to his opportunity.  He does not teach us that the Constitution is the result of superhuman wisdom, nor on the other hand does he admit, as John Adams asserted, that however excellent, the Constitution was wrung “from the grinding necessity of a reluctant people.”  He does not fail to point out the critical nature of the four years prior to the meeting of the Federal Convention; but he discerns that whatever occasions, whether transitory or for the time of “steady and commanding influence,” may help or hinder the formation of the now perfect union, its true cause was “an indwelling necessity” in the people to “form above the States a common constitution for the whole.”

Recognizing the fact that the primary cause for the true union was remote in origin and deep and persistent, Bancroft gives a retrospect of the steps toward union from the founding of the colonies to the close of the war for independence.  Thenceforward, suggestions as to method or form of amending the Articles of Confederation, whether made by individuals, or State Legislatures, or by Congress, were in his view helps indeed to promote the movement; but they were first of all so many proofs that despite all the contrary wayward surface indications, the strong current was flowing independently toward the just and perfect union.  Having acknowledged this fundamental fact of the critical years between Yorktown and the Constitution, the historian is free to give just and discriminating praise to all who shared at that time in redeeming the political hope of mankind, to give due but not exclusive honor to Washington and Thomas Paine, to Madison and Hamilton and their co-worthies.

The many attempts, isolated or systematic, during the period from 1781-1786, to reform the Articles of Confederation, were happily futile; but they were essential in the training of the people in the consciousness of the nature of the work for which they are responsible.  The balances must come slowly to a poise.  Not merely union strong and for a time effective, was needed, but union of a certain and unprecedented sort:  one in which the true pledge of permanency for a continental republic was to be found in the federative principle, by which the highest activities of nation and of State were conditioned each by the welfare of the other.  The people rightly felt, too, that a Congress of one house would be inadequate and dangerous.  They waited in the midst of risks for the proper hour, and then, not reluctantly but resolutely, adopted the Constitution as a promising experiment in government.

Bancroft’s treatment of the evolution of the second great organic act of this time—­the Northwestern ordinance—­is no less just and true to the facts.  For two generations men had snatched at the laurels due to the creator of that matchless piece of legislation; to award them now to Jefferson, now to Nathan Dane, now to Rufus King, now to Manasseh Cutler.  Bancroft calmly and clearly shows how the great law grew with the kindly aid and watchful care of these men and of others.