sufficient, at least, for the temporary preservation of society. The
confederation, which was early felt to be necessary, was prepared
from the models of the Bavarian and Helvetic confederacies, the only
examples which remain, with any detail and precision, in history,
and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever
considered. But, reflecting on the striking difference, in so many
particulars, between this country and those where a courier may go
from the seat of government to the frontier in a single day, it was
then certainly foreseen by some who assisted in Congress at the
formation of it, that it could not be durable.

Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations,
if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in
States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences--
universal languor, jealousies, rivalries of States, decline of
navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures,
universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt of
public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with
foreign nations; and, at length, in discontents, animosities,
combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection, threatening
some great national calamity.

In this dangerous crisis, the people of America were not abandoned
by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or
integrity. Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty. The public disquisitions,
discussions, and deliberations issued in the present happy
constitution of government.