be the nature of its polity.  In a Federation every citizen is influenced by a double allegiance.  He owes fealty to the central Government; he owes fealty also to his Canton or State.  National allegiance and local allegiance divide and perplex the feelings even of loyal citizens.  Unless the national sentiment predominate, the Federation will go to pieces at any of those crises when the interest or wishes of any of the States conflict with the interest or wishes of the Union.  So keen an observer and profound a critic as De Tocqueville believed that both the American and the Swiss Federations would make shipwreck on this rock.  He was mistaken; he did not allow for the rapid development of national sentiment.  But his error was pardonable.  The leaders of the Sonderbund did prefer the interest of Lucerne to the unity of Switzerland.  Lee and Jackson were disloyal to the Union, because they were loyal to Virginia.  Leading officers of the United States army, soldiers educated at Westpoint, trained the armies of the Confederates.  They were men of unblemished honour; they were, some of them, not originally zealous in the cause of secession, but they believed that their duty to their State—­to Virginia, to South Carolina, or to Georgia—­was paramount over their duty to the Government at Washington.  If Virginia had stood by the Union, General Lee might, in all probability, have been the conqueror of the Confederate States, of which he was the hero.  Ireland has had far graver causes for disaffection towards the English Government than any of the reasons alleged for the secession of Virginia; but Irish officers and Irish soldiers have always been perfectly loyal to England.  The reason of the difference is obvious; the officers of the English army have never been distracted by the difficulties of divided allegiance.  Make Ireland one of the States of a Confederacy, and these difficulties will at once arise.  Irish officers and Irish soldiers, members of the Irish State—­paid by and to a certain extent under the command of the Irish Government—­can hardly be blamed if in times of civil differences, leading it may be to civil war, they should feel more loyalty to their State than to the Union.  This Union, be it remembered, would in such a case be nothing but Great Britain under a new and less impressive title.

The existence and nature of the Federal bond is calculated to supply both the causes and occasions of such differences.

Home Rulers, it is clear, form already most exaggerated hopes of the benefits to be conferred on Ireland by Home Rule; and, further, in their own minds (naturally enough) confound Federalism with national independence.