27.  Compare the strength of the national government to-day with its strength in the past.

28.  Who are citizens according to the Constitution?  Is a woman a citizen?  Is a child a citizen?  Are Indians citizens?  Are foreigners residing in this country citizens?  Are children born abroad of American parents citizens?  Can one person be a citizen of two nations at the same time, or of two states, or of two towns?  Explain.

29.  To what laws is an American vessel on the ocean subject?

30.  Show how the interests and needs of the various sections of the country present wide differences.  Compare mining sections with agricultural, and both with manufacturing; Pacific states with Atlantic; Northern states with Southern.  What need of mutual consideration exists?

31.  Name all the political divisions from the smallest to the greatest in which you live.  A Cambridge (Mass.) boy might, for example, say, “I live in the third precinct of the first ward, in the first Middlesex representative district, the third Middlesex senatorial district, the third councillor district, and the fifth congressional district.  My city is Cambridge; my county, Middlesex, etc.”  Name the various persons who represent you in these several districts.

32.  May state and local officers exercise authority on United States government territory, as, for example, within the limits of an arsenal or a custom-house?  May national government officers exercise authority in states and towns?

33.  What is a sovereign state?  Is New York a sovereign state? the United States? the Dominion of Canada?  Great Britain?  Explain.

34.  When sovereign nations disagree, how can a settlement be effected?  What is the best way to settle such a disagreement?  Illustrate from history the methods of negotiation, of arbitration, and of war.

35.  When two states of the Federal Union disagree, what solution of the difficulty is possible?

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

THE FEDERAL UNION.—­For the origin of our federal constitution, see Bancroft’s History of the United States, final edition, vol. vi., N.Y., 1886; Curtis’s History of the Constitution, 2 vols., N.Y., 1861, new edition, vol. i., 1889; and my Critical Period of American History, Boston, 1888, with copious references in the bibliographical note at the end.  Once more we may refer advantageously to J.H.U.  Studies, II., v.-vi., H.C.  Adams, Taxation in the United States, 1789-1816; VIII, i.-ii., A.W.  Small, The Beginnings of American Nationality.  See also Jameson’s Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States in the Formative Period, 1775-1789, Boston, 1889, a very valuable book.

On the progress toward union during the colonial period, see especially Frothingham’s Rise of the Republic of the United States, Boston, 1872; also Scott’s Development of Constitutional Liberty in the English Colonies of America, N.Y., 1882.