Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/151

138 a formation of two distinct States,—Freedom with democracy, and Slavery with a tendency to despotism P That may save one half the nation, and leave the other to voluntary ruin. Certainly it is better to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands and two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.

Now, I do not suppose it is possible for the Anglo-Saxons of America to remain as one nation for a great many years. Suppose we become harmonious and prosper abundantly: when there are a hundred millions on the Atlantic slope, another hundred millions in the Mississippi Valley, a third hundred millions on the Pacific slope, and a fourth hundred millions in South America,—it is not likely that all these will hold together. We shall be too wide spread. And, besides, it is not according to the disposition of the Teutonic family to aggregate into one great State any very large body of men; division, not conglomeration, is after the ethnologic instinct and the historical custom of the Teutonic family, and especially of its Anglo-Saxon tribe. We do not lie centralization of power, but have such strong individuality that we prefer local self-government; we are social, not gregarious like the Celtic family. I, therefore, do not look on the union of the States as a thing that is likely to last a great length of time, under any circumstances. I doubt if any part of the nation will desire it a hundred years hence.

True, there are causes which tend to keep us united: community of ethnologic origin—fifteen millions are Anglo-Saxon;—unity of language, literature, religion ; historic and legal traditions, and commercial interest. But all these may easily be overcome, and doubtless will be. So a dissolution of the great Anglo-Saxon State seems likely to take place, when the territory is spread so wide that there is a practical inconvenience in balancing the nation on a single governmental point; when the numbers are so great that we require many centres of legislative and administrative action in order to secure individual freedom of the parts, as well as national unity of the whole; or when the Federal Government shall become so corrupt that the trunk will not sustain the limbs. Then the branches which make up this great American banyan-tree will separate from the rotten primeval trunk, draw their sup-