The practical consequences of the system, of which these are a few of the most prominent features, are far more important than the language which we generally use about it would imply. We are so much accustomed to the extraordinary rapidity with which the United States advance in wealth and power, that we are a little apt to look upon their prosperity as an ultimate fact requiring no explanation. In fact, like everything else, it has its causes, and, no doubt, one of the most important of them is the influence of the Union. There can be no doubt that it contributes immensely to the prosperity of every State which belongs to it, and that its maintenance forms almost the only means by which the settlement and government of the continent can be provided for. In the first place, so long as it exists, war between any of the States which compose it is impossible. If we recollect what has been the general character of the history of modern Europe, this in itself must be considered as an advantage which can hardly be bought too dear. In the next place, it provides every American citizen with a sphere of activity unequalled for extent and variety in the history of mankind. He may make his choice between more than thirty great nations, of any one of which he can, by mere residence, constitute himself a citizen. In each of them he is as much at home as an Englishman in Ireland, if not more. In each he is, to a great extent, under the same laws; he enjoys the same political rights; and the most important of these are guaranteed by all the other members of the Union. Under any circumstances, these would be valuable results; but, under the special circumstances of North America, their value is greatly enhanced. The population is by far the most migratory in the world. It is inordinately bent upon every kind of enterprise by which money is to be made, and the consequence is that anything which could shackle the free movement of the people to any part of the country, or diminish the ease with which they can at present establish themselves wherever they please, would be intolerable to them. The existence of the Union favours these tendencies in the highest degree. Its dissolution would place a serious check upon them. The existing constitution not only protects the whole of the United States from intestine war, but gives to each of them, and to all the citizens of each, rights which are unexampled elsewhere. We are so much accustomed to think and speak of the United States as a single nation, that we forget the means by which they gained, and by which (if at all) they must retain, that character. There is no other part of the world in which communities larger and more powerful than most nations can settle their differences with each other and with individuals by the ordinary course of law, in the proper sense of the word, and not by diplomatic negotiations. It is, for many purposes, as easy to sue or to be sued by the semi-sovereign States