occupied the minds of American statesmen for a century and a half,—­that is to say, ever since the English settlement of Massachusetts.  In 1643 a New England confederation was formed between Massachusetts and Connecticut, together with Plymouth since merged in Massachusetts and New Haven since merged in Connecticut.  The confederation was formed for defence against the French in Canada, the Dutch on the Hudson river, and the Indians.  But owing simply to the inequality in the sizes of these colonies—­Massachusetts more than outweighing the other three combined—­the practical working of this confederacy was never very successful.  In 1754, just before the outbreak of the great war which drove the French from America, a general Congress of the colonies was held at Albany, and a comprehensive scheme of union was proposed by Benjamin Franklin, but nothing came of the project at that time.  The commercial rivalry between the colonies, and their disputes over boundary lines, were then quite like the similar phenomena with which Europe had so long been familiar.  In 1756 Georgia and South Carolina actually came to blows over the navigation of the Savannah river.  The idea that the thirteen colonies could ever overcome their mutual jealousies so far as to unite in a single political body, was received at that time in England with a derision like that which a proposal for a permanent federation of European States would excite in many minds to-day.  It was confidently predicted that if the common allegiance to the British crown were once withdrawn, the colonies would forthwith proceed to destroy themselves with internecine war.  In fact, however, it was the shaking off of allegiance to the British crown, and the common trials and sufferings of the war of independence, that at last welded the colonies together and made a federal union possible.  As it was, the union was consummated only by degrees.  By the Articles of Confederation, agreed on by Congress in 1777 but not adopted by all the States until 1781, the federal government acted only upon the several state governments and not directly upon individuals; there was no federal judiciary for the decision of constitutional questions arising out of the relations between the states; and the Congress was not provided with any efficient means of raising a revenue or of enforcing its legislative decrees.  Under such a government the difficulty of insuring concerted action was so great that, but for the transcendent personal qualities of Washington, the bungling mismanagement of the British ministry, and the timely aid of the French fleet, the war of independence would most likely have ended in failure.  After the independence of the colonies was acknowledged, the formation of a more perfect union was seen to be the only method of securing peace and making a nation which should be respected by foreign powers; and so in 1788, after much discussion, the present Constitution of the United States was adopted,—­a constitution which satisfied very few people at the time, and which was from beginning to end a series of compromises, yet which has proved in its working a masterpiece of political wisdom.