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fore it had formed alliances, and whilst it was without funds, 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, until these United States, aided by a magnanimous king and nation, have been enabled, under a just Providence, to close the war in safety, freedom, and independency; 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 mil. itary command; it will continue to animate remotest ages.

We feel, with you, our obligations to the army in general, and will particularly charge ourselves with the interest of those confidential officers, who have attended your person to this affecting moment.

We join you in commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, beseeching Him to dispose the hearts and minds of its citizens, to improve the opportunity afforded them, of becoming a happy and respectable nation; and for you, we address to Him our earnest prayers, that a life so beloved, may be fostered with all His care; that your days may be happy, as they have been illustrious, and that He will finally give you that reward which this world cannot give.

WT

7ITH the signing of the preliminary articles of peace at Paris, the struggle for independence was practically ended, and the United States was a free nation. The struggle had been long and arduous; the patriots had endured indescribable hardships and had overcome stern and bitter trials; but perseverance had gained the meed, and patience had won the race. They were now free from foreign domination, in possession of a vast domain. the possibilities of which they had not even the slightest conception, and before them lay the future which was their own to do with as they saw fit. It only depended upon themselves as to whether that future was to be bright or dark.*

Writing to Monroe from Paris, June 17, 1785, Jefferson said: "It [a sojourn in France] will make you adore your own country, it's soil, it's climate, it's equality, liberty, laws, people & man

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Yet the actual conditions existing at the present time were far from encouraging, for the people had been compelled to win independence at the point of the sword, and the natural outcome was that the country should be in a deplorable state, lands desolated, poverty general and homes broken up by deaths. Resources were to a great extent dried up, finances in a deplorable condition, trade and commerce practically destroyed, agri

ners. My God! how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy. I confess I had no idea of it myself. While we shall see multiplied instances of Europeans going to live in America, I will venture to say no man now living will ever see an instance of an American removing to settle in Europe & continuing there. Come then, & see the proofs of this, and on your return add your testimony of every thinking American, in order to satisfy our countrymen how much it is their interest to preserve uninfected by contagion those peculiarities in their government & manners to which they are indebted for these blessings."- Ford's ed. of Jefferson's Writings, vol. iv., p. 59.

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culture almost ruined,* and to make matters still worse there was practically no central authority to which the inhabitants could appeal to secure justice and equity. A mountain of debt was pressing upon what little central authority there was, but even this government was on the brink of destruction and no one could tell the exact status of political affairs. The statesmen of the period saw that there was a large work yet to be done and that a crisis had to be met which was of prime importance to the welfare of the whole nation and only secondary to the struggle for existence itself. Madison said that, "unless some amicable and adequate arrangements be speedily taken for adjusting all the subsisting accounts and discharging the public engagements, a dissolution of the Union will be inevitable."+

In 1783 the love of Union, as a sentiment for which men would undergo all manner of hardship, had scarcely come into existen.ce among the people of the emancipated colonies. But nine years had elapsed since in the first Continental Congress the States had begun to act in concert, under the severe pressure of common fear and an immediate necessity of action. Even then the war was allowed to languish and had almost failed because of the difficulty of securing concerted action; the

Ford's ed. of Jefferson's Writings, vol. iv.,

p. 140.

Gay, Life of Madison, p. 36.

length of the war was due chiefly to this lack of organization. Congress had steadily declined in power and was much weaker at the end than at the beginning of the war. There was also much fear that with the war so happily concluded, what little interest the people had in the Confederation would die out altogether and the need for concerted action cease to be felt, whereupon the Union would break to pieces. As Fiske says: "Unless the most profound and delicate statesmanship should be forthcoming to take this sentiment under its guidance, there was much reason to fear that the release from the common adhesion to Great Britain would end in setting up thirteen little republics, ripe for endless squabbling, like the republics of ancient Greece and medieval Italy, and ready to become the prey of England and Spain, even as Greece became the prey of Macedonia."'* Fiske quotes the remarks of Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, in which he says: "The mutual antipathies and clashing interests of the Americans, their difference of governments, habitudes and manners, indicate that they will have no centre of union and no common interest. They can never be united into one compact empire under any species of government whatever; a disunited people till the end of time, suspicious and distrustful of each other, they will be divided and subdivided into little

*Fiske, Critical Period of American History, p. 57 (4th ed., 1889, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)