gandism of Freedom and neighbourhood naturally and ultimately extend. The Lakes of Canada are moving roads,-not barriers. The races and languages of Canada are French as well as English, and as much American as either. American Eagles and English Sovereigns divide the circulation of gold, while the silver coinage is almost exclusively American. The influences that tend to unite Canada with America, if not in name, in reality and substance, may be peaceful and slow, but they are irresistible. It is notorious how Napoleon, in a tract prepared at Ham, pointed out how a certain spot near Panama possesses all the requisites for a great world-centre of commerce. I mention elsewhere these ideas of Napoleon III. as to Panama. Similar purposes visited the mighty mind of Pitt, who said, "you must take Panama.' But see the sequel as to the necessary effects of this transit on the commerce of the world in favour of America, and see Captain Pim's "Gate of the Pacific," as to the idea that America intends to retain and to monopolise its advantages, and the consequent necessary abandonment by England of Australia, New Zealand, and British Columbia. The leading facts of this great question have been familiar to everybody but the English, ever since the last century, when the Abbé Raynal wrote, "Some careful observers affirm that a quiet possession of the Mosquito country would one day be more valuable to Great Britain than all the Islands which that nation possesses in the West Indies." It is a strange comment on English "Statesmanship" that with the keys of the Gates of the East and of the West, of Suez and Panama, in the hands of her possible enemies, England makes no worthy effort at neutralisation of transit routes. The master of Mexico would of course control the Tehuantepec route, and his power in respect to the other two passages cannot fail to be enormous. According to a report presented to Congress and hereafter referred to, the securing to Americans the Panama passage will give to much of the American Pacific commerce, an advantage equal to fourteen thousand miles, as compared with the old relations between American and English shipping. "When in the History of all time," we may well ask with Buchanan (Message, January, 1861), "when has a confederacy been bound together by such strong ties of mutual interest. Each portion of it is dependent upon all, and all upon each portion for prosperity and domestic security. Free trade throughout the whole supplies the wants of one from the productions of another, and scatters wealth everywhere.” And the political standpoint is still stronger, now that Slavery is dead,— "The question then is," says Mill (Representative Government, p. 310), "whether the different parts of a nation require to be governed in a way so essentially different, that it is not probable the same Legislature and the same ministry or administrative body will give satisfaction to them all, unless this be the case, which is a question of fact, it is better for them to be completely united." And in this view it should be remembered, that, although the rebellion began with fraud and conspiracy against the Union, with Lynch law and compulsion on the majority of Southerners, and in violation of the State Constitutions,-yet the necessities of war, its intense purpose, its absolute discipline, its supreme devotion to an idea, and the habitual dedication of life itself to a cause,—may have educated many Southern partisans to a height of character in direct contrast with their cause. Let others sing the glories of the chivalry that fights for human wrongs; we acknowledge with thankfulness, that the nation of negroes can never now be used as the labour basis of the far South, -that they are identified with the American nation, and the cause of freedom,-that instead of being available for a future slave empire, they will carry, as they only could, a propagandism of freedom into warmer latitudes that "may be hereafter acquired” for the nation. The great fighting South was the intensest concentration of Power for evil, since Satan sat on his burning throne, and his legions were still for war! It was the most complete administrative military Despotism that ever existed, but it had opposed to it the Genius and Individuality of the Teutonic race, the Democracy, the Law and Freedom loving race, which will have before all things equal social and political conditions,—the great Puritan race which never had a conqueror and never will. The Norman race, the Cavaliers, the race that cares not for inequality, if splendidly led, was beaten in England by that other, and it has gone to America only to be still further depleted by the larger emigration of Puritans, by the Negroes, and by ever repeated additions of the German stock. The South was an Oligarchy organising a Democracy, hence its strength and its weakness. It had against it ultimately the natural race-tendency of the ideas of the majority of the American people, the greater strength of the Puritan ideal, and its superior wealth, equipment, and population. The South was strong. It organised and fought as a Slaveholding Oligarchy only can. It led a Democracy that could fight as men of Individual thought and action do. It fails because there is such a thing as moral, industrial, social, and political propagandism, and because between it and the North, there is no adequate difference of race, language, or institution, boundary, climate, or Religion. First, A word here upon two other subjects. why has the rule of the All not produced even better "Government" in America? Second, why have not "civil rights" been more completely acted upon there in the matter of "Equality?" I mean during some thirty years before the war, To the first question I answer, "Democracy has failed only so far as its postulates have not been granted." Democracy demands development. Americans have, to a certain extent, been partially educated, uneducated, and wrongly educated. As far as the cause prevails the result follows. The South, a third part in numbers, has been wrongly, perversely, educated. Another large division has been partially educated, by and for frontier life. Immigrants are often partially educated, uneducated, and wrongly educated. In a word, Democracy fails where it is not Democracy. Other systems fail, because they are those systems. This mis-development of the South has poisoned the last sixty years of National History, and the balance of parties, North and South, Democrats and Republicans, lent, from the question of President downwards, a factitious value to compromises, "availabilities" and intrigues. This contrary principle the principle of Oligarchy in Politics and in Society-gathered itself up against Equality, and until that mighty issue is tried out, minor ones must wait. ""Tis dangerous when a meaner nature comes Slavery and Oligarchy not only warred directly against Freedom, but they warred against the intellect and progress of the country which was for |