And yet it is very possible, that the Union will not continue long on its present footing. Are the relations established between the States by the constitution of 1789, the most perfect that can be devised now? Ought not the unforeseen formation of the two great groups of the West and the Southwest be followed by some modification of those relations? Would not the subdivision of the general confederacy into three subordinate confederacies, conformable to the three great territorial divisions, the North, the South, and the West, with a more intimate union between the members of each group, have the effect of satisfying the advocates of State rights, without endangering the principle of union? Would not this arrangement be the means of giving more elasticity to the Union? Could not the existence of three partial confederacies be reconciled with that of a central authority, invested with the undisputed powers of the present Federal government, one army, one navy, one diplomatic representation abroad, one common right of citizenship, one Supreme Court, and, as far as possible, one system of customs, and one Bank? These are questions, which it will, perhaps, be worth while to examine some day, and even at no distant day. But it would be desirable, that they should be approached and discussed with calmness. If they should be unexpectedly raised in a period of irritation and bad feelings, they would be the signal of a deplorable catastrophe. Union gives strength; North America, once parcelled out into hostile fragments, would be of no more weight in the balance of the world, than the feeble republics of South America.
[P] An act has been passed by the Pennsylvania legislature, providing that 2,000 pounds shall make a ton.
Which is the first people in the world? There is no nation which does not make pretensions to this superiority. Who in France has not sung in the words of Béranger, "Queen of the world, oh my country! oh France!" in the full conviction, that the French nation was predestined to be forever at the head of the human race, to eclipse all others, in peace and in war? For myself, before I had crossed the frontier, I believed most implicitly, that we were not only the most generous and chivalric of people, the most intellectual and ingenious, the first in the fine arts, the most amiable and brilliant; but also that we were the most enlightened, the first in political and industrial arts, the most inventive and the most practical, in short, the pattern-nation, perfect and unrivalled. Notwithstanding the rains and fogs of Paris, I supposed our climate the mildest and the most serene in the world; in spite of the Landes and Champagne, I considered it undeniable, that our soil was the most fertile, our scenery the most picturesque, in the world. Trusting to the reports of our exhibitions of industrial skill, I was ready to swear that we had left our neighbours of England a hundred leagues behind, and that their manufacturers, to avoid being reduced to beggary by our competition, would soon be obliged to come over to learn how to smelt and refine iron, how to spin cotton, how to manufacture steel, how to manage the most gigantic establishments in the most economical manner, how to despatch mountains of merchandise beyond sea most expeditiously.