260 HILLS AND LAKES. 



couldn't get along any other way. But each State 

 was, for all that, independent of every other State, 

 and of all the other States, and of the general govern- 

 ment too, so far as its own particular affairs was con- 

 cerned. It made its own laws, and elected its own 

 governors, and other officers, without bein' answerable 

 to the general government at all. It was, so far as its 

 own matters, and all that related to the rights of its 

 own people and the management of its own affairs 

 was concerned, just as independent as England, or 

 any other nation in the world. Well, when the Union 

 was thus formed, all the old statesmen of Europe, 

 laughed in their sleeves at the cob-house, they thought 

 the Americans were buildin' up, and they laid their 

 fingers on their noses, and winked at one another, as 

 much as to say, ' see how quick it'll tumble to pieces.' 

 It was a new thing to 'em, and so different from their 

 notions of government, and so onlike anything they'd 

 ever seen or heard tell of, or read about in books, that 

 they looked to see it go down, in no time. But it 

 didn't go down. It went on prosperin' and growin' 

 stronger and stronger, and multiplyin' and increasing 

 and spreadin' out in a way that was surprisin' to the 

 wise men of the old world. The thirteen States came to 



