The great office of the Confederation, in our political history, will be a proper topic for consideration, after the analysis of its provisions. But we should not omit to observe here, that, when the union of the States was thus secured, the motives on which it was formed, and the concessions by which it was accompanied and followed, created a vast obstacle to any future dissolution. The immediate object of each State was to obtain its own independence of the crown of Great Britain, through the united, and therefore more powerful, action of all the States. But, in order to effect such a union, that immense territory, over which, in the language of Maryland, "free, convenient, and independent governments" were afterwards to be formed, was to be ceded in advance, or to be impliedly promised to be ceded, to the use and benefit of the whole confederacy. A confederacy of states, which had become possessed of such a common property, was thus bound together by an interest, the magnitude and force of which cannot now be easily estimated. The Union might incur fresh dangers of dissolution, after the war had ceased; its frame of government and its legislative power might prove wholly inadequate to the national wants in time of peace; the public faith might be prostrated, and the national arm enfeebled;--still, while the Confederacy stood as the great trustee of property large enough for the accommodation of an empire, a security existed against its total destruction. No State could withdraw from the Confederation, without forfeiting its interest in this grand public domain; and no human wisdom could devise a satisfactory distribution of property ceded as a common fund for the common benefit of sovereign States, without any fixed ratio of interest in the respective beneficiaries, and without any clear power in the government of the Confederation to deal with the trust itself.[151] FOOTNOTES: [138] Hancock retired on the 31st of October, for a short absence, after an unremitted service of two years and five months in the chair. A vote of thanks was moved, as soon as he had concluded his address; but before the question was put, it was moved "to resolve as the opinion of Congress, that it is improper to thank any president for the discharge of the duties of that office"; and it is a curious fact, that on this motion the States were equally divided. The previous motion was then put, and five States voted in the affirmative, three in the negative, and the delegation of one State was divided. Journals, III. 465-467. [139] Writings of Jefferson, I. 29. [140] Writings of Washington, V. 326, 327, 350.