George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 10

[420] contrary to his private judgment. Massachusetts,

Chap. XIX.} 1781. Feb.

Connecticut, and North Carolina alone opposed, New York being divided. Virginia did more. Avowing her regard for a ‘federal union,’ and preferring the good of the country to every object of smaller importance, it resolved to yield its title to the lands north-west of the Ohio, on condition that the territories should be formed into distinct republican states, and be admitted members of the federal union; and Jefferson, who from the first had pledged himself to the measure, announced to congress the great act of his administration in a letter full of hope for the completion of the American union, and the establishment of free republics in the vast country to which Virginia quitted her claim.

The first day of March was a great day in the

March 1.

history of the country. America had proceeded by petitions to the king, by a declaration of rights, by an appeal to the world on taking up arms, by her declaration of independence onwards to the confederation which was designed to make them one people for all time; Maryland, the last of the thirteen states, subscribed and ratified the articles; and the United States of America, each and every of them, adopted, confirmed, and ratified their confederation and perpetual union. A new era of the United States assembled in congress was begun.

It is terrible when a state, long crushed by sufferings, struggles for that which promises relief, and on attaining it finds it an illusion. The people of the United States thought that they had established a government, and there was no government. In the form drafted by Dickinson, the confederation