It
may be, however, that the war was necessary to us. In ante-
Revolutionary times there was not a strong tendency to union--in many
parts of the country the opposite feeling existed. Even the
Constitution was framed with difficulty, and received with hesitation
and doubt. The Constitution is not so much the result as the cause
of our national character. The colonies had had different foundations.
Some were English, some were Dutch, some were Roundheads, some
Cavaliers, some were Catholics, some Protestants, some Baptists, some
Quakers, some Congregationalists; and, finally, some of the colonies
were free and some held slaves. It is apparent that there was not
that tendency to union which was necessary to the formation of the
Constitution. But the mutual dependence which the mutual necessities
of the war produced convinced many of the propriety of a common
government--a government which should be adequate to a time of peace
and to a condition of war--a government which should guard each State
from civil commotion and protect its citizens and commerce in every
part of the world. It is evident that the free surrender of
jurisdiction would have left the colonies to many years of separate
existence, and controversies which might have passed into open
hostility. The period between peace and the adoption of the
Constitution was hardly more desirable than the previous condition of
war.
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