Such a federation is more likely to be a cause than a preventive
of internal wars: and if such was not its effect in Switzerland
until the events of the years immediately preceding 1847, it was
only because the Federal Government felt its weakness so strongly that
it hardly ever attempted to exercise any real authority. In America,
the experiment of a Federation on this principle broke down in the
first few years of its existence; happily while the men of enlarged
knowledge and acquired ascendancy, who founded the independence of the
Republic, were still alive to guide it through the difficult
transition. The Federalist, a collection of papers by three of these
eminent men, written in explanation and defence of the new Federal
Constitution while still awaiting the national acceptance, is even now
the most instructive treatise we possess on federal government.*
* Mr. Freeman's History of Federal Governments, of which only the
first volume has yet appeared, is already an accession to the
literature of the subject, equally valuable by its enlightened
principles and its mastery of historical details.
In Germany, the more imperfect kind of federation, as all know,
has not even answered the purpose of maintaining an alliance. It has
never, in any European war, prevented single members of the
Confederation from allying themselves with foreign powers against
the rest.
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