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in tears. He is hailed in Philadelphia, and everywhere, as the deliverer of his country. Loud hurrahs ring at his approach. The eyes of gratitude gaze at his stately form, dimmed with tears. Flowers are strewed in his path by fair hands. Smiling affection wreaths his brow with the garland of laurel and roses. But he hastens on. He is at Annapolis, before Congress, delivering his farewell address; and these are its closing words: "Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action; and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life." The grandest act recorded in history. Moral sublimity could rise no higher.

Mifflin was in the chair. Providence had arranged that one who had been with good reason suspected of plotting for the removal of Washington, when gloom enveloped the camp and the nation, should attempt to give voice to the feelings of that great hour. Mifflin thus responded: "The United States, in Congress assembled, receive, with emotions too affecting for utterance, the solemn resignation of the authority under which you have led their troops with success through a perilous and doubtful war. Called upon by your country to defend its invaded rights, you accepted the sacred charge before it had found alliances, and while it was without friends or a government to support you. You have conducted the great military contest with wisdom and fortitude, invariably regarding the rights of the civil power, through all disasters and changes. You have, by the love and confidence of your fellow-citizens, enabled them to display their martial genius, and transmit their fame to posterity. You have persevered, till these United States, aided by a magnanimous king and nation, have been enabled, under a just Providence, to close the war in freedom, safety, and independence; on which happy event we sincerely join you in congratulations. Having defended the standard of

liberty in this New World, having taught a lesson useful to those who inflict and to those who feel oppression, you retire from the great theatre of action with the blessings of your fellow-citizens: but the glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command; it will continue to animate remotest ages."

Washington had acknowledged the independence of the national life; the American people had acknowledged it, but with one grand and damaging reservation. Virginia, and the Southern States generally, insisted upon setting the State above the Nation; that the first devotion of loyalty was to the State; that nothing belonged to the General Government but what had been formally conceded to it; and that the Union was a simple confederacy, from which either of its members, sovereign in itself, might withdraw at pleasure. Strange, therefore, as the fact may appear, while sovereigns and courts abroad acknowledged the new nation as a free and independent nation, many of the States, as such, denied it; and history must wait ninety years before it could record this latest acknowledgment of the independent national life in the United States of America.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CONSTITUTION REVEALS AN ORGANIC NATIONAL LIFE.

"Every nation, when able and agreed, has a right to set up over themselves any form of government which to them may appear most conducive to their common welfare." LANGDON.

CONSTITUTIONS grow. They are not the sudden product of genius or talent. They cannot be resolved into perfect maturity by any body of men. Their materials, like inorganic matter in chaos, seem to be floating about amid the confusion of ages, seeking affinities and organization. A careful study of history, however, will reveal the vital element of Christian liberty, surviving all changes, and superior to all antagonist forces, slowly attracting to itself the materials of its growth, and in all its local manifestations holding secret but indissoluble connections with all the true principles of liberty on the globe.

Magna Charta, so fundamental to the British Constitution, was not the creation of the powerful nobles in conflict with King John. It was the grand original right of man, which had been felt and asserted somewhere in all the ages, but which had been long denied, insulted, and stamped out of sight. It must, then, assert itself, claim a human voice to utter its demands and enforce its authority, that the race might not believe it dead, or forever powerless against oppression. And, when it was once expressed, it was not for England alone, but for the world. It slowly, but with steady progress, leavened the masses, so that British freedom from henceforth embodied a thought, a grand fact, which could never be safely ignored. The conflicts of Puritanism with

despotic power showed the pressure and strength of this life-force on its way to the New World.

Now freedom begins to show dimly its constitutional form in the colonies, first in its indignant utterances against the tyrannical acts of the mother-country; then in the strong State-papers, which showed inchoate State authority antedating the formal organization of independent government; then in the bonds of union, which indicated a common interest and common life in the separate colonies; then in the organized State governments which rose up amid the birth-throes of the great Revolution.

A project of union was brought before Congress, by Franklin, in 1775; but it could only show the conviction of its necessities, and the difficulty of ascertaining of what the unity of the colonies consisted.

THE OLD ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.

When the declaration of independence destroyed the unity which the colonies had formerly recognized in the British crown, and left them to ascertain and define the profounder and less evident ties, which, as parts of a new nation, bound them together, they sought to define in words the sense in which they were separate States, and at the same time a General Government. A most difficult thing to do. The history of the effort affords a striking illustration of the fact, already stated, that reliable constitutions are not made, but grow. In June, 1776, a committee of one from each State was appointed to draught a project of national government, then simply understood as a confederacy of colonies. Samuel Adams, Sherman, Dickinson, and John Rutledge, were of the number of this important committee; a sufficient guaranty that the effort would be able, and faithful to the people, so far as the progress of events had defined the possibilities of national organization. Dickinson drew the document in twenty articles. But the report

proved at once the difficulties of the task, and the inevitable demand for mutual concessions. Repeated attempts were made to consider and adopt it; but the difficulty of agreement, and the disturbed condition of Congress, driven from Philadelphia, deferred the final vote for six months. The Articles of Confederation were at length sanctioned by Congress, and went to the States for their "immediate and dispassionate action." In the document accompanying the Articles, it was well said, "that to form a permanent Union, accommodated to the opinions and wishes of the delegates of so many States, differing in habits, produce, commerce, and internal police, was found to be a work which nothing but time and reflection, conspiring with a disposition to conciliate, could mature and accomplish."

During the following winter, only New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, and Virginia accepted the Articles "without objections." After proposing "various amendments," however, all the States, excepting New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, adopted them. These States had no difficulty in pointing out valid objections to the plan; for it was really very imperfect: but New Jersey and Delaware yielded to the urgent entreaties of Congress. Maryland stood alone for two years in resisting the ratification, which prevented the official promulgation of the Articles.

To reach even a confederation, the following grave and perplexing questions must be settled:

How should the votes in Congress be given? Virginia was large, populous, and central; and she said, "According to population:" but she was overruled, and the vote was to be by States; and not less than nine States were required to determine any question of grave importance.

How should taxes be levied? The East said, "According to population;" but the South said, "No: slave labor is not so profitable as white."

The casting vote which settled this controversy fell upon New Jersey; and she gave it to the South, against the North, exempting forever slave property from taxation."

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