ments that have moulded and are moulding the population of this country from being mere populus or demos into an ethnos or nation.

The sense of the necessity of a total ethical organism to our full development could not arise while it was held, on both sides of the Atlantic, that the imperial power of England could, either socially or politically, supply this want. It required the successful assertion of our independence to quicken the true sense of right here as well as there. It had existed, as an indefinite longing, with a few Americans like Franklin, in 1754 already, and it was occasionally entertained by some English statesmen, but the masses in neither country were then alive to it. Such a thing as a British nation was indeed then hardly born. The Union of England and Scotland, though formed early in the eighteenth century, was not perfected before the battle of Culloden in 1746, and the Irish Union was not consummated before the dawn of this century. In fact, it was our Revolution that taught England better ways in the government of colonies, as well as in their treatment of the home-folks, that now constitute the British realm. England, grasping as ever (a trick we have learned of them), is now warned not to push authority too far, and it is prompting in Canada, South Africa, Australia, and even in India, the formation of peoples and societies, in which absolute power shall not be the basis of government. Our Revolution was, so far as England was concerned, the first successful resistance to extra territorial usurpation of sovereignty over other peoples.

It is in this connection instructive for us to break in upon our argument for a moment, and to turn to the present condition of one of the British colonies-Victoria. There the contest between the political forces is similar to ours. They have, like us, adopted a Constitution, and then attempted to carry on their politics upon British partisan models; and office-seeking, officeholding, and office-expelling is their, as it is our, all-absorbing occupation; and they are, of course, in the same quandary as we, because there, too, partisanism has run away with the people and the government. At the opening of their Parliament (July 9, 1878), the viceregal speech announced this view by saying: "The attempt to embody the unwritten Constitution of England within the rigid limits of the statute has been found not to be a success, the written Constitution being wanting in that elasticity which is attributed to its prototype." This proves, what we ever have contended for; viz.: that a people permanently divided into two pseudo-national parties, that are no part of the written Constitution, can never solve the problem

involved in elevating a population into an ethical organism. Such parties are elements of discord. Concord means death to them. And our party government, and no other element, either inherent in the country or forming a part of our institutions, is to blame for the seemingly insolvable condition of all our public questions. Does not the reader see, that they are retained as means for party squabbles?

Thus the substitution of party necessities for social necessities changed the entire course of American politics. We shall, however, discuss the effects produced upon the several questions in special chapters, and can here only refer to the general fact. That it is still the all-absorbing standpoint from which every public measure is decided, is proof positive that we are not an organic commonwealth. You might as well claim that an ecclesiastical organization that is permanently divided into sects is the universal Church, and can evolve religion. No! Exconstitutional parties and sects are evidences of deep defects in church and state; and their presence in our federal union indicates that the true relations of the states and the people have not been found nor inscribed on our fundamental law; that, in fact, the real constitution is still to be made, and that the organs that are to enact an intelligent, virtuous, and wise collective public will are still to be instituted. And if we are asked to point out where the misdirection had its beginning, we have to answer as Socrates did the Athenians: "It came because the people essayed to govern themselves without experienced rulers. Government is a science, and a difficult science. States, as well as ships, need experienced pilots." The American people thought they ruled because they voted, but a greater mistake never was committed. It could end only where it began; to wit in a mechanical counting of tickets.

Had these parties of ours been an openly recognized part of the general organism, as they are in Great Britain, and been, as there, under the guidance of acknowledged leaders; and, while such a dual people could not be the highest order of organic public life, yet the ill effects would have been, as in Great Britain, reduced to a minimum. But our people only repeated in their parties what they had done as to the regular government; they would be the rulers themselves. And, as might have been expected, they were soon, like all grasping sovereigns, in the hands of flatterers, who stooped and degraded themselves, so that they might gain popular favor. The outcome was a more and more spoiled people, and a more and more corrupt body of officials. Before the people opened to men a public career they said to them, "First fall down and worship me." On the

other hand, those that gained power in this way recompensed themselves by feathering their own nests and those of their friends; and this is the reason why we have made such slow progress in becoming one ethical people, and why we have made such hot haste to get up two immoral parties. And though it is the bitter irony of fate, yet it is logical, that these parties of ours have to stand sentinel on each other's rascalities, and to abuse each other and to pretend to be honest. Their watchword is (sic!)—

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."

Where, oh where? is the public authority in this country that can say, with Duke Eberhardt of Würtemberg: "In the densest forest, and in the darkest night, can I lay myself down to sleep in the lap of every one of my people"? Sleep! Neither the people nor the Government ever enjoys it. And the moral that shines from Shakespeare's couplet,

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,"

could easily be paraphrased to exhibit to mankind the eternally disturbed condition of the American people.

The realities of a country and its people are the inherent causes of their life time without end; while the idealities, the ethics, and the intelligences that prevail in a country, determine the degree of advancing prosperity which the inhabitants of a land shall enjoy. If they are high toned and well tempered, then a population is constantly rising in all that makes a nation truly great; but if they are low toned, fanatical, or uneconomic, they will produce sinking conditions, even with a rich and powerful people. A modern author (Stein) expresses that as follows: "To the natural existence of a state attaches itself the thoroughly independent life of a people. The people are the soul of the state, viz.: the conception it has of itself. It is first a self-producing and then a self-consuming force, but then also a personified state at rest. In the former sense a people appear as population; in the second, as nationality."

Now this rest or self-poise of the public mind has never yet been attained by our people; because we have, bound up as we are in our parties, made the offices and jobs of government just as much the race-ground for the cupidities of men, as the commercial pursuits generally. Jobbers on 'Change, we are also jobbers in politics, and transitions of men and practices from one to the other are by no means seldom; they are preparatory schools to each other, and personal, not public, advantage is the universal aim.

It may now be interposed that we are exaggerating the evils produced by our exconstitutional and inorganic parties, and that we are overlooking other causes, such as the large and diversified area of the country itself, the still wandering character of our population, the diversities as to race, religion, and social manners. We admit that these have something to do with our defective national developments; but we must insist, nevertheless, that their evils, whatever they may be, have been aggravated by our partisanism, and that with a truly organic public life they would have passed away almost unnoticed, because their effect was always transitory. We have shown in the preceding chapter that the geographical formation has not been in the way of our being organic, and have also explained in this chapter how conducive to the affiliations of our populations it is, that the European specialties should have been rasped off by the socialities of America. Similarly are we correcting each other. The Yankee that has migrated westward has more nationalization in him than he that remained at home, and the same can be said as to the Pennsylvanians, the Marylanders, &c. And the return of Westerners to eastern localities has also been beneficial. Evidently, then, we had to be a moving people to take up the first rudiments of nationalization. We can say, then, in all the seriousness of truth, that our migratory character has not impeded, but rather promoted nationalization. Let us now examine into the other points. above presented, and do it at the hand of a few statistics.

The total population of the United States-see Census of 1870 -was 38,925,598. It consisted of

Foreign-born Whites to the number of (a
half a million of Canadians included)

Chinese

5,493,712
63,754

Among the last-named are no doubt a few miscellaneous remnants not large enough for special mention, such as descendants. from negroes that no longer show their colored blood, also descendants from West Indian, Central and South American immigrants. There are now in the United States but about 55,000 Central and South Americans, and they are partly negroes. In arriving at any conclusions as to the question before us, we may as well exclude the Chinese and the Indians, because they have had very little influence on the ethical character of

the nation. Their treatment has, however, tested its calibreand certainly not favorably;-but not affected its formation. There remain, therefore, to be considered only about five millions of negroes and over sixteen millions of foreigners and natives of foreign parentage. Assuming now that the children of foreigners share their parents' proclivities (which is, however, not always the case), we find that, of the foreign element, a little over one-third, or 1,855,527 out of 5,493,712 foreign born, is Irish; not quite one-third-1,709,531-is German, and the remaining one-third is English, Scotch, Canadian, and a few other small remnants. And it is therefore plain that the foreign element is a divided element, whose parts largely counteract each other. Such a thing as a combined movement for any special foreignism, either for political, religious, or social ends, is in itself an impossibility, except as a transitory phenomenon. And in passing upon this point, we must also bear in mind that it is a political question which we are considering, and that the injurious effect, these populatory elements are said to have had on our politics, is the issue.

Now, as to the negroes, it must again be stated, as in the case of the Chinese, that while they have tried the temper of our ethics-and the result does not flatter us—and are doing so still, they have really had almost nothing to do with their formation. Their ancestors brought no ethics with them from Africa, unless docility be the elementary ingredient. What public spirit they have certainly not good-they have acquired here, and it was entirely passive up to 1870, except so far as an ardent desire for personal liberty has led to appeals to the inner justice of the American mind. Their enslavement furnished an issue for reflection and action; but the negro race did not, in itself, contribute to make our conduct either more or less wise or foolish.

This leaves, however, the side issue open-whether the American public mind would have solved the negro or respectively the slavery question earlier and correcter if its populatory elements had been freer of Irish and German intermixture. And as these elements were almost entirely excluded from the regular constitutional public organs, their adverse influence must have been exercised in our party politics, and there must have occurred the obstruction to the so-called higher Anglo or Scotch or native American ethical inclinations. We know that such a showing cannot be made; that in truth, so far as the Germans, at least, are concerned, the evidence is all the other way.

And right here we must bring up the fact that the negro or slavery question was solved without civil commotion as long as