power of the respective states shall be restrained from imposing such imposts and duties on foreigners, as their own people are subjected to, or from prohibiting the exportation or importation of any species of goods or commodities whatsoever.' The committee's report urged in favour of the change the obvious argument 'that it will be difficult for thirteen different legislatures, acting separately and distinctly, to agree in the same interpretation of a treaty, to take the same measure for carrying it into effect, and to conduct their several operations upon such principles as to satisfy those powers.' But again localism remained supreme, thus giving verity to the scornful remarks of foreign nations, that no one could tell whether in dealing with America he was dealing with one nation, or with thirteen nations.

The brief history of the Confederation is crowded with such instances; and as amendment of the Articles of Confederation and perpetual union' explicitly required confirmation by the Legislatures of every State,' no remedial changes could be made. Had the Articles of Confederation allowed amendment by less than unanimity, the American people would, doubtless, have become a nation by means of slow adaptations, the gradual alteration of their constitution; and in the end their constitution would have been very different from the one under which they have won so many battles against localism, that perennial enemy of larger unities, whether we think in terms of a single nation aiming at local peace, or of fifty odd nations seeking 'to promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security,' as the Covenant of the League of Nations expresses it.

The keynote of all American history, from the adoption of that constitution of 1787 which made the nation the only sovereign power, to the Civil War which established that sovereignty, is the struggle against a larger unity. The Civil War itself has been so interpreted as to cause the average American to look upon the Southern States as a sort of unique instance of localism; but in its localism the South was by no means unique. The eleven states which attempted secession in the hope of retaining state sovereignty' were merely belated instances of localism once shared by all sections

of America. They had merely maintained longer than the other states an attitude once common to all, and which each in turn had stood ready to defend when threats of central control seemed to menace especially cherished rights and privileges. All Americans now know, and freely admit the truthfulness of the words of Elihu Root: The preservation of our dual system of government... has made possible our growth in local self-government, and national power in the past, and... is essential to the continuance of that government in the future.' It required, however, 137 years for America to understand that her people are more secure in their vital liberties as one sovereign nation than they could ever have been as citizens of thirteen sovereign states. And it will require the long patience, which the French proverb calls genius, to make the nations of the world understand that the vital liberties of their people will at last be more secure under an all-pervading unity sustained by International Law than they could ever be as citizens of fifty odd sovereign nations, standing each alone.

As soon as the Federal Constitution of 1787 had established a machinery strong enough to weld the sovereign states into a sovereign nation, and had begun the long process of vital unification, American national diplomacy began; and its aim as defined in the preambles of our most important treaties, is 'a firm, inviolable, and universal peace, and a true and sincere friendship,' to quote Jay's treaty; 'a firm and universal peace,' as the treaty of Ghent expresses it; 'a firm and inviolable peace and sincere friendship,' as the treaty of the Florida cessions declares; 'firm and universal peace,' to use the words of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Treaties represent a search for international unity, whether they include only two nations, or the whole family of nations; and they succeed or fail in proportion to the degree in which unities are discovered and embodied in their provisions.

Thus it is safe to say that the most successful diplomat is the man with the vision to see what the nation to which he is accredited has in common with his own nation. Therefore, the 28 British subjects and the 39 Americans, who have represented their respective governments in the capitals of the two nations during the 135

years which have elapsed since the first American minister, under our new constitution, sailed for England, have succeeded or failed chiefly because of their ability to see, or their failure to see, essential unities between these two nations. But here also the wider vision comes slowly, more slowly because the unseeing insist that there is something unpatriotic in seeing international unity, because the too locally minded have learned to employ what they call history as a means of cultivating the narrow view. This they interpret as using history to teach patriotism, while the only patriotism worth teaching is the patriotism which faces the facts, weighing them in the scales of justice, whether the balance rises or falls upon our side of the scales. It required not alone vision but a high order of patriotism for Chatham to face the parliament which had passed the Stamp Act, and to challenge it with the words:

'I would fain know by whom an American is represented here. will you tell him that he is represented by any representative of a borough? A borough which . no man ever saw! That is what is called the rotten part of the constitution. . . . The idea of virtual representation of America is the most contemptible that ever entered into the heart of a man. I shall never own the justice of taxing America, internally, until she enjoys the right of representation.'

He and the many far-sighted patriots who stood with him were, of course, denounced as unpatriotic. George Onslow, just before Lord North's fall, threw into their faces these stinging words: 'Why have we failed so miserably in this war against America, if not from the support... given rebellion in this very house?' It required both vision and patriotism for Grover Cleveland to say to the nation, over which he presided as president, that its plan to take Hawaii, by means of indirection, and without the consent of the Hawaiian people, was an international crime.

'It has been the boast of our government,' he said, ' that she seeks justice in all things, without regard to the strength or weakness of those with whom it deals. I mistake the American people if they favour the odious doctrine that there is no such thing as international morality; that there is one law for a strong nation and another for a weak one; that even by indirection a strong power may with impunity

despoil a weak one of its territory. The Law of Nations is founded upon reason and justice, and the rules of conduct governing individual relations between citizens or subjects of civilised states are equally applicable as between enlightened nations. On that ground the United States cannot be properly put in a position of countenancing a wrong after its commission any more than of consenting to it in advance. On that ground it cannot itself refuse to redress any injury inflicted through an abuse of power by its officers clothed with its authority and wearing its uniform.'

The vision of a wider unity, slowly as it comes to individuals, comes even more slowly to nations; and, therefore, a second test of the success or failure of the 67 diplomats who have represented America in England and England in America is their ability to cause their respective nations-both governments and people-to see the new unity which they themselves have perhaps discovered. The only enduring political unity rests upon law, discovered, formulated, and operating with the consent of the governed; and, as President Coolidge recently declared: Men do not make laws, they only discover them.'

The law which British-American diplomats seek, and have sought from the beginning, is not the law of England alone, nor the law of America alone, but the law upon which Great Britain and America can agree. It is International Law between two nations, operative without 'the drumming guns which know no doubts,' only as it rests upon generally perceived unities between the two. Therefore, whenever these diplomats have formed agreements, given pledges, signed treaties, which disregarded the sober, second thought, which means the real opinion, of the governed of one country or of both, they have recorded failure; and, in general, where they have properly assessed the community of ideas, they have registered success.

The high character of the 39 men who have represented the United States at the Court of St James is illustrated by the fact that they furnished:

5 Presidents of the United States: John Adams, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan;

1 Chief Justice of the United States: John Jay ;

4 Vice Presidents;

10 Secretaries of State;

4 Secretaries of the Treasury;

3 Secretaries of War;

1 Secretary of the Navy;

3 Attorney Generals.

And from their ranks come also the names of five of America's most eminent authors, George Bancroft, John Lothrop Motley, James Russell Lowell, and John Hay.

America as a nation began the search for BritishAmerican unities in 1791 when Gouverneur Morris took up the difficult post of American Minister in London, a post which John Adams had held under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 to 1788, and which had been left vacant from 1788 to 1791. But Morris saw very little indication of British-American unity; and his immediate successor, Thomas Pinckney, was not more successful. They found in England what they had left in America, distrust, suspicion, a brooding sense of unforgotten injuries, conditions which the ripe wisdom of Lord Balfour has recently declared responsible for all international troubles: and despite their best efforts, by 1794, these differences, or fancied differences, had brought the two nations face to face with what seemed inevitable war.

As an adventure toward the discovery of unities sufficient to justify a treaty, President Washington sent John Jay as a special envoy to England. Jay was an ideal man for the crisis. Trained as a jurist, a lover of peace, and with a mind singularly free from the pettiness which magnifies differences, he at once saw and reported a disposition on the part of King George III, and Lord Grenville, his Foreign Secretary, 'to give conciliation a fair experiment, by doing us substantial justice, and by consenting to such arrangements favourable to us as the national interests and habitual prejudices would admit.' The King had received him with the words: 'I imagine you begin to see that your mission will probably be successful.' 'Next to the King,' Jay wrote to a friend, our President is more popular in this country than any man in it.' Despite the prophecies of inevitable war, Jay dared to build upon essential unities, and, to the disappointment of an enraged war party in