Political Science Of The State

POLITICAL SCIENCE.
dominant in one in another has hardly any votaries, this is
one separating cause, which added to others may break up
the union. On the other hand, if the same Christian de-
nominations are spread everywhere, this will be a potent
cause for continuing the union, for the intercourse of sects
is a closer bond in a country than is generally imagined.
Again, the same general conception of liberty and the same
institutions have a great binding force. For us to live under
English institutions, to have the municipal and special forms
of rights that our ancestors had, facilitated our coming to-
gether very greatly. There was one institution, slavery,
that divided us—not indeed at first so much as afterwards,
when it was seen to be in violent opposition to our principles
of liberty; and this wedge was strong enough to divide the
republic.
How jar small monarchies, or governments of various
kinds near one another, speaking the same language, and
having nearly the same laws, can be united in a permanent
union of the more compact sort, may be made a question.
We shall consider it when we come to the forms of the Ger-
manic body. We only remark here that monarchies, espe-
cially if not of the more limited sort, will naturally dread
parting with political power; they will prefer a league of
states to a state formed out of a league, and under such a
constitution will not readily consent to any great supervision
being exercised over them, nor to the strict control of supreme
courts set up by a league.
The earliest attempts to create some sort of federal union
would naturally stop at giving to a central government or ad*
ministration the least power consistent with the purposes for
which the union was formed. For no existing state likes to
part with power ; and the city*governments, accustomed to
do all political acts by the immediate action of the citizens
and through agents of their own, would be slow to trust
other states—even states closely allied to them in language
and institutions-with a check on their power, unless it were
terminable at will.