" Americans deliberately selected the better part. It is true that
the evil effects of a loose union were only too apparent, and that
public safety, order, and private property were obviously endangered by
the feeble machinery of Federal government. Nevertheless, conditions had
not become intolerable. The terrible cost of disunion in money, blood,
humiliation, and hatred had not actually been paid. It might well have
seemed cheaper to most Americans to drift on a little longer than to
make the sacrifices and to undertake the labor demanded by the formation
of an effective union. There were plenty of arguments by which a policy
of letting things alone could be plausibly defended, and the precedents
were all in its favor. Other people had acquired such political
experience as they were capable of assimilating, first by drifting into
some intolerable excess or some distressing error, and then by
undergoing some violent process of purgation or reform. But it is the
distinction of our own country that at the critical moment of its
history, the policy of drift was stopped before a virulent disease had
necessitated a violent and exhausting remedy.
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