When the conditions exist for the formation of efficient and durable
Federal Unions, the multiplication of them is always a benefit to
the world. It has the same salutary effect as any other extension of
the practice of co-operation, through which the weak, by uniting,
can meet on equal terms with the strong. By diminishing the number
of those petty states which are not equal to their own defence, it
weakens the temptations to an aggressive policy, whether working
directly by arms, or through the prestige of superior power. It of
course puts an end to war and diplomatic quarrels, and usually also to
restrictions on commerce, between the States composing the Union;
while, in reference to neighbouring nations, the increased military
strength conferred by it is of a kind to be almost exclusively
available for defensive, scarcely at all for aggressive, purposes. A
federal government has not a sufficiently concentrated authority to
conduct with much efficiency any war but one of self-defence, in which
it can rely on the voluntary co-operation of every citizen: nor is
there anything very flattering to national vanity or ambition in
acquiring, by a successful war, not subjects, nor even
fellow-citizens, but only new, and perhaps troublesome, independent
members of the confederation. The warlike proceedings of the Americans
in Mexico were purely exceptional, having been carried on
principally by volunteers, under the influence of the migratory
propensity which prompts individual Americans to possess themselves of
unoccupied land; and stimulated, if by any public motive, not by
that of national aggrandisement, but by the purely sectional purpose
of extending slavery.
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