truth of the statement is very quickly recognized by even the most
surface student of American politics. The struggle which began in 1774-5
was the direct outcome of the spirit of independence. Rather than submit
to a degrading government by the arbitrary will of a foreign Parliament,
the Massachusetts people chose to enter upon an almost unprecedented war
of a colony against the mother country. Rather than admit the precedent
of the oppression of a sister colony, the other colonies chose to
support Massachusetts in her resistance. Resistance to Parliament
involved resistance to the Crown, the only power which had hitherto
claimed the loyalty of the colonists; and one evil feature of the
Revolution was that the spirit of loyalty disappeared for a time from
American politics. There were, without doubt, many individual cases of
loyalty to "Continental interests"; but the mass of the people had
merely unlearned their loyalty to the Crown, and had learned no other
loyalty to take its place. Their nominal allegiance to the individual
colony was weakened by their underlying consciousness that they really
were a part of a greater nation; their national allegiance had never
been claimed by any power.

The weakness of the confederation was apparent even before its complete
ratification. The Articles of Confederation were proposed by the
Continental Congress, Nov. 15, 1777. They were ratified by eleven States
during the year 1778, and Delaware ratified in 1779. Maryland alone held
out and refused to ratify for two years longer. Her long refusal was due
to her demand for a national control of the Western territory, which
many of the States were trying to appropriate. It was not until there
was positive evidence that the Western territory was to be national
property that Maryland acceded to the articles, and they went into
operation. The interval had given time for study of them, and their
defects were so patent that there was no great expectation among