temple that has grown up in silence; and that the British people, at all events, would not rise up in wrath at the very thought of such a change? For Federalism 'amounts to a proposal for changing the whole constitution of the United Kingdom. It is, in fact, the most "revolutionary" proposal, if the word "revolutionary" be used in its strict sense, which has ever been submitted to an English Parliament. The abolition of the House of Lords, the disestablishment of the Church, the abolition of the Monarchy, might leave the English Constitution far less essentially changed than would the adoption of Federalism.'[32] It should be observed, too, with respect to this subject, that the conditions, under which Federalism would have a chance of success, would be absolutely wanting in the present instance. England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales have long been moulded into a single sovereign State, and united under a supreme Monarchy; no Federation, I venture to assert, has been formed out of communities that have had a government of this kind. Federations, in fact, have almost always grown out of an association of existing States, which desire to remain separate, and yet to be a nation for some purposes; they have not been evolved out of the fragments of one State artificially rent asunder. Again, Federalism requires that no single State should be enormously more powerful than the other partners; there must be something like equality between the different States;[33] it is unnecessary to remark that England has tenfold the resources and strength of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; and, in truth, would annihilate the Federation were her will really crossed, and break through the arbitrary limitations imposed on her. Suppose, for example, that England had set her heart on a great foreign war, and had the support of her own Parliament; does any one suppose that, if she were outvoted, by deputies from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, in the Imperial Council, even though backed by their own Parliaments, the people of England would submit to be thwarted in this way; was Samson bound by the withs of the Philistines? Something like this, indeed, was seen in the great Civil War; the result was the subjugation of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and the complete ascendency of England, under Cromwell; an attempt to federalise the Three Kingdoms might lead to a similar issue. Let us assume, however, that, through some evil stroke of destiny, Federalism were made the constitution of these realms, and that this strange arrangement could be made to work even for a few years; the inevitable consequences, from the nature of the case, would follow. The omnipotence of the Imperial Parliament, the mainstay of the Empire, would be gone; so would the omnipotence of the Imperial Executive Government, the best security for justice and for equal liberties. Their powers would be parcelled out and subdivided; they would