the state, no antecedent right which binds the people, for antecedently
to the existence of the government as a fact, the state is free to
adopt any form that it finds practicable, or judges the wisest and best
for itself. Ordinarily the form of the government practicable for a
nation is determined by the peculiar providential constitution of the
territorial people, and a form of government that would be practicable
and good in one country may be the reverse in another. The English
government is no doubt the best practicable in Great Britain, at
present at least, but it has proved a failure wherever else it has been
attempted. The American system has proved itself, in spite of the
recent formidable rebellion to overthrow it, the best and only
practicable government for the United States, but it is impracticable
everywhere else, and all attempts by any European or other American
state to introduce it can end only in disaster. The imperial system
apparently works well in France, but though all European states are
tending to it, it would not work well at all on the American continent,
certainly not until the republic of the United States has ceased to
exist. While the United States remain the great American power, that
system, or its kindred system, democratic centralism, can never become
an American system, as Maximilian's experiment in Mexico is likely to
prove.

Political propagandism, except on the Roman plan, that is, by
annexation and incorporation, is as impracticable as it is wanting in
the respect that one independent people owes to another. The old
French Jacobins tried to propagate, even with fire and sword, their
system throughout Europe, as the only system compatible with the rights
of man. The English, since 1688, have been great political
propagandists, and at one time it seemed not unlikely that every
European state would try the experiment of a parliamentary government,
composed of an hereditary crown, an hereditary house of lords, and an
elective house of commons. The democratic Americans are also great
political propagandists, and are ready to sympathize with any
rebellion, insurrection, or movement in behalf of democracy in any part
of the world, however mean or contemptible, fierce or bloody it may be;
but all this is as unstatesmanlike as unjust; unstatesmanlike, for no
form of government can bear transplanting, and because every
independent nation is the sole judge of what best comports with