often men are governed by names, and that their minds
might revolt at the idea of a formal tax, although they would submit to
pay it fifty-fold under the name of depreciation. Even at this day,
with all our additional light,--the combined light of science and of
experience,--it is difficult to see what else they could have done
without strengthening dangerously the hands of their domestic enemies.
Nor let this be taken as a proof that they engaged rashly in an unequal
contest, even though it was necessarily in part a war of paper against
gold. They have been accused of this by their friends as well as by
their enemies: they have been accused of sacrificing a positive good to
an uncertain hope,--of suffering their passions to hurry them into a war
for which they had made no adequate preparation, and had not the means
of making any,--that they wilfully, almost wantonly, incurred the
fearful responsibility of staking the lives and fortunes of those who
were looking to them for guidance upon the chances of a single cast. But
the accusation is unjust. As far as human foresight could reach, they
had calculated these chances carefully. They knew the tenure by which
they held their authority, and that, if they ran counter to the popular
will, the people would fall from them,--that, if they should fail in
making their position good, they would be the first, almost the only
victims,--that, then as ever, "the thunderbolts on highest mountains
light." Charles Carroll added "of Carrollton" to his name, so that, if
the Declaration he was setting it to should bring forfeiture and
confiscation, there might be no mistake about the victim. Nor was it
without a touch of sober earnestness that Harrison, bulky and fat, said
to the lean and shadowy Gerry, as he laid down his pen,--"When
hanging-time comes, I shall have the advantage of you. I shall be dead
in a second, while you will be kicking in the air half an hour after I
am gone." But they knew also, that, if there are dangers which we do not
perceive till we come full upon them, there are likewise helps which we
do not see till we find ourselves face to face with them,--and that in
the life of nations, as in the life of individuals, there are moments
when all that the wisest and most conscientious can do is to see that
everything is in its place, every man at his post, and resolutely bide
the shock.

While this subject was pressing upon Congress, it was occupying no less
seriously lea