Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/46

 34 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

increasing tension, the situation of the colonies had become more and more intolerable. The colonists at large, and particularly their representatives in the Continental Congress, had studied the situation, so far as they were able, in all its bearings. They tried to take into account everything that concerned their wel- fare in the largest sense. Whether they were correct or not is beside the point now in question. The simple fact is that they made up their minds about the. demands of the situation and formulated a program accordingly. They first said that the thing for America to do was to resist oppression. When that was not enough, they said the only thing left for America is to win its independence from Great Britain. All things else must yield to that. They accordingly adopted a program that con- trolled them for the following seven years.

Meanwhile another situation, demanding another survey and another program, gradually superseded the one to which that program was appropriate. Independence became probable, and at last actual. But before it was reached, and still more after it had been recognized, independence in a new sense became almost as great a problem as the former tyranny of Great Britain. Each colony wanted to be independent of all the rest. This fact jeopardized all that had been gained by the Revolution. The process of comprehending the situation had to be performed over again. A new program had to be decided upon. The Consti- tutional Convention again represented the whole people in attempting to estimate all the factors of the general welfare which required attention, in order rightly to decide upon lines of action. The draft of the Constitution was the resultant of this survey and calculation. To be sure, the governmental ele- ment of welfare was almost exclusively considered, but that was the factor which seemed at the time decisive. The subsequent campaign in the several states for ratification of the Constitution was another stage of the same process of group attention to the situation, and the final adoption of the Constitution completed the acceptance of a standard of social action.

Every four years since that time two or more political parties have more or less thoroughly, more or less conscientiously,