190 The Winning of the West 



ciation of their own duties to the Union. For cer 

 tain of the positions which they assumed no excuse 

 can be offered. They harped continually on the 

 feebleness of the Federal authorities, and the inabil 

 ity of these authorities to do them justice or offer 

 them adequate protection against the Indian and the 

 Spaniard ; yet they bitterly opposed the adoption of 

 the very Constitution which provided a strong and 

 stable Federal Government, and turned the weak 

 confederacy, despised at home and abroad, into one 

 of the great nations of the earth. They showed little 

 self-control, little willingness to wait with patience 

 until it was possible to remedy any of the real or 

 fancied wrongs of which they complained. They 

 made no allowance for the difficulties so plentifully 

 strewn in the path of the Federal authorities. They 

 clamored for prompt and effective action, and yet 

 clamored just as loudly against the men who sought 

 to create a national executive with power to take 

 this prompt and effective action. They demanded 

 that the United States wrest from the British the 

 Lake Posts, and from the Spaniards the navigation 

 of the Mississippi. Yet they seemed incapable of 

 understanding that if they separated from the Union 

 they would thereby forfeit all chance of achieving 

 the very purposes they had in view, because they 

 would then certainly be at the mercy of Britain, and 

 probably, at least for some time, at the mercy of 

 Spain also. They opposed giving the United States 

 the necessary civil and military power, although it 

 was only by the possession and exercise of such 



