Nationilily in the United States. cided the great questions which prevented an unrestricted national existence. Prior to that time- the Declaration of Independence, asserting the freedom and equality of'men, was a mockery. Let us take a rapid survey of the development of nation ality in the United States. Before the Revolutionary War, the sentiment of nationality scarcely existed among us. The colonists, differing widely in speech, religion, ideas, and customs, were associated only on account of catastrophes, and when the common defense had been, provided for further associations were generally very few. A common sense of injury induced co-operative resistence to British tyranny but the necessity for unity was almost completely ignored in the first protests of the colonies. The momentous Declaration of Independence brought Americans to a realization of the fact that, as Benjamine Franklin so aptly said, “All must hang together or they would'hang separately.” During the long and far the most part gloomy years of the revolution, adversity and victory brought the people shoulder to should et and heart to heart and undoubtedly produced not a little American sentiment. But “not in the measures of resistance to the mother country, not in the heat of revolution, but in the great debate of 1787 did the feeling's which in their growth were to make union possible first come into exis tence. ” The people seemed to dread the national idea and avoided the use of the word “nation” and its derivations by means of such phrases as “the people,” “the established govern ment, ” “the union, ” “the common country.” The states were neither willing nor ready for the amalgamation into a union, one and inseparable,-for, under new constitution, they started with State Governments adequate for' all civil purposes. The General Government could not at its forma tion take upon itself at once its full and complete powers nor were the states ready to yield these powers. The change from original confederation to the nation of the present day
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers