And singularly enough this very journey led not only to the establishment
of those paths between the east and west, the national road, the canals
reaching toward the sources of the rivers, and ultimately the trans-
Alleghany railroad, but to the making of that unmatched document, the
Constitution of the United States. And in this wise:
Washington called the attention of Virginia and Maryland to the importance
of opening a communication between the Potomac and James and the western
waters. He writes to Lafayette of being at the meeting of the Maryland
Assembly in that interest. [Footnote: John Pickell, "New Chapter in the
Early Life of Washington in Connection with the Narrative History of the
Potomac Company, 1856," pp. 133-4.] These two States appointed
commissioners to confer concerning this and other matters. Their
recommendations resulted in the calling of a more widely representative
convention, and this in turn in the convening of a body to revise the
entire federal system.
So this peaceful journey of the warrior over the mountains to the great
meadows and down into the tangled ravines of West Virginia became not only
the prophecy of the indissoluble bond between the east and west; it became
the first step in that movement which led the original States themselves
into that more perfect union.
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