h aroused
the opposition of the Clintons and the Patrick Henrys. Nevertheless, the
conditions making for separation have the appearance of being more
insistent and powerful than the conditions making for an effective
union. Disunion was so easy. Union was so difficult. If the states had
only kept on drifting a little longer, they would, at least for a while,
inevitably have drifted apart. They were saved from such a fate chiefly
by the insight and energy of a few unionist leaders--of whom Washington
and Hamilton were the most important.

Perhaps American conditions were such that eventually some kind of a
national government was sure to come; but the important point is that
when it came, it came as the result of forethought and will rather than
of compulsion. "It seems to have been reserved," says Hamilton in the
very first number of the _Federalist_, "to the people of this country by
their conduct and example, to decide the important question whether
societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good
government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever
destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and
force." Americans deliberately selected the better part. It is true that
the evil effects of a loose union were only too apparent, and that
public safety, order, and private property were obviously endangered by
the feeble machinery of Federal government. Nevertheless, conditions had
not become intolerable. The terrible cost of disunion in money, blood,
humiliation, and hatred had not actually been paid. It might well have
seemed cheaper to most Americans to drift on a little longer than to
make the sacrifices and to undertake the labor demanded by the formation
of an effective union. There were plenty of arguments by which a policy
of letting things alone could be plausibly defended, and the precedents
were all in its favor. Other people had acquired such political
experience as they were capable of assimilating, first by drifting into
some intolerable excess or some distressing error, and then by
undergoing some violent process of purgation or reform. But it is the
distinction of our own country that at the critical moment of its
history, the policy of drift was stopped before a virulent disease had
necessitated a violent and exhausting remedy.

This result was achieved chiefly by virtue of capable, energetic, and
patriotic leadership. It is stated that if the Constitution