The effect of this mal-adaptation of the state political institutions to their place in a Federal system has been much more important than is usually supposed.  The former were planned to fulfill a much completer responsibility than the one which they actually possessed.  The public business of a wholly or technically independent state naturally arouses in its citizens a much graver sense of responsibility than does the public business of a state in the American Union.  The latter retained many important duties; but it surrendered, if not the most essential of its functions, at least the most critical and momentous, while in the exercise of the remainder it was to a certain extent protected against the worst consequences of mistakes or perversities.  It surrendered the power of making peace or declaring war.  Its relation to the other states in the Union was strictly defined, so that it had no foreign policy and responsibilities corresponding to its purely domestic ones.  Its citizens were aware that the protection of such fundamental institutions as that of private property was lodged in the Federal government, and that in the end that government had the power to guarantee them even against the worst consequences of domestic disorder.  Thus the state governments were placed in the easy situation of rich annuitants, who had surrendered the control of some political capital in order to enjoy with less care the opportunities of a plethoric income.

The foregoing comment is not intended as any disparagement of a Federal as contrasted with a centralized political system.  Its purpose is to justify the statement that, in a Federal system, local political institutions should be adapted to their necessarily restricted functions.  The state governments were organized as smaller copies of the central government, and the only alterations in the type permitted by the Democrats looked in the direction of a further distribution of responsibility.  But a system which was adapted to the comprehensive task of securing the welfare of a whole people might well fail as an engine of merely local government,—­even though the local government retained certain major political functions.  As a matter of fact, such has been the case.  The system of a triple division of specific powers, each one of which was vigorous in its own sphere while at the same time checked and balanced by the other branches of the government, has certain advantages and certain disadvantages.  Its great advantage is its comparative safety, because under it no one function of government can attain to any dangerous excess of power.  Its great disadvantage consists in the division of responsibility among three independent departments, and the possibility that the public interest would suffer either from lack of cooeperation or from actual conflicts.  In the case of the general government, the comparative safety of the system of checks and balances was of paramount importance, because the despotic exercise of its vast