The position in which they found themselves, amid the dark clouds which lowered around their cause, seems to have recalled to their recollection the Articles of Confederation, which had lain slumbering upon their table since the 8th of April. On that day, they had resolved that the report should be taken into consideration on the following Monday, and that two days in each week should be employed on the subject, until it had been wholly discussed. When the Monday came, it was postponed; and it was only after they had been driven from Philadelphia by the approach of the enemy, that they seem to have fully realized the fact, that, without a more perfect union and a more efficient government, the country could not be saved. As soon as they had reassembled at Yorktown, after the urgent business of the moment had been attended to, they passed a resolve, on the 2d of October, that the Articles of Confederation be taken into consideration the next day, at eleven o'clock. The discussion did not actually commence, however, until the 7th of October; but from that day it was continued until the 17th of November, when the Articles, as they afterwards went into operation, were adopted for recommendation to the States, and a circular letter was addressed to the several legislatures, submitting the plan of a confederacy, and urging its adoption. * * * * * We are now approaching the period when the American people began to perceive that something more was necessary to their safety and happiness than the formation of State governments;--when they found, or were about to find, that some digested system of national government was essential to the great objects for which they were contending; and that, for the formation of such a government, other arrangements than the varying instructions of different colonies or states to a body of delegates were indispensable. The previous illustrations, drawn from the civil and military history of the country, have been employed to show the character and operation of the revolutionary government, the end of which is drawing near. For we have seen that the great purpose of that government was to secure the independence of each of these separate communities or states from the crown of Great Britain; that it was instituted by political societies having no direct connection with each other except the bond of a common danger and a common object; and that it was formed by no other instrumentality, and possessed no other agency, than a single body of delegates assembled in a congress. For certain great purposes, and in order to accomplish certain objects of common interest, a union of the people of the different States had indeed taken place, bringing them together to act through their representatives; but this union was now failing, from the want of definite powers; from the unwillingness of the people of the country to acquiesce in the exercise of the general revolutionary powers with which