it, no doubt, tends
to centralism, to the concentration of all the powers and forces of the
state in one central government, from which all local authorities and
institutions emanate. Wise men oppose it as affording no guaranties to
individual liberty against the abuses of power. This it may not do, but
the remedy is not in feudalism. The feudal lord holds his authority as
an estate, and has over the people under him all the power of Caesar
and all the rights of the proprietor. He, indeed, has a guaranty
against his liege-lord, sometimes a more effective guaranty than his
liege-lord has against him; but against his centralized power his
vassals and serfs have only the guaranty that a slave has against his
owner.

Feudalism is alike hostile to the freedom of public authority and of
the people. It is essentially a disintegrating element in the nation.
It breaks the unity and individuality of the state, embarrasses the
sovereign, and guards against the abuse of public authority by
overpowering and suppressing it. Every feudal lord is a more thorough
despot in his own domain than Caesar ever was or could be in the
empire; and the monarch, even if strong enough, is yet not competent to
intervene between him and his people, any more than the General
government in the United States was to intervene between the negro
slave and his master. The great vassals of the crown singly, or, if
not singly, in combination--and they could always combine in the
interest of their order--were too strong for the king, or to be brought
under any public authority, and could issue from their fortified
castles and rob and plunder to their hearts' content, with none to call
them to an account. Under the most thoroughly centralized government
there is far more liberty for the people, and a far greater security
for person and property, except in the case of the feudal nobles
themselves, than was even dreamed of while the feudal regime was in
full vigor. Nobles were themselves free, it is conceded, but not the
people. The king was too weak, too restricted in his action by the
feudal constitution to reach them, and the higher clergy were ex
officio sovereigns, princes, barons, or feudal lords, and were led by
their private interests to act with the feudal nobility, save when that
nobility threatened the temporalities of the church. The only reliance,
under God, left in feudal times to the poor people was in the lower
ranks of the clergy, espec