This is a feeling which we
now find difficulty in understanding. At present no State in the Union
fears the growth of a neighbor, or would ever dream of trying to check
that growth. The direct reverse was the case during and after the
Revolution; for the jealousy and distrust which the different States
felt for one another were bitter to a degree.
The Continental Congress Advocates a Compromise.
The Continental Congress was more than once at its wits' ends in
striving to prevent an open break over the land question between the
more extreme States on the two sides. The wisest and coolest leaders saw
that the matter could never be determined on a mere consideration of the
abstract rights, or even of the equities, of the case. They saw that it
would have to be decided, as almost all political questions of great
importance must be decided, by compromise and concession. The foremost
statesmen of the Revolution were eminently practical politicians. They
had high ideals, and they strove to realize them, as near as might be;
otherwise they would have been neither patriots nor statesmen. But they
were not theorists. They were men of affairs, accustomed to deal with
other men; and they understood that few questions of real moment can be
decided on their merits alone.
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