In the moment of tranquillity, and of real or imaginary security, the mind delights to retrace the intricate path by which this point of repose has been attained. The patriots who accomplished that great revolution which has given to the American people a national government capable of maintaining the union of the states, and of preserving republican liberty, must be gratified with the review of that arduous and doubtful struggle, which terminated in the triumph of human reason, and the establishment of that government. Even to him who was not an actor in the busy scene, who enjoys the fruits of the labour without participating in the toils or the fears of the patriots who have preceded him, the sentiments entertained by the most enlightened and virtuous of America at the eventful period between the restoration of peace and the adoption of our present free and effective constitution, can not be uninteresting. "Our affairs," said the same gentleman in a letter of the 27th of June, "seem to lead to some crisis, some revolution--something that I can not foresee or conjecture. I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war. _Then_, we had a fixed object, and though the means and time of obtaining it were often problematical, yet I did firmly believe that we should ultimately succeed, because I did firmly believe that justice was with us. The case is now altered; we are going, and doing wrong, and therefore I look forward to evils and calamities, but without being able to guess at the instrument, nature, or measure of them. "That we shall again recover, and things again go well, I have no doubt. Such a variety of circumstances would not, almost miraculously, have combined to liberate and make us a nation, for transient and unimportant purposes. I therefore believe we are yet to become a great and respectable people--but when or how, only the spirit of prophecy can discern. "There doubtless is much reason to think and to say that we are wofully, and, in many instances, wickedly misled. Private rage for property suppresses public considerations, and personal rather than national interests have become the great objects of attention. Representative bodies will ever be faithful copies of their originals, and generally exhibit a chequered assemblage of virtue and vice, of abilities and weakness. The mass of men are neither wise nor good, and the virtue, like the other resources of a country, can only be drawn to a point by strong circumstances, ably managed, or strong governments, ably administered. New governments have not the aid of habit and hereditary respect, and being generally the result of preceding tumult and confusion, do not immediately acquire stability or strength. Besides, in times of commotion, some men will gain confidence and importance who merit neither; and who, like political mountebanks, are less solicitous about the health of the credulous crowd, than about making the most of their nostrums and prescriptions.