ng. Nevertheless, it was a dangerous and formidable business,
for it was the first direct challenge to the new government. It was
the first clear utterance of the stern question asked of every people
striving to live as a nation, Have you a right to live? Have you a
government able to fight and to endure? Have you men ready to take up
the challenge? These questions were put by rough frontier settlers,
and put in the name and for the sake of distilling whiskey unvexed by
law. But they were there, they had to be answered, and on the reply
the existence of the government was at stake. If it failed, all was
over. If the States did not respond to this first demand, that they
should put down disorder and dissension within the borders of one of
their number, the experiment had failed. It came, as it almost always
does come, to one man to make the answer. That man took up the
challenge. He did not move too soon. He waited with unerring judgment,
as Lincoln waited with the Proclamation of Emancipation, until he had
gathered public opinion behind him by his firmness and moderation.
Then he struck, and struck so hard that the whole fabric of
insurrection and riot fell helplessly to pieces, and wiseacres looked
on and laughed, and thought it had been but a slight matter after all.
The action of the government vindicated the right of the United States
to live, because they had proved themselves able to keep order. It
showed to the American people that their government was a reality
of force and power. If it had gone wrong, the history of the United
States would not have differed widely from that of the confederation.
No mistake was made, and people regarded the whole thing as an
insignificant incident, and historians treat it as an episode. There
could be no greater tribute to the strong and silent man who did the
work and bore the stress of waiting for nearly five years. He did his
duty so well and so completely that it seems nothing now, and yet the
crushing of that insurrection in the western counties of Pennsylvania
was one of the turning-points in a nation's life.

CHAPTER IV

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Our present relations with foreign nations fill as a rule but a slight
place in American politics, and excite generally only a languid
interest, not nearly so much as their importance deserves. We have
separated ourselves so completely from the affairs of other people
that it is difficult to realize how commanding and disprop