The third and highest method of forming great political bodies is that of federation.  The element of fighting was essential in the two lower methods, but in this it is not essential.  Here there is no conquest, but a voluntary union of small political groups into a great political group.  Each little group preserves its local independence intact, while forming part of an indissoluble whole.  Obviously this method of political union requires both high intelligence and high ethical development In early times it was impracticable.  It was first attempted, with brilliant though ephemeral success, by the Greeks, but it failed for want of the device of representation.  In later times it was put into operation, with permanent success, on a small scale by the Swiss, and on a great scale by our forefathers in England.  The coalescence of shires into the kingdom of England, effected as it was by means of a representative assembly, and accompanied by the general retention of local self-government, afforded a distinct precedent for such a gigantic federal union as men of English race have since constructed in America.  The principle of federation was there, though not the name.  And here we hit upon the fundamental contrast between the history of England and that of France.  The method by which the modern French nation has been built up has been the Roman method of conquest with incorporation.  As the ruler of Paris gradually overcame his vassals, one after another, by warfare or diplomacy, he annexed their counties to his royal domain, and governed them by lieutenants sent from Paris.  Self-government was thus crushed out in France, while it was preserved in England.  And just as Rome achieved its unprecedented dominion by adopting a political method more effective than any that had been hitherto employed, so England, employing for the first time a still higher and more effective method, has come to play a part in the world compared with which even the part played by Rome seems insignificant.  The test of the relative strength of the English and Roman methods came when England and France contended for the possession of North America.  The people which preserved its self-government could send forth self-supporting colonies; the people which had lost the very tradition of self-government could not.  Hence the dominion of the sea, with that of all the outlying parts of the earth, fell into the hands of men of English race; and hence the federative method of political union—­the method which contains every element of permanence, and which is pacific in its very conception—­is already assuming a sway which is unquestionably destined to become universal.