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WHY THE FEDERAL SYSTEM IS NOT ADAPTED TO ALL PEOPLES, AND HOW THE ANGLO-AMERICANS WERE ENABLED TO ADOPT IT.
Every Federal system contains defects which baffle the efforts of the legislator.—The Federal system is complex.—It demands a daily exercise of discretion on the part of the citizens.—Practical knowledge of government common amongst the Americans.—Relative weakness of the Government of the Union, another defect inherent in the Federal system.—The Americans have diminished without remedying it.—The sovereignty of the separate States apparently weaker, but really stronger, than that of the Union.—Why.—Natural causes of union must exist between confederate peoples beside the laws.—What these causes are amongst the Anglo-Americans.—Maine and Georgia, separated by a distance of a thousand miles, more naturally united than Normandy and Britany.—War, the main peril of confederations.—This proved even by the example of the United States.—The Union has no great wars to fear.—Why.—Dangers to which Europeans would be exposed if they adopted the Federal system of the Americans.
When a legislator succeeds, after persevering efforts, in exercising an indirect influence upon the destiny of nations, his genius is lauded by mankind, whilst, in point of fact, the geographical position of the country which he is unable to change, a social condition which arose without his cooperation, manners and opinions which he cannot trace to their source, and an origin with which he is unacquainted, exercise so irresistible an influence over the courses of society, that he is himself borne away by the current, after an ineffectual resistance. Like the
