for the North perpetual guarantees of re-union, and irresistible inducements to war against that side which would-be Statesmen and Generals, without a suspicion of the irony of their position, attempt in argument to maintain.

America has more miles of rail and telegraph than all the world, and iron roads, of course, may compete with water roads, but each have their place, and each their advantages and disadvantages. Most of the through traffic to Europe, and much of mediate traffic elsewhere, will of course go by way of New York, and through canals to other centres, which claim also financial and business facilities, but more than enough remains, and must always remain, to warrant all we have said of the great river, and its tributaries. They afford cheap transit always, cannot be worn out, removed, and broken up like iron in war, and are always essential.

With reference to the territory west of the Rocky Mountains, the natural features do not at first sight point so decisively to their incorporation with the political unity of America,* but a territory bounded on one side by the sea, and stretching for twenty degrees alongside an immense continent, both inhabited by a race of intense activity, and with the same language and institutions, cannot, according

* The Hon. Malcolm Cameron is reported to have stated at the London Tavern, on the 21st January, 1863.

"Which (Rocky) mountains have hitherto been deemed a serious obstacle to communication from East to West, but a thorough survey has now proved the existence of passes which are but gentle heights and rolling knolls clothed with verdure on the flanks, and offering no real obstacle to the traveller from the East, who seeks by that route to reach the gold regions."

to all experience, remain unabsorbed by the influences of peace, or unsubdued by the energies of war.

The future, and probably peaceful absorption of Canada, and the annexation of Mexico, are sufficiently obvious, according to all the probabilities of statesmanship. There is no substantive barrier either way, and southwards Panama is the natural boundary, and the Black Yankees are the natural settlers. But these questions are discussed elsewhere, and are not as yet distinctly put in issue by the present conflict.

In reference to Banks, Coin, Commerce, Revenue regulations, weights and measures, and Postal service, the effect of their being conducted on a national system is, with the exception of the first, too obvious to require comment in a book of this description.

The effect, however, of Chase's national banking system is misunderstood by many well-wishers of America, and is misrepresented by all her enemies who understand it. It is properly treated of in the chapter on "Reconstruction." We here refer the reader to Chase's first annual report of Dec. 1861, and to the subsequent ones. He asserts that Government had constitutional powers to regulate commerce, coin, and credit circulation, which last then depended on the laws of thirty-four States, and on some 1600 Banks, whose circulation commonly was in inverse ratio of solvency. He has substituted a circulation secured by national bonds, but based upon private means and credit, thus

binding most of the 1642 banks, and their interests, connection, stock, and note holders, and customers, to the Union. The "State" bank system furnished Secession mainly with funds. Those banks are now generally insolvent, and with the present system the rebellion could scarcely have occurred.

Whatever may be otherwise thought of Chase's finance, this cannot be doubted,-that it is an immense accession to the cause of national unity, and it settles a question debated since 1780, when Hamilton and Knox, Jefferson and Randolph were divided in opinion as to its constitutionality.

We say then, that the teaching of geography confirms all other teachings, that America, whatever else she be, will be for ever one. Of all countries in the world, she more than any other country, must be one,-for reasons commercial, social, and political, and cannot be otherwise. If any man thinks otherwise, he has only to remodel military science; to alter mountain ranges; to turn back the Mississippi, or open Niagara, and guarantee perpetual free passage through frozen latitudes northward; to quench for ever one of the intensest and most powerful nationalities; to reverse motives of self interest; and to extinguish the greed of commercial gain and genius of commercial enterprise. He has only to do these little things, and a few other trifles like them, and the Slave empire may flourish in the stead of the North, to the destruction of free institutions. For if Slavedom flourish, it must expand. Then the

mightiest fabric of human Government, the vastest empire, the best and widest education system, the most orderly and peaceful and progressive nation,—the home and refuge of all the world, where all races, however languishing elsewhere, suddenly spring under new conditions into life, enterprise, and a career, the nation which alone has complete religious and political freedom, where man is man, without let, hindrance, partiality, or handicapping, all this will be scattered, broken, destroyed, and reversed. Rival states, diplomacies, policies, standing armies, frontier fortresses, tariffs, and interests, will take the place of that glorious political fabric which the future is impatient to consummate and crown.

Thank God, however, all this is but the Statecraft of fools, the dream of the weak and the wicked, and these misbegotten twins of the South, with the treason they have spawned between them, will soon be consigned, after a pause of conflict, for America, but as one short dismal day,-to the places whence they came.

UNITY OF IDEAS AND INTERESTS.

THE CONSTITUTION AND GENIUS OF
THE AMERICAN NATION.

POPULAR, "STATE," AND NATIONAL
SOVEREIGNTIES.

LABOUR. FREEDOM. LAW.

BALANCES OF THE CONSTITUTION.
PROPAGANDISM OF FREEDOM.
EQUALITY OF CONDITIONS.

POWER OF ASSOCIATION.

*

"No race of Kings have ever presented above one man of common sense in twenty generations. * * If all the evils which can arise from the republican form of our Government, from this day to the day of judgment, could be put into a scale against what this country (France) suffers from its monarchical form in a week, or England in a month-the latter would preponderate.”

Jefferson, 1787. "Communities have existed aristocratic from their earliest origin, and which became more democratic in each succeeding age.

"But a people having taken its rise in civilisation and democracy, which should gradually establish an inequality of conditions until it arrived at inviolable privileges and exclusive castes would be a novelty in the world; and nothing intimates that America is likely to furnish so singular an example."-De Tocqueville, p. 433, v. 1.

"The Union is an accident * * but the republican form of Government seems to me the natural state of the Americans, which nothing but continued action of hostile causes always acting in the same direction could change into a monarchy."

"Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious sects, they all regard religion in the same manner. They are unanimous upon the general principles which ought to rule Society. From Maine to the Floridas, from the Missouri to the Atlantic Ocean the people is held to be the legitimate source of all power. The same notions are entertained respecting liberty and equality, the liberty of the press, the right of association, the jury, and the responsibility of the agents of Government. We find the same uniformity in the moral and philosophical principles which regulate the daily action of life and govern their conduct. They are not only united together by these common opinions, but they are separated from all other nations by a common feeling of pride * * and are not very remote from believing themselves to belong to a distinct race of mankind."-De Tocqueville, v. 2, p. 424: p. 383, v. 2.