provincial colonists into liberal-minded unionists was not to be so
easily effected. A feeling of true nationality must await years of
growth. Confidence in each other had not yet replaced fear and
suspicion. That the first attempt to come into a union could have been
a success, that a sacrifice to the god Provincialism could have been
avoided, seems in retrospect impossible.

This period of fear of centralisation, which began even before the
close of the Revolutionary War, a time of mutual distrust, of paramount
individualism, is little known and rarely dwelt upon at present. Perhaps
the omission is due to a happy nature, which recalls only the pleasant
events of the past. The school-texts dismiss it with a few paragraphs;
statesmen rarely turn to its valuable lessons of experience; and to
the larger number of the American people, the statement that we have
lived since our independence under a national frame of government other
than the Constitution is a matter of surprise. A writer of fiction
somewhere describes two maiden sisters, one of whom had a happy and
the other a melancholy disposition. In recalling the family history,
one could remember all the marriages and the other all the deaths. To
recall only national successes is undoubtedly most pleasant; but
posterity sitting ever at the feet of History gains a more valuable
lesson by including the failures of the past.

Criticism of the Confederation which our fathers framed to take the
place of British rule must be tempered by the reflection that the
action was taken while the land was in the chaos of war. Praise is due
their genius for organisation, inherited from the mother country they
were warring against, which enabled them to contemplate a new form of
government while engaged in dissolving the old. The Government is dead;
long live the Government. According to the intention, there was to be