The Federal Constitution did not deal with the question of religious liberty. The rules for the election of the president and for that of the vice-president proved a failure. Slavery was deplored, was denounced, and was retained. The absence of a definition of State Rights led to the most sanguinary civil war of modern times. Weighed in the scales of Liberalism the instrument, as it stood, was a monstrous fraud. And yet, by the development of the principle of Federalism, it has produced a community more powerful, more prosperous, more intelligent, and more free than any other which the world has seen. APPENDIX APPENDIX I THE following letter was sent out to the contributors to the Cambridge History. It will interest many, as giving characteristic expression to Acton's ideals as a historian. The paragraphs are left as in the original. [From the Editor of the Cambridge Modern History.] 1. Our purpose is to obtain the best history of modern times that the published or unpublished sources of information admit. The production of material has so far exceeded the use of it in literature that very much more is known to students than can be found in historians, and no compilation at second hand from the best works would meet the scientific demand for completeness and certainty. In our own time, within the last few years, most of the official collections in Europe have been made public, and nearly all the evidence that will ever appear is accessible now. As archives are meant to be explored, and are not meant to be printed, we approach the final stage in the conditions of historical learning. The long conspiracy against the knowledge of truth has been practically abandoned, and competing scholars all over the civilised world are taking advantage of the change. By dividing our matter among more than one hundred writers we hope to make the enlarged opportunities of research avail for the main range of modern history. Froude spoke of 100,000 papers consulted by him in manuscript, abroad and at home; and that is still the price to be paid for mastery, beyond the narrow area of effective occupation. We will endeavour to procure transcripts of any specified documents which contributors require from places out of reach. 2. It is intended that the narrative shall be such as will serve all readers, that it shall be without notes, and without quotations in foreign languages. In order to authenticate the text and to assist further research, it is proposed that a selected list of original and auxiliary authorities shall be supplied in each volume, for every chapter or group of chapters dealing with one subject. Such a bibliography of modern history might be of the utmost utility to students, and would serve as a substitute for the excluded references.