the field, in the spring of 1777, did not exceed five thousand seven hundred and thirty-eight effective men, exclusive of a small body of cavalry and artillery. The consequence was, a necessary reliance upon militia, to a great extent, throughout that summer. The battle of the Brandywine, fought with an effective force of only eleven thousand men, including militia, against a thoroughly disciplined army of fifteen thousand British and Hessian troops, and fought for the city of Philadelphia as a stake, was lost on the 11th of September.2 The Congress broke up on the 18th. Sir William Howe took possession of the city on the 26th; and on the 27th, the Congress reassembled at Lancaster. In a few days, they removed to Yorktown, where their sessions continued to be held for several months.

The position in which they found themselves, amid the dark clouds which lowered around their cause, seems to have recalled to their recollection the Articles of Confederation, which had lain slumbering upon their table since the 8th of April. On that day, they had resolved that the report should be

1 Marshall's Life of Washing- Justice Marshall states it to have ton, III. 102.

been, on this occasion, 11,000, including militia. The Annual Register gives the number of the royal army brought into action as 15,000. Marshall supposes it to have been 18,000, when they landed on the shores of the Chesapeake. Marshall's Life of Washington, III. 140, 141. Annual Register for 1777, XX. 127.

taken into consideration on the following Monday, and that two days in each week should be employed on the subject, until it had been wholly discussed. When the Monday came, it was postponed; and it was only after they had been driven from Philadelphia by the approach of the enemy, that they seem to have fully realized the fact, that, without a more perfect union and a more efficient government, the country could not be saved. As soon as they had reassembled at Yorktown, after the urgent business of the moment had been attended to, they passed a resolve, on the 2d of October, that the Articles of Confederation be taken into consideration the next day, at eleven o'clock. The discussion did not actually commence, however, until the 7th of October; but from that day it was continued until the 17th of November, when the Articles, as they afterwards went into operation, were adopted for recommendation to the States, and a circular letter was addressed to the several legislatures, submitting the plan of a confederacy, and urging its adoption.

We are now approaching the period when the American people began to perceive that something more was necessary to their safety and happiness than the formation of State governments; — when they found, or were about to find, that some digested system of national government was essential to the great objects for which they were contending; and that, for the formation of such a government, other arrangements than the varying instructions of differ

ent colonies or states to a body of delegates were indispensable. The previous illustrations, drawn from the civil and military history of the country, have been employed to show the character and operation of the revolutionary government, the end of which is drawing near. For we have seen that the great purpose of that government was to secure the independence of each of these separate communities or states from the crown of Great Britain; that it was instituted by political societies having no direct connection with each other except the bond of a common danger and a common object; and that it was formed by no other instrumentality, and possessed no other agency, than a single body of delegates assembled in a congress. For certain great purposes, and in order to accomplish certain objects of common interest, a union of the people of the different States had indeed taken place, bringing them together to act through their representatives; but this union was now failing, from the want of definite powers; from the unwillingness of the people of the country to acquiesce in the exercise of the general revolutionary powers with which it was impliedly clothed; and from the want of suitable civil machinery. In truth, the revolutionary government was breaking down, through its inherent defects, and the peculiar infelicity of its situation. Above all, it was breaking down from the want of a civil executive to take the lead in assuming and exercising the powers implied from the great objects for which it was contending. Its legislative authority,

although defined in no written instruments or public charters, was sufficient, under its implied general powers, to have enabled it to issue decrees, directing the execution, by its own agents, of all measures essential to the national safety. But this authority was never exercised, partly because the States were unwilling to execute it, but chiefly because no executive agency existed to represent the continental power, and to enforce its decrees.

It is a singular circumstance, that, while the revolutionary government was left to conduct the great affairs of the continent through the mere instrumentality of a congress of delegates, and was thus failing for the want of departments and powers, the States were engaged in applying those great principles in the organization and construction of popular governments, under which they may be formed with rapidity and ease, and which are capable of the most varied adaptation to the circumstances and wants of a free people.

The suppression of the royal authority throughout the colonies, by virtue of the resolve of the Continental Congress passed on the 10th of May, 1776, rendered necessary the formation of local governments, capable at once of answering the ends of political society, and of continuing without interruption the protection of law over property, life, and public order. Fortunately, as we have seen, the previous constitutions of all the colonies had accustomed the people, to a great extent, to the business of gov

ernment; and, when the recommendation of the Continental Congress to the several colonies to adopt such governments as would best conduce to their happiness and safety was made immediately after the first effusion of blood, it was addressed to civil societies, in which the people had, in different modes, been long accustomed to witness and to exercise the functions of legislation, and in all of which there were established forms of law, of judicature, and of executive power.

The new political situation in which they now found themselves required, in many of the colonies, but little departure from these ancient institutions. The chief innovation necessary was, to bring into practical working the authority of the people, in place of that of the crown of England, as the source of all political power. The changes requisite to effect this were of course to be made at once; the materials for these changes existed everywhere, in the representative institutions which had been long a part of the system of every colony since the first settlement of the country. Thus, as we have seen, in all the provincial, the proprietary, and the charter governments, the freemen of the colony had been accustomed to be represented in the government, in some form; and although those governments, with a few exceptions, were under the direct or indirect restraint of the crown, and could all be reached and controlled by the exercise of arbitrary power, the practice of representation, through popular elections, was everywhere known and familiar. The old constitutions of some