We should lose it as inevitably as the most
consummate of pianists will lose his facility if he stops practising.
It is therefore a fact of cardinal importance that in the United
States the local governments of township, county, and city are left to
administer themselves instead of being administered by a great bureau
with its head at the state capital. In a political society thus
constituted from the beginning it has proved possible to build up
our Federal Union, in which the states, while for certain purposes
indissolubly united, at the same time for many other purposes retain
their self-government intact. As in the case of other aggregates, the
nature of the American political aggregate has been determined by the
nature of its political units.
[Sidenote: Vastness of the functions retained by the states in the
American Union.]
_Secondly_, let us observe how great are the functions retained
by our states under the conditions of our Federal Union. The
powers granted to our federal government, such as the control over
international questions, war and peace, the military forces, the
coinage, patents and copyrights, and the regulation of commerce
between the states and with foreign countries,--all these are powers
relating to matters that affect all the states, but could not be
regulated harmoniously by the separate action of the states.
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