Front Matter

Preface

I T is a thrilling story, the tale of four million people deliberately choosing a form of government for themselves and promising to live in obedience to its laws. It is a story of dreaming of union, but dreading to be bound; of dreaming of separation, but fearing to be free; a story of peering into the future like the seers of old, and of balancing sordid advantages and disadvantages like the most penurious of misers. And what of that noble group of men, unconsciously great, who without a thought of their own gain moved quietly about the task of saving a nation from lawlessness and anarchy? Why is it that histories which are elsewhere interesting become so often dry and dull when the wonder-story is touched upon?

It is from such thoughts as these that this book has grown.