carried
out.

Certainly leveling influences were at work, and the people as a whole
had moved one step farther in the direction of equality and democracy,
and it was well that the Revolution was not any more radical and
revolutionary than it was. The change was gradual and therefore more
lasting. One finds readily enough contemporary statements to the effect
that, "Although there are no nobles in America, there is a class of men
denominated 'gentlemen,' who, by reason of their wealth, their talents,
their education, their families, or the offices they hold, aspire to a
preeminence," but, the same observer adds, this is something which
"the people refuse to grant them." Another contemporary contributes the
observation that there was not so much respect paid to gentlemen of rank
as there should be, and that the lower orders of people behave as if
they were on a footing of equality with them.

Whether the State Constitutions are to be regarded as
property-conserving, aristocratic instruments, or as progressive
documents, depends upon the point of view. And so it is with the spirit
of union or of nationality in the United States. One student emphasizes
the fact of there being "thirteen independent republics differing...
widely in climate, in soil, in occupation, in everything which makes
up the social and economic life of the people"; while another sees "the
United States a nation." There is something to be said for both sides,
and doubtless the truth lies between them, for there were forces making
for disintegration as well as for unification. To the student of the
present day, however, the latter seem to have been the stronger and more
important, although the possibility was never absent that the thirteen
States would go their separate ways.

There are few things so potent as a common danger to bring discordant
elements into working harmony. Several times in the century and a half
of their existence, when the colonies found themselves threatened by
their enemies, they had united, or at least made an effort to unite,
for mutual help. The New England Confederation of 1643 was organized
primarily for protection against the Indians and incidentally against
the Dutch and French. Whenever trouble threatened with any of the
European powers or with the Indians--and that was frequently--a plan
would be broached for getting the colonies to combine their efforts,
sometimes for the immediate necessity and sometimes for a broader