Union was so difficult.

If the states had only kept on drifting a little longer, they would, at least for a while, inevitably have drifted apart.

They were saved from such a fate chiefly by the insight and energy of a few unionist leaders--of whom Washington and Hamilton were the most important.
Perhaps American conditions were such that eventually some kind of a national government was sure to come; but the important point is that when it came, it came as the result of forethought and will rather than of compulsion.

"It seems to have been reserved," says Hamilton in the very first number of the _Federalist_, "to the people of this country by their conduct and example, to decide the important question whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force." Americans deliberately selected the better part.

It is true that the evil effects of a loose union were only too apparent, and that public safety, order, and private property were obviously endangered by the feeble machinery of Federal government.