complished with ease and success. It has been the great misfortune of Europe, that, although the several states have always formed, for many important purposes one political community, they have never acknowledged, for these or any other objects, any common authority. Hence, there has always existed a large class of interests, beyond the reach of the existing establishments intended to adjust conflicting claims, and preserve the public peace. A party, which conceives itself to be injured in an affair, belonging to this category, has no common tribunal to appeal to for redress; and must either submit in silence to the supposed wrong, or do itself justice by force. In every conflict of interests, each party, being judge in its own case, naturally conceives itself to be in the right; and nothing would prevent a recurrence to force in every such instance, but considerations of policy. Hence, whenever there is the least probability, that a party, either by its own resources, or by such assistance as it can procure, will be able to obtain any advantage in an open struggle, an appeal to arms is resorted to at once. Perpetual war is, therefore, of necessity, the basis of the international system of a cluster of sovereign states, thus situated in regard to each other. We find, accordingly, that perpetual war has been, in practice, the basis of their actual relations from

the earliest period up to the present day; and it is now universally received, as the leading axiom in what is called public law, that nations are natural enemies, exactly in proportion to the extent of their natural and habitual relations. Through the whole quarter of the globe, subject to this system, the nations, that border on each other, are regarded as natural enemies, because the relations between them are more close and intimate, than between any others. Thus the science of practical politics in Europe, instead of being founded, as is sometimes said, on the same basis with that of morals, proceeds upon a directly opposite principle. Morality, or the law of nature, has established a community of interest and feeling among individuals. It tells them, that they are made to live together; and that their sympathy will increase in proportion to the increasing intimacy of their relations. But the public law of Europe has consecrated the contrary maxims, that nations naturally hate cach other, and that the extent of their relations is the precise measure of their mutual hostility. And such is the vice of the European system, that the principle, however odious in theory, is true in fact, and must be admitted and acted upon by every practical politician.

Here, then, we see demonstrated by contrast in the general European system, still more forcibly,

because upon a larger scale, than in the German confederacy, the superiority of the political institutions of the United States, where politics and morals coincide in their foundations, and where between communities, as between individuals, the extent of intercourse is the measure of sympathy, and not of hatred. The United States form, like Europe, a vast body politic, composed of independent communities, nearly equal in number to the European, and, though now inferior in population, destined, probably, at no very distant period, to equal or surpass them in this respect, as well as in the other. But by the wise and happy institution of a common government, the conflicting interests between individuals of different states are adjusted in the same easy and quiet way as the rest; and the separate states, having no relations with each other or with foreign powers in their sovereign capacity, they exist only for the purpose of internal administration. By this simple and excellent provision an entirely new character is given to the international concerns of these communities. Perpetual peace forms the basis of their relations, instead of perpetual war; and the system, which has so long passed for the idle dream of a few benevolent enthusiasts, is actually realized, and exists in full practice through a whole quarter of the globe. It is in the effects of

the union still more, than in those of our pure and simple forms of administration, that we immediately feel the great advantages of our political situation. On the other hand, it is principally to the purity and simplicity of these forms, that the union owes its establishment and stability; as it is chiefly the artificial and unnatural form of the European institutions, which stands in the way of a general government here, and fastens upon this continent, as it did upon the communities of ancient Greece, the curse of interminable civil wars; a plague, which consumed the vital strength of those glorious states, and, unless it can be checked, will in like manner ruin Europe.

There was a period in the history of Europe, when the several states exhibited a tendency towards consolidation upon a plan conformable to the degree of civilization and intelligence, which then existed ; and had this disposition been sufficiently favoured by the operation of general causes or of accidental events, affairs might have taken a much more fortunate turn, than they did; certainly a very different one. I allude to the epoch of the greatest authority of the catholic church and the popes. At that time Europe was approaching very nearly and very fast to the form of one ecclesiastical commonwealth or theocracy. The jurisdiction of the common govern

ment was acknowledged for spiritual purposes by all the states; and it was encroaching rapidly upon the temporal power of the military chiefs or kings. Some of these even acknowledged themselves the vassals of the church, and permanently held their kingdoms of the pope, as Naples. England, under king John, carried its submission to the same extent. The people, being then throughout Europe in a state of unresisting bondage, took of course no part in the matter, excepting in the form of vassals and mercenary troops; and the question was, which of the two castes, ecclesiastical and military, that shared the power between them, should obtain the ultimate ascendancy. Had the clergy prevailed, Europe would have taken the form of a great ecclesiastical state, like the empire of the Mahometan caliphs, and that of Japan during a long period of its history. The precise position, which the military chiefs would have held in such an empire, it is now unnecessary to conjecture. These chiefs, having finally triumphed, and defeated the power of the clergy, the general body politic assumed the form of a cluster of independent states, under military governments. We now consider this success as necessary or natural, as well as rightful and just; and regard the pretensions of the clergy, as an arrogant attempt at usurpation. In reality, if we look more