nt, to which some looked
forward with buoyant confidence, many with doubt and apprehension. The
constitution had met with vehement opposition, when under discussion
in the General and State governments. Only three States, New Jersey,
Delaware and Georgia, had accepted it unanimously. Several of the most
important States had adopted it by a mere majority; five of them under
an expressed expectation of specified amendments or modifications;
while two States, Rhode Island and North Carolina, still stood aloof.

The very extent of the country he was called upon to govern, ten times
larger than that of any previous republic, must have pressed with
weight upon Washington's mind. It presented to the Atlantic a front of
fifteen hundred miles, divided into individual States, differing in
the forms of their local governments, differing from each other in
interests, in territorial magnitudes, in amount of population, in
manners, soils, climates and productions, and the characteristics of
their several peoples. Beyond the Alleghanies extended regions almost
boundless, as yet for the most part wild and uncultivated. Vast
tracts, however, were rapidly being peopled, and would soon be
portioned into sections requiring local governments. The great natural
outlet for the exportation of the products of this region of
inexhaustible fertility, was the Mississippi; but Spain opposed a
barrier to the free navigation of this river. Here was peculiar cause
of solicitude. Before leaving Mount Vernon, Washington had heard that
the hardy yeomanry of the far West were becoming impatient of this
barrier, and indignant at the apparent indifference of Congress to
their prayers for its removal. He had heard, moreover, that British
emissaries were fostering these discontents, sowing the seed of
disaffection, and offering assistance to the Western people to seize
on the city of New Orleans and fortify the mouth of the Mississippi;
while, on the other hand, the Spanish authorities at New Orleans were
represented as intriguing to effect a separation of the Western
territory from the Union, with a view or hope of attaching it to the
dominion of Spain.

Great Britain, too, was giving grounds for territorial solicitude in
these distant quarters by retaining possession of the Western posts,
the surrender of which had been stipulated by treaty. Her plea was,
that debts due to British subjects, for which by the same treaty the
Union States were bound, remaine