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Article: To Secure the Blessings of Liberty: The Making of the Consitution - The infant American nation weathered tremendous obstacles in order to form a constitutional union.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- The World and I
- Article date:
- February 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Forrest McDonald is professor of history at the University of Alabama and author of Novus Ordo Seclorum.
On the eve of independence, the American people were sorely divided against themselves; but the patriots of 1776 were, at least in principle, nearly unanimous in their understanding of what independence entailed. The short-range necessity was to win on the battlefield what they had proclaimed in the halls of Congress. The longer-term necessity, in the language of the Declaration of Independence, was "to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their ...