State Convention-Bepublican-dehograc y. i S3 
in the lack of necessity for a strong, central government, there 
will probably be, as De Tocqueville shows there has been hitherto, 
a continual encroachment by the states upon the central power; 
an encroachment so great that De Tocqueville supposed our 
national government could endure no violent attack upon its 
authority; but the last words, nearly, of Bulwer were, “ the 
American republic is the only one worth studying; for it has 
lasted.” 
The complete national theory gains strength again, however, 
in the fact that steam, telegraph and press are condensing, as it 
were, our people into a smaller space practically, than New 
England occupied a hundred years ago. Trade, transportation, 
news, business of nearly all kinds is confined no longer by state 
limits, but goes from lakes to gulf, and from sea to sea. The 
extreme doctrines of state rights are abolished, not by states¬ 
manship, but by steam and electricity. National legislation 
becomes a necessity where it would once have been an absurdity. 
National officials must control and perform functions that in 
the days of Hamilton and Jefferson were not even dreamed of, 
not because we have lost our liberties, but because more than 
ever before we have become one, E Pluribus Unum. 
The American’s devotion to the idea of national union is more 
intense than ever. It has been a perpetual marvel to foreigners, 
that so practical a people should cling with such fanatical fervor 
to an abstract idea. But it is easy for us at least to see that this 
is a natural result of our form of government. Our loyalty 
clings to no man or set of men. The union is the state. It 
binds together what else would be shattered fragments, and the 
allegiance of the citizen attaches itself not to the divinity that 
lodges about a king, but to the solemn compact of perpetual 
union made by Washington and his associates in 1787. But the 
devotion of the American to the idea of liberty, to the principles 
underlying the Declaration of Independence, is stronger than even 
his love of the union which was made to maintain and perpetuate 
that liberty. In the light of this, whether we would or not, we 
construed the constitution, and in its light we must construe it to¬ 
day and in days to come. When men tell us that the prohibition 
against passing any state law impairing the obligation of con- 
