If one may judge from a great deal of writing on American matters which one sees in English journals and the demands for federal interference in America in State affairs which they constantly make, the greatest difficulty Irish Home Rule has to contend with is the difficulty which men bred in a united monarchy and under an omnipotent Parliament experience in grasping what I may call the federal idea.  The influence of association on their minds is so strong that they can hardly conceive of a central power, worthy of the name of a government, standing by and witnessing disorders or failures of justice in any place within its borders, without stepping in to set matters right, no matter what the Constitution may say.  They remind me often of an old verger in Westminster Abbey during the American civil war who told me that “he always knew a government without a head couldn’t last.”  Permanence and peace were in his mind inseparably linked with kingship.  That even Mr. Dicey has not been able to escape this influence appears frequently in his discussions of federalism.  He, of course, thoroughly understands the federal system as a jurist, but when he comes to discuss it as a politician he has evidently some difficulty in seeing how a government with a power to enforce any commands can be restrained by contract from enforcing all commands which may seem to be expedient or salutary.  Consequently the cool way in which the Federal Government here looks on at local disorders seems to him a sign, not of the fidelity of the President and Congress to the federal pact, but of some inherent weakness in the federal system.

The true way to judge the federal system, however, either in the United States or elsewhere, is by observing the manner in which it has performed the duties assigned to it by the Constitution.  If the Government at Washington performs these faithfully, its failure to prevent lawlessness in New York or the oppression of minorities in Connecticut is of no more consequence than its failure to put down brigandage in Macedonia.  Possibly it would have been better to saddle it with greater responsibility for local peace; but the fact is that the framers of the Constitution decided not to do so.  They did not mean to set up a government which would see that every man living under it got his due.  They could not have got the States to accept such a government.  They meant to set up a government which should represent the nation worthily in all its relations with foreigners, which should carry on war effectively, protect life and property on the high seas, furnish a proper currency, put down all resistance to its lawful authority, and secure each State against domestic violence on the demand of its Legislature.