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Transcriber's Note

The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully
preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.




  THE CRITICAL PERIOD OF

  AMERICAN HISTORY

  1783-1789

  BY

  JOHN FISKE

  "I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war."
  JAY TO WASHINGTON, _June_ 27, 1786.

  [Illustration]

  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
  The Riverside Press, Cambridge




  Copyright, 1888,

  BY JOHN FISKE.

  _All rights reserved._

  _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A._ Electrotyped and Printed
  by H.O. Houghton & Co.




  To

  MY DEAR CLASSMATES,

  FRANCIS LEE HIGGINSON

  AND

  CHARLES CABOT JACKSON,

  _I DEDICATE THIS BOOK._




PREFACE.


This book contains the substance of the course of lectures given in the
Old South Meeting-House in Boston in December, 1884, at the Washington
University in St. Louis in May, 1885, and in the theatre of the
University Club in New York in March, 1886. In its present shape it may
serve as a sketch of the political history of the United States from the
end of the Revolutionary War to the adoption of the Federal
Constitution. It makes no pretensions to completeness, either as a
summary of the events of that period or as a discussion of the political
questions involved in them. I have aimed especially at grouping facts in
such a way as to bring