It is not necessary to dwell upon such considerations as these. It is
enough to point to the general conclusion, that the work which the
English race began when it colonized North America is destined to go on
until every land on the earth's surface that is not already the seat of
an old civilization shall become English in its language, in its
political habits and traditions, and to a predominant extent in the
blood of its people. The day is at hand when, four-fifths of the human
race will trace its pedigree to English forefathers, as four-fifths of
the white people in the United States trace their pedigree to-day. The
race thus spread over both hemispheres, and from the rising to the
setting sun, will not fail to keep that sovereignty of the sea and that
commercial supremacy which it began to acquire when England first
stretched its arm across the Atlantic to the shores of Virginia and
Massachusetts. The language spoken by these great communities will not
be sundered into dialects like the language of the ancient Romans, but
perpetual intercommunication and the universal habit of reading and
writing will preserve its integrity; and the world's business will be
transacted by English-speaking people to so great an extent, that
whatever language any man may have learned in his infancy he will find
it necessary sooner or later to learn to express his thoughts in
English. And in this way it is by no means improbable that, as Grimm the
German and Candolle the Frenchman long since foretold, the language of
Shakespeare may ultimately become the language of mankind.

In view of these considerations as to the stupendous future of the
English race, does it not seem very probable that in due course of time
Europe--which has learned some valuable lessons from America
already--will find it worth while to adopt the lesson of federalism?
Probably the European states, in order to preserve their relative weight
in the general polity of the world, will find it necessary to do so. In
that most critical period of American history between the winning of
independence and the framing of the Constitution, one of the strongest
of the motives which led the confederated states to sacrifice part of
their sovereignty by entering into a federal union was their keen sense
of their weakness when taken severally. In physical strength such a
state as Massachusetts at that time amounted to little more than Hamburg
or Bremen; but the thirteen states taken