The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 179 



dreaded. The men engaged in building new com 

 monwealths did not, as yet, understand that they 

 owed the Union as much as did the dwellers in the 

 old States. They were apt to let liberty become 

 mere anarchy and license, to talk extravagantly 

 about their rights while ignoring their duties, and 

 to rail at the weakness of the Central Govern 

 ment while at the same time opposing with foolish 

 violence every effort to make it stronger. On the 

 other hand, the people of the long-settled country 

 found difficulty in heartily accepting the idea that 

 the new communities, as they sprang up in the for 

 est, were entitled to stand exactly on a level with 

 the old, not only as regards their own rights, but as 

 regards the right to shape the destiny of the Union 

 itself. 



The Union was as yet imperfect. The jangling 

 colonies had been welded together, after a fashion, 

 in the slow fire of the Revolutionary War; but the 

 old lines of cleavage were still distinctly marked. 

 The great struggle had been of incalculable benefit 

 to all Americans. Under its stress they had begun 

 to develop a national type of thought and character. 

 Americans now held in common memories which 

 they shared with no one else ; for they held ever in 

 mind the facts of a dozen crowded years. Theirs 

 was the history of all that had been done by the 

 Continental Congress and the Continental armies; 

 theirs the memory of the toil and the suffering and 

 the splendid ultimate triumph. They cherished in 

 common the winged words of their statesmen, the 



