They were apt to let liberty become mere anarchy and license, to talk extravagantly about their rights while ignoring their duties, and to rail at the weakness of the Central Government while at the same time opposing with foolish violence every effort to make it stronger.

On the other hand, the people of the long-settled country found difficulty in heartily accepting the idea that the new communities, as they sprang up in the forest, were entitled to stand exactly on a level with the old, not only as regards their own rights, but as regards the right to shape the destiny of the Union itself.
The Union still Inchoate.
The Union was as yet imperfect.

The jangling colonies had been welded together, after a fashion, in the slow fire of the Revolutionary war; but the old lines of cleavage were still distinctly marked.

The great struggle had been of incalculable benefit to all Americans.

Under its stress they had begun to develop a national type of thought and character.