their neighbors, who were lately their equals? Nor would it be at all impossible that they should enter into such rash engagements as would prove their own destruction, from a mixture of apprehended necessity and real resent

ment.

Perhaps it may be thought that breaking off this confederacy, and leaving it unfinished after we have entered upon it, will be only postponing the duty to some future period? Alas! nothing can exceed the absurdity of that supposition. Does not all history cry out, that a common danger is the great and only effectual means of settling difficulties, and composing differences? Have we not experienced its efficacy in producing such a degree of union through these colonies, as nobody would have prophesied and hardly any would have expected?

If, therefore, at present, when the danger is yet imminent, when it is so far from being over that it is but coming to its height, we shall find it impossible to agree upon the terms of this confederacy, what madness is it to suppose that there ever will be a time, or that circumstances will so change as to make it even probable that it will be done at an after season? Will not the very same difficulties that are in our way, be in the way of those who shall come after us? Is it possible that they should be ignorant of them, or inattentive to them? Will they not have the same jealousies of each other, the same attachment to local prejudices, and particular interest? So certain is this, that I look upon it as on the repentance of a sinner. Every day's delay, though it adds to the necessity, yet augments the difficulty and takes from the inclination.

There is one thing that has been thrown out by which some seem to persuade themselves of, and others to be more indifferent about, the success of a confederacy, that from the nature of men it is to be expected that a time must come when it will be dissolved and broken in pieces. I am none of those who either deny or conceal the depravity of human nature till it is purified by the light of the truth and

renewed by the Spirit of the living God. Yet I apprehend there is no force in that reasoning at all. Shall we establish nothing good because we know it can not be eternal? Shall we live without government because every constitution has its old age and its period? Because we know that we shall die, shall we take no pains to preserve or lengthen out life? Far from it, sir: it only requires the more watchful attention to settle government upon the best principles and in the wisest manner, that it may last as long as the nature of things will admit.

But I beg leave to say something more, though with some risk that it will be thought visionary and romantic. I do expect, Mr. President, a progress, as in every other human art, so in the order and perfection of human society, greater than we have yet seen; and why should we be wanting to ourselves in urging it forward? It is certain, I think, that human science and religion have kept company together and greatly assisted each other's progress in the world. I do not say that intellectual and moral qualities are in the same proportion in particular persons, but they have a great and friendly influence upon one another, in societies and larger bodies.

There have been great improvements, not only in human knowledge, but in human nature, the progress of which can be easily traced in history. Everybody is able to look back to the time, in Europe, when the liberal sentiments that now prevail upon the rights of conscience would have been looked upon as absurd. It is but little above two hundred years since that enlarged system, called the balance of power, took place; and I maintain that it is a greater step, from the former disunited and hostile situation of kingdoms and states, to their present condition, than it would be from their present condition to a state of more perfect and lasting union. It is not impossible that in future times all the states in one quarter of the globe may see it proper, by some plan of union, to perpetuate security and peace; and sure I am, a well planned confederacy among the States of

America may hand down the blessings of peace and public order to many generations. The union of the Seven Provinces of the Low Countries has never yet been broken, and they are of very different degrees of strength and wealth. Neither have the cantons of Switzerland ever broken among themselves, though there are some of them Protestants, and some of them Papists, by public establishment. Not only so, but these confederacies are seldom engaged in a war with other nations. Wars are generally between monarchs, or single states that are large. A confederation of itself keeps war at a distance from the bodies of which it is composed.

For all these reasons, Sir, I humbly apprehend that every argument from honor, interest, safety, and necessity, conspire in pressing us to a confederacy; and if it be seriously attempted, I hope, by the blessing of God upon our endeavors, it will be happily accomplished.

1

II

The Constitution Adopted

IN THE words of John Quincy Adams, the Constitution of the United States was "extorted from the grinding necessity of a reluctant people." The instinct of separation among the States was stronger than the desire for union. Chief among the forces which tended to perpetuate separation were these: (1) The extent of the territory comprised in the Confederation, which was larger than the combined areas of France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and the German Empire. (2) The difficulties of communication between the different sections; the journey between Boston and New York then required more time and entailed more hardship than it now takes to cross the continent. (3) The conflicting interests among the States. And (4) the inveterate habit of State allegiance. "As to the future grandeur of America and its being a rising empire under one head, whether republican or monarchical," wrote Dean Tucker, a keen-sighted English economist who favored the independence of the colonies, "it is one of the idlest and most visionary notions that ever was conceived even by the writers of romance. The mental antipathies and clashing interests of the Americans, their differences of governments, of habitudes, and manners, indicate that they will have no center of union and no common interest. They never can be united into one compact empire under any species of government whatever; a disunited people to

the end of time, suspicious and distrustful of each other, they will be divided or subdivided into little commonwealths or principalities, according to natural boundaries, by great bays of the sea, and by vast rivers, lakes, and ridges of mountains." (Bancroft, History of the United States, VI, p. 50.)

The failure of government under the Articles of Confederation, however, forced the States against their will to take steps which led to the surrender of their jealously guarded sovereignty. The Congress of the Confederation proved unable to enforce the treaty provisions of 1783 upon either the States or Great Britain. The government was always without sufficient money because of the failure of the States to pay the just requisitions made upon them; and all proposals to give Congress power itself to lay taxes failed because of the requirement of unanimous action on the part of the States. The Articles gave no power to regulate inter-State or foreign commerce; and the failure of Congress to secure the navigation of the Mississippi, which was in the control of Spain, threatened to separate entirely the trans-Alleghany country from the Atlantic coast. Finally, in 1786, came a series of paroxysms of anarchy over the paper-money question, culminating in Shays' rebellion in Massachusetts, which endangered the existence of the State governments themselves. At the same time the Annapolis Convention, called to devise uniform commercial regulations, recommended a second convention to "render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the union"; and this recommendation, ratified by Congress, led to the Federal Convention which framed the present Constitution of the United States.

The proceedings in the Federal Convention, which sat at Philadelphia from May 14 to September 17, 1787, were secret, and the speeches delivered are known to us almost