nal
scale. When these experiments have proved successful, State after
State has followed the example set by one or a few among their number;
when they have been disappointing in their results, the rest of the
Union has profited by the warning. But, highly important as is this
aspect of State independence, the most essential benefits of it are
the training in self-government which is emphasized in the above
quotation from Mr. Nordhoff, and the adaptation of laws to the
particular needs and the particular character of the people of the
various States. That modern conditions have inevitably led to a vast
enlargement of the powers of the central government, no thinking
person can deny. It would be folly to attempt to stick to the exact
division of State functions as against national which was natural when
the Union was first formed. The railroad, the telegraph, and the
telephone, the immense development of industrial, commercial, and
financial organization, the growth of interwoven interests of a
thousand kinds, have brought the people of California and New York, of
Michigan and Texas, into closer relations than were common between
those of Massachusetts and Virginia in the days of Washington and John
Adams. In so far as the process of centralization has been dictated by
the clear necessities of the times, it would be idle to obstruct it or
to cry out against it. But, so far from this being an argument against
the preservation of the essentials of local self-government, it is the
strongest possible argument in favor of that preservation. With the
progress of science, invention, and business organization, the power
and prestige of the central government are bound to grow, the power
and prestige of the State governments are bound to decline, under the
pressure of economic necessity and social convenience; all the more,
then, does it behoove us to sustain those essentials of State
authority which are not comprised within the domain of those
overmastering economic forces. If we do not hold the line where the
line can be held, we give up the cause altogether; and it will be only
a question of time when we shall have drifted into complete subjection
to a centralized government, and State boundaries will have no more
serious significance than county boundaries have now. But if there is
one thing in the wide world the control of which naturally and
preeminently belongs to the individual State and not to the central
government at Wa