But this great peril was not without beneficial consequences. It displayed, at a critical moment, when a project of amending the Federal Constitution for other purposes was encountering much opposition, a more dangerous deficiency than any to which the public mind had hitherto been turned. While thoughtful and considerate men were speculating upon the causes of diminished prosperity and the general feebleness of the system of government, a gulf suddenly yawned beneath their feet, threatening ruin to the whole social fabric. It was but a short time before, that the people of this country had shed their blood to obtain constitutions of their own choice and making. Now, they seemed as ready to overturn them as they had once been to extort from tyranny the power of creating and erecting them in its place. It was manifest, that to achieve the independence of a country is but half of the great undertaking of liberty;--that, after freedom, there must come security, order, the wise disposal of power, and great institutions on which society may repose in safety. It was clear, that the Federal Union alone could certainly uphold the liberty which it had gained for the people of the States, and that, to enable it to do so, it must become a government.[268] From his retreat at Mount Vernon, Washington observed the progress of these disorders with intense anxiety. To him, they carried the strongest evidence of a want of energy in the system of the Federal Union. They did more than all things else to convince him that "a liberal and energetic constitution, well checked and well watched to prevent encroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability and consequence to which we had the fairest prospect of attaining."[269] He was kept accurately informed of the state of things in New England, and the probability that he would be obliged to come forward, and take an active part in the support of order against civil discord, was directly intimated to him.[270] He had foreseen the possibility of this; but the successful issue of the struggle relieved him from the contemplation of this painful task, and left to him only the duty of giving the whole weight of his influence and presence in the Convention, which was to assemble in the following May, for the revision of the Federal Constitution. FOOTNOTES: