THE UNION. 259 



may be I couldn't make any body else believe as I do 

 myself, and I don't mean to try. I'm of too little ac- 

 count in the world, to undertake to change things, and 

 so I let 'em move on ; but I'll tell you what I think, 

 because you won't say I'm conceited, or laugh at my 

 simple idees. 



" The States that made up this government, as I 

 said before, were once very small and weak, and were 

 a great ways apart, considerin' the means people had 

 of gettin' about in them days. They were under dif- 

 ferent governors and rulers, jist as the different nations 

 on this continent, now are. When trouble' came upon 

 them, they united together agin' the strong power of 

 England, and when they broke loose from that power, 

 they agreed to go on together still. The States didn't 

 surrender their independence when they formed the 

 Union. They didn't become one great consolidated 

 government, except so far as the outside world was 

 concerned. In everything that related to other na- 

 tions, such as makin' treaties, and carry in' on wars, 

 and regulatin' commerce, and sich matters, they were 

 one government. Them things, with a good many 

 other things, concernin' the general welfare, the States 

 surrendered to the general government, because they 



