skepticism would have been quite justifiable, for European history did not seem to afford any precedents upon which such a forecast of the future could be logically based. Between the various nations of Europe there has certainly always existed an element of political community, bequeathed by the Roman Empire, manifested during the Middle Ages in a common relationship to the Church, and in modern times in a common adherence to certain uncodified rules of international law, more or less imperfectly defined and enforced. Between England and Spain, for example, or between France and Austria, there has never been such utter political severance as existed normally between Greece and Persia, or Rome and Carthage. But this community of political inheritance in Europe, it is needless to say, falls very far short of the degree of community implied in a federal union; and so great is the diversity of language and of creed, and of local historic development, with the deepseated prejudices attendant thereupon, that the formation of a European federation could hardly be looked for except as the result of mighty though quiet and subtle influences operating for a long time from without. From what direction and in what manner such an irresistible though perfectly pacific pressure is likely to be exerted in the future I shall endeavor to show in my next paper. At present we have to observe that the experiment of federal union on a grand scale required as its conditions, first, a vast extent of unoccupied country which could be settled by men of the same race and speech, and secondly, on the part of the settlers, a rich inheritance of political training such as is afforded by long ages of self-government. The Atlantic coast of North America, easily accessible to Europe, yet remote enough to be freed from the political complications of the Old World, furnished the first of these conditions; the history of the English people through fifty generations furnished the second. It was through English self-government, as I argued in my first paper, that England alone among the great nations of Europe was able to found durable and self-supporting colonies. I have now to add that it was only England among all the great nations of Europe that could send forth colonists capable of dealing successfully with the difficult problem of forming such a political aggregate as the United States have become. For obviously the preservation of local self-government is essential to the very idea of a federal union. Without the town-meeting, or its equivalent in some form or other, the federal union would become ipso facto converted into a centralizing imperial government. Should anything of this sort ever happen-should American towns ever come to be ruled by prefects appointed at Washington, and should American States ever become like the administrative departments of France, or even like the counties of England-then the time will have come when men may safely predict the break-up of the American political system by reason of its overgrown dimensions and the diversity of interests between its parts. States so unlike one another as Maine and Louisiana and California can not be held together by the stiff bonds of a centralizing government. The durableness of the federal union lies in its flexibility, and it is this flexibility which makes it the only kind of government, according to modern ideas, that is permanently applicable to a whole continent. If the United States were today a consolidated republic like France, recent events in California might have disturbed the peace of the country. in the federal union, if California, as a State sovereign within its own sphere, adopts a grotesque constitution that aims at infringing on the rights of capitalists, the other States are not directly affected. They may disapprove, but they have neither the right nor the desire to interfere. Meanwhile the laws of nature quietly operate to repair the blunder. Capital flows away from California, and the business of the State is damaged, until presently the ignorant demagogues lose favor, the silly constitution becomes a dead letter, and its formal repeal begins to be talked of. the smallest ripple of excitement disturbs the profound peace of the country at large. It is in this complete independence that is preserved by every State in all matters save those in which the federal principle itself is concerned that we find the surest guarantee of the permanence of the American political system. Obviously no race of men save the race to which habits of self-government and the skillful use of political representation had come to be as second nature could ever have succeeded in founding such a system. But Not Yet even by men of English race, working without let or hinderance from any foreign source, and with the better part of a continent at their disposal for a field to work in, so great a political problem as that of the American Union has not been solved without much toil and trouble. The great problem of civilization-how to secure permanent concert of action without sacrificing independence of action-is a problem which has taxed the ingenuity of Americans as well as of older Aryan peoples. In the year 1788, when our federal union was completed, the problem had already occupied the minds of American statesmen for a century and a half-that is to say, ever since the English settlement of Massachusetts. In 1643 a New England confederation was formed between Massachusetts and Connecticut, together with Plymouth, since merged in Massachusetts, and New Haven, since merged in Connecticut. The confederation was formed for defense against the French in Canada, the Dutch on the Hudson River, and the Indians. But owing simply to the inequality in the sizes of these colonies-Massachusetts more than outweighing the other three combinedthe practical working of this confederacy was never very successful. In 1754, just before the outbreak of the great war which drove the French from America, a general Congress of the colonies was held at Albany, and a comprehensive scheme of union was proposed by Benjamin Franklin, but nothing came of the project at that time. The commercial rivalry between the colonies and their disputes over boundary lines were then quite like the similar phenomena with which Europe had so long been familiar. In 1756 Georgia and South Carolina actually came to blows over the navigation of the Savannah River.* The idea that the thirteen colonies could ever overcome their mutual jealousies so far as to unite in a single political body was received at that time in England with a derision like that which a proposal for a permanent federation of European states might excite in some minds to-day. It was confidently predicted that if the common allegiance to the British crown were once withdrawn, the colonies would forthwith proceed to destroy themselves with internecine war. In fact, however, it was the shaking off of allegiance to the British crown, and the common trials and sufferings of the war of independence, that at last welded the colonies together, * Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, p. 151. As it and made a federal union possible. was, the union was consummated only by degrees. By the Articles of Confederation, agreed on by Congress in 1777, just after the victory at Saratoga, the federal government acted only upon the several State governments, and not directly upon individuals; there was no federal judiciary for the decision of constitutional questions arising out of the relations between the States; and the Congress was not provided with any efficient means of raising a revenue or of enforcing its legislative decrees. Under such a government the difficulty of insuring concerted action was so great that but for the transcendent personal qualities of Washington, the halfheartedness of the British generals opposed to him, and the aid of the French fleet, the war of independence would most likely have ended in failure. After the independence of the colonies was acknowledged, the formation of a more perfect union was seen to be the only method of securing peace and making a nation which should be respected by foreign powers; and so in 1788, after much discussion, the present Constitution of the United States was adopted-a constitution which satisfied but few people at the 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 of securing approximate equality of weight in the federal councils between States of unequal size. The simple device by which this difficulty was at last surmounted has proved effectual, although the inequalities between the States have greatly increased. To-day the State of Rhode Island is smaller than Montenegro, while the State of Texas is larger than the Austrian Empire with Bavaria and Würtemberg thrown in. The population of New York is more than fifty times that of Nevada. Yet New York and Nevada, Rhode Island and Texas, each sends two Senators to Washington, while, on the other hand, in the Lower House, each State has a number of Representatives proportioned to its population. The Upper House of Congress is therefore a federal, while the Lower House is a national, body, and the government is brought into direct contact with the people without endangering the equal rights of the several States. The second great compromise of the American Constitution consists in the group of arrangements by which sovereignty is divided between the States and the general government. In all domestic legislation and jurisdiction, civil and criminal, in all matters relating to tenure of property, marriage and divorce, the fulfillment of contracts, and the punishment of malefactors, each separate State is as completely a sovereign state as France or Great Britain. The attributes of sovereignty with which the several States have parted are the coining of money, the carrying of mails, the imposition of tariff dues, the granting of patents and copyrights, the maintenance of armed ships and troops, and the declaration of war. To insure the stability of the federal union thus formed, the Constitution created a federal judiciary, or "system of United States courts, extending throughout the States, empowered to define the boundaries of federal authority, and to enforce its decisions by federal power. This omnipresent federal judiciary was undoubtedly the most important creation of the statesmen who framed the Constitution. The closely knit relations which it established between the States contributed powerfully to the growth of a feeling of national solidarity throughout the whole country. The United States to-day cling together with a coherency far greater than the coherency of an ordinary federation or league. Yet the primary aspect of the federal Constitution was that of a permanent league, in which each State, while retaining its domestic sovereignty intact, renounced forever its right to make war upon its neighbors, and relegated its international interests to the care of a central council in which * Johnston, American Politics, p. 12. all the States were alike represented, and a central tribunal endowed with purely judicial functions of interpretation. It was the first attempt in the history of the world to apply on a grand scale to the relations between states the same legal methods of procedure which, as long applied in all civilized countries to the relations between individuals, have rendered private warfare obsolete. And it was so far successful that during a period of seventy-two years, in which the United States increased fourfold in extent, tenfold in population, and more than tenfold in wealth and power, the federal union maintained a state of peace more profound than the pax romana. Twenty years ago this unexampled state of peace was suddenly interrupted by a tremendous war, which in its results, however, has served only to bring out with fresh emphasis the pacific implications of federalism. With the eleven revolted States at first completely conquered, and then re-instated with full rights and privileges in the federal union, with their people accepting in good faith the results of the contest, with their leaders not executed as traitors, but admitted again to seats in Congress and in the cabinet, and with all this accomplished without any violent constitutional changes-I think we may fairly claim that the strength of the pacific implications of federalism has been more strikingly demonstrated than if there had been no war at all. Certainly the world never beheld such a spectacle before. In my next and concluding paper I shall return to this point, while summing up the argument and illustrating the part played by the English race in the general history of civilization. BEN IN WATCHES OF THE NIGHT. ENEATH the midnight moon of May, One sheet of silver spreads the bay, One crescent jet the land: The dark ships, mirrored in the stream, Their ghostly tresses shake When will the dead world cease to dream? When will the morning break? Beneath a night no longer May, And, shattered on the frozen shore, GUARDIAN BIRDS. IRST chronologically, for the record of its char guardian bird, is the crocodile watcher, trochilus, or, technically, Hyas ægyptiacus. Herodotus, that remarkably observing old traveller, is the first writer to note the curious relationship existing between this little bird and the crocodile. In his terse and telling fashion he says: "All other beasts and birds avoid the crocodile, but he is at peace with the trochilus, because he receives benefits from it; for when the crocodile issues from the water, and then opens his mouth, which he does most commonly toward the sunset, the trochilus enters his mouth and swallows leeches which cling to his teeth. The huge beast is so pleased that he never injures the little bird." the Subsequent writers, with the sufficient wisdom that comes of much closet study, denied the story of the old Greek on the ground of improbability. On the other hand, the natives find the account too bald, and improve upon it by adding that the zic-zac, as they call the bird, in likeness to its cry, frequently becomes so intent upon his business of picking the crocodile's teeth that he forgets the lapse of time, and continues his operations so longin this respect strikingly like our human trochilus, the dentist-that the monster in sheer weariness must close his mouth. This ungrateful action the trochilus indignantly resents, and at once, with beak and spurs, proceeds to scarify the crocodile's interior, with the result of causing the tired jaws to open once more. GUARDIANS OF THE CROCODILE. Modern writers who have been to Egypt confirm the substance of the story of Herodotus, but are skeptical as to the native addition. They affirm, indeed, that the trochilus is the crocodile's friend in its despite rather than with its consent, and that the occasions when the bird finds itself caught between its ugly protégé's jaws, though infrequent, are final. This is very likely to be true, for the crocodile is certainly rapacious and blood-thirsty to the extreme of sullen brutality. If it be the case, it is fortunate for the trochilus that it is gifted with unusual agility. It belongs to the family of long-legged birds, which includes a great many species, ranging from the spry little snipe to the languid herons and cranes. Its beak is short, but its legs are long and muscular, as they need be to enable it to move with the rapidity for which it is remarkable. When not on duty it remains rather quiet, and seems to wait for the appearance of the ungrateful object of its solicitude with great patience; but when the monster is at VOL. LXX.-No. 417.-27 last moved to bask upon a sand bank, the trochilus is full of activity. It runs busily hither and thither, plucking off and swallowing the leeches that always are to be found adhering to the soft parts of the crocodile's body. The lazy saurian, in the mean time, like those happy mortals who fall asleep under the barber's ministrations, closes his mean little eyes and forgets his cares. Busy as it may be in helping itself to the toothsome leeches, the trochilus has set a sharp eye out for intruders, and above all for man. Should any such approach too near, the sharp cry of the faithful guardian rouses the slumberer, which at once glides away into the water and safety. Turning from this pitiful case of unrequited affection, it will be necessary to take but a few steps into the African jungle to come upon an almost equally ungainly and savage brute guarded with as much care and jealousy by an even more attractive bird than the trochilus. These are the rhinoceros and his faithful attendants the red-beaked ox-biters (Buphaga erythrorhynca), more popularly known. as rhinoceros-birds. These birds, which belong to the great raven family, are, to use Gordon Cumming's words, "the best friends the rhinoceros has." They cling to him through good and evil report; watch over him by day, and perch upon him by night; never leaving him, in fact, as long as he has a tick to his hide-in other words, as long as he has a hide for a tick to burrow in. Ticks, which infest the forests of most parts of the earth, and are particularly plentiful and enterprising in Africa, cause the most exquisite agony to the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and elephant, notwithstand ing the seeming protection of their very thick skin. It is quite probable, indeed, that the seeming protection is only a source of greater suffering, because of the greater difficulty of dislodging the tormentor. To the bird, however, these ticks are as so many nuggets of gold to the prospecting man. Its beak is so constructed as to render the extraction of a deeply imbedded tick only a pleasantly difficult task. What an art this is that man alone can know who has attempted to dislodge a tick from his own skin, and only succeeded in leaving there a safely buried and poisonous head. The ungainly recipient of the bird's attentions is duly grateful, and never, even when suffering great pain from the probing beak, offers any remonstrance, but rather shows, by the liberties it permits, the implicit confidence it reposes in its attendants. In those hot and marshy parts of the world a slight wound soon becomes a serious sore, and in consequence of the attraction it is to flies and other unpleasant little creatures, would soon become the cause of the afflicted animal's death, did not the feathered guardians zealously watch the affected spot, and treat it as skillfully and effectually as any physician could. In Abyssinia the natives dislike the bird, because they ignorantly fancy that the probing of the wounds on their cattle prevents healing. It may be understood from what has been said that the rhinoceros-bird is no careless guardian practicing benevolence |