known to each other, and they have neither
traditions, family feeling, nor the force of example to check their
excesses. The empire of the laws is feeble amongst them; that of
morality is still more powerless. The settlers who are constantly
peopling the valley of the Mississippi are, then, in every respect very
inferior to the Americans who inhabit the older parts of the Union.
Nevertheless, they already exercise a great influence in its councils;
and they arrive at the government of the commonwealth before they have
learnt to govern themselves. *f

[Footnote f: This indeed is only a temporary danger. I have no doubt
that in time society will assume as much stability and regularity in the
West as it has already done upon the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.]

The greater the individual weakness of each of the contracting parties,
the greater are the chances of the duration of the contract; for their
safety is then dependent upon their union. When, in 1790, the most
populous of the American republics did not contain 500,000 inhabitants,
*g each of them felt its own insignificance as an independent people,
and this feeling rendered compliance with the federal authority more
easy. But when one of the confederate States reckons, like the State of
New York, 2,000,000 of inhabitants, and covers an extent of territory
equal in surface to a quarter of France, *h it feels its own strength;
and although it may continue to support the Union as advantageous to
its prosperity, it no longer regards that body as necessary to its
existence, and as it continues to belong to the federal compact, it soon
aims at preponderance in the federal assemblies. The probable unanimity
of the States is diminished as their number increases. At present the
interests of the different parts of the Union are not at variance; but
who is able to foresee the multifarious changes of the future, in a
country in which towns are founded from day to day, and States almost
from year to year?

[Footnote g: Pennsylvania contained 431,373 inhabitants in 1790 [and
5,258,014 in 1890.]]

[Footnote h: The area of the State of New York is 49,170 square miles.
[See U. S. census report of 1890.]]

Since the first settlement of the British colonies, the number of
inhabitants has about doubled every twenty-two years. I perceive no
causes which are likely to check this progressive increase of the
Anglo-American population for the next hundred years; and before
that space o