"Forms of government," somebody has said, "are like shoes--that
is the best form which best fit the feet that are to wear them."
Shoes are to be fitted to the feet, not the feet to the shoes,
and feet vary in size and conformation. There is, in regard to
government, as distinguished from the state, no antecedent right
which binds the people, for antecedently to the existence of the
government as a fact, the state is free to adopt any form that it
finds practicable, or judges the wisest and best for itself.
Ordinarily the form of the government practicable for a nation is
determined by the peculiar providential constitution of the
territorial people, and a form of government that would be
practicable and good in one country may be the reverse in another.
The English government is no doubt the best practicable in Great
Britain, at present at least, but it has proved a failure
wherever else it has been attempted. The American system has
proved itself, in spite of the recent formidable rebellion to
overthrow it, the best and only practicable government for the
United States, but it is impracticable everywhere else, and all
attempts by any European or other American state to introduce it
can end only in disaster. The imperial system apparently works
well in France, but though all European states are tending to it,
it would not work well at all on the American continent,
certainly not until the republic of the United States has ceased
to exist.
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