The loose Federal system with State rights so prominent would inevitably have prevented, or at least long delayed, the formation of one solid, all-powerful, central government.

The tendency under the Southern idea was centrifugal.

To-day it is centripetal, all drawn toward the center under the sway of the Supreme Court, the decisions of which are, very properly, half the dicta of lawyers and half the work of statesmen.
Uniformity in many fields must be secured.

Marriage, divorce, bankruptcy, railroad supervision, control of corporations, and some other departments should in some measure be brought under one head.
[Re-reading this paragraph to-day, July, 1907, written many years ago, it seems prophetic.

These are now burning questions.] It was not long after this that the railroad company constructed its own telegraph line.