t the "rivulet of African
slavery" flow on for five hundred years to come, than to see around me
the fragments of a dissevered Union. In that Union, and the silent
steady workings of its glorious principles, more than in the conflict
of antagonist and angry parties, rest the hopes, not alone of African
emancipation, but of unborn nations.

The American Union grew out of the exigencies of the times. A common
cause and a common danger united the colonies first in resistance to the
aggressions and exactions of the British government, and finally in the
overthrow of its power over them. With the declaration of their
independence, came the conviction of the necessity of their permanent
Union, and this conviction after much of doubt and debate, resulted in
the adoption of the Articles of Confederation by the final ratification
of Maryland, on 1st March, 1781, which continued in force until the
present Constitution went into operation.

So long as the States were engaged in the war of the Revolution,
although the confederation was found to be in many things weak and
imperfect, amid the dangers and anxieties of those years of trial its
defects were overlooked or supplied by the earnest patriotism of our
fathers, and it accomplished its end in the triumph of independence. But
it was not long after the peace of 1783, when the Congress came to carry
on the Federal government with reference to the ends of peace and the
commercial policy and general prosperity of the United States, that it
was found that the Articles of Confederation could no longer answer as
the Constitution of the United States. A leading writer of that day in
addressing the public upon the subject, after enumerating many of the
defects of the Confederation with reference to the powers of the
Congress, summed up the whole in these brief words, "In short, they may
declare everything but do nothing."

Judge Story remarks in speaking of this period of our history--"That the
confederation had at least totally failed as an effectual instrument of
government. It stood the shadow of a mighty name."

Judge Marshall on the same subject says--"The confederation was
apparently expiring from mere debility."

Judge Story further says--"_It is, indeed, difficult to over-charge any
picture of the gloom end apprehension which pervaded the public
councils, as well as the private meditations of the ablest men of the
country._"

It was under such circumstances that the conven