The Temper of the American

Abstract

One of the most perplexing problems in the growth of every national state is the adjustment of its own organism to the changing conditions of its existence. While the conflicts with exterior foes and forces are always met by the united strength of the people of the state, the conflicts of peace are attended by the most trying antagonisms. The concentration of political power and authority is vigorously opposed, and the lesser units of government strive almost to the death to maintain their historic prestige. The civil wars of the world have for the most part found their causes in the antipathies which the lesser and local political units have nurtured toward the greater and dominant political life. And the increasing complexity of the larger problems of government finds but little sympathy in the minds of the people at large. This meeting-point of local and national administration promises to be a zone of perpetual conflict. The local political life tends to become an organism of simple structure which finds its chief expression in a more or less democratic assemblage. If we except the great municipalities, the lesser political organisms quickly attain their growth, and then are subject to but slight modifications. The circumstances which environ local life are of a persistent type, and demand only the enforcement of the customary administration. The immediate boundaries of each local political unit are political units of a like character which are striving for kindred ends. The entire life of every people is thus organized into political communities which subserve neighborhood needs, and which only occasionally touch the larger problems of administration. And as members of the same state, their mutual animosities are lessened in poignancy, while their kindred ends serve to ally them in their insistence on local privileges. The national state, however, is far differently conditioned.