have nothing to
do. I should perhaps have thought the rest not worth preserving, but for
their testimony against the only history of that period, which pretends
to have been compiled from authentic and unpublished documents.

*****

[* These are the volumes containing the Ana to the time that the Author
retired from the office of Secretary of State. The official opinions
and documents referred to, being very voluminous, are for the most part
omitted, to make room for the conversations which the same volumes
comprise.]

But a short review of facts ***** will show, that the contests of that
day were contests of principle between the advocates of republican,
and those of kingly government, and that, had not the former made the
efforts they did, our government would have been even at this early day,
a very different thing from what the successful issue of those efforts
have made it.

The alliance between the States under the old Articles of Confederation,
for the purpose of joint defence against the aggressions of Great
Britain, was found insufficient, as treaties of alliance generally are,
to enforce compliance with their mutual stipulations; and these, once
fulfilled, that bond was to expire of itself, and each State to become
sovereign and independent in all things. Yet, it could not but occur to
every one, that these separate independencies, like the petty States of
Greece, would be eternally at war with each other, and would become
at length the mere partisans and satellites of the leading powers of
Europe. All, then, must have looked forward to some further bond of
union, which would insure internal peace, and a political system of our
own, independent of that of Europe. Whether all should be consolidated
into a single government, or each remain independent as to internal
matters, and the whole form a single nation as to what was foreign only,
and whether that national government should be a monarchy or republic,
would of course divide opinions, according to the constitutions, the
habits, and the circumstances of each individual. Some officers of the
army, as it has always been said and believed, (and Steuben and Knox
have ever been named as the leading agents,) trained to monarchy by
military habits, are understood to have proposed to General Washington,
to decide this great question by the army before its disbandment, and
to assume himself the crown, on the assurance of their support.
The indignity with which