[Illustration: LAST PAGE OF THE MINUTES OF THE OLD CONGRESS. Preserved in the archives of the Department of State. It shows that members appeared occasionally as late as March 2, two days before the new government was to be inaugurated; the printed journals differ, stating that members appeared until the first of November only.] Having thus planned for its successor, having arranged the finances, the army, the post-office, the public land system, and other national affairs as best it could, the Continental or Confederation Congress slowly dwindled in membership until it lacked a quorum early in October, 1788. A few members attended at intervals until the beginning of the following March, when the thirty-nine foolscap volumes recording the birth of the United States were closed, to be deposited among the archives of the United States under the Constitution. A successor was now ready to undertake the task for which the Confederation had been found inadequate. CHAPTER VII BEGINNING AN EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT In the manner of its formation and adoption the Constitution was the product of a confederation. In these respects, it was little in advance of the rejected Articles. Its strength lay in the possibilities of its administration. But as a document in 1789, it was the product of federated States. If all the people of the United States could have assembled and formed a constitution to go into effect immediately, or even if delegates, chosen by the people of the United States as a whole, had drawn up such a document, which had been adopted by the entire people or their delegates in a ratifying body, there would have been a national sovereignty wholly independent of the States from the beginning. Such a procedure was impossible--the very best reason why it was not attempted. A pure democracy is possible only among a small number of people living in a small State. For a large population and an extensive territory representative government must be substituted. If the idea of government in the British colonies in North America had been national instead of local from the beginning, the States would have disappeared under the Constitution, or have been kept only for selecting national representatives, and performing other national functions. An equipoise between the two could never have been reached. But fate had ordained otherwise. In a new land, the settlers naturally gathered into little groups for mutual protection. Collecting about some harbour or along some navigable waterway in the Northern colonies, or assembling from the plantations at the centre of the parish in the Southern colonies, the people instituted local government. Clusters of these units under home rule formed larger divisions, and, in this way, union came as an afterthought resulting from contiguity and intercourse. The States as colonies existed long before the Union. Individualism was born long before unity in America, and gained a