ntegrity and intelligence of the people, under an
overruling 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 number, 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 Batavian
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 and 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 union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty. The public disquisitions, discussions, and deliberations issued
in the present happy Constitution of Government.

Employed in the service of my country abroad during the whole course of
these transactions, I first saw the Constitution of the United States in
a foreign country. Irritated by no literary a