Parties, indeed, may be found which threaten the future tranquillity of the Union; but there are none which seem to contest the present form of Government or the present course of society.
The parties by which the Union is menaced do not rest upon abstract principles, but upon temporal interests.

These interests, disseminated in the provinces of so vast an empire, may be said to constitute rival nations rather than parties.

Thus, upon a recent occasion, the North contended for the system of commercial prohibition, and the South took up arms in favor of free trade, simply because the North is a manufacturing and the South an agricultural district; and that the restrictive system which was profitable to the one was prejudicial to the other.

*b [Footnote b: [The divisions of North and South have since acquired a far greater degree of intensity, and the South, though conquered, still presents a formidable spirit of opposition to Northern government .-- Translator's Note, 1875.]] In the absence of great parties, the United States abound with lesser controversies; and public opinion is divided into a thousand minute shades of difference upon questions of very little moment.

The pains which are taken to create parties are inconceivable, and at the present day it is no easy task.