There are few signs in the proceedings of
Americans, nationally or individually, that the desire of
territorial acquisition for their country as such has any considerable
power over them. Their hankering after Cuba is, in the same manner,
merely sectional, and the northern States, those opposed to slavery,
have never in any way favoured it.
The question may present itself (as in Italy at its present
uprising) whether a country, which is determined to be united,
should form a complete or a merely federal union. The point is
sometimes necessarily decided by the mere territorial magnitude of the
united whole. There is a limit to the extent of country which can
advantageously be governed, or even whose government can be
conveniently superintended, from a single centre. There are vast
countries so governed; but they, or at least their distant
provinces, are in general deplorably ill administered, and it is
only when the inhabitants are almost savages that they could not
manage their affairs better separately. This obstacle does not exist
in the case of Italy, the size of which does not come up to that of
several very efficiently governed single states in past and present
times. The question then is whether the different parts of the
nation require to be governed in a way so essentially different that
it is not probable the same Legislature, and the same ministry or
administrative body, will give satisfaction to them all.
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