sition. It would have been a perfectly
feasible thing at that particular moment to have altered the frame of
government and placed the successful soldier in possession of supreme
power. The notion of kingly government was, of course, entirely
familiar to everybody, and had in itself nothing repulsive. The
confederation was disintegrated, the States were demoralized, and the
whole social and political life was weakened. The army was the one
coherent, active, and thoroughly organized body in the country. Six
years of war had turned them from militia into seasoned veterans, and
they stood armed and angry, ready to respond to the call of the great
leader to whom they were entirely devoted. When the English troops
were once withdrawn, there was nothing on the continent that could
have stood against them. If they had moved, they would have been
everywhere supported by their old comrades who had returned to the
ranks of civil life, by all the large class who wanted peace and order
in the quickest and surest way, and by the timid and tired generally.
There would have been in fact no serious opposition, probably because
there would have been no means of sustaining it.

The absolute feebleness of the general government was shown a few
weeks later, when a recently recruited regiment of Pennsylvania troops
mutinied, and obliged Congress to leave Philadelphia, unable either to
defend themselves or procure defense from the State. This mutiny was
put down suddenly and effectively by Washington, very wroth at the
insubordination of raw troops, who had neither fought nor suffered.
Yet even such mutineers as these would have succeeded in a large
measure, had it not been for Washington, and one can easily imagine
from this incident the result of disciplined and well-planned action
on the part of the army led by their great chief. In that hour of
debility and relaxation, a military seizure of the government and
the erection of some form of monarchy would not have been difficult.
Whether such a change would have lasted is another question, but there
is no reason to doubt that at the moment it might have been effected.
Washington, however, not only refused to have anything to do with the
scheme, but he used the personal loyalty which might have raised him
to supreme power to check all dangerous movements and put in motion
the splendid and unselfish patriotism for which the army was
conspicuous, and which underlay all their irritations and di