[Sidenote: Tendency towards Centralization.]
It happened that the social institution and evil of slavery, which had become confined to the Southern States, needed the defence of the doctrine of State rights for its continuance. Nullification, in 1833, and secession, in 1861, were the ultimate conclusions of that doctrine, practically applied for the purpose of sustaining the system of human bondage. A State had a right, it was said, to break her "compact" with the Union; and the Southern States, following in the line of this doctrine, did attempt to secede in order to maintain slavery. The war which followed was the rock upon which the doctrine of State rights split. The tide at once turned towards a strong central government. Extraordinary powers, civil, military, and financial, were exercised to put down the rebellion; and some of these powers, once assumed by the general government, have been continued to this day. They have been greatly strengthened by the enormous patronage which has accumulated in the hands of the Executive; by the army of office-holders which, scattered through the land, is subject to the influence of the central power.
Connected with this change are some other changes, scarcely less important. One of these is the establishment, throughout the Union, of universal male suffrage. The emancipation of the slaves wrought a social and economic change the final results of which are still problematical. It also introduced a new political element, by endowing millions of ignorant men with electoral rights for their own protection. Gradually yet steadily through our political history, restrictions upon the suffrage have been swept away. At first, not only was there a property qualification in many of the States, but foreigners and negroes were in some of them altogether excluded from the polls. The fifteenth amendment to the Constitution crowned the edifice of universal suffrage in the United States; and the floodgates, once open, can never be shut again. A set of men once armed with the vote cannot be deprived of it: and all the efforts of Know-nothing movements will probably be vain, whether directed against the freedman, the Chinaman, or the European emigrant. The only way to meet the evils which accompany universal suffrage is by paths of education, and the creation of a pure and sincere public spirit.