Far different from this did the task of framing the Federal Constitution seem to those who had it in hand. It has been described by Mr. Bryce as 'a work which seemed repeatedly on the point of breaking down, so great were the difficulties encountered from the divergent sentiments and interests of the different parts of the country, as well as of the larger and smaller states.' The same writer adds: 'The Convention had not only to create _de novo_, on the most slender basis of pre-existing institutions, a national government for a widely scattered people, but they had in doing so to respect the fears and jealousies and apparently irreconcileable interests of thirteen separate commonwealths, to all of whose governments it was necessary to leave a sphere of {50} action wide enough to satisfy a deep-rooted sentiment, yet not so wide as to imperil national unity.' Yet once more we read of difficulties curiously like those which are urged as making British unity impossible now. 'Their geographical position made communication very difficult. The sea was stormy in winter, the roads were bad, it took as long to travel by land from Charleston to Boston as to cross the ocean to Europe, nor was the journey less dangerous. The wealth of some states consisted in slaves; of others in shipping; while in others there was a population of small farmers, characteristically attached to old habits. Manufactures had hardly begun to exist. The sentiment of local independence showed itself in intense suspicion of any external authority; and most parts of the country were so thinly peopled that the inhabitants had lived practically without any government, and thought that in creating one they would be forging fetters for themselves.' Difficulties, then, are no new thing in national organization. They may be, as they have been, but the spur to the determined will of nation or individual. They are to be measured by the resources at our disposal with which to confront them.