Such has been the result of the first great attempt to break up the federal union in America.  It is not probable that another attempt can ever be made with anything like an equal chance of success.  Here were eleven states, geographically contiguous, governed by groups of men who for half a century had pursued a well-defined policy in common, united among themselves and marked off from most of the other states by a difference far more deeply rooted in the groundwork of society than any mere economic difference,—­the difference between slave-labour and free-labour.  These eleven states, moreover, held such an economic relationship with England that they counted upon compelling the naval power of England to be used in their behalf.  And finally it had not yet been demonstrated that the maintenance of the federal union was something for which the great mass of the people would cheerfully fight.  Never could the experiment of secession be tried, apparently, under fairer auspices; yet how tremendous the defeat!  It was a defeat that wrought conviction,—­the conviction that no matter how grave the political questions that may arise hereafter, they must be settled in accordance with the legal methods the Constitution has provided, and that no state can be allowed to break the peace.  It is the thoroughness of this conviction that has so greatly facilitated the reinstatement of the revolted states in their old federal relations; and the good sense and good faith with which the southern people, in spite of the chagrin of defeat, have accepted the situation and acted upon it, is something unprecedented in history, and calls for the warmest sympathy and admiration on the part of their brethren of the north.  The federal principle in America has passed through this fearful ordeal and come out stronger than ever; and we trust it will not again be put to so severe a test.  But with this principle unimpaired, there is no reason why any further increase of territory or of population should overtask the resources of our government.

In the United States of America a century hence we shall therefore doubtless have a political aggregation immeasurably surpassing in power and in dimensions any empire that has as yet existed.  But we must now consider for a moment the probable future career of the English race in other parts of the world.  The colonization of North America by Englishmen had its direct effects upon the eastern as well as upon the western side of the Atlantic.  The immense growth of the commercial and naval strength of England between the time of Cromwell and the time of the elder Pitt was intimately connected with the colonization of North America and the establishment of plantations in the West Indies.  These circumstances reacted powerfully upon the material development of England, multiplying manifold the dimensions of her foreign trade, increasing proportionately her commercial marine, and giving her in the eighteenth century the dominion