If Europe, out of her peculiar situation,
originated the doctrine of balance of power, thus innovating upon the
past, may not we, owing to the novelty of our situation, originate a
continental system which will endure to the remotest periods of time, or
so long as political systems shall have place on the earth?
One empire may fall into fragments to-day; while another may not only
not suffer dissolution, but really grow stronger, and appropriate, in a
most legitimate manner, parts of the dismembered empire.
We must allow, not only for the difference of conditions with reference
to time, but, also, for the different situations at the same time of
different political structures. To assume, because nations have been
ground to atoms, or have fallen to pieces of their own weight, that
therefore Russia and the United States are about to go in the same way,
is a species of reasoning which is hardly warranted by scientific
methods. It may be that the empire of Great Britain is itself doomed to
dissolution at no very distant day; but it does not follow that the
United States are, therefore, liable to the same fate, now or ever. So
far from this, it is possible, if not highly probable, that as the
remote provinces of the British empire shall fall away, the central
political system of this continent may very naturally absorb at least
one of the fragments, and thereby become stronger as a Government, and
more potent for good to the people of an entire world.
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