The Critical Period of American History

The Federal Convention did wisely in withholding its debates from the knowledge of the people. It was felt that discussion would be more untrammelled, and that its result ought...

It was on the 17th of September, 1787, that the Federal Convention broke up. For most of the delegates there was a long and tedious journey home before they could meet their fel...

At the close of the eighteenth century the barbarous superstitions of the Middle Ages concerning trade between nations still flourished with scarcely diminished vitality. The ep...

The 20th of March, 1782, the day which witnessed the fall of Lord North's ministry, was a day of good omen for men of English race on both sides of the Atlantic. Within two year...

That some kind of union existed between the states was doubted by no one. Ever since the assembling of the first Continental Congress in 1774 the thirteen commonwealths had acte...

While the events we have heretofore contemplated seemed to prophesy the speedy dissolution and downfall of the half-formed American Union, a series of causes, obscure enough at...

"The times that tried men's souls are over," said Thomas Paine in the last number of the "Crisis," which he published after hearing that the negotiations for a treaty of peace h...

The root of all the difficulties; the edicts of the federal government had operated only upon states, not upon individuals, and therefore could not be enforced without danger of...