THE UNION. 371 



Cavaliers. But when the king closed Boston Port, 

 and the vessels mouldered in the docks, and the shops 

 were closed, and the children of fishermen and sailors 

 began to cry for bread, the colonies did unite with one 

 heart and one hand to feed the hunger of the noble 

 town; and then to besiege it for its own sake, and to 

 drive the red coats back into their ships. Yet when 

 the war was over, and the squirrel guns had again 

 been hung upon the wall, and the fire of the conflict 

 had died out, the old jealousy reappeared. A loose- 

 iointed league was tried and came to nought. The 

 nation existed ; the nation was in debt ; Union could 

 not be dispensed with. But each colony approached 

 this Union as a free and sovereign state. If one colony 

 had chosen to remain apart, the others would not have 

 interfered ; if one colony after entering the Union had 

 chosen to withdraw, its right to do so would not have 

 been denied. In European countries, republican or 

 royal, the source of authority is the Nation ; all powers 

 not formally transferred reside with the Assembly or 

 the Crown. In America, however, it was precisely 

 the reverse ; all powers not delivered to the central 

 government were retained by the contracting states. 



At the time of the Kevolution, negro slavery 

 existed in the colonies without exception. But it 

 did not enter the economy of Northern life. Slavery 

 will only pay when labour can be employed in gangs 

 beneath an overseer, and where work can be found 

 for a large number of men without cessation through- 

 out the year. In the culture of rice, sugar, cotton, 

 and tobacco, these conditions exist ; but in corn-grow- 

 ing lands labour is scanty and dispersed, except at 

 certain seasons of the year. Slaves in the North 

 were not employed as field hands, but only as domestic 



