of Washington, the centre and the seat of the imperial government, has no State rights, being extra-provincial.

The imperial revenue of the United States is derived chiefly from two sources customs and excise. It amounts in all to seventy- wo million pounds; the expenditure is only fifty-two millions, chiefly in army and navy, pensions, and civil service; the surplus is available for reducing the national debt incurred during the civil war of 1861 to 1865.

State, but as he goes out of office at the end of three years at furthest, he can only retard a bill from becoming law for that period. He presents a scheme to the two Houses of his State every session, em. bodying his notion as to that which the particular State requires in the way of effective local legislation. He is the supreme magistrate in his province or State; he appoints all the justices of the peace, and has all the militia forces at his disposal. Each State has a militia, in which all men from eighteen to forty-five, capable of bearing arms, ought to be enrolled. Their sum total would be upwards of six and one-half millions of men.

There are two safeguards against any sudden change or consequence of political passion, which are peculiar to the United States' Constitution. The first is, that the supreme court of judicature is made the The local legislative power of each State arbiter and judge in any dispute that may is vested in two Houses of Assembly; the arise as to how far either the Congress first of which is generally called the Senhas trenched on the States' rights or the ate. This Upper House in some States State legislatures may have exceeded becomes executive and nominates functheirs. The second is, that no alteration | tionaries, in others it is judicial for certain can be made in the Federal Constitution civil and political offences as well as legsimply by act of the imperial legislature. Congress may propose an alteration when two-thirds of both Houses vote for it; or, on the application of the States' legislatures of two-thirds of the States in the Union, may call a convention, specially elected for that purpose, to hear and propose amendments, which however, before they can be carried out, must be ratified afterwards by the States' legislatures of three-fourths of the States of the Union. Six times only in the last hundred years has any alteration been made. The original Constitution was formulated in 1787; ten amendments were added in 1791, and another the following year; one in 1804, another in 1865, another in 1868, and the last in 1870. No State, without its own consent, is ever to be deprived of its equal suffrage of two members, irrespective of population, in the Senate or Upper House. The Constitution of each of the thirtyeight different States is various: and so is the qualification for franchise; the original thirteen had all been founded at different times, and in different circumstances, like our other colonies, but they all agree in their main features.

Each State has a governor of its own, answering very much to the lord lieutenant of an English county, excepting that here he has a province or State under his sway with several counties in it. He is the head of the executive in that State, just as the president of all the States united is the executive head of the Union. In some States he holds office for two, in others for three years. He has a veto on all bills passed by the legislature of his

islative, like the English House of Lords. The number of its members is always small, in some cases even as few as five only constitute the Upper House of a State. The Lower House of legislature in each State is usually called the House of Representatives, or in some States the House of Commons, and has no share whatever in the administration. In Virginia, the oldest British colony, dating from 1607, the two Houses are called Senate and House of Delegates; in New Jersey, the Council and Assembly; in North Carolina, the Senate and House of Commons; in New York, the Senate and Assembly; in Connecticut and Ohio, the Legislative Council and House of Representatives; in New Hampshire, the Senate and House of Representatives; in many, as in our colonies, the Upper House is called the Legislative Council, and the Lower House is called the Legislative Assembly. As to the number of representatives in each State, or the basis of their election, there is no point on which the policy of the several States is more at variance, whether we compare the legisla tive assemblies directly with each other, or consider the proportions which they respectively bear to the number of their constituents. Passing over the difference between the smallest and largest states -as Delaware, whose most numerous branch consists of twenty-one represen. tatives, and Massachusetts, where it amounts to between three and four hundred -a very considerable difference is observable among States nearly equal in population.

The franchise and mode of election and | States are little more than a society of qualification of members varies in each husbandmen; others of them have made State; in most, however, the members of the Upper and Lower Houses are chosen in the same manner in that State, the only difference being that the members for the Upper House are chosen for a longer period than those chosen for the Lower; the latter usually sit for only one year, the former for two or three years. The effect of this is, of course, that in each provincial or State legislature there is thus al ways a nucleus of men of business habits, as all the members of both legislatures do not change at once; and a certain continuity of effort is thus insured, as in our municipal and town councils. There is nothing aristocratic in this double House. This division of legislative power has been shown by time and experience to be a principle of the greatest necessity. Pennsylvania was the only one of the original States that tried to do with a single House, Franklin consenting; but they were soon obliged to change the law, and create two Houses.

At the election of members for the imperial Senate, the two Houses of legislature in each State meet together in general assembly, and elect by joint ballot the two inhabitants of the State who they think are most worthy to be their senators or State representatives at Washington.

great progress in branches of manufacture and industry, and have already the fruits of a more advanced population. Of the thirty-eight States, New York now contains a population as large as that of Ireland, Pennsylvania hardly less; Illinois and Ohio have each a population equal to that of Scotland; fifteen other States each a population over one and one-half millions (which is about the population of Wales), and the remaining nineteen a population varying in each case from just short of a million down to that of the smallest (Nevada), which contains sixty-two thousand. The average population of these last nineteen may be said to be that of Liverpool or Birmingham, or about half the popula tion of either of the colonies of Victoria or New South Wales. Illinois is the only State that has adopted as yet the "free" vote or system of minority representation in the election of the members for its State legislature. For this purpose (since 1870) it has been divided into fifty-one electoral districts; each of these elects one member for the Upper House and three for the Lower. For the election of these last each elector has three votes, as many votes as there are vacancies, which he may distribute in any way he pleases among the candidates, even to the fraction Each State has home rule just like any of a vote and a half for each candidate. of our own colonies; and the limits of the The system is said to work well, and law-making power in each State are simply other States are likely to adopt it. It is that no law can be made retrospective; the simplest and perhaps the only practino duty can be laid on articles imported cable way of representing anything but or exported from one State to another of the gross majority, and is the same as the the Union (except with the consent of "cumulative vote" which is used in EnCongress, and then the nett produce of gland at the election of the London School such tax shall be for the use, not of that particular State thus indulging in protec tion, but for the treasury of the United States for imperial purposes); no treaty may be made with any foreign power; no troops or ships of war may be kept (with out consent of Congress). The citizens of each State are entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. Each State is entitled to protection by the imperial authority against invasion from without, and, on application, against domestic violence. Both personal and real property are taxed by the local parliaments for local purposes; and the local debts amount to more than two hundred and fifty millions sterling.

On a comparison of the different States one with another we find a great dissimilarity in their laws, and in many other circumstances. At present, some of the

Board.

This league of thirty-eight countries, many of which exceed in size the smaller kingdoms of Europe, when founded, consisted of thirteen separate colonies, and each of these as late as 1782 (six years after they had severed themselves from England) looked with indifference, often with hatred, fear, and aversion on the other States. There was but little commercial or political intercourse between them, their geographical distances apart in those days were great, and the interests of the various colonies were opposed. The central government of Congress was at first a matter of necessity, to enable them to combine against a common foe; but it was regarded as jealously by each of the separate colonies as if it was a foreign power, through fear of its encroaching on the independence of the States.

The

The

great extent of country they covered was ment even civil war seemed imminent held by many to be alone a sufficient ob- between them. On the 21st of February, stacle against their ever combining into 1787, the Congress of the Confederation one union. It was urged by those who determined to summon a convention of wished that the colonies should remain the States, "to consider how far a unidistinct political communities, and each a form system in their commercial relations free and independent State, that the situ- might be necessary to their common ination of the States of Holland and of the terests." They met on the 14th of May, cantons of Switzerland, which were close- 1787; Washington joined the delegates, ly contiguous, and the only examples of and although they were the most experifederal States that were then known or enced, patriotic, and intelligent of the considered by the people with any detail colonists, at first a satisfactory issue or precision, was wholly different to that seemed far off; a secession of certain of theirs. In their resistance to Great States was more than threatened. Britain, however, they formed "a firm delegates of ten out of the thirteen, howleague of friendship," and afterwards, ever, at last reluctantly approved the reunder the pressure of war, the States came sult of their labors, and on the 17th of to acquiesce in a single, strong, prompt, September, 1787, agreed that a draft of and energetic executive power, but all this should be first laid before the United dreaded even then "a consolidation of the States in Congress assembled, and on Union." A number of delegates first met their approving the same, it should then from the colonies and provinces in North again afterwards be submitted to a conAmerica, and held a Congress in Phila vention of delegates chosen by the peodelphia, on the 5th of September, 1774. ple from each State for the sole purpose This Congress continued to act, each of determining its adoption or rejection. member being only responsible for his This was done, and the Constitution was own colony, till the Declaration of Inde- thus ratified by the several States in sucpendence, 1776. On the 15th of Novem- cession; the ordinary legislatures of each ber, 1777, articles of confederation were State were not consulted. Three States drawn up, but not till four years after- only at first gave in their adhesion to it wards, the 1st of March, 1781, did all the that year, eight in 1788, one the following States approve them so reluctant were year, while the thirteenth held out, and they to part with any portion of their pow-off from the Union, for two years and a ers even in face of the common enemy of half, till the 29th of May, 1790. Thus their country. The imposition of any tax from what Washington and Franklin rewhatever by the central authority for com-garded at the time as a deplorable chaos mon purposes was long resisted, and Washington had to disband the army at the end of the war, and send his men to their homes actually with heavy arrears of pay, because the States would not agree together to pay the debt they owed to their liberators, and would not give the central authority a power of providing revenue for itself. Each of the thirteen colonies claimed tenaciously, and exercised for some time, the exclusive right to regulate its commerce, and each State most ungenerously and most selfishly availed itself to the utmost limit of this right. In the regulation of commerce, regard was only had to their local self-interests, and a policy was frequently followed by one State, the aim of which was to obtain an advantage directly opposed to the welfare of the neighboring State. After peace had been made with Great Britain, Washington struggled on against the great disinclination each State still felt to divest itself of the smallest attribute of independence, so far that at one mo

of conflicting elements, the present Union was born. Such as it was, it seemed more than doubtful how long it would live.

From the difficulties that attended the federation of the United States, and the steadfast statesmanship that from these small beginnings carried it out at all hazards, many lessons may be learnt by those who regard the federation of the at pressent independent members of the British dominions as impossible. The Federal Constitution, said Adams, was "extorted from the grinding necessity of a reluctant people; " it was not till afterwards, and as the years rolled on, that it came to be regarded by that same people as the perfection of political wisdom, and that justice was done to the statesmen who created it. The national convention that drew up the Constitution consisted of fifty-five members, of whom Washington was president. When these presented the first sketch of the Constitution to the Congress they said:

In all our deliberations on this subject we | kept steadily in our view that which appeared to us the greatest interest of every true American, for in this scheme is involved our prosperity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration seriously and deeply impressed on our minds has led each State in the convention to be less rigid in points of inferior magnitude than might have been otherwise expected; and thus the Constitution, which we now present, is the result of amity under that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable.

The new government commenced its functions in 1789, after an interregnum of two years; and thus "the revolution of America ended precisely when that of France began."

States go off and take care of themselves," fearing an economical development of the commerce of these last that would be injurious to their own, and on the plea, in 1803, of "the vast unmanageable extent the Union was growing to, and the conse. quent dispersion of our population." For thirty years (1816-46) the tariff war between the different States went on, on questions of free trade and protection; the Northern States for the most part advocating the latter policy for the protection of their manufactories, and the Southern wishing, as they were not manufacturers, to buy in the cheapest market. They even bound themselves not to buy from the North and West any goods which were protected by the tariffs of these latter from foreign competition, but to use instead wares of their own native manufacture, however inferior these might be. It was at length decided by the central authority that the duties needed by the treasury were to be placed in such a way that they should actually seem to encourage American industry; those articles that could be produced beyond question in the United States were to be subjected to a tax on entry from abroad, and those which must in the main be imported were to be placed under very medium duties indeed. The raising of revenue was to be the leading feature in the calculation of the duties; the principle of protection was only incidentally recognized, though twenty-five per cent. was laid on cotton and woollen manufactures to please the Northern States. Next the Southern States wanted protection for the sugar. planters; the seaboard States wanted free trade for the shipping interest; the agricultural States held fast to the manufac turing interests. From 1824 a system of protection was the policy of the nation, till at any rate the first national debt was paid off in 1828. After that, free trade and protection continued their rivalry, though the latter was almost abandoned in 1832, and the duties were reduced to twenty per cent. ad valorem irrespective of what the articles might be.

The danger and possibility of disruption of the States was ever before the eyes of all parties in the Union from the very beginning and long afterwards; it was openly spoken of and threatened in 1794, and only prevented in that year by the calling out of fifteen thousand militia-men by the president; and though commerce, social intercourse, and custom created intellectual and moral bonds, which gradually rendered a breach more difficult, yet the solidarity of interests and union were only ultimately vindicated by the sword in 1861. As early as 1790 slavery and finance questions showed how diverse were the interests of the Northern and Southern States. Eight years later, Kentucky leading the way, a secession was again proposed, as the ascendency of Massachusetts and Connecticut had become unbearable to the Southern States. In 1805 the Western States wished to secede. In 1813 the New England States even went so far as to wish to conclude a separate treaty with England. In 1815 the Northern States wished to secede, and again the Eastern in 1828. The Southern States of Georgia and South Carolina in 1825, 1832, and 1840 met to resist the assumption of power by the central authority. the local legislature claiming to resolve that the laws of Congress were unconstitutional, and therefore void, and of no effect; claim ing, in fact, the right for each State either The tendency and object of all this to approve or disapprove of any single act controversy concerning tariff was to proof the central authority. Jefferson him- tect the free labor of the North at the self pleaded a resort to the sword to re-expense of the slave labor of the South, sist their execution, and threatened a secession of his State from the Union if they were executed by force. Later on again the right of the central authority to admit new States to the Union was disputed. Some of the New England States began to protest, "Let the Western

and so over and above all these questions of tariff, and of State rights against the central authority, and of the extension of territory, and of admission of new States to the Union, rose more and more the overwhelming one of slavery. This great stumbling-block, at least, which underlay

so many of the questions thus raised, and | Turco-Russian war, on the occasion of which, when it was settled once for all, our Indian troops being brought to Malta, established the central authority, one and and Victoria her gunboats at Suakim this indivisible, never more to be shaken, has very year. These colonies fully intended been taken out of our way. No such what they offered; and in a small way the perturbing question as that now exists to incidents may be taken as an index of complicate the problem of the Union of what would be likely to happen in a real the British. States in federation "as co- war. It was a common war that taught ordinate departments of a single and un- the seventeen provinces of the United divided whole." Netherlands in 1619 to federate; it was a These four points of controversy be- common war that taught the twenty-five tween the various American States, the principalities and States of Germany in signs of growing life and healthy progress, 1871 to federate; it was a common war I have singled out, not to magnify the that taught the United States in 1776 to difficulties, but because they are the very feel their strength, and that bound each points about which discussion will inevita- of them together in closer federal bonds. bly arise when the federation of the British And though, no doubt, contrary to the States is attempted. The success which fears or hopes of some, a common war has attended the patience, earnestness, would do the same for the British States, perseverance, discussion, mutual compro- were they in a common cause to fight and mise, and the sincere efforts of statesmen triumph together (joint counsels and joint to produce unity and concord in the case efforts in common dangers, sufferings, of the United States, will also attend the and successes being the strongest cem. like efforts to combat the lesser but simi-ent for binding men together), yet it would lar difficulties that will beset the consoli- be far better for ourselves, as well as dation of United and Greater Britain. for friends or foes, if our federation and The fact that the possibility of a civil union were brought about by reasonable war, and of a division of the Union, was so endeavors before such catastrophe fell frequently, and on relatively insignificant upon us. J. N. DALTON. occasions, thought of on both sides by the party leaders, may be taken as a measure of the degree of consolidation the Union had obtained up to 1840. The leaders, however, undervalued the solidarity of material interests which already obtained; and the national instincts of the people (as is often the case) were juster and stronger than the leaders estimated. Among the masses of a vigorous people there always lives a strong feeling of honor, and in democracies this feeling is pitched very high as regards hostile foreign powers; and, therefore, that which would in all likelihood most readily bring about a federation of the British domin ions would be for Great Britain to be engaged in war with some foreign power. Far from the colonies falling off like ripe fruit, or each going their own way to save their skins whole, there is every reason to conclude, from what has occurred in similar cases, that they would enter into the war of defence with such heartiness, and be ready to make such sacrifices, as would be altogether embarrassing to the more timid and cautious home government. In fact, this is already what has happened in a small way, when a regiment, raised and equipped in south Australia, volunteered for service in the Transvaal, and when the Canadians in 1878 offered ten thousand men for foreign service at the time of the

From Blackwood's Magazine. MAGDA'S COW.

CHAPTER XI.

THE STORK'S NEST.

"Desdemona. Alas! what ignorant sin have I committed?"-Othello.

To both Filip and Magda the winter seemed interminably long and dreary. But the longest and dreariest winter must terminate at last; and though the end of March still found the snow lying in numerous patches in the creeks of the hills and the nooks of the forest, yet their days were counted, and they dwindled by degrees from lengthy winding-sheets to tiny pocket-handkerchiefs, and from pockethandkerchiefs again to single stars, scarcely larger than the anemones which were already springing up all around them.

"The storks have come!" shouted Kuba one morning, watching the large birds of passage as they circled in agitated curves over the houses like bustling travellers at the end of a journey, - the old inhabitants seeking out their former nests, and passing them in review, to see what repairs would be needed to render their summer lodgings fit for use; young