Passing rapidly on, I come to the next political issue which presented
itself in my youth,--the constitutional issue,--that of State
Sovereignty, as opposed to the ideal, Nationality. And, whether for
better or worse, this issue, I very confidently submit, has been
settled. We now, also, looking at it in more observant mood, in a spirit
at once philosophical and historical, see that it involved a process of
natural evolution which, under the conditions prevailing, could hardly
result in any other settlement than that which came about. We now have
come to a recognition of the fact that Anglo-Saxon nationality on this
continent was a problem of crystallization, 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.
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