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federal power will be entirely extinguished by its inability to protect itself and to maintain peace in the country. The Union is sanctioned by the manners and desires of the people; its results are palpable, its benefits visible. When it is perceived that the weakness of the federal government compromises the existence of the Union, I do not doubt that a reaction will take place with a view to increase its strength.
The government of the United States is, of all the federal governments which have hitherto been established, the one which is most naturally destined to act. As long as it is only indirectly assailed by the interpretation of its laws, and as long as its substance is not seriously altered, a change of opinion, an internal crisis, or a war, may restore all the vigour which it requires. The point which I have been most anxious to put in a clear light is simply this; many people, especially in France, imagine that a change of opinion is going on in the United States, which is favourable to a centralization of power in the hands of the president and the congress. I hold that a contrary tendency may distinctly be observed. So far is the federal government from acquiring strength, and from threatening the sovereignty of the states, as it grows older, that I maintain it to be growing weaker and weaker, and that the sovereignty of the Union alone is in danger. Such are the facts which the present time discloses. The future conceals the final result of this tendency, and the events which may check, retard, or accelerate, the changes I have described; but I do not affect to be able to remove the veil which hides them from our sight.
OF THE REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, AND WHAT THEIR CHANCES OF DURATION ARE.
The Union is Accidental.— The republican Institutions have more prospect of Permanence.—A Republic for the Present the natural State of the Anglo-Americans.—Reason of this.—In order to destroy it, all the Laws must be changed at the same Time, and a great Alteration take place in Manners.—Difficulties experienced by the Americans in creating an Aristocracy.
The dismemberment of the Union, by the introduction of war into the heart of those states which are now confederate, with
