It  is  perfectly  true,  as  was  said  this  morning,  that
this  is  done  so  peacefully  that  nothing  gets  into  the
histories.  That  is  the  general  rule,  for  a  history  to
leave  out  what  is  important,  and  to  put  in  what
is  unimportant,  if  only  to  be  noisy.  It  would  be  a
matter  of  surprise  in  most  schools,  and  perhaps  in
most  colleges,  if  you  should  say  to  them  that  in
one  hundred  and  five  years  there  have  been  thirty
or  forty  conflicts  between  States  in  the  American
Union  which,  under  any  other  circumstances,  would
have  been  adjusted  by  shock  of  arms.    We  had  be-


4o8  Sixty  Years

tween  Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island,  in  the  year
1 841 , 1  think,  a  boundary  contest,  of  a  difficulty  quite
equal  to  the  boundary  contest  of  which  the  news-
papers are  full  now,  between  the  Central  American
States.  Here  were  two  independent  States,  with
an  absolute  difference.  The  question  was  sub-
mitted to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States ;
it  was  settled  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United
States,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  at  the  present
moment  there  are  fifty  men  or  women  in  the  State
of  Massachusetts  or  in  the  State  of  Rhode  Island
who  know  what  the  question  was,  or  would  be  pre-
pared to  give  any  intelligent  account  of  a  matter
which,  under  any  other  system,  would  have  brought
the  troops  of  these  two  States  into  collision.  This
is  one  illustration  out  of  a  great  many.  There  was
a  similar  question  between  the  State  of  Missouri  and
the  State  of  Iowa  as  to  their  boundary,  —  a  ques-
tion which  perhaps  made  rather  more  mark  upon
national  politics.  There  have  been  countless  ques-
tions with  respect  to  the  jurisdiction  of  States,  but
the  Supreme  Court  does  its  work  so  quietly  that  it
does  not  get  into  print.  It  is  every  now  and  then
announced  by  European  writers,  with  the  most
extraordinary  fanfaronade,  that  there  is  such  a
court;  it  takes  them  entirely  by  surprise.  Our
English  friends,  when  they  travel  here,  call  the
President  of  the  United  States  the  "  ruler "  of  the
United  States.  He  is  not.  The  people  of  the
United  States  is  the  ruler  of  the  United  States.
