the working out of which occupied a little over two centuries. It was in New England the process first set in, when, in 1643, the scattered English-speaking settlements under the hegemony of the colony of Massachusetts Bay united in a confederation. It was the initial step. I have no time in which to enumerate successive steps, each representing a stage in advance of what went before. The War of Independence,—mistakenly denominated the Revolutionary War, but a struggle distinctly conservative in character, and in no way revolutionary,—the War of Independence gave great impetus to the process, resulting in what was known as Federation. Then came the Constitution of 1787 and the formation of the, so called, United States as a distinct nationality. The United States next passed through two definite processes of further crystallization,—one in 1812–1814, when the second war with Great Britain, and more especially our naval victories, kindled, especially in the North, the fire of patriotism and the conception of nationality; the other, half a century later, presented the stern issue in a concrete form, and at last the complete unification of a community—whether for better or for worse is no matter—was hammered by iron and cemented in blood. It is there now; an established fact. Secession is a lost cause; and, whether for good or for ill, the United States exists, and will continue to exist, a unified World Power. Sovereignty now rests at Washington, and neither in Columbia for South Carolina nor in Boston for Massachu-
