counter action in American politics. We had here all the motives for constitutions that disturbed Europe; and that of the desire to prevent the loss of liberty in the pursuit of new wealth besides. The new constitution was not alone a supplement and correction of the Articles of Confederation, but also of state sovereignty run mad in several state constitutions. The struggle for independence had been fought under adulations to the states, which were paid to them so as to coax them into their utmost exertions for success. And when it was attained, state self-flattery took all the merits to itself. Thus it became necessary to ask the states to surrender some abuses of their power, for instance, their wasteful land sales and their levying impost and transit duties. This was like the breaking of an old horse that had been badly broke as a colt. We will quote from some letters of the period to show the then prevailing conditions.

Washington wrote to Jay, August 1786: "Our affairs are hastening to a crisis; we have errors to correct, and have most likely had too high an opinion of human nature when we formed our union. Experience has taught us that measures calculated for the best happiness of men are not adopted nor carried out by them unless some enforcing power intervenes. I cannot see that we can long exist as a nation unless we establish an authority that can make itself energetically felt. The aversion to clothe Congress with adequate powers for national objects appears to me as the zenith of democratic folly and nonsense."

Jay then wrote to Madison: "It is time for our people to choose between freedom and anarchy; government without liberty, as well as liberty without government, is not a blessing, but a curse."

Jefferson wrote from Europe: "The reputation of America is, at this time, not flattering to its citizens. . . . We should ever bear in mind that loss of good name and war are the sequences of a want of attention to national character. As long as the states, each for itself, exercise the functions relating to foreign intercourse, there will be irregularities that will place us continually on a bad footing with foreign powers."

Henry Knox wrote to Washington: "The people here (Massachusetts) think that the property of the United States was, before England was ousted, and since, protected by the united exertions of all, and that it is therefore common property; and whoever opposes this belief is declared an enemy of justice and fairness, and that he should be swept from the face of the earth. They are determined to wipe out all debts, public and private, and to procure for themselves agrarian laws; and they think

that unfunded paper money, backed by legal tender acts, is the easy way to do this."

This has reference to Shay's rebellion, the attempted capture of the Springfield armory, and the plethoric issues of paper money. Morris, a more sanguine character, wrote to Jay, January 1784: “It is true our general government lacks energy, but no less true that this fault will be remedied. A feeling of nationality is the natural fruit of a national existence, and even if the present generation shall adhere to colonial diversities, it will die out and make room for a race of Americans."

General Varnum, of Rhode Island, said of the House of Representatives of his state, in an address to the United States Convention, 1787: "Paper money is its idol, and to maintain it, founded as it is on fraud and oppression, they trod under foot the holiest obligations." The students, merchants, &c., of that state, said of that body:“The dregs of society alone sustain the House of Representatives; it is determined to maintain its ground, and to prevent, if possible, the collection of debts."

Duane, editor of the "Aurora;" Hamilton as correspondent of "The Continentalist;" General Schuyler as member of the Senate of New York; Robert Morris as superintendent of the federal finances, Palatiah and Noah Webster as essayists, Governor Bowdoin, Gerry, and not to forget Madison, contributed much towards shaping the better public mind.

How to induce the popular mind to question state sovereignty, and to see in it one of the sources of public evils, was the task before the men whose remarks we have quoted. And it was no more, no less, than to make the masses see that behind professed common interests were always lurking actual special interests. To see that, required, however, a much deeper self-inquiry than they were in the habit of making. They were used to think themselves all safe, if only the old Saxon method of following up the "folkgemote" by a "wittena-gemote" could be set in motion. And they believed this the more, because in modern convocations of the assembled wisdom of states there was no self-representation of great class interests. This was, at least, the rule in America. Here there might be local interests, but even they should be public interests. The law of mutatis mutandis, the nemesis of all political organizations, which always produces forces from within for the overthrow of institutions in which any great interests are neglected, or worse yet, attempted to be suppressed, they believed themselves exempted from; because they had republics in their states, and thought them to be the perpetual fountains of liberty. That great social interests, such as ambitious men combining

for personal success into political parties, or persons coveting riches either in open individual commercial pursuits, or through corporations, or job and place hunters, would, yea had already, built their nests for nursing oppressions in these republics, was hid from them. They looked-having thrown off Great Britain, its king, nobility, priesthood, and wealth-only to a consolidated central government as the great danger to their liberties. To persuade them out of this, and to allow state concupiscence to be checked and counteracted, was the true object of the movements for a new federal constitution between 1780-87.

New York, mark it!-the state with the city having the largest commercial intercourse both at home and abroad-was the most advanced in political sagacity. It took the lead in July 1782, by declaring to the sister states: "This important end (a better constitution) can never be attained by partial deliberations of the states separately. It is essential to the common welfare that there should be, as soon as possible, a conference of the whole on the subject. . . . It would be advisable, for this purpose, for Congress to recommend to each state to adopt the measure of assembling a general convention of the states specially authorized to revise and amend the confederation, reserving a right to the respective legislatures to ratify their action."

The indirectness of this proposal is plainly visible. Was not Congress a conference of the whole? Was it not, in all except name, a convention authorized to revise and amend the confederation? Could it not propose, and the states ratify, all amendments? Why, then, a roundabout way? Why thread a new needle where one was already threaded? The answer is easy, if disagreeable. It was necessary; because the people of the United States then, as ever, had to be humored into doing right, and would not have done it without being humored. That suggestion was neither the first nor the last time that our public was brought into new things by leading it away from an old normal direct way into a side path. Their British forefathers had been so led, often into changes in church and state; and the process has since been frequently repeated, the last instance being the electoral commission in 1877. The plan of New York in 1782 was too square a proposition, however, for immediate adoption. It was shelved temporarily, but eventually became the approved method for changing the constitution.

The necessity of thus humoring the public mind involved a loss of five precious years to America. The men who had at last to lead in the final movement-Washington, Franklin, Knox, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Randolf, Roger Sherman, Livingston, Dayton, Dickinson, Mr. Henry Rutledge, Pinkney,

The

Rufus King, and others were in 1782, one and all ready for the service. Why not send them to Congress? They were younger and fresher than they were ever afterwards. faults of the articles were known, as the debates in Congress and various public reports show. Why wait six years to do that which, to be well done, had best be done at once? Why adopt extraneous proceedings? Why not use the threaded needle? Why thread a new one? There can be no answer to these queries, except the one, that the public mind, though professing to be national, was not yet conscious of being a totality, and it could not get that consciousness with a Congress that stood in their minds only as a multiple personification of state sovereignty. It took a new body that would embody the embryo national sentiment and carry it through the necessary processes of gestation to national personification. State pride, local tergiversation, and an inferior public will, had to be worked into a superior public will, with the consent of a people that did not know its own mind. The loss of precious time, especially that of six years of national administration by Washington, when he was still in the prime of life, was a severe deprivation, and so was the putting off of the re-entry of Franklin into home public life until too late on account of age; but it had to be borne, as the people could not be moved at the right time.

Patience with the public mind seems to have been an imperative duty with the great men who had to prepare it for an advance step in the perfection of American institutions. The people were then, as now, easily alarmed at every proposition for a change of their fundamental law. It is always so when a society persuades itself that it is free per se. It is, of course, ever reminded by events that this is not so, but these events are charged as errors in government. Demagogues are never wanting at such times (they were on hand then) to take advantage of such a chaotic popular mind, and to raise scruples against honest purposes, and to blind the public eye as to their own wicked designs. A body like the old Congress was specially open to such attacks. It had, during the war, again and again

1 The mention of these names, and their absence from the political field, that is to say, from the spheres in which the institutions and their organisms were formed, suggests the general fact that large portions of the lives of the best public and private men is spent in retiracy from active work. Of Washington's life twelve years were lost; of Adams', twenty-four; of Knox's, twelve; of Jefferson's, sixteen; of Madison's, eighteen; of Jackson's, twelve. Most merchants and manufacturers, as well as lawyers, withdraw early from business. Is there too great a strain on human energies here? Or is there in men's constitutions an enervation? Or do the young push out the old more rapidly than elsewhere? Or have we political idiosyncrasies that make us look upon retired great men with pleasure?

to appeal to the latent patriotism of the people, and to rebuke scamps who were stumbling-blocks to a full development of the country's strength. Its best members were, for that reason, more or less unpopular, and their proposals generally fell deadborn as soon as brought forward. There were also, as might be expected, ambitious men anxious to take their places, and they would look with hope to any change of programme. Hence the proposition of New York met with support enough not to allow it to be killed, but not with enough to secure its immediate adoption. It had to win its way slowly by its intrinsic merits. Other plans had to be tried and prove failures, and then the public mind would naturally recall the measure, and finally adopt it with some modifications.

Virginia made the first move afterwards (November 1785), and renewed it January 1786. It proposed " the appointment of commissioners by the states to meet at a place and time to be agreed upon, to take into consideration the trade of the United States, to consider how far a uniform system of commercial relations of the states may be necessary to their common interests and their permanent harmony.'

A body of commissioners met accordingly at Annapolis, September 1786, but only five states were represented, and it soon became evident that the movement fell on the one side short of the wishes of the true friends of a better government, and that on the other it exceeded the views of those who were really insincere. Washington kept aloof from it, as he and his friends did not approve the ignoring of Congress altogether. John Dickinson, the draftsman of "the articles," was chairman, and it seemed improper that he should lead in setting them unceremoniously aside; so they agreed to recommend the appointment of more commissioners, and to adjourn to Philadelphia for May 1787. The then completed body was "to take into consideration the situation of the United States; to devise such further provisions as should appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." They reported their proceedings to Congress as well as the states, and thus found their way back to legitimacy, just as their British forefathers had repeatedly done when illegitimate dynasties had installed themselves in power. It is interesting to read in this connection Blackstone's homilies on the British capacity to land always finally in legitimacy after straying into illegitimacies.

Congress now took the matter out of the hands of the commissioners, and shaped things more in accordance with the Articles of Confederation. It passed a "whereas" and resolution