ABSTRACT
States and cities and municipalities might try all sorts of experiments and see if they worked—there was nothing against civic ownership of public utilities, or communal holding of property, by free consent. Within the political frame, groups might form and function for economic or religious or self-disciplinary purposes, so long as they did not try to force individuals into conformity. If the objectors will look up the record they will find that the original opposition said those principles were impracticable because they had been borrowed from classical history and would work only for a small city state, composed mainly of traders. They seem to forget that when it was founded the United States had Europe in the back yard and on both sides—French sovereignty in Louisiana, Spain to the South, and British troops garrisoned in Canada. It had had one European war fought on American soil—the French and Indian war, and George Washington fought in it.
