ge
with you in the arduous but pleasing task of attempting to make a nation
happy."

It was indeed an arduous task, especially for conscientious men like
Washington and his compatriots. The circumstances of the country and the
temper of the people demanded the exercise of great wisdom and
discretion in trying the experiment of a new form of government,
concerning which there was yet a great diversity of sentiment. Doubts,
fears, suspicions, jealousies, downright opposition, were all to be
encountered. The late conflict of opinions had left many wounds. A large
proportion of them were partially healed, others wholly so; but deep
scars remained to remind the recipients of the turmoil, and the causes
which incited it. Although eleven states had ratified the constitution,
yet only three (New York, Delaware, and Georgia) had accepted it by
unanimous consent. In others it was ratified by meagre majorities. North
Carolina hesitated, and Rhode Island had refused to act upon the matter.
The state-rights feeling was still very strong in most of the local
legislatures, and many true friends of the constitution doubted whether
the general government would have sufficient power to control the
actions of the individual states. The great experiment was to be tried
by the representatives of the nation while listening to the sad lessons
derived from the history of all past republics, and beneath the scrutiny
of an active, restless, intelligent, high-spirited people, who were too
fond of liberty to brook any great resistance to their inclinations,
especially if they seemed to be coincident with the spirit of the
Revolution.

The republic to be governed was spread over a vast territory, with an
ocean front of fifteen hundred miles, and an inland frontier of three
times that extent. Cultivation and permanent settlements formed but a
sea-selvedge of this domain; for beyond the Alleghanies but
comparatively few footsteps of civilized man had yet trodden. In the
valleys of the Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, empires were budding; but
where half the states of the Union now flourish the solitude of the
wilderness yet reigned supreme.

Could the regions beyond the Alleghanies have remained so, there would
have been less cause for anxiety; but over those barriers a flood of
emigration had begun to flow, broad and resistless; and during the first
years of Washington's administration those wilds became populated with a
hardy race, who found upon