The students of the future, in this department, will have much to say in
the way of comparison between American and British institutions. The
relationship between these two is unique in history. It is always
interesting to trace and to compare Constitutions, as it is to compare
languages; especially in such instances as those of the Greek States and
the Italian Republics, or the diversified forms of the feudal system in
the different countries of Europe. But there is no parallel in all the
records of the world to the case of that prolific British mother, who
has sent forth her innumerable children over all the earth to be the
founders of half-a-dozen empires. She, with her progeny, may almost
claim to constitute a kind of Universal Church in politics. But, among
these children, there is one whose place in the world's eye and in
history is superlative: it is the American Republic. She is the eldest
born. She has, taking the capacity of her land into view as well as its
mere measurement, a natural base for the greatest continuous empire ever
established by man. And it may be well here to mention what has not
always been sufficiently observed, that the distinction between
continuous empire, and empire severed and dispersed over sea, is vital.
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