The two English-speaking federal states which lie side by side in North America have a profound interest for each other. They have been built up by peoples of the same race, and of the same political traditions. Canada, the lesser and the younger, has been deeply influenced by the United States, the greater and the older. Federation became a vital question in Canada only in 1865 when the United States was emerging from a terrible civil war. This war had turned on a constitutional question,—whether a federated state might secede from the union. The framers of the Canadian system learned the lesson taught by the war, and, in the constitution which they drew up for Canada, they made it impossible for the provinces ever to regard themselves as sovereign communities with the right to political independence. Canada thus learned without bloodshed the lesson taught by the agony of her neighbor.

If along different paths the two systems thus attained to likeness, in other not less vital respects they still show differences. It is my purpose to-day to discuss only one of these differences. The American system is based upon the conception that no one branch of the government should be supreme, and that each should be held to its proper tasks. The President, the Senate, arid the House of Representatives all possess real and independent power and, in the background, stands the Supreme Court ready to require all of them to obey the written constitution.