prosperity, the New
England system, in its main features, is pretty sure to be gradually
introduced, or developed, and the division of powers in the State to be
as effectively and as systematically carried out as it is between the
General government and the particular or State governments. So, though
universal suffrage, good as far as it goes, is not alone sufficient,
the division of powers affords with it a not inadequate protection.

No government, whose workings are intrusted to men, ever is or can be
practically perfect--secure all good, and guard against all evil. In
all human governments there will be defects and abuses, and he is no
wise man who expects perfection from imperfection. But the American
constitution, taken as a whole, and in all its parts, is the least
imperfect that has ever existed, and under it individual rights,
personal freedom and independence, as well as public authority or
society, are better protected than under any other; and as the few
barbaric elements retained from the feudal ages are eliminated, the
standard of education elevated, and the whole population Americanized,
moulded by and to the American system, it will be found to effect all
the good, with as little of the evil, as can be reasonably expected
from any possible civil government or political constitution of society.

CHAPTER XII.

SECESSION.

The doctrine that a State has a right to secede and carry with it its
population and domain, has been effectually put down, and the unity and
integrity of the United States as a sovereign nation have been
effectively asserted on the battle-field; but the secessionists, though
disposed to submit to superior force, and demean themselves henceforth
as loyal citizens, most likely hold as firmly to the doctrine as before
finding themselves unable to reduce it to practice, and the Union
victory will remain incomplete till they are convinced in their
understandings that the Union has the better reason as well as the
superior military resources. The nation has conquered their bodies,
but it is hardly less important for our statesmen to conquer their
minds and win their hearts.

The right of secession is not claimed as a revolutionary right, or even
as a conventional right. The secessionists disclaim revolutionary
principles, and hold that the right of secession is anterior to the
convention, a right which the convention could neither give, nor take
away, because inherent in the