Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/403

Rh representatives, the numbers of which are elected in the state by the citizens of the state; and each state has its own capitol.

This mode of representation brings forth much nationality and much that is picturesque in the living, peculiar life of each State. The Granite State and the Palmetto State, “Old Virginny” and new Wisconsin, Minnesota and Louisiana, each so separate and so peculiar in situation, scenery, climate, products, population, stand forth in Congress as individuals, and take part in the treatment of public questions, which are interesting to the whole human race, according to characteristics which are peculiar to themselves and common to all.

I could not help thinking, during all this, of the representation of Sweden, and its much talked of construction. It occurred to me that there could not be any form more suitable or more calculated to awaken national life and consciousness than one resembling this of the United States. I saw Norrland and Scania, Dalecarlia and Bleking, East Göthland and West Göthland, and all our provinces, peculiar in people, scenery, products, stand forth in the Diet of Sweden, and by means of its senators cast new light upon the condition of the country, its wants, and its hitherto hidden or unavailing sources of prosperity. I saw the north, the south, and the central parts of Sweden, its east and its west, illumined by rays of light which till then had not penetrated them; and the popular consciousness and popular life guided by representatives, worthy through their knowledge and their personal character to represent each individual province in its peculiarities and its life, as a portion of a great whole, of a country, a people with an inheritance as large as the former history of Sweden; with a future which may emulate in human greatness that of the greatest people on the earth.