The great puzzle of civilization--how to secure permanent concert of
action without sacrificing independence of action--is a puzzle which has
taxed the ingenuity of Americans as well as of older Aryan peoples. In
the year 1788 when our Federal Union was completed, the problem had
already occupied the minds of American statesmen for a century and a
half,--that is to say, ever since the English settlement of
Massachusetts. In 1643 a New England confederation was formed between
Massachusetts and Connecticut, together with Plymouth since merged in
Massachusetts and New Haven since merged in Connecticut. The
confederation was formed for defence against the French in Canada, the
Dutch on the Hudson river, and the Indians. But owing simply to the
inequality in the sizes of these colonies--Massachusetts more than
outweighing the other three combined--the practical working of this
confederacy was never very successful. In 1754, just before the outbreak
of the great war which drove the French from America, a general Congress
of the colonies was held at Albany, and a comprehensive scheme of union
was proposed by Benjamin Franklin, but nothing came of the project at
that time. The commercial rivalry between the colonies, and their
disputes over boundary lines, were then quite like the similar phenomena
with which Europe had so long been familiar.
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