The patriots who accomplished that great revolution which has given to the American people a national government capable of maintaining the union of the states, and of preserving republican liberty, must be gratified with the review of that arduous and doubtful struggle, which terminated in the triumph of human reason, and the establishment of that government.

Even to him who was not an actor in the busy scene, who enjoys the fruits of the labour without participating in the toils or the fears of the patriots who have preceded him, the sentiments entertained by the most enlightened and virtuous of America at the eventful period between the restoration of peace and the adoption of our present free and effective constitution, can not be uninteresting.
"Our affairs," said the same gentleman in a letter of the 27th of June, "seem to lead to some crisis, some revolution--something that I can not foresee or conjecture.

I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war.

_Then_, we had a fixed object, and though the means and time of obtaining it were often problematical, yet I did firmly believe that we should ultimately succeed, because I did firmly believe that justice was with us.

The case is now altered; we are going, and doing wrong, and therefore I look forward to evils and calamities, but without being able to guess at the instrument, nature, or measure of them.
"That we shall again recover, and things again go well, I have no doubt.