a total independence of its claims, men of
reflection were less apprehensive of danger from the formidable
powers of fleets and armies they must determine to resist, than from
those contests and dissensions which would certainly arise
concerning the forms of government to be instituted over the whole
and over the parts of this extensive country. Relying, however, on
the purity of their attentions, the justice of their cause, and the
integrity and intelgence of the people, under an over-ruling
Providence, which had so signally protected this country from the
first, the representatives of this nation, then consisting of little
more than half its present numbers, not only broke to pieces the
chains which were forging, and the rod of iron that was lifted up,
but frankly cut asunder the ties which had bound them, and launched
into an ocean of uncertainty.

The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary War,
supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order,
sufficient, at least, for the temporary preservation of society. The
confederation, which was early felt to be necessary, was prepared
from the models of the Bavarian and Helvetic confederacies, the only
examples which remain, with any detail and precision, in history,
and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever
considered. But, reflecting on the striking difference, in so many
particulars, between this country and those where a courier may go
from the seat of government to the frontier in a single day, it was
then certainly foreseen by some who assisted in Congress at the
formation of it, that it could not be durable.

Negligence of its regulations, inattention to its recommendations,
if not disobedience to its authority, not only in individuals but in
States, soon appeared with their melancholy consequences--
universal languor, jealousies, rivalries of States, decline of
navigation and commerce, discouragement of necessary manufactures,
universal fall in the value of lands and their produce, contempt of
public and private faith, loss of consideration and credit with
foreign nations; and, at length, in discontents, animosities,
combinations, partial conventions, and insurrection, threatening
some great national calamity.

In this dangerous crisis, the people of America were not abandoned
by their usual good sense, presence of mind, resolution, or
integrity. Measures were pursued to concert a plan to form a more
perfect