehistory of the Old World, the growth was portentously rapid and steady. There were no Attilas now to stand in the way, --only a Philip or aPontiac. The assaults of barbarism constituted only a petty annoyance ascompared with the conflict of ages which had gone on in Europe. Therewas no occasion for society to assume a military aspect. Principles ofself-government were at once put into operation, and no one thought ofcalling them in question. When the neighbouring civilization of inferiortype--I allude to the French in Canada--began to become seriouslytroublesome, it was struck down at a blow. When the mother-country, under the guidance of an ignorant king and short-sighted ministers, undertook to act upon the antiquated theory that the new communitieswere merely groups of trading-stations, the political bond of connectionwas severed; yet the war which ensued was not like the war which had butjust now been so gloriously ended by the victory of Wolfe. It was not astruggle between two different peoples, like the French of the OldRegime and the English, each representing antagonistic theories of howpolitical life ought to be conducted. But, like the Barons' War of thethirteenth century and the Parliament's War of the seventeenth, it was astruggle sustained by a part of the English people in behalf ofprinciples that time has shown to be equally dear to all. And so theissue only made it apparent to an astonished world that instead of _one_there were now _two Englands_, alike prepared to work with might andmain toward the political regeneration of mankind. 

Let us consider now to what conclusions the rapidity and unabatedsteadiness of the increase of the English race in America must lead usas we go on to forecast the future. Carlyle somewhere speaks slightinglyof the fact that the Americans double their numbers every twenty years, as if to have forty million dollar-hunters in the world were any betterthan to have twenty million dollar-hunters! The implication thatAmericans are nothing but dollar-hunters, and are therebydistinguishable from the rest of mankind, would not perhaps bear tooelaborate scrutiny. But during the present lecture we have beenconsidering the gradual transfer of the preponderance of physicalstrength from the hands of the war-loving portion of the human race intothe hands of the peace-loving portion, --into the hands of thedollar-hunters, if you please, but out of the hands of thescalp-hunters. Obviously to double the numbers of a pre-eminentlyindustrious, peaceful, orderly, and free-thinking community, is somewhatto increase the weight in the world of the tendencies that go towardsmaking communities free and orderly and peaceful and industrious. Sothat, from this point of view, the fact we are speaking of is well worthconsidering, even for its physical dimensions. I do not know whether theUnited States could support a population everywhere as dense as that ofBelgium; so I will suppose that, with ordinary improvement incultivation and in the industrial arts, we might support a populationhalf as dense as that of Belgium, --and this is no doubt an extremelymoderate supposition. Now a very simple operation in arithmetic willshow that this means a population of fifteen hundred millions, or morethan the population of the whole world at the present date. Anothervery simple operation in arithmetic will show that if we were to go ondoubling our numbers, even once in every twenty-five years, we shouldreach that stupendous figure at about the close of the twentiethcentury, --that is, in the days of our great-greatgrandchildren. I do notpredict any such result, for there are discernible economic reasons forbelieving that there will be a diminution in the rate of increase. Therate must nevertheless continue to be very great, in the absence of suchcauses as formerly retarded the growth of population in Europe. Ourmodern wars are hideous enough, no doubt, but they are short. They aresettled with a few heavy blows, and the loss of life and propertyoccasioned by them is but trifling when compared with the awful ruin anddesolation wrought by the perpetual and protracted contests of antiquityand of the Middle Ages. Chronic warfare, both private and public, periodic famines, and sweeping pestilences like the Black Death, --thesewere the things which formerly shortened human life and kept downpopulation. In the absence of such causes, and with the abundantcapacity of our country for feeding its people, I think it an extremelymoderate statement if we say that by the end of the next century theEnglish race in the United States will number at least six or sevenhundred millions. 

It used to be said that so huge a people as this could not be kepttogether as a single national aggregate, --or, if kept together at all, could only be so by means of a powerful centralized government, likethat of ancient Rome under the emperors. I think we are now prepared tosee that this is a great mistake. If the Roman Empire could havepossessed that political vitality in all its parts which is secured tothe United States by the principles of equal representation and oflimited state sovereignty, it might well have defied all the shockswhich tribally-organized barbarism could ever have directed against it. As it was, its strong centralized government did _not_ save it frompolitical disintegration. One of its weakest political features wasprecisely this, --that its "strong centralized government" was a kind ofclose corporation, governing a score of provinces in its own interestrather than in the interest of the provincials. In contrast with such asystem as that of the Roman Empire, the skilfully elaborated Americansystem of federalism appears as one of the most important contributionsthat the English race has made to the general work of civilization. Theworking out of this feature in our national constitution, by Hamiltonand Madison and their associates, was the finest specimen ofconstructive statesmanship that the world has ever seen. Not that thesestatesmen originated the principle, but they gave form and expression tothe principle which was latent in the circumstances under which thegroup of American colonies had grown up, and which suggested itself soforcibly that the clear vision of these thinkers did not fail to seizeupon it as the fundamental principle upon which alone could the affairsof a great people, spreading over a vast continent, be kept in acondition approaching to something like permanent peace. Stated broadly, so as to acquire somewhat the force of a universal proposition, theprinciple of federalism is just this:--that the people of a state shallhave full and entire control of their own domestic affairs, whichdirectly concern them only, and which they will naturally manage withmore intelligence and with more zeal than any distant governing bodycould possibly exercise; but that, as regards matters of common concernbetween a group of states, a decision shall in every case be reached, not by brutal warfare or by weary diplomacy, but by the systematiclegislation of a central government which represents both states andpeople, and whose decisions can always be enforced, if necessary, bythe combined physical power of all the states. This principle, invarious practical applications, is so familiar to Americans to-day thatwe seldom pause to admire it, any more than we stop to admire the airwhich we breathe or the sun which gives us light and life. Yet I believethat if no other political result than this could to-day be pointed outas coming from the colonization of America by Englishmen, we shouldstill be justified in regarding that event as one of the most importantin the history of mankind. For obviously the principle of federalism, asthus broadly stated, contains within itself the seeds of permanent peacebetween nations; and to this glorious end I believe it will come in thefulness of time. 

And now we may begin to see distinctly what it was that the Americangovernment fought for in the late civil war, --a point which at the timewas by no means clearly apprehended outside the United States. We usedto hear it often said, while that war was going on, that we werefighting not so much for the emancipation of the negro as for themaintenance of our federal union; and I well remember that to many whowere burning to see our country purged of the folly and iniquity ofnegro slavery this used to seem like taking a low and unrighteous viewof the case. From the stand-point of universal history it wasnevertheless the correct and proper view. The emancipation of the negro, as an incidental result of the struggle, was a priceless gain which wasgreeted warmly by all right-minded people. But deeper down than thisquestion, far more subtly interwoven with the innermost fibres of ournational well-being, far heavier laden too with weighty consequences forthe future weal of all mankind, was the question whether this greatpacific principle of union joined with independence should be overthrownby the first deep-seated social difficulty it had to encounter, orshould stand as an example of priceless value to other ages and to otherlands. The solution was well worth the effort it cost. There have beenmany useless wars, but this was not one of them, for more than most warsthat have been, it was fought in the direct interest of peace, and thevictory so dearly purchased and so humanely used was an earnest offuture peace and happiness for the world. 

The object, therefore, for which the American government fought, was theperpetual maintenance of that peculiar state of things which the federalunion had created, --a state of things in which, throughout the wholevast territory over which the Union holds sway, questions betweenstates, like questions between individuals, must be settled by legalargument and judicial decisions and not by wager of battle. Far betterto demonstrate this point once for all, at whatever cost, than to beburdened hereafter, like the states of Europe, with frontier fortressesand standing armies and all the barbaric apparatus of mutual suspicion!For so great an end did this most pacific people engage in an obstinatewar, and never did any war so thoroughly illustrate how military powermay be wielded, when necessary, by a people that has passed entirelyfrom the military into the industrial stage of civilization. The eventsfalsified all the predictions that were drawn from the contemplation ofsocieties less advanced politically. It was thought that so peaceful apeople could not raise a great army on demand; yet within a twelvemonththe government had raised five hundred thousand men by voluntaryenlistment. It was thought that a territory involving militaryoperations at points as far apart as Paris and Moscow could never bethoroughly conquered; yet in April 1865 the federal armies might haveinarched from end to end of the Gulf States without meeting any force tooppose them. It was thought that the maintenance of a great army wouldbeget a military temper in the Americans and lead to manifestations ofBonapartism, --domestic usurpation and foreign aggression; yet the momentthe work was done the great army vanished, and a force of twenty-fivethousand men was found sufficient for the military needs of the wholecountry. It was thought that eleven states which had struggled so hardto escape from the federal tie could not be re-admitted to voluntaryco-operation in the general government, but must henceforth be held asconquered territory, --a most dangerous experiment for any free people totry. Yet within a dozen years we find the old federal relations resumedin all their completeness, and the disunion party powerless anddiscredited in the very states where once it had wrought such mischief. Nay more, we even see a curiously disputed presidential election, inwhich the votes of the southern states were given almost with unanimityto one of the candidates, decided quietly by a court of arbitration; andwe see a universal acquiescence in the decision, even in spite of ageneral belief that an extraordinary combination of legal subtletiesresulted in adjudging the presidency to the candidate who was notreally elected. 

Such has been the result of the first great attempt to break up thefederal union in America. It is not probable that another attempt canever be made with anything like an equal chance of success. Here wereeleven states, geographically contiguous, governed by groups of men whofor half a century had pursued a well-defined policy in common, unitedamong themselves and marked off from most of the other states by adifference far more deeply rooted in the groundwork of society than anymere economic difference, --the difference between slave-labour andfree-labour. These eleven states, moreover, held such an economicrelationship with England that they counted upon compelling the navalpower of England to be used in their behalf. And finally it had not yetbeen demonstrated that the maintenance of the federal union wassomething for which the great mass of the people would cheerfully fight. Never could the experiment of secession be tried, apparently, underfairer auspices; yet how tremendous the defeat! It was a defeat thatwrought conviction, --the conviction that no matter how grave thepolitical questions that may arise hereafter, they must be settled inaccordance with the legal methods the Constitution has provided, andthat no state can be allowed to break the peace. It is the thoroughnessof this conviction that has so greatly facilitated the reinstatement ofthe revolted states in their old federal relations; and the good senseand good faith with which the southern people, in spite of the chagrinof defeat, have accepted the situation and acted upon it, is somethingunprecedented in history, and calls for the warmest sympathy andadmiration on the part of their brethren of the north. The federalprinciple in America has passed through this fearful ordeal and come outstronger than ever; and we trust it will not again be put to so severe atest. But with this principle unimpaired, there is no reason why anyfurther increase of territory or of population should overtask theresources of our government. 

In the United States of America a century hence we shall thereforedoubtless have a political aggregation immeasurably surpassing in powerand in dimensions any empire that has as yet existed. But we must nowconsider for a moment the probable future career of the English race inother parts of the world. The colonization of North America byEnglishmen had its direct effects upon the eastern as well as upon thewestern side of the Atlantic. The immense growth of the commercial andnaval strength of England between the time of Cromwell and the time ofthe elder Pitt was intimately connected with the colonization of NorthAmerica and the establishment of plantations in the West Indies. Thesecircumstances reacted powerfully upon the material development ofEngland, multiplying manifold the dimensions of her foreign trade, increasing proportionately her commercial marine, and giving her in theeighteenth century the dominion over the seas. Endowed with thismaritime supremacy, she has with an unerring instinct proceeded to seizeupon the keys of empire in all parts of the world, --Gibraltar, Malta, the isthmus of Suez, Aden, Ceylon, the coasts of Australia, island afterisland in the Pacific, --every station, in short, that commands thepathways of maritime commerce, or guards the approaches to the barbarouscountries which she is beginning to regard as in some way her naturalheritage. Any well-filled album of postage-stamps is an eloquentcommentary on this maritime supremacy of England. It is enough to turnone's head to look over her colonial blue-books. The natural outcome ofall this overflowing vitality it is not difficult to foresee. No one cancarefully watch what is going on in Africa to-day without recognizing itas the same sort of thing which was going on in North America in theseventeenth century; and it cannot fail to bring forth similar resultsin course of time. Here is a vast country, rich in beautiful scenery andin resources of timber and minerals, with a salubrious climate andfertile soil, with great navigable rivers and inland lakes, which willnot much longer be left in control of tawny lions and long-earedelephants and negro fetich-worshippers. Already five flourishing Englishstates have been established in the south, besides the settlements onthe Gold Coast and those at Aden commanding the Red Sea. Englishexplorers work their way, with infinite hardship, through itsuntravelled wilds, and track the courses of the Congo and the Nile astheir forefathers tracked the Potomac and the Hudson. The work of LaSalle and Smith is finding its counterpart in the labours of Baker andLivingstone. Who can doubt that within two or three centuries theAfrican continent will be occupied by a mighty nation of Englishdescent, and covered with populous cities and flourishing farms, withrailroads and telegraphs and other devices of civilization as yetundreamed of?

If we look next to Australia, we find a country of more than two-thirdsthe area of the United States, with a temperate climate and immenseresources, agricultural and mineral, --a country sparsely peopled by arace of irredeemable savages hardly above the level of brutes. HereEngland within the present century has planted six greatly thrivingstates, concerning which I have not time to say much, but one fact willserve as a specimen. When in America we wish to illustrate in one wordthe wonderful growth of our so-called north-western states, we refer toChicago, --a city of half-a-million inhabitants standing on a spot whichfifty years ago was an uninhabited marsh. In Australia the city ofMelbourne was founded in 1837, the year when the present queen ofEngland began to reign, and the state of which it is the capital washence called Victoria. This city, now[16] just forty-three years old, has a population half as great as that of Chicago, has a public libraryof 200, 000 volumes, and has a university with at least one professor ofworld-wide renown. When we see, by the way, within a period of fiveyears and at such remote points upon the earth's surface, such eruditeand ponderous works in the English language issuing from the press asthose of Professor Hearn of Melbourne, of Bishop Colenso of Natal, andof Mr. Hubert Bancroft of San Francisco, --even such a little commonplacefact as this is fraught with wonderful significance when we think of allthat it implies. Then there is New Zealand, with its climate ofperpetual spring, where the English race is now multiplying faster thananywhere else in the world unless it be in Texas and Minnesota. Andthere are in the Pacific Ocean many rich and fertile spots where weshall very soon see the same things going on. 

It is not necessary to dwell upon such considerations as these. It isenough to point to the general conclusion, that the work which theEnglish race began when it colonized North America is destined to go onuntil every land on the earth's surface that is not already the seat ofan old civilization shall become English in its language, in itspolitical habits and traditions, and to a predominant extent in theblood of its people. The day is at hand when, four-fifths of the humanrace will trace its pedigree to English forefathers, as four-fifths ofthe white people in the United States trace their pedigree to-day. Therace thus spread over both hemispheres, and from the rising to thesetting sun, will not fail to keep that sovereignty of the sea and thatcommercial supremacy which it began to acquire when England firststretched its arm across the Atlantic to the shores of Virginia andMassachusetts. The language spoken by these great communities will notbe sundered into dialects like the language of the ancient Romans, butperpetual intercommunication and the universal habit of reading andwriting will preserve its integrity; and the world's business will betransacted by English-speaking people to so great an extent, thatwhatever language any man may have learned in his infancy he will findit necessary sooner or later to learn to express his thoughts inEnglish. And in this way it is by no means improbable that, as Grimm theGerman and Candolle the Frenchman long since foretold, the language ofShakespeare may ultimately become the language of mankind. 

In view of these considerations as to the stupendous future of theEnglish race, does it not seem very probable that in due course of timeEurope--which has learned some valuable lessons from Americaalready--will find it worth while to adopt the lesson of federalism?Probably the European states, in order to preserve their relative weightin the general polity of the world, will find it necessary to do so. Inthat most critical period of American history between the winning ofindependence and the framing of the Constitution, one of the strongestof the motives which led the confederated states to sacrifice part oftheir sovereignty by entering into a federal union was their keen senseof their weakness when taken severally. In physical strength such astate as Massachusetts at that time amounted to little more than Hamburgor Bremen; but the thirteen states taken together made a nation ofrespectable power. Even the wonderful progress we have made in a centuryhas not essentially changed this relation of things. Our greatest state, New York, taken singly, is about the equivalent of Belgium; our weakeststate, Nevada, would scarcely be a match for tha county of Dorset; yetthe United States, taken together, are probably at this moment thestrongest nation in the world. 

Now a century hence, with a population of six hundred millions in theUnited States, and a hundred and fifty millions in Australia and NewZealand, to say nothing of the increase of power in other parts of theEnglish-speaking world, the relative weights will be very different fromwhat they were in 1788. The population of Europe will not increase inanything like the same proportion, and a very considerable part of theincrease will be transferred by emigration to the English-speaking worldoutside of Europe. By the end of the twentieth century such nations asFrance and Germany can only claim such a relative position in thepolitical world as Holland and Switzerland now occupy. Their greatnessin thought and scholarship, in industrial and aesthetic art, willdoubtless continue unabated. But their political weights will severallyhave come to be insignificant; and as we now look back, with historiccuriosity, to the days when Holland was navally and commercially therival of England, so people will then need to be reminded that there wasactually once a time when little France was the most powerful nation onthe earth. It will then become as desirable for the states of Europe toenter into a federal union as it was for the states of North America acentury ago. 

It is only by thus adopting the lesson of federalism that Europe can doaway with the chances of useless warfare which remain so long as itsdifferent states own no allegiance to any common authority. War, as wehave seen, is with barbarous races both a necessity and a favouriteoccupation. As long as civilization comes into contact with barbarism, it remains a too frequent necessity. But as between civilized andChristian nations it is a wretched absurdity. One sympathizes keenlywith wars such as that which Russia has lately concluded, for settingfree a kindred race endowed with capacity for progress, and for humblingthe worthless barbarian who during four centuries has wrought suchincalculable damage to the European world. But a sanguinary struggle forthe Rhine frontier, between two civilized Christian nations who haveeach enough work to do in ithe world without engaging in such a strifeas this, will, I am sure, be by and by condemned by the general opinionof mankind. Such questions will have to be settled by discussion in somesort of federal council or parliament, if Europe would keep pace withAmerica in the advance towards universal law and order. All will admitthat such a state of things is a great desideratum: let us see if it isreally quite so utopian as it may seem at the first glance. No doubt thelord who dwelt in Haddon Hall in the fifteenth century would havethought it very absurd if you had told him that within four hundredyears it would not be necessary for country gentlemen to live in greatstone dungeons with little cross-barred windows and loopholes from whichto shoot at people going by. Yet to-day a country gentleman in someparts of Massachusetts may sleep securely without locking hisfront-door. We have not yet done away with robbery and murder, but wehave at least made private warfare illegal; we have arrayed publicopinion against it to such an extent that the police-court usually makesshort shrift for the misguided man who tries to wreak vengeance on hisenemy. Is it too much to hope that by and by we may similarly put publicwarfare under the ban? I think not. Already in America, as wre haveseen, it has become customary to deal with questions between states justas we would deal with questions between individuals. This we have seento be the real purport of American federalism. To have established sucha system ovrer one great continent is to have made a very good beginningtowards establishing it over the world. To establish such a system inEurope will no doubt be difficult, for here we have to deal with animmense complication of prejudices, intensified by linguistic andethnological differences. Nevertheless the pacific pressure exerted uponEurope by America is becoming so great that it will doubtless beforelong overcome all these obstacles. I refer to the industrial competitionbetween the old and the new worlds, which has become so conspicuouswithin the last ten years. Agriculturally Minnesota, Nebraska, andKansas are already formidable competitors with England, France, andGermany; but this is but the beginning. It is but the first spray fromthe tremendous wave of economic competition that is gathering in theMississippi valley. By and by, when our shameful tariff--falsely called"protective"--shall have been done away with, and our manufacturersshall produce superior articles at less cost of raw material, we shallbegin to compete with European countries in all the markets of theworld; and the competition in manufactures will become as keen as it isnow beginning to be in agriculture. This time will not be long incoming, for our tariff-system has already begun to be discussed, and inthe light of our present knowledge discussion means its doom. Born ofcrass ignorance and self-defeating greed, it cannot bear the light. Whenthis curse to American labour--scarcely less blighting than the; curseof negro slavery--shall have been once removed, the economic pressureexerted upon Europe by the United States will soon become very greatindeed. It will not be long before this economic pressure will make itsimply impossible for the states of Europe to keep up such militaryarmaments as they are now maintaining. The disparity between the UnitedStates, with a standing army of only twenty-five thousand men withdrawnfrom industrial pursuits, and the states of Europe, with their standingarmies amounting to four millions of men, is something that cannotpossibly be kept up. The economic competition will become so keen thatEuropean armies will have to be disbanded, the swords will have to beturned into ploughshares, and _thus_ the victory of the industrial overthe military type of civilization will at last become complete. But todisband the great armies of Europe will necessarily involve the forcingof the great states of Europe into some sort of federal relation, inwhich Congresses--already held on rare occasions--will become morefrequent, in which the principles of international law will acquire amore definite sanction, and in which the combined physical power of allthe states will constitute (as it now does in America) a permanentthreat against any state that dares to wish for selfish reasons to breakthe peace. In some such way as this, I believe, the industrialdevelopment of the English race outside of Europe will by and by enforcefederalism upon Europe. As regards the serious difficulties that growout of prejudices attendant upon differences in language, race, andcreed, a most valuable lesson is furnished us by the history ofSwitzerland. I am inclined to think that the greatest contribution whichSwitzerland has made to the general progress of civilization has been toshow us how such obstacles can be surmounted, even on a small scale. Tosurmount them on a great scale will soon become the political problem ofEurope; and it is America which has set the example and indicatedthe method. 

Thus we may foresee in general outline how, through the gradualconcentration of the preponderance of physical power into the hands ofthe most pacific communities, the wretched business of warfare mustfinally become obsolete all over the globe. The element of distance isnow fast becoming eliminated from political problems, and the history ofhuman progress politically will continue in the future to be what it hasbeen in the past, --the history of the successive union of groups of meninto larger and more complex aggregates. As this process goes on, it mayafter many more ages of political experience become apparent that thereis really no reason, in the nature of things, why the whole of mankindshould not constitute politically one huge federation, --each littlegroup managing its local affairs in entire independence, but relegatingall questions of international interest to the decision of one centraltribunal supported by the public opinion of the entire human race. Ibelieve that the time will come when such a state of things will existupon the earth, when it will be possible (with our friends of the Parisdinner-party) to speak of the UNITED STATES as stretching from pole topole, --or, with Tennyson, to celebrate the "parliament of man and thefederation of the world. " Indeed, only when such a state of things hasbegun to be realized, can Civilization, as sharply demarcated fromBarbarism, be said to have fairly begun. Only then can the world be saidto have become truly Christian. Many ages of toil and doubt andperplexity will no doubt pass by before such a desideratum is reached. Meanwhile it is pleasant to feel that the dispassionate contemplation ofgreat masses of historical facts goes far towards confirming our faithin this ultimate triumph of good over evil. Our survey began withpictures of horrid slaughter and desolation: it ends with the picture ofa world covered with cheerful homesteads, blessed with a sabbath ofperpetual peace. 

[Footnote 1: Freeman, "Norman Conquest, " v. 482. ]

[Footnote 2: Freeman, "Comparative Politics, " 264. ]

[Footnote 3: This is disputed, however. See Ross, "Early History ofLandholding among the Germans. "]

[Footnote 4: Stubbs, "Constitutional History, " i. 84. ]

[Footnote 5: Kemble, "Saxons in England, " i. 59. ]

[Footnote 6: Maine, "Village Communities, " Lond. , 1871, p. 132. ]

[Footnote 7: Stubbs, "Constitutional History, " i. 85. ]

[Footnote 8: Freeman, "Comparative Politics, " 118. ]

[Footnote 9: Geffroy, "Rome et les Barbares, " 209. ]

[Footnote 10: Maine, "Village Communities, " 118. ]

[Footnote 11: Stubbs, "Constitutional History, " i. 625. ]

[Footnote 12: Stubbs, "Select Charters, " 401. ]

[Footnote 13: "La Cité Antique, " 441. ]

[Footnote 14: Arnold, "Roman Provincial Administration, " 237. ]

[Footnote 15: Stubbs, "Select Charters, " 401. ]

[Footnote 16: In 1880. ]

INDEX. 

AbderrahmanAchaian leagueAdenAdoptionAetolian leagueAfrica, English colonies inAlbany CongressAmphiktyonic CouncilAngelnAnglesAnglo-AmericanAnglo-SaxonAppomattoxArable markAriovistusArmada, the InvincibleArmies of Europe will be disbandedArminiusArnold, M. AsiaticizationAthens, grandeur of incorporated demes of Attika, old tribal divisions modified, school of political training maritime empire ofAttilaAustraliaAustria

Baker, Sir S. Bancroft, HubertBarons, war of theBasileusBatuBelgiumBeneficesBernBonaparte, N. BonapartismBoroughs, special privileges ofBoston, growth of its CommonBoundaries of United StatesBurgundiansBy-laws

Caesar, J. California, social experiments inCanada under Old RégimeCandolle, A. De, Canton, Carlyle on dollar-hunters, Centralized government, weakness of, Century, Ceylon, Châlons, battle of, Charles I. , Charles the Bold, Charles Martel, Charles the Great, Chatham, Lord, Chester, Chicago, Chinese, Christianity, Church, mediaeval, Cities in England and America, origin of, City, the ancient, Civilization, its primary phase, long threatened by neighbouring barbarism, Clan-system of political union, Claudius, emperor, Clement IV. , Cleveland, city of. Colenso, J. W. Colonies, how founded, Comitia, Commendation, Commons, House of, Commons, origin of, Communal farming in England, Communal landholding, Competition, industrial, between Europe and America, Confederation, articles of, Connecticut, men of, defy James II. , Constitution of the United States, Continentals and British, Cromwell, O. , Curia, Delian confederacy, Derne, Departments of France, Dependencies, danger of governing them despotically, Didius Julianus, Diocletian, Domestic service in a New England village, Dorset, Dover, men of, throw papal bull into sea, Duke, Dutch republic, Ealdorman, Ecclesia, Eden, Chuzzlewit's, Electoral commission, Emancipation of slaves, England, maritime supremacy ofEnglish colonization language, future of self-government, how preserved, villages

FaminesFederal union on great scale, conditions of its durableness lies in its flexibilityFederalism, pacific implications of will be adopted by EuropeFederation and conquestFederations in GreeceFeudal system, origin ofFick, A. France, political development of contrasted with England as a colonizerFrance and Germany, their late war their political weight a century henceFrancis I. Franklin, B. FranksFreeman, E. A. FreiburgFrench villages

GauGaul, Roman conquest ofGenevaGensGeorgiaGermany conquered and converted by Charles the GreatGibraltarGothsGreat states, method of forming, notion of their having an inherent tendency to break up difficulty of formingGrimm, J. 

Haddon HallHamburgHamilton, A. Hampden, J. Hannibal's invasion of ItalyHearn, ProfessorHenry VIII. HeretogaHindustan, village communities in cities inHollandHoward of EffinghamHundredHungaryHunnish invasion of Europe

IncorporationIroquois tribes

James II. Jinghis Khan, Judiciary, federal, Kansas, Kemble, J. , Kingship among ancient Teutons, La Salle, R. , Lausanne, Leo's defeat of the Saracens, Lewes, battle of, Liegnitz, battle of, Lincoln, A. , Lincoln, city of, Livingstone, Dr. , Lombards, London, growth of, Louis VI. , Louis XIV. , Madison, J. , Maine, Sir II. , Maintz, Malta, Manorial courts, Manors, origin of, March meetings in New England, Marius, C. , Mark, in England, meaning of the word, Mark-mote, Massachusetts, May assemblies in Switzerland, Melbourne, city of, Middle Ages, turbulence of, Military strength of civilized world, its increase, Minnesota, Mir, or Russian village, Mongolian Khans in Russia, Mongols, Montenegro, Montfort, S. De, Naseby, battle of, Navies less dangerous than standing armies, Nebraska, Nelson's statue in Trafalgar Square, Nevada, New England confederacy, New York, New Zealand, Norman conquest, North America, struggle for possession of, Omar, Pagus, Paris, American dinner-party in, Parish, its relation to township, Parkman, F. Pax romanaPeace of the world, how secured, Peerage of EnglandPeloponnesian warPersian war against GreecePestilencesPetershamPhilip, KingPhratriesPictet, A. PolandPontiacPopulation of United States a century hencePrivate property in landProblem of political civilizationProtestantism and Catholicism, political question at stake betweenPrussia conquered by Teutonic knightsPuritanismPuritans of New England, their origin

Quebec, Wolfe's victory at

Rebellion against Charles I. Redivision of arable landsRe-election of town officersRepresentation unknown to Greeks and Romans origin of federal, in United StatesRexRhode IslandRoman lawRome, plebeian revolution at early stages of secret of its power advantages of its dominion causes of its political failure, powerful influence of, in Middle Ages meaning of its great warsRoses, wars of theRoss, D. Russia, Mongolian conquest of village communities in its late war against the Turks its despotic government contrasted with that of France under Old Régime

SARACENSScandinaviaSecession, war ofSelectmenSelf-government preserved in England lost in FranceShakespeareShiresShottery, cottage atSmith, J. Social warSouth CarolinaSpain, Roman conquest ofSpartaState sovereignty in AmericaStrasburgStrategic position of EnglandStubbs, W. SuezSwiss cantonal assembliesSwitzerland, lesson of its history self-government preserved in

TacitusTariff in AmericaTax-taking despotismsTennyson, A. Teutonic civilization contrasted with Graeco-RomanTeutonic knightsTeutonic village communitiesTexasThegnhoodThirty Years' WarThukydidesTocquevilleTourist in United StatesTown, meaning of the wordTown-meetings, origin ofTown-names formed from patronymicsTownship in New England, in western statesTribe and shireTurks

VersaillesVestry-meetingsVictoria, AustraliaVillage-markVillages of New EnglandVirginia, parishes inVisigoths

Wallace, D. M. War of independenceWarfare, universal in early times how diminished interferes with political development less destructive now than in ancient times how effectively waged by the most pacific of peoplesWashington, city ofWashington, G. William III. WitenagemoteWolfe's victory at Quebec

Yorktown

THE END.