It was the after result of the
Revolution, not the Revolution itself, which gave to the governmental
experiment inaugurated by the Second Continental Congress its unique and
lasting value. It was this result which marks most clearly the
difference between the careers of the English-speaking and
Spanish-speaking peoples on this continent. The wise statesmanship
typified by such men as Washington and Marshall, Hamilton, Jay, John
Adams, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, prevailed over the spirit of
separatism and anarchy. Seven years after the war ended, the
Constitution went into effect, and the United States became in truth a
nation. Had we not thus become a nation, had the separatists won the
day, and our country become the seat of various antagonistic States and
confederacies, then the Revolution by which we won liberty and
independence would have been scarcely more memorable or noteworthy than
the wars which culminated in the separation of the Spanish-American
colonies from Spain; for we would thereby have proved that we did not
deserve either liberty or independence.
Over-Mastering Importance of the Union.
The Revolutionary war itself had certain points of similarity with the
struggles of which men like Bolivar were the heroes; where the parallel
totally fails is in what followed.
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