168 THE DEEPER SIGNIFICANCE 
which neutralized their immense and permanent disad- 
vantages of fighting on exterior lines. 
The royal governors all understood these things, and 
felt them keenly. Asa rule they were honourable men, 
with a strong sense of responsibility for the welfare of 
their provinces. They saw clearly that, to bring out 
the military resources of the country, some kind of 
continental government with taxing powers was 
needed. 
Any such continental government was regarded by 
the people with fear and loathing. The sentiment of 
union between colonies had not come into existence, 
the feeling of local independence was intense and jeal- 
ous, and a continental government was an unknown 
and untried horror. So late as 1788, when grim 
necessity had driven the people of the United States 
to adopt our present Constitution as the alternative to 
anarchy, it was with shivering dread that most of them 
accepted the situation. A quarter of a century earlier 
the repugnance was much stronger. 
It should never be lost sight of that the difficulty 
with which the royal governors had to contend in the 
days of the French War was exactly the same difficulty 
with which the Continental. Congress had to contend 
throughout the War of Independence and the critical 
period that followed it. We cannot understand Ameri- 
can history until this fact has become part of our per- 
manent mental structure. The difficulty was exactly 
the same; it was the absence of a continental govern- 
ment with taxing power. The Continental Congress 
had no such power; it could only ask the state legisla- 
tures for money, just as the royal governors had done, 
and if it took a state three years to raise what was 
