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diff --git a/9322.txt b/9322.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..93a6622 --- /dev/null +++ b/9322.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3974 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Nation in a Nutshell, by George Makepeace Towle + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Nation in a Nutshell + +Author: George Makepeace Towle + + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9322] +This file was first posted on September 21, 2003 +Last Updated: May 10, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATION IN A NUTSHELL *** + + + + +Produced by PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +THE NATION IN A NUTSHELL + +A _RAPID OUTLINE OF AMERICAN HISTORY._ + +By George Makepeace Towle + +Author Of "Young People's History Of England," "Young People's History +Of Ireland," "Heroes Of History," "Modern France," Etc. + + +1886 + + + +THE NATION IN A NUTSHELL + + +CONTENTS: + +I. AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES +II. THE ERA OF DISCOVERY +III. THE ERA OF COLONIZATION +IV. THE COLONIAL ERA +V. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE +VI. SOCIETY IN 1776 +VII. THE REVOLUTION +VIII. THE CONFEDERATION AND CONSTITUTION +IX. WASHINGTON'S PRESIDENCY +X. THE WAR OF 1812 +XI. THE MEXICAN WAR +XII. THE SLAVERY AGITATION +XIII. THE CIVIL WAR +XIV. THE PRESIDENTS +XV. MATERIAL PROGRESS +XVI. PROGRESS IN LITERATURE +XVII. PROGRESS IN THE ARTS +XVIII. PROGRESS IN SCIENCE AND INVENTION +XIX. POLITICAL CHANGES + + + + +THE NATION IN A NUTSHELL + +AN OUTLINE OF AMERICAN HISTORY. + + + + +I. AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. + + +[Sidenote: Geology and Archaeology.] + +The sciences of geology and archaeology, working side by side, have made +a wonderful progress in the past half a century. The one, seeking for +the history and transformations of the physical earth, and the other, +aiming to discover the antiquity, differences of race, and social and +ethnical development of man, have obtained results which we cannot +regard without amazement and more or less incredulity. The two sciences +have been faithful handmaidens the one to the other; but geology has +always led the way, and archaeology has been competed to follow in its +path. + +[Sidenote: Four Eras of Civilization.] + +Though we may doubt as to the exactness of the detailed data established +by the archaeologists, there are certain broad facts which we must +accept from them as established beyond doubt. These facts are of the +highest value and interest. The antiquary has been able, from discovered +remains of extinct civilizations, to reconstruct societies and peoples, +and to trace the occupancy of countries to periods far anterior to that +of which history takes cognizance. The general fact seems to be settled +that, in prehistoric times, Europe passed through four distinct eras. +These were the Rude Stone Age, when man was the contemporary in Europe +of the extinct hairy elephant and the cave bear; the Polished Stone Age; +the Bronze Age, when bronze was used for arms and utensils; and the Iron +Age, in which iron superseded bronze in the making of useful articles. + +[Sidenote: Ancient America.] + +In the same way it has been established that, on our own continent, the +oldest discoverable civilization was one in which rude stone implements +were used, and man lived contemporaneously with the megatherium and the +mastodon. Then polished and worked stone implements came into use; and +after the lapse of ages, copper. The researches of our antiquaries +have rendered it probable that America is as ancient, as an inhabited +continent, as Europe. Evidences have been brought to light, leading to +the conclusion that many thousands of years before the Christian era, +America was the seat of a civilization far from rude or savage. Groping +into the remains of the far past, we find skeletons, skulls, implements +of war, and even basket-work, buried in geological strata, which have +been overlaid by repeated convulsions and changes of the physical earth. +But so few are the relics of this dim, primeval period, that we can +only conclude its antiquity, and we can infer little or nothing of its +characteristics. + +[Sidenote: Primeval Races.] + +Advancing, however, another stage in research and discovery, we come +upon clear and overwhelming proofs of the existence on this continent of +a great, enterprising, skilful, and even artistic people, spread over an +immense area, and leaving behind them the most positive testimony, not +only of their existence, but of their manners and customs, their arts, +their trade, their methods of warfare, and their religion and worship. +Compared with this people, the Red Indians found here by the Pilgrims +and the Cavaliers were modern intruders upon the land. These ancient +Americans, indeed, were far superior in all respects to the Red Indian +of our historic acquaintance. When the Red Indians replaced them, the +civilization of the continent fell from a high to a much lower plane. + +[Sidenote: The Mound-Builders.] + +The great race of which I speak is known as "the Mound-Builders." Like +the "Wall-Builders" of Greece and Italy, they stand out, in the light +of their remains, as distinctly as if we had historical records of them. +The Mound-Builders occupied, often in thickly settled communities, the +region about our great Northern Lakes, the valleys of the Mississippi, +the Ohio, the Missouri, and the regions watered by the affluents of +these rivers, and a wide and irregular belt along the coast of the Gulf +of Mexico. There is little or no evidence that the same race inhabited +any part of the country now occupied by the Eastern and Middle States; +but some few traces of them are found in North and South Carolina. + +[Sidenote: Ancient Mounds.] + +The chief relics left by this comparatively polished race are the very +numerous mounds, or artificial hills, found scattered over the country. +These are sometimes ten, and sometimes forty and fifty, feet in height, +with widely varying bases. They present many forms; they are circular +and pyramidal, square and polygonal, and in some places are manifestly +imitations of the shapes of beasts, birds, and human beings. There are +districts where hundreds of these mounds appear within a limited area. +Sometimes--as at Aztalan, in Wisconsin, and at Newark, in the Licking +Valley--a vast series of earthwork enclosures is discovered, sometimes +with embankments twelve feet high and fifty broad, within which are +variously shaped mounds, definitely formed avenues, and passages and +ponds. These enclosures amply prove, aside from the geological evidences +of their antiquity, the existence of a race very different from the +Red Indians. They were clearly a people not nomadic, but with fixed +settlements, cultivators of the soil, and skilful in the art of military +defence. + +[Sidenote: Altars and Temples.] + +The excavations of the wonderful mounds have brought to light many +things more curious than the mounds themselves. It seems to be +established that the mounds were used for four distinct purposes. They +were altars for sacrifice, and, like the Persians, whose sacrificial +ceremonies strikingly resembled those of the Mound-Builders, they were +sun-worshippers. They offered up the most costly gifts, and even human +victims. The pyramidal mounds, with avenues leading to the summits, +were the sites of the stately sun and moon temples. Here, undoubtedly, +imposing ceremonies were often performed. The lower or "knoll" mounds +were used as the sepulchres of the dead. They yield up to the modern +antiquary numberless skulls, of a type distinctly different from those +of the Red Indians. The Mound-Builders buried their dead, most often, +in a sitting posture, adorned with shell beads and ivory ornaments. +Sometimes the dead were burned. Finally, the mounds were employed as +points of observation. + +[Sidenote: Relics of the Mounds.] + +[Sidenote: Early Arts.] + +That the Mound-Builders were a far more civilized race than the Indians +is clearly revealed by the relics found in and about the mounds. They +have left behind them thousands of flint arrow-heads, many of beautiful +workmanship. They used spades, rimmers, borers, celts, axes, fleshers, +scrapers, pestles, and other implements whose use cannot now be +determined, made of various stones, such as porphyry, greenstone, +and feldspar. They knew well the use of tobacco, for among their +most artistic and elaborately carved remains are pipes, some of them +representing animals and human heads. It seems to be certain that they +had even attained the art of weaving cloth fabrics; for pieces of cloth, +of a material akin to hemp, have been found in the mounds, with uniform +and regularly spun threads, and every evidence that they were woven by +some deft invention or mechanical device. It is certain that the Red +Indian was ignorant of this valuable art. + +[Sidenote: Primeval Mining.] + +Among the highly wrought remains of the mounds are fanciful water-jugs, +well carved and symmetrical in shape, some of which were evidently +made to keep water cool. The human heads represented on these bear no +resemblance to the Indian types. Drinking cups with carved rims and +handles, sepulchral urns with curious ornaments, kettles and other +pieces of skilful pottery, copper chisels, axes, knives, awls, spear and +arrow heads, and even bracelets, come to light, here and there. There +is no doubt that the Mound-Builders were miners. For, on the southern +shores of Lake Superior, great excavations indicate an extensive and +skilful mining of copper at a very remote period. It is singular, on +the other hand, that no iron implement has ever been discovered in the +mounds. The builders used iron-ore as a stone, but never learned the art +of moulding it into weapons or utensils. + +Thus the fact that vast areas of what are now the United States were +once occupied by an active, skilful, imaginative, and progressive race, +seems fully established. Not less certain is it that in their physical +type, in their government, in their arts, habits, and daily pursuits, +they were separated by a wide gap from the Red Indians whom our +ancestors found in possession of the continent. The Indian was roving, +and hunted for subsistence. The Mound-Builders were sedentary, and +undoubtedly cultivated maize as their chief article of food. + +[Sidenote: Origin of the Mound-Builders.] + +But how remote the Mound-Builders were from the era of European +settlement, whence they came; how, whither, and when they +vanished,--these are questions before which science stands harassed, +impotent to answer positively. There are those who, marking certain +apparent resemblances between the implements, religious rites and +customs, and cranial formations, of the Mound-Builders, and those of +the Asiatic Mongols, conclude that the former were originally Asiatic +hordes, who, crossing Behring Straits, when, perhaps, the two continents +were united at that point, formed a new home and established a new +empire here. Others, with more proof, connect them with that great +Toltec race which occupied Central America and Mexico, before they were +driven out by the ruder and more warlike Aztecs. + +[Sidenote: The Aztecs.] + +The Toltecs have left ample records of their existence and gorgeous +civilization, in noble monuments and very numerous though till recently +undecipherable inscriptions; and many similarities lend weight to the +theory that the empire of the Mound-Builders, in the Ohio, Mississippi, +and Missouri valleys, was the result of a great Toltec migration from +Central America, which they left to Aztec dominion. Thus while we call +our continent the "New World," it is not improbable that we may be +living in a country which was alive with art, splendor, invention, +and power, when Europe was a dreary waste, over which the now extinct +monsters roamed unmolested by man. + + + + +II. THE ERA OF DISCOVERY. + +[Sidenote: Historic Myths.] + +We live in times when the researches of scholars are minute, pitiless, +and exhaustive, and when no hitherto received historical fact is +permitted to escape the ordeal of the most critical scrutiny. Many are +the cherished historical beliefs which have latterly been assailed +with every resource of logical argument and formidably arrayed proofs, +unearthed by tireless diligence and pursuit. Thus we are told that the +story of William Tell is a romantic myth; that Lucretia Borgia, far from +being a poisoner and murderess, was really a very estimable person; and +that the siege of Troy was a very insignificant struggle, between armies +counted, not by thousands, but by hundreds. + +In the same way the old familiar question, "Who discovered America?" +which every school-boy was formerly as prompt to answer as to his age +and name, has in recent years become a perplexing problem of historical +disputation; and at least can no longer be accurately answered by the +name of the gallant and courageous Genoese who set forth across the +Atlantic in 1492. + +[Sidenote: Icelandic Discoverers.] + +Bancroft, on the first page of his history, pronounces the story of +the discovery of our country by the Icelandic Northmen, a narrative +"mythological in form and obscure in meaning"; and adds that "no clear +historical evidence establishes the natural probability that they +accomplished the passage." But the first volume of Bancroft was +published in 1852. Since then, the proofs of the discovery of the +continent by the Icelanders, very nearly five hundred years before +Columbus was thrilled with the delight of beholding the Bahamas, have +multiplied and grown to positive demonstration. They no longer rest upon +vague traditions; they have assumed the authority of explicit and well +attested records. + +[Sidenote: Discoverers of America.] + +The discovery of the New England coast by the Icelanders is the earliest +which, down to the present, can be positively asserted. But it has been +recently urged that there are some evidences of American discovery by +Europeans or Asiatics long prior to Leif Erikson. There are certain +indications that the Pacific coast was reached by Chinese adventurers in +the remote past; and it is stated that proofs exist in Brazil tending to +show that South America was discovered by Phoenicians five hundred years +before Christ. The story is said to be recorded on some brass tablets +found in northern Brazil, which give the number of the vessels and +crews, state Sidon as the port to which the voyagers belonged, and even +describe their route around the Cape of Good Hope and along the +west coast of Africa, whence the trade-winds drifted them across the +Atlantic. + +[Sidenote: Icelandic Voyagers.] + +Confining ourselves to credible history, it appears that in the year 986 +(eighty years before the conquest of England by William of Normandy), an +Icelandic mariner named Bjarne Herrjulson, making for Greenland in his +rude bark, was swept across the Atlantic, and finally found himself +cast upon dry land. He made haste to set sail on his return voyage, and +succeeded in getting safely back to Iceland. He told his story of +the strange land beyond the seas; and so pleased had he been with its +pleasant and fruitful aspect that he named it "Vineland." + +[Sidenote: Leif Erikson.] + +The story of Bjarne impressed itself upon an intelligent and adventurous +man, Leif Erikson; who, having purchased Bjarne's ship, set sail for +Vineland in the year 1000, with a crew of thirty-five men. He reached +what is now Cape Cod, and passed the winter of 1000-1 on its shores. +Returning to Iceland, his example was followed, two years later, by +another Erikson, who established a colony on the shores of Narragansett +Bay, not far from Fall River, where the founder died and was buried. + +[Sidenote: Columbus in Iceland.] + +It is well nigh certain that Christopher Columbus, in the year 1477, +visited Iceland, and even sailed one hundred leagues beyond it, +discovering there an unfrozen sea. The idea of western discovery was +already in his mind, and he had received hints of a western continent, +from certain carved objects picked up in the Atlantic by other +navigators. It is altogether probable that the conjectures of Columbus +were confirmed into conviction by the Icelandic traditions of Leif's +discovery, during his sojourn at Rejkjawik. From this time Columbus was +more than ever intent upon the enterprise which, fifteen years after, +conferred upon him imperishable glory. + +[Sidenote: Voyage of Columbus.] + +The story of Columbus is, or should be, familiar to every American who +can read. How he sailed forth from the roads of Saltez on the 3d of +August, 1492, with three vessels and a crew of one hundred and twenty +men; how the voyage was stormy and full of doubts and discouragements; +how, finally, early on the morning of October 12, Rodrigo Triana, a +seaman of the _Pinta_, first descried the land which Columbus christened +San Salvador; how they pushed on and found Cuba and Hayti; how, after +returning to Spain, Columbus made two more voyages westward,--one +in 1493, when he discovered Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Porto Rico: and +another in 1498 when the Orinoco and the coast of Para rewarded his +researches; and his subsequent unhappy fate--all these events have been +related by many writers, and most vividly of all by the graphic pen of +Washington Irving. + +[Sidenote: Menendez.] + +The era of American discovery may be said to have continued till the +memorable fourth day of September, 1565, when the Spaniard Menendez +founded the first town on this continent, on the Florida coast, which he +called St. Augustine. In one sense, indeed, the era of discovery did not +cease down to within the memory of men still living; for the discovery +of a path across the Rocky Mountains might well be regarded as included +in it. But during the period which intervened between the return of +Columbus from his first voyage and the building of St. Augustine, +the extent and character of the eastern portion of our continent was +revealed to Europe by many and successful navigators. + +[Sidenote: The Cabots.] + +The story of Columbus inspired the cupidity and territorial ambition of +England, France, Spain, and Italy; and in the year 1497 John Cabot, +a Venetian by birth, but long a resident of Bristol, England, set out +thence across the Atlantic. He was accompanied by his son Sebastian. +On the 24th of June he came in sight of Newfoundland, and then of Nova +Scotia; then he sailed southward and reached Florida. As this was a year +before the third voyage of Columbus, in which he saw the coast of the +mainland, to John Cabot belongs the honor of having landed upon the +American continent before Columbus. + +[Sidenote: Amerigo Vespucci.] + +Voyages to the new land now followed each other in quick succession +for many years. It was in 1499 that the accomplished but unscrupulous +Amerigo Vespucci made his first voyage to Hispaniola, following it up by +voyages along the coast of South America. He returned thence to claim, +after the death of Columbus, the honors due to the great Genoese. + +[Sidenote: Verrazzani.] + +Portugal and France, jealous of the success of the Spanish and English +expeditions, lost no time in entering into this perilous and brilliant +competition for maritime honor and western possession. Portugal sent out +Cortereal, and France Verrazzani. The former skirted the coast for six +hundred miles, kidnapping Indians, and spending some time at Labrador, +where he came to his death. Verrazzani, in 1524, sailed for the Western +Continent in the _Dolphin_, ranged along the coast of North Carolina, +and so northward until he espied the beautiful harbor of New York, and +anchored for a brief rest in that of Newport. Verrazzani returned to +France with glowing accounts of the beauty, fertility, and noble harbors +of the country. + +[Sidenote: Jacques Cartier.] + +Within ten years France sent forth another expedition, under the command +of the famous Jacques Cartier, which was destined to acquire for that +nation its claim to the possession of Canada. Cartier sailed from St. +Malo to Newfoundland in twenty days. He went up the St. Lawrence, and +returned home to tell the thrilling tale of his adventures. The next +year he came back to discover the sites of Montreal and Quebec; and he +made two more voyages, in 1540 and 1542. + +[Sidenote: Ponce de Leon.] + +Meanwhile, Spain was resolved to sustain the great prestige she had +gained by the expeditions of Columbus, and to yield to no rival her +claims to dominion on the new continent. In 1512, Don Juan Ponce de +Leon, a brave soldier and adventurous man, who had accompanied +Columbus on his second voyage, landed on the peninsula of Florida, and +established the right of Spain to its possession. Five years after, +Fernandez landed on the coast of Yucatan; and ere long Garay explored +the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. + +[Sidenote: De Soto.] + +It is not possible, in this survey, to follow, or even to name, the +Spanish expeditions of discovery and conquest between 1512 and 1550. +Suffice it to say that during this period subjects of the Spanish king +landed on the coast of South Carolina, entered the harbors of New York +and New England, crossed Louisiana and northern Mexico to the Pacific, +explored Mexico and Peru, marched across Georgia under the lead of the +renowned Ferdinand de Soto, penetrated to the interior, and, after many +romantic adventures and desperate hardships, discovered the magnificent +river which we call the Mississippi; made perilous excursions into the +wild depths of Arkansas and Missouri, and even to the remote banks of +the Red River. + +[Sidenote: Character of the Discoverers.] + +The enterprises of Spaniards, English, Portuguese, and French were alike +prompted by the greed of gain. All sought the fabled El Dorado; all +craved the power of colonial dominion. None the less were the navigators +and soldiers, whom the nations sent forth to reveal a new world to +civilization, men of courage and fortitude, able in achieving the +momentous tasks assigned to them. Columbus and Cabot, at least, thought +less of riches and fleeting honors than of the proper and noble glories +of discovery; it was left to their Spanish successors to kidnap the +Indians, to rob their settlements and murder their women, and to invade +the peaceful wilds of America, with fire and the sword. + + + + +III. THE ERA OF COLONIZATION. + +[Sidenote: Voyages of Colonization.] + +To acquire a title to the fertile and fruitful lands and fabled riches +of the newly discovered continent, became the aspiration of the great +maritime states of Europe, which had shared between them the honors of +its discovery. From the middle of the sixteenth to the beginning of the +seventeenth century, the voyages of adventure and projected colonization +were almost continuous. Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Englishmen fitted out +vessels and crossed the ocean, to make more extended researches, and to +found, if possible, permanent settlements. Although failure generally +attended these attempts at colonization, they gradually led the way to +the final occupation of the continent. + +[Sidenote: The Huguenots in America.] + +Of these abortive efforts, that of Admiral Coligny to found a settlement +of the Huguenots, who were persecuted in France, on the new shores, was +the earliest and one of the most romantic. As long ago as 1562, America +became a refuge of the oppressed for conscience's sake. The Huguenot +colony, taking up their residence on the River May, gave the name of +"Carolina" (from King Charles IX.) to their new domain. After many and +terrible hardships, they returned again to France, to be soon succeeded +by another colony of Huguenots, also sent out by brave old Coligny, +which settled on the same soil of Carolina. + +[Sidenote: Menendez in Florida] + +This aroused the jealousy and cupidity of Spain. The "most Catholic" +king was not only enraged to find the soil which he claimed as his own +by right of discovery, taken possession of by the subjects of his French +rival, but was scandalized that the new colonists should be Calvinistic +heretics. It was the very height of the gloomiest period of religious +fanaticism and persecution in Europe. Menendez was accordingly sent +out to Florida by King Philip, and assumed its governorship; and on +September 8, 1565, Saint Augustine, the oldest town in the United +States, was founded, and Philip of Spain was solemnly proclaimed +sovereign of all North America. Menendez lost no time in attacking the +Huguenot colonists of Carolina. They were speedily defeated, and most +of them were ruthlessly massacred; and our almost virgin soil was thus +early the scene of another St. Bartholomew. + +Meanwhile, England was not idle in contesting with France and Spain +the supremacy of the western land. Very early in the sixteenth century +projects of colonizing America were formed in England. + +[Sidenote: English Colonization.] + +Numerous voyages hither were undertaken during the reign of Henry VIII.; +but the accounts which remain of them are rare and meagre. Some of +them resulted in terrible disasters of shipwreck and death. Late in the +century a courageous and determined navigator, Martin Frobisher, made +three voyages to America, but without establishing a colony, or finding +the treasures of gold and gems which he sought. Later, Sir Humphrey +Gilbert, the half-brother of Raleigh, and Barlow, made attempts to found +colonies, but in vain. + +[Sidenote: Raleigh's Expedition.] + +It was in the spring of 1585 that Sir Walter Raleigh fitted out his +famous expedition of seven ships, and one hundred and eight emigrants, +and sent it forth, bound for the shores of Carolina. At first it seemed +as it art English colony were really about to prosper in the new land. +They established themselves at Roanoke, and explored the country. +Hariot, one of the shrewdest of them, discovered the seductive +proper-ties of tobacco, the succulence of Indian corn, and the nutritive +quality of potatoes. + +[Sidenote: Sir Francis Drake.] + +The hostility of the natives, however, soon became so bitter, and their +attacks so frequent, that the colony was glad to return to England +in the visiting ships of Sir Francis Drake. Two years later Raleigh, +undismayed by the failure of his first colony, sent out another, under +John White, which settled on the Isle of Roanoke, and founded the "city +of Raleigh." It was here that, on the 18th of August, 1587, the first +child of English parents was born on American soil. Her name was +Virginia Dare, and she was the granddaughter of Governor White. The +Governor returned to England, leaving the emigrants behind; and on his +going back to Roanoke, three years afterwards, no vestige of the colony +could be discovered. It is supposed that they were all massacred by +the Indians during White's absence. The first permanent settlement in +America, was made by the French, at Port Royal, in 1605. + +[Sidenote: Port Royal.] + +[Sidenote: Colonies in Virginia.] + +English enterprise was now at last ready to found and perpetuate states +on the new continent. In little more than a year after the French +occupation of Port Royal, a patent was granted by King James the First +to a party of colonists, under Newport and Smith, authorizing them to +form a government in Virginia, subject to the English crown. Imagine, +then, three small ships setting forth, on the bleak 19th of December, +1606, and directing their way to Virginia, with one hundred and five men +on board, and freighted with a goodly store of arms and provisions. Most +of the party were gallant and courtly cavaliers: there were but twelve +laborers and four carpenters in all the company. After a stormy voyage +they passed up the James River, and landing, on its shores, they founded +Jamestown. + +[Sidenote: Heinrich Hudson.] + +The news of the colonization of Virginia, the success of the adventurous +emigrants in maintaining their settlement, and the fertility, beauty, +and salubriousness of the continent, soon inspired other enterprises of +a similar kind. The Dutch have always been famous navigators; and it was +in 1609 that gallant Heinrich Hudson, alter two previous futile attempts +to find a western passage to India, reached these shores, and sailed +up the noble river which now bears his name. Five years after, a Dutch +colony was formed on Manhattan Island, whereon the city of New York now +stands, to which was first given the name of "New Amsterdam." The colony +prospered, and in 1624 the island was purchased of the Indians for +twenty four pounds English money. + +[Sidenote: The Pilgrims and Puritans.] + +We now reach the fourth permanent colony on American soil; that which +was more powerful in shaping our destinies and determining our national +traits than any other. The story of the Pilgrims and Puritans is almost +too familiar to be rehearsed. Every schoolboy knows of their adventures +and trials, their hardships and their dauntless energy, their piety and +rigidity of rule, the great qualities by the exercise of which it may +be justly claimed that they made themselves the true founders of the +American Republic. Driven by persecution from their native England, +they took refuge in Holland; and from thence they sailed in two small +vessels, the _Speedwell_ and the _Mayflower_ on a July day in 1620, for +the new world. One hundred Puritans thus crossed the ocean. + +[Sidenote: Settlement at Plymouth.] + +After a tempestuous voyage of sixty-three days, the _Mayflower_ coasted +along Cape Cod, and landed, on the twenty-first day of December, at +Plymouth. The _Speedwell_ had been forced to put back in a disabled +condition. Before landing, the Puritans made a solemn compact of +government, purely republican in form, and to this they afterwards +religiously adhered. In 1629 another English Puritan colony, called the +"Massachusetts Bay Colony," settled at Salem; and in the following +year came Governor John Winthrop, with eight hundred emigrants. The +Massachusetts Bay Colony, thus re-enforced, and now numbering not far +from one thousand souls, settled Boston and its neighborhood. + +[Sidenote: New England Colonized.] + +New Hampshire began to be settled three years after the landing of +the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Maine was colonized not much later. Vermont, +having been explored by Champlain in 1609, was settled some years +after. The Rhode Island colony was founded by Roger Williams and five +companions, driven from the Boston and Plymouth colonies in succession, +in 1636; and Connecticut first became the seat of a settlement in 1635, +the colonial constitution being adopted in 1630. Next in point of time, +Delaware was settled by parties of Swedes and Finlanders in 1638, and +was called "New Sweden." The province passed into the hands of the Dutch +of New Amsterdam, however, in 1655. + +[Sidenote: European possessions in America.] + +Thus, in a period of a little less than half a century, the whole of the +American coast had been acquired by, and was to a large degree under +the dominion of, five European nations. In 1655 the Spaniards held the +peninsula of Florida; the French were in possession of, or at least +claimed the right to, what are now the two Carolinas; the Dutch held +Manhattan Island, New Jersey, a narrow strip running along the west bank +of the Hudson, and a portion of Long Island; the Swedes were established +(soon to be deprived of it) in what is now Delaware, and a part of +what is now Pennsylvania, along the Delaware River; while the English +possessions far exceeded those of all the others put together, including +as they did nearly the whole of Virginia, a large share of Maryland, all +of New England, and the greater part of Long Island. + +[Sidenote: William Penn.] + +In the year 1681 all the Dutch possessions had been added to the +dominion of the English in America; and it was in this year that William +Penn, having received a grant of a large tract of land in what is now +Pennsylvania, sent out a colony, which settled on his grant. The next +year he came in person, assumed the governorship of the colony, founded +Philadelphia, and made his famous treaties with the Indians. At the +close of the seventeenth century the English dominion comprised the +whole coast, from Canada to the Carolinas; and it may be fairly said +that when the eighteenth century opened, the era of colonization had +reached its culmination, English civilization was indelibly stamped on, +and firmly planted in, the new continent. The crystallizing process of a +new and mighty nation had begun and was in rapid progress. + + + + +IV. THE COLONIAL ERA. + + +[Sidenote: England's Acquirements.] + +The Colonial Era, intervening between the permanent colonization of the +Atlantic coast and the momentous time when the colonies united to assert +their independence, may be said to have been comprised within a period +of a little more than a century. In 1664 England had acquired possession +of the whole colonized territory from the Kennebec to the southern +boundary of South Carolina. Georgia was still unsettled, and remained +to be colonized some sixty years after by that good and gallant General +Oglethorpe, who forbade slavery to be introduced into the province, and +prohibited the sale of rum within its limits. Florida was still held by +the Spanish, the only continental power which then had a foothold on the +Atlantic border of what is now the United States. + +[Sidenote: Colonial Progress.] + +The century of settlement and growth which we call the Colonial Era was +full of hardship, romance, brave struggling with great difficulties, +fortitude, and alternate misfortune and success. As we look back upon it +from this distance, however, we do not fail to be struck with the steady +and certain progress made towards a compact and enduring nationality. +Even then the same variety of race and habits and characteristics which +the United States reveal to-day were to be observed in the population +which was scattered over the narrow strip of territory extending +a thousand miles along the seaboard. There were English +everywhere--predominant then, as English traits still possess, in a yet +more marked degree, the prevailing influence. There were, however, Dutch +in New York and Pennsylvania, some Swedes still in Delaware, Danes in +New Jersey, French Huguenots in the Carolinas, Austrian Moravians, not +long after, in Georgia, and Spaniards in Florida. + +[Sidenote: The New England Colonies.] + +Amid such a diversity of races, of course the habits, the laws, and +the religious opinions of the colonies widely differed. But these +differences were not confined to those arising from variety of origin. +The English in New England presented a very marked contrast to the +English in New York and in Virginia. The settlements of Plymouth and +Massachusetts Bay comprised communities of zealous Calvinists, rigid +in their religious belief and ceremonies, codifying their religious +principles into political law, and adhering resolutely, through thick +and thin, to the idea expressed, by one of the early Puritans, that +"our New England was originally a plantation of religion, and not a +plantation of trade." + +[Sidenote: Roger Williams.] + +Roger Williams founded Rhode Island on the principle of religious +toleration; but he carried thither the sobriety and diligence and +courage of his former Puritan associations. He provided, as he himself +said, "a shelter for persons distressed for conscience." Connecticut was +also essentially a "religious plantation," which for many years accepted +the Bible as containing the only laws necessary to the colony, +and confined the right of suffrage to members of the church; and +Connecticut, as well as Massachusetts, vigorously punished offenders +by the rough, old-fashioned methods of the pillory, the stocks, and the +whipping-post. + +[Sidenote: Colonial New York and Virginia.] + +No contrast could be more striking than that between colonial New +England and colonial New York and Virginia. The Puritans gathered +together in towns and villages; they lived in log or earth cottages, one +story high, with no pretensions to ornament, and but little to comfort. +The wealthier New Englanders, after a time, built two-story brick +houses; but these were still plain and substantial, and not imposing. + +[Sidenote: Puritan Costumes] + +The men wore short cloaks and jerkins, short, loose breeches, wide +collars with tassels, and high, narrow-crowned hats with wide brims. The +women dressed in plain-colored homespun, but bloomed forth on Sundays +with silk hoods and daintily worked caps. The proximity of Indians +required that every New England village should be a fortress, and every +citizen a soldier. Two hundred years ago, muster-days and town-meetings, +means of defence from attack and of self-government within, were as +prominent features of New England life as they are to-day. + +[Sidenote: New England Industries.] + +The New Englanders were mainly farmers, hunters, and fishermen. Commerce +was slow to grow up among them. Trade was the means towards supporting a +religious state; not a method for the acquirement of wealth. By and by, +however, manufactures of cotton and woollen fabrics grew up, lumber was +floated down to the coast, gunpowder and glass were made, and fish were +cured for winter use and to be sent abroad. They ate corn-meal and milk, +and pork and beans were a favorite New England dish from the first; and +they drank cider and home-brewed beer. The first coins appeared in +1652; and the oldest college on American soil, Harvard, was founded at +Cambridge in 1636. + +[Sidenote: Dutch and Cavaliers.] + +The Dutch, in New York, and the Cavaliers, in Virginia, set out upon +their colonial careers in a very different way. The Dutch came to +America as traders; the Cavaliers came to be landed proprietors and to +seek rapid fortunes. Instead, therefore, of clustering close in towns +and villages, both the Dutch and the Cavaliers spread out through the +country and established large and isolated estates. Wealthy Dutchmen +came hither with patents from the East India Company, took possession +of tracts sixteen miles long, settled colonies upon them, and lived in +great state on their "manors," ruling the colonies, working their lands +with slaves, and assuming the aristocratic title of "Patroon." Thus +a sort of feudal system grew up, in which the "Patroons" exercised an +authority well nigh as absolute as that of the mediaeval barons on the +Rhine; and this system long flourished side by side with the democratic +simplicity of the Puritan commonwealths. + +[Sidenote: Captain John Smith.] + +In the same way the Virginians scattered themselves in the fruitful and +sunny valleys between the sea and the Alleghanies, and in time created +lordly domains and plantations, over which the possessors exercised +feudal sway. But this colony, composed originally in the main of +gentlemen unused to manual labor, and indisposed to bear patiently the +hardships of early settlement, did not become established without many +and serious difficulties. The colonists at first hung tents to the +trees to shelter them from the sun; and the best of their houses "could +neither well defend wind nor rain." Captain John Smith wrote to England, +begging his friends there to "rather send thirty carpenters, husbandmen, +gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, and diggers-up of the roots, well +provided, than a thousand of such as we have." + +[Sidenote: Tobacco in Virginia.] + +The Virginians cultivated tobacco; and in the same year that the +Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock, the first cargo of African slaves was +carried up the James River in a Dutch trading ship. It is an interesting +fact that so extensive and profitable was the early cultivation of +tobacco in Virginia that it became the general medium of exchange. Debts +were paid with it; fines of so much tobacco, instead of so much money, +were imposed; a wife cost a Virginian five hundred pounds of the +narcotic weed; and even the government accepted it in discharge of +taxes. + +[Sidenote: Virginian Customs.] + +Virginia early became divided into classes; the landlords being a +virtual nobility, the poorer colonists a middle class, and the slaves +comprising the lower social stratum. The Church of England was the +prevailing sect, and English habits of hospitality and ease of manner +replaced the Puritan austerity of the North. Yet Virginia had a severe +code of punishments; and at one time, if a man stayed away from church +three times without good reason, he was liable to the penalty of death. +The Virginians were tolerant of all faiths excepting those of the +Quakers and the Roman Catholics. Persons professing these creeds were +sternly excluded from the colony. + +[Sidenote: The Indians.] + +Just one hundred years before the outbreak of the Revolution, the white +population of New England had reached fifty-five thousand: while the +Indians, retreating at the approach of the European, had become reduced +to two-thirds of that number. The presence of the aborigines on the +borders of the whole line of the colonies seemed at first, destined to +become fatal to the settlement of the continent. But had it not been +for Indian hostility, the colonies might never have grown together and +merged, first into a close defensive alliance, and then into a great +and united state. It was mainly the sentiment of the common preservation +that brought about the intimate relations which gradually grew up +between Puritan, Dutchman, and Cavalier. + +[Sidenote: Indian Wars.] + +The Puritans treated the Indians with strict justice: Penn made friends +of the powerful tribes along the Delaware; and Roger Williams succeeded +in conciliating the Narragansetts. But a time came when the Indians saw +clearly that they were being pushed further and further back, away +from their ancient homes. Then followed the terrible wars which so +long threatened the existence of the struggling colonies, and which the +dauntless courage and hardihood of the settlers alone rendered vain. +King Philip arose, and struggled fiercely for more than a year to +exterminate the New England intruders. The Canadian French, jealous of +English supremacy on the continent, joined hands with the Indians, and +incited them constantly to fresh assaults. These French had explored the +Lakes, and the Mississippi as far as what is now New Orleans; and they +feared lest the English should deprive them of these western domains. + +Wars succeeded each other with alarming rapidity. After King Philip's +War came King William's War in 1689, Queen Anne's War in 1702, King +George's War in 1744, the Canadian War (which lasted from 1755 to 1763, +and in which Quebec was taken by Wolfe, and Canada was conquered by the +English), and finally, Pontiac's bold but futile rebellion, aided by +the French, in 1763. It was these wars, and the growing need of combined +resistance to the tyrannical assumptions of the British government, +which together drew close the bonds of friendship and mutual support +between the colonies, and made them capable of striking a successful +blow for independence. + + + + + +V. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. + + +[Sidenote: The Revolution.] + +[Sidenote: American Loyalty.] + +The Revolution was long in brewing. The discontent of the colonies at +their treatment by the mother country was gradual in its growth. At +first it seemed rather to inspire fitful protests and expostulations, +than a desire to foster a deliberate quarrel. Even New England, settled +by Pilgrims who had no strong reason for evincing loyalty and affection +for the land whence they had been driven for opinion's sake, seemed +to have become more or less reconciled to the dominion of British +governors. There can be no doubt that the colonists, even down to within +a brief period of the Declaration of Independence, hoped to retain their +connection with Great Britain. Congress declared, even after armies had +been raised to resist the red-coats, that this was not with the design +of separation or independence. Even the mobs cried "God save the king!" +Washington said that until the moment of collision he had abhorred +the idea of separation: and Jefferson declared that, up to the 19th of +April, 1775 (the date of the battle of Lexington), "he had never heard a +whisper of a disposition to separate from Great Britain." + +[Sidenote: Effect of the Stamp Act.] + +The Stamp Act, and the similar acts which followed it, united the +colonies in a spirit of resistance. They inspired Patrick Henry's +eloquence in Virginia; they gave rise to the "tea-party" in Boston; they +produced the Boston massacre; they led to the burning of the _Gaspee_ +in Narragansett Bay; they finally developed, no longer rioting, but +open and flagrant rebellion at Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. The +colonies did not refuse to be taxed. They recognized the right of +Great Britain to tax them. But they claimed that this right had its +condition--that the taxed people should be represented in the body which +held the taxing power. Had the colonies been permitted to send members +to the British Parliament, and to have a voice in the deliberations of +the government, the Revolution might never have taken place. But King +George and his Tory ministers were obstinate to folly. They met protest +with repression; in order to subjugate the colonies, they added tyranny +to tyranny. The warnings of Townshend and Chatham were lost upon them, +and at last the colonies, utterly despairing of a settlement with +a power so deaf and so inconsiderate, launched into the storm of +revolution. + +[Sidenote: Independence Hall.] + +[Sidenote: Trumbull's Picture.] + +Every American who pays a visit to Philadelphia should visit the plain, +old-fashioned, sombre room known as "Independence Hall." Its dinginess +is venerable; its relics are illustrious. In this hall have resounded +the voices of Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hancock, Randolph,--the whole +circle of Revolutionary statesmen. On that table, which is pointed out +to you, the famous Declaration was signed. From the walls historic faces +gaze down upon you. Every relic has its record and its hint. In the +square below, you see the place where the Philadelphians of 1776 +listened to the reading of the Declaration from the Court House steps. +No one can visit this hall without conjuring up in his fancy the +memorable scene of the first of our "Fourths of July"; and, happily, +a great painter, who knew many of the actors in it, has preserved its +features on canvas. It is not difficult, standing in Independence Hall, +and retaining Trumbull's picture in memory, to imagine very nearly the +scene it presented. + +[Sidenote: Signers of the Declaration.] + +There were the long rows of plain uncushioned benches, extending up and +down the sides, filled with men of all ages, some with wigs, some with +powdered hair, some with unpowdered hair, all dressed in small-clothes, +breeches, knee-buckles, long stockings, and buckled shoes; coats of +blue, gray, and snuff color; venerable men like Franklin and Stephen +Hopkins, men in the full vigor of middle life, like Samuel Adams and +Roger Sherman, young men in the ardor and flush of lusty patriotism, +like Thomas Jefferson, and Francis Hopkinson, and Robert Livingston, and +John Hancock--the younger evidently predominating, alike in numbers and +activity. The faces were solemn and grave, no doubt, though Dr. Franklin +would have his genial joke about the necessity of their all hanging +together, lest they should all hang, separately; deep silence prevailed, +followed now and then by an excited stir among the benches. + +[Sidenote: President Hancock.] + +[Sidenote: The Continental Army.] + +Then there was the President's table, a little aside from one end of the +hall, with papers strewed over it, and by its side President Hancock, +attired with dainty and aristocratic precision, his sword by his side, +his wig perfectly dressed, his face earnest yet serene and bright. We +can fancy, too, the commotion which arose, the leaning forward, the +holding of the breath, then the dead silence, when the committee +appointed to draw the Declaration advanced to the President's table. It +was the moment of crossing the Rubicon. It was the burning of the +ships behind them. From this moment there was to be no possibility of +retreating. Independence declared, it still remained to conquer it. +British troops burdened the soil; shiploads of them were at that moment +crossing the Atlantic. The Continental army was but an armed rabble, +with patriotism for their strongest weapon. And would the colonies, one +and all, adhere, and "hang together"; or would the Declaration strike +terror to timid hearts, and destroy its purpose by its very audacity? + +[Sidenote: Thomas Jefferson.] + +[Sidenote: Franklin.] + +All this must have passed through the mind of each deputy as the +illustrious committee of five stood before Hancock, at the President's +desk. Foremost among them was Thomas Jefferson, the tallest, youngest, +and ablest of the five; their chairman, and the author of the great +document which he held in his hand. In his thirty-fourth year, Jefferson +was then a fine specimen of the Virginian gentry, his tall form clad +loosely in the small-clothes of the period, his bright red hair, +unpowdered, gathered carelessly behind with a ribbon, his light blue +eyes clear and calm, and his lips parted in a placid and confident +smile. Next to him, side by side, stood Franklin and John Adams, sons +of Massachusetts--the one risen from the printer's case, the other a +prosperous country lawyer, descended from the good Puritan stock of John +Alden. Franklin was already beyond three score and ten; his gray hair +hung in long locks to his shoulders; his snuff-colored coat reached to +his knees; his large, pleasant face must have encouraged the others on +that fateful day, so did it shine with trust in the cause and confidence +in its success. + +[Sidenote: Roger Sherman.] + +Pugnacity and determination were revealed in the short thick-set figure +of John Adams; the round bald head, the firm mouth, the set eyes of +the Braintree patriot, gave the idea that he was grimly and terribly in +earnest. Square-headed old Roger Sherman was another figure well worth +studying; a man, like the others, with the air of being rather resolved +on, than resigned to, the step which was being made, and seriously +prepared to take all consequences. And, to complete the group, there was +the polished and scholarly Livingston of New York, almost a fop in dress +and toilet, a model of elegance and fine courtesy, who, though serving +as one of the committee, was absent when the Declaration was signed. The +signing did not take place for several weeks after its adoption. + +[Sidenote: The Declaration proclaimed.] + +[Sidenote: British exasperation.] + +Jefferson read the Declaration to the Congress, and it was accepted, +with a few alterations, by the votes of the deputies of twelve of the +colonies. New York alone abstained from voting. The bell of the State +House rang out the tidings; the Declaration was read to a surging, +excited crowd in the square; it was sent off in all directions by fleet +messengers, and read at the head of each brigade of the Continental +army; and the colonies now knew that the fight was to go on to the +bitter end. Thenceforth there was no thought of patching a compromise +with the mother country, or of returning to the old allegiance to +the British crown. On the side of England, national pride and royal +obstinacy urged forward every preparation to continue the struggle; and +the voices of Chatham, Burke, and Fox were drowned amid the storm of +exasperation which the Declaration had caused. A price was set upon the +heads of Hancock and Samuel Adams, and Hessians were purchased to fill +the insufficient corps of the red-coats. + +[Sidenote: Consequences of the Declaration.] + +Now the colonies were the United States, with a flag common to all, the +symbol of a united nationality. Seldom has a written paper so moved the +world. In our own history, the only document that can compare with +it, in its momentous results, was the emancipation charter of Abraham +Lincoln. Both required a courage that was nothing less than heroic: but +the proclaimers of the Declaration of Independence risked life, family, +property; engaged in an irreconcilable conflict against enormous odds; +defied the greatest naval power in the world, and the richest nation, in +pursuit, not of the material gain to be derived from the abrogation of +a tax, but of national liberties which they were determined to secure at +every hazard. The Declaration, indeed, was needed to combine the action +of the patriots, and to give them a definite and certain purpose. It was +the bond that pledged them to harmony, and which confined them to the +alternative of "liberty or death." + + + + +VI. SOCIETY IN 1776. + +[Sidenote: American Society.] + +Despite the numerous biographies, histories, narratives, diaries, and +volumes of correspondence concerning the revolutionary epoch, which fill +many shelves of our larger libraries, it is not easy to reproduce in +imagination the state of American society as it was a hundred years ago. +In order to do so we must exclude from the mind many objects and ideas +which have been familiar to us all our lives. We must subtract all of +material improvements, of changes in the method of doing things, of new +directions and wide divergencies in the current of thought and knowledge +that have come about in the interval. We must strip the modern home, for +instance, of appliances without which it is difficult to conjure up a +picture of comfort, much less of luxury. We must forget railways, and +the telegraph, and every other use of that still mysterious agent, +electricity. We must put out of our minds all notion of great cities, of +long lines of elegant shops, blocks of noble residences, spacious parks +adorned by every refinement of the gardening art, public buildings +capped with stately dome and graceful turret and sculptured front; all +notion of the later growth of recreation, the theatre and the concert +hall, the lecture platform, the brilliant holiday festival, the sea +excursion, the gay and attractive summer resort with its big hotels and +its countless luxuries. We must return in imagination, in short, to +a social condition but few remnants of which are still to be found in +remote corners of the country; the relics of which still visible to the +eye are rare and precious, and dwindling away day by day; and the +life and spirit of which have ceased with the broadened, gift-laden +civilization which has replaced the old primitive simplicity, and made +a powerful, teeming, and restless nation out of scattered villages and +colonies struggling to exist. + +[Sidenote: Old-time Mansions.] + +Still, there was a very distinct advance in culture, elegance, comfort, +and luxury, beyond the condition of the colonies in the previous +century. Those who remember the stately Hancock House, on the top of +Beacon Hill in Boston, and compare its exterior and interior with still +extant edifices which were residences of the wealthier colonists of two +hundred years ago, may gather some idea of the far more lavish adornment +and elegance of the period in which Hancock lived. We may well believe +that when Washington drove through the streets of Philadelphia in +a state coach, "of which the body was in the shape of a hemisphere, +cream-colored, bordered with flowers round the panels, and ornamented +with figures representing cupids, and supporting festoons," he presented +a very different appearance from that of the early Puritan governors +and Virginian squires; and could we have peeped into the square, solid +drawing-room in which, as President, he held his receptions, aided by +the matronly grace and dignity of Mrs. Washington, the scene would +be far gayer and more imposing than William Penn's house would have +displayed, or the company of the richest Dutch "patroon" of New York +could have presented in the seventeenth century. + +[Sidenote: Old Furniture.] + +Yet, had we gone over the mansion, in how many things would we, used +to the minute refinements of this later age, have judged it wanting! +Instead of gas, there would be candles, and not of the best quality, +everywhere. Instead of stoves and furnaces with coal, we should have +been fain to comfort ourselves with the cheerful blaze and genial glow, +but scant and capricious warmth, of the wood logs, burning in the big +open fireplaces. Lace curtains and moquette carpets would be nowhere +apparent. The furniture, though here and there richly carved and +bountifully upholstered, would be wanting in variety and the luxurious +ease of that which we now enjoy. + +[Sidenote: The Tables of 1776.] + +At table we should have missed the thousand refinements and inventions +of French and native cooking which now lend variety to our sustenance. +The food would have been substantial and heavy and little various; the +English simplicity, probably, of barons of beef and shoulders of mutton, +and cold bread, and big plum puddings, with a relish of fruits. Were we +in fancy to journey from New York to Philadelphia or Boston, we should +be forced to rumble slowly over bad roads, through interminable forests +and by desert sea-coasts, in heavy and rudely jolting vehicles, and be +several days upon the trip. + +[Sidenote: Travelling in the Olden Time.] + +[Sidenote: The Wealthier Classes.] + +It is a striking fact that people in the days of Washington travelled +not a whit more rapidly than people in the days of Moses or of Homer. +The chariot-rider of the Olympic games attained a speed which +was, perhaps, never equalled in Europe or America until the first +railway-train sped between Liverpool and Manchester, in 1830. In 1776, +the Americans were still mainly confined to the original occupations of +the early colonists, farming, trade, hunting, and fishing. Manufactories +there were not as yet; Lawrence and Lowell. Pittsburg, and the great +industrial New York towns, were still in the womb of the future. +In almost every household throughout the land the old-fashioned +spinning-wheel was humming under the pressure of matronly and maidenly +feet, by which the homespun garments of the time were made. While the +less well-to-do and laboring classes were content with clothing spun and +knitted at their own firesides, the wealthier people arrayed themselves +with far more ostentation than they do at this day. Silks and satins +came hither by ship-loads from France to supply the luxury of costume +which was then in vogue. The difference between the costumes of that day +and of this was especially marked in the attire of gentlemen. Now there +is much greater plainness and uniformity. When Washington held his +levees, he was generally dressed "in black velvet, with white +or pearl-colored waistcoat, yellow gloves, and silver knee and +shoe-buckles." "His hair was powdered and gathered in a silk bag behind. +He carried a cocked hat in his hand, and wore a long sword with a +scabbard of polished white leather." The display of dress was not less +marked in other officials, and in men of high social rank. The judges of +the Supreme Court wore scarlet robes faced with velvet. "If a +gentleman went abroad, he appeared in his wig, white stock, white satin +embroidered vest, black satin small-clothes, with white silk stockings, +and a fine broadcloth or velvet coat; if at home, a velvet cap, +sometimes with a fine linen one under it, took the place of the +wig; while a gown, frequently of colored damask lined with silk, +was substituted for the coat, and the feet were covered with leather +slippers of some fancy color." All men shaved their beards clean; a man +who appeared in the streets wearing hair on any part of his face was +stared at, and very likely laughed at. + +[Sidenote: Old-time Attire.] + +[Sidenote: Wigs and Queues.] + +All the great gentlemen wore wigs; most of the country farmers contented +themselves with tying their hair in a queue behind, sprinkling it with +powder when they went to church on a Sunday. As for the ladies, those in +the best society were even more elaborate in their toilets than those +of to-day. On the dressing of the hair, especially, much time and money +were spent. It was raised high upon the head and powdered thick; "the +hair dressers," says Higginson, "were kept so busy on the day of any +fashionable entertainment, that ladies sometimes had to employ their +services at four or five in the morning, and had to sit upright all the +rest of the day, in order to avoid disturbing the head-dress." + +[Sidenote: Amusements.] + +Although our ancestors did not possess the variety of amusements +which now exists, their life was far from a humdrum one. Theatres were +tabooed, but were beginning to hold their ground here and there, though +not, we may be sure, in New England. There were, however, private +theatricals and charades, which became at one period very much in vogue +in the aristocratic houses of New York and Philadelphia. Concerts were +often held, and in the country many old-time English festivals, such as +May Day, were kept up. The most frequent and fashionable amusements of +that time were balls and parties. We hear of the gentlemen and dames +going to "routs" in their sedan chairs, much as they did in the old +country: arriving at eight--they kept better hours than our modern +fashionable people--they would dance the staid and stately minuet and +the gayer contra-dance, to the music mainly of fiddles, till midnight, +and then separate, horrified at the lateness of the hour. + +[Sidenote: Imitations of the English.] + +Indeed, we are able to see in the habits of the American upper classes +a distinct imitation of London fashions, despite the quarrel with the +British. The whole etiquette of patrician society was based upon that +of the English court, just as the law administered in the courts was +borrowed from that dispensed at Westminster. It is interesting to note +that "gentlemen took snuff in those days almost universally: and a great +deal of expense and variety were often lavished upon a snuff-box. To +take snuff with one another was as much a matter of courtesy as the +lifting of the hat." + +[Sidenote: Wine and Profanity.] + +The days of prevalent cigar-smoking and tobacco-chewing had not come. +The use of wine and ardent spirits was regarded with less reprobation +in the old society than in the new; profanity, too, was indulged in much +more freely by men of standing and moral profession than now. Thus we +can recognize, in these and in many other things, a progress in morals, +and in greater refinement both of thought, manners, and language, as +well as in the material enginery of civilization. + + + + +VII. THE REVOLUTION. + +[Sidenote: Washington as Commander-in-chief.] + +George Washington had been assigned to the command-in-chief of the +colonial troops, just before the Battle of Bunker Hill. Thus, at the +very start, wisdom ruled the counsels and Providence guided the action +of our forefathers. The military abilities and lofty patriotism of +Washington could scarcely have been foreseen at the first in all their +breadth and scope; yet he was already known as a soldier of tried +courage and of prudent conduct, and as a Virginia gentleman of +conspicuous social and private virtues. + +[Sidenote: Continental Generals.] + +Washington assumed the chief direction of the Continental forces, under +the famous old elm which still stands, but a few steps from Harvard +College, in Old Cambridge, on the third day of July, 1775. At the same +time of his appointment, four major-generals--Artemus Ward, Israel +Putnam, Philip Schuyler, and Charles Lee--were designated. The principal +troops of the colonies were at this time gathered in an irregular cordon +around Boston. Their position was almost unchanged from that which they +had occupied before the Battle of Bunker Hill; for the British were +unable to follow up the success which they had achieved on that +occasion. + +[Sidenote: The Continental Forces.] + +The general-in-chief, on inspecting his forces, saw how ill disciplined +and ill supplied they were. They had but little clothing, a scant supply +of arms, and still less ammunition. Washington's first task was by +no means the least difficult of those which lay before him. It was to +create an army out of a brave but heterogeneous multitude of patriots. +It was to collect arms and supplies; to keep vigilant watch on the +British in Boston; to fortify and defend the surrounding circle; and +prepare to meet and drive out the pent-up foe. + +At last, after preparations extending through nearly eight months, +Boston was attacked by batteries from Dorchester Heights, and on the +17th of March, 1776, Howe evacuated the town, and the first decisive +struggle of the seven years' contest had been decided in favor of the +Americans. + +[Sidenote: First Campaign.] + +The scene is now transferred further south. Charleston had, it is true, +already been attacked, but without favorable results to the English; +on the other hand, Arnold and Montgomery had vainly essayed to assail +British power in the Canadas. New York was the objective point of +those who had now come to be regarded as the invaders of our soil. Its +splendid harbor and its central position afforded a good standpoint. The +concentration of the troops of Howe, which had evacuated Boston, the war +ships commanded by his brother, Lord Howe, and the forces under Clinton, +which had been occupied in futile operations in the South, enabled +the British to force Washington out of New York, and to occupy it +themselves. + +[Sidenote: Numerical Force of the Contestants.] + +The whole British force engaged in this enterprise was scarcely less +than twenty-five thousand men; the American force did not exceed twelve +thousand; and the contrast in discipline and equipment still further +increased this inequality of strength. Then came the retreat across New +Jersey, succeeded by one of the most brilliant strokes of the war. This +was the midnight and midwinter crossing of the Delaware by the American +general and his troops, the forced march upon Trenton through the snow +and cold, and the surprise and utter defeat of the Hessians at that +place on Christmas morning. + +[Sidenote: Valley Forge.] + +But the colonists, though waxing in strength, were not yet able to cope +in a prolonged and active campaign with the royal army. Philadelphia, +like New York, had to be given up. The terrible winter months spent at +Valley Forge formed one of the saddest and most heroic romances of the +Revolution. The army lived in huts, which, as Lafayette exclaimed, "were +no gayer than dungeons." Bread and clothing were sadly wanting. The cold +was intense, and almost unremitting. The Pilgrims during their first +winter at Plymouth were scarcely more comfortless. + +[Sidenote: Bennington.] + +It was early in the following year (1777) that General Burgoyne made an +offensive movement southward from Canada, by way of Lake Champlain and +Fort Ticonderoga. A portion of his troops were sent to Bennington to +capture some stores collected there by the Vermont patriots. A vigorous +defence of these stores by the intrepid Stark resulted in the repulse, +first of the British, then of the Hessian troops. The next scene in +the drama was what may be called the second decisive action of the +war. Burgoyne, with his whole force of five thousand men, encamped at +Saratoga. There he was confronted by General Horatio Gates, who engaged +him in two battles, which, however uncertain their immediate issue, were +followed by a retreat on Burgoyne's part. The Americans succeeded in +turning his flank, and hemming him in; and then came the surrender of +Burgoyne and his entire force. + +[Sidenote: Surrender of Burgoyne.] + +The consequences of this event were of far greater moment than the +elimination from the contest of an able British general and five +thousand well drilled British and mercenary soldiers. It silenced the +complaints which were growing loud against the inactivity of Washington. +It once more harmonized the colonial counsels, which were becoming +seriously discordant. It inspired new effort throughout the colonies. +And it decided France to make open cause with the struggling patriots. +To the masterly diplomacy of Franklin we owe it that the great +European rival of England threw the weight of her sympathy and material +assistance on our side. + +[Sidenote: Charleston Taken.] + +[Sidenote: Capture of Stony Point.] + +From the moment of Burgoyne's surrender, the tide of the war was +fitful, but on the whole, towards American success. There were still +vicissitudes, now and then an apparent back-sliding; Charleston was +taken by Clinton; massacres by Indians took place in Pennsylvania; the +progress of the cause at times seemed grievously slow. On the other +hand, "mad" Anthony Wayne assaulted and took Stony Point, on the Hudson; +Paul Jones made vigorous havoc with the British war-ships, conquering +the _Serapis_ and carried terror to the English by approaching close to +their coast with his doughty _Bonhomme Richard_; Marion and Sumter kept +up constant hostilities with the British in South Carolina; and the +vexatious character of the war was evidently wearying the patience, and +wearing upon the determination, of the royal government. + +[Sidenote: Surrender of Cornwallis.] + +The final scene of the war, at least that which most obtrusively +stands forth in its panorama, was the siege and capture of Yorktown, +in Virginia, and the surrender of General Lord Cornwallis with seven +thousand troops. On this occasion the Americans had the aid of a corps +of French troops under Count Rochambeau, while the French Admiral de +Grasse guarded York River. The siege was so vigorous that in ten +days Lord Cornwallis found himself unable to hold the town. But for +a propitious rain-storm, he might yet have saved his army, and thus +protracted the war. His attempt to leave Yorktown under cover of night +was, however, frustrated by the outburst of a tempest; and he was forced +to send word to Washington that he would surrender. + +[Sidenote: Peace.] + +This he did, with all the customary formalities of war, on the 19th of +October, 1781. By this act seven thousand British troops, the largest +force left on American soil, were withdrawn from the conflict. It was +the death-blow to British hopes. The war dragged on, however, for two +years more. The royalist troops held New York, Charleston, and Savannah, +but did not venture upon aggressive projects. At last, a treaty was made +at Paris, on the 3d of September, 1783, by the conditions of which Great +Britain grudgingly acknowledged the independence of the United States of +America. + +[Sidenote: The Revolutionary Heroes.] + +There would be no justice in presenting even an outline of the American +Revolution, without referring to its triumphs of statesmanship and +diplomacy, as well as its triumphs of military achievement. Washington, +Greene, Stark, Putnam, Wayne, Lafayette, De Kalb, Steuben, Schuyler, and +their fellow-soldiers, performed a great part, and that which was the +most brilliant and conspicuous, in accomplishing our liberties. But in +the Congress were patriots quite as devoted, and not less efficient; +while Franklin, during his sojourn abroad, exercised with great skill +the delicate and subtle generalship of diplomacy. It would have been +easy for the statesmen of the Revolution to render all of Washington's +efforts vain and futile. The triumph of unworthy ambitions in the +colonial counsels might well have brought wreck and ruin upon the cause. + +[Sidenote: Revolutionary Statesmanship.] + +Had the revolutionary statesmen lacked capacity or courage, they would +have loaded the army with a burden which it probably could not have +supported. The marvel of the period was the almost undisturbed unity, +readiness, and practical energy of every branch of the public service; +the devotion of each one in his own sphere to the common end; the +general co-operation in the means by which that end was to be reached; +the remarkable rarity of treason, even of self-seeking; the steadfast +exercise, amid the comfortlessness of camps and the temptations of the +council-hall of the highest and worthiest public virtues. + + + + +VIII. THE CONFEDERATION AND CONSTITUTION. + + +[Sidenote: The Confederation.] + +[Sidenote: Bond of the States.] + +The Confederation was designed as a temporary civil machine, with which +to conduct a war common to the colonies. The Constitution was the later +and permanent bond, combining the States under a single government. +Without the confederation, there would have been chaos in the +revolution; without the constitution, there would have remained the +weakness arising from the division and rivalry of States. It is most +interesting to observe the gradual manner in which our civil government +crystallized out of the original elements offered by the colonies; +and it is wonderful to see with what wise deliberation and patriotic +earnestness States differing so widely in manners, in religion, in +colonial system, and even in blood and race, were brought together in +harmonious coalition, bound with a bond which the greatest civil war of +modern times failed to sever, and which it seems only to have confirmed +and strengthened. + +[Sidenote: Early Confederations.] + +There were, indeed, local confederations before those which, in +1774, enabled a congress to meet at Philadelphia, and which, in 1777, +established articles for a more regular, though still a temporary, civil +enginery with which to bring the war to a successful conclusion. More +than a century before the first meeting of the Continental Congress, +the idea of a confederation had been agitated among the New England +colonies. In 1643 a confederation of those colonies was agreed upon +at Boston, with twelve organic articles, for the common protection and +defence. Here was the very beginning of American unions; and in its +features may be discovered traces of the democratic principles of the +Pilgrims. + +[Sidenote: Declaration of Rights.] + +A general congress of all the colonies met at New York in 1690, +for purposes of conference, when the Stamp Act was promulgated. +Massachusetts invited the colonies to meet in a general congress, which +assembled at New York in 1765, adopted a declaration of rights, asserted +the sole right of taxation to rest in the colonies, and passed other +important resolutions. Eleven years before this, commissioners from +nearly all of the colonies had met at Albany, and before this body +Benjamin Franklin submitted his famous "project of union." Other +conferences and congresses were held between 1765 and 1774; but it was +early in September of the latter year that the first formal Continental +Congress met, at Philadelphia, mainly to concert measures for resisting +the arbitrary acts of the mother country. The rules which guided its +deliberations were few and simple; but even so early we find Patrick +Henry arguing upon the great question of the rights of the States, which +has been a bone of contention in this country from that time to this. + +[Sidenote: Articles of Confederation Adopted. ] + +The first formal articles of confederation, after several ineffectual +attempts, were adopted on the 15th of November, 1777, when the States +were in the midst of the war of independence; but they were not formally +ratified by all of the colonies until 1781, when Maryland at last agreed +to them. These articles contained the germs of nationality, the crude +material out of which the much broader and wiser constitution was +afterwards framed. The second article provided for the complete +"sovereignty, independence, and freedom," of the several States, in all +powers not expressly delegated to Congress. + +[Sidenote: Restrictions on the States. ] + +It was declared that the confederation was a mutual league for +protection and defence; that each State should deliver fugitives from +justice to the others, and accord full faith to the judicial records +of the others; that each State should have the right to recall its +delegates, and that no State should be represented in Congress by +less than two nor more than seven delegates; that no State should send +embassies to foreign powers, confer titles of nobility, lay imports +inconsistent with treaties of the United States, keep vessels of war +or military forces in time of peace without the consent of Congress, a +certain quota of militia excepted, or engage in war except in certain +specified exigencies. + +These, with many minor regulations, were the organic rules under +which our civil government was carried on from 1777 to 1788, when the +constitution came into force. The confederation was supplied with an +executive chosen by Congress, comprising secretaries of foreign affairs, +war, and finance. It was evident, however, that this league, while it +had well served a temporary purpose, was quite inadequate to the +purpose of a permanent bond of union. "We are one nation to-day," said +Washington, "and thirteen to-morrow; who will treat with us on these +terms?" + +[Sidenote: Steps towards a Constitution.] + +The first formal step towards establishing a constitution was the +meeting, in the autumn of 1786, of commissioners from Virginia, +Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, at Annapolis. They +conferred together, and reported to Congress a recommendation that a +body, comprising delegates from all the States, and empowered to frame +an organic instrument, should be convened early in the following year. +Congress adopted the scheme, and the constituent convention was called. + +[Sidenote: The Constituent Convention.] + +This famous assembly met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, and its +deliberations continued until the middle of September. Among its +members were many of the most eminent statesmen and soldiers of the +Revolutionary period. + +[Sidenote: Members of the Convention.] + +George Washington, pre-eminent in war, and to be still pre-eminent in +times of peace, presided over the convention, and was one of the guiding +spirits of its labors. Of the thirty-eight delegates who signed the +constitution, six--Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, +James Wilson, and George Clymer--had previously signed the Declaration +of Independence. It was in the constitutional convention that Alexander +Hamilton's genius for statesmanship became conspicuous to the whole +nation; while Madison, the future President, achieved therein a large +reputation. + +[Sidenote: The Non-signers.] + +Among others, the two Pinckneys from South Carolina, John Dickinson, +Jonathan Dayton, Rufus King, Gouverneur Morris, Jared Ingersoll, and +John Rutledge, were eminent in various spheres of public life. Some of +the members of the convention refused to, or for some reason did not, +sign the constitution after it was completed and drafted. These were +Elbridge Gerry and Caleb Strong of Massachusetts, Oliver Ellsworth +of Connecticut, John Lansing and Robert Yates of New York, William +C. Houston of New Jersey, Luther Martin and John Francis Mercer of +Maryland, George Mason, James McClung, Edmund Randolph, and George Wythe +of Virginia, William R. Davis of North Carolina, William Houston and +William Pierce of Georgia. + +[Sidenote: Issues in the Convention.] + +The discussions on the proposed constitution were long, earnest, +sometimes heated, and revealed the presence of widely divergent +opinions. Four plans, or projects, were submitted severally by Edmund +Randolph, William Paterson, Charles Pinckney, and Alexander Hamilton, +differing widely in the political systems recommended. Throughout, the +struggle was between those who desired to preserve a large degree +of independence to the States, and those who wished to make a strong +national government; and the crisis of the struggle came upon the +question whether the States should have equal votes in the Senate, or +should be represented in that body, as in the House of Representatives, +according to population. + +This was warmly debated for several days, the venerable Roger Sherman +and Hamilton sustaining the principle of State equality, and Madison +and Rufus King as vigorously opposing it. At last the former party +prevailed, after a report in favor of State equality in the Senate said +to have been moved in committee by Dr. Franklin. Other phases of the +same contention occurred in the discussion of the article specially +defining the powers of Congress. It was the object of the "States' +rights" party to limit these as much as possible, and of the nationalist +party to give them a broad range. + +[Sidenote: The Constitution a Compromise.] + +[Sidenote: Powers of Congress.] + +Thus, after labors extending through nearly four months, the +constitution issued from the hands of its framers with the marks of +compromise and concession on almost every section. On the one hand, +the States were to vote as equals in the second and upper branch of +Congress, and reserved to themselves local self-government and all +powers not expressly set forth in the instrument. On the other, Congress +was clothed with authority to lay uniform taxes and imposts, to provide +for the common defence, to borrow money on the credit of the nation, to +regulate foreign commerce, to make naturalization and bankruptcy laws, +to coin money, to establish post-offices and roads, to declare war and +raise armies and a navy, to constitute courts, to organize and call +out the militia, and to "execute the laws of the Union, suppress +insurrection, and repel invasions." + +Animated, too, by the true republican spirit, the framers of the +constitution inserted in it that no bill of attainder or _ex-post-facto_ +law should be passed; that the writ of _habeas corpus_ should only be +suspended in cases of extreme necessity; and that no title of nobility +should either be granted by the government or accepted by a citizen of +the United States. + +[Sidenote: Ratification of the Constitution.] + +As soon as the constitution was promulgated, a warm contest arose in all +the States over its ratification. The instrument, upon being ratified by +nine States, was to become the organic law of the land. Although it was +strenuously opposed by many eminent men, among them Patrick Henry, a +sufficient number of States assented in time to bring the constitution +into operation the year after its submission to the people. + +[Sidenote: "The Federalist."] + +Although neither Hamilton nor Madison was entirely satisfied with the +work of the convention, both sank their scruples in a loftier spirit of +patriotism; and their defence of the constitution, in conjunction +with John Jay in the _Federalist_, is likely to be read as long as the +constitution lasts. How wisely the framers labored, and the great fruits +of their labor, are far more clearly to be seen now that the great +instrument has been so long and so severely tried, than was possible in +their own generation. The constitution has stood well the strain of a +progress far more rapid, and needs far more vast and pressing, than they +could have foreseen. It protects the liberties of a nation many fold +more extended and numerous than they could have anticipated would +exist within the brief space of a century; nor does the promise of its +endurance yet grow feeble. + + + + +IX. WASHINGTON'S PRESIDENCY. + + +"To have framed a constitution was showing only, without realizing, the +general happiness. This great work remained to be done; and America, +steadfast in her preference, with one will summoned her beloved +Washington, unpractised as he was in the duties of civil administration, +to execute this last act in the completion of the national felicity." +Thus spoke Gen. Henry Lee, the funeral orator of Washington, and +the father of a later and more famous Lee, who fought to destroy the +national felicity of which his father spoke. + +[Sidenote: Test of the Constitution.] + +The test of the constitution had come; and it was indeed an experiment +well calculated to arouse the liveliest anxieties of the infant nation. +The passions of party ran yet more high in those days than in our +own. Views the most antagonistic existed already, regarding the +interrelation, as well as the probable success, of the organic +instrument. But upon one point: all factions, however opposed, were +agreed. The only possible first President of the United States was +George Washington. + +[Sidenote: Election of Washington as President.] + +The new nation proceeded, in the autumn of 1788, to the choice of an +executive. There being no contest as to the chief office, the struggle +turned on the Vice-Presidency; but even in this case one candidate was +conspicuous far above the others. If Virginia had the President it +was right that Massachusetts should have the Vice-President; and as +Washington was the pre-eminent Virginian, so John Adams was, beyond all +dispute, the foremost New Englander. Ten States voted in the election, +casting sixty-nine electoral ballots. Washington received the whole +sixty-nine; and our government began with the happy augury of an +unanimous choice for its head. For Vice-President, John Adams received +thirty-four votes; John Jay nine; R.H. Harrison six; John Rutledge six; +John Hancock four; and George Clinton three. + +[Sidenote: Washington takes the Oath of Office.] + +It was on the last day of April, 1789, that President Washington took +the oath of office at New York, and in person delivered his inaugural +address in the presence of the two branches of Congress. This masterly +paper expressed the reluctance with which Washington had abandoned a +retreat which he had chosen "as the asylum of my declining years"; his +willingness to yield the prospect of repose to the call of country and +duty; his faith in the constitution and in the future of the nation; and +his devout reliance, in the burden he was taking upon himself, on "the +benign Parent of the human race." + +[Sidenote: The First Cabinet.] + +A very able cabinet surrounded and strengthened the hands of our +first President. Thomas Jefferson, who had written the Declaration of +Independence, had been Governor of Virginia, and was the successor of +Franklin at the Court of France, was made Secretary of State. At the +head of the Treasury--then, as now, the most important branch of the +executive--was placed the still young but conspicuously able Alexander +Hamilton; the most forcible of revolutionary pamphleteers, the most +efficient of staff-officers, and already an authority on finance. +Major-General Henry Knox, the chief of the continental artillery +service, who had presided over the war department during the +confederation, became Secretary of War. Samuel Osgood of Massachusetts, +experienced in civil affairs and a judicious counsellor, was assigned +to the General Post-Office; and Edmund Randolph, who had recanted his +hostility to the constitution, and was now a close ally of Jefferson, +was appointed the first Attorney-General of the United States. + +[Sidenote: Washington's Difficulties.] + +[Sidenote: Antagonism of Parties.] + +Many difficulties surrounded the first President and his advisers at the +outset. The nation was deeply in debt, and its currency was a paper one. +The people, oppressed for so many years by the burdens of an unequal +war, were irritated by the necessarily heavy taxes. The Indians on +the borders of the settled States were troublesome. And, to add to the +embarrassments of our statesmen, the relations of the United States +with the European powers were strained, and at times alarming. The two +parties which had struggled to fashion the constitution continued to +agitate the country in a more bitter rivalry than has been seen since, +with the exception of the party excitement of the period just before the +Rebellion. Their antagonism became more pronounced during Washington's +presidency, by reason of the great European war then going on, which +divided the sympathies of our people and politicians between France and +England. + +[Sidenote: The Republicans.] + +On the one hand, the party which called itself "Republican," and at the +head of which were Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, James Madison, +Edmund Randolph, and Patrick Henry, were zealous friends of the French +Revolution. They regarded that great convulsion as a desperate attempt +on the part of our recent allies to found a republic like that of the +United States; and they were in favor of extending the French our aid +and sympathy, while the more eager went so far as to advocate our active +participation in the war on behalf of France. On the other hand, the +"Federalists," chief among whom were Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, +and Jay, deplored the excesses of the French Revolutionists; thought +their example rather to be avoided than emulated; and, with a still +lingering affection for England despite her tyrannies, leaned to her +side in the conflict which was so fiercely raging. + +[Sidenote: State Rights and a Central Government.] + +The cabinet itself was divided between these two parties. Jefferson, the +"Republican" leader, was Secretary of State; Hamilton, the "Federalist" +leader, was at the head of the Treasury. On other than foreign +subjects the antagonism of the two parties was distinctly defined. The +Republicans were the stout defenders of what they called the rights of +the States. The Federalists wished to make the central government as +strong as possible. The Republicans favored strict economy, a democratic +simplicity of manners and costumes, and opposed official ceremony and +formality. The Federalists were the aristocratic party, elegant and +patrician in their tastes, sticklers for etiquette and state. Hamilton +and Washington were freely charged by the Republicans with being +monarchists at heart. + +[Sidenote: Washington's State.] + +Political capital was made of the President's ostentatious style of +living, of his cream-colored coach and six, and liveried lackeys, his +velvet and gold apparel, his almost royal levees, and his well known +desire that the title of "High Mightiness" should be conferred upon him. +He was accused of imitating the state of the monarchs of the old world, +and of wishing to gather a brilliant, ceremonious, and exclusive +court about him. Thus before he had completed his two terms of office, +Washington found himself confronted and opposed by a powerful democratic +party. John Adams, his successor in policy as well as in office, was +chosen President by only one majority in the electoral college; and when +his term expired, the Republicans succeeded in placing Jefferson in the +executive chair, and in holding power for a quarter of a century. + +[Sidenote: Washington's Policy.] + +Washington's administration, however, proved his capacity for +statesmanship as well as for war, his wisdom and force of character, and +his pure and lofty devotion to the interests of the whole country. +His policy was at once vigorous and moderate. At first he preserved an +almost impartial bearing towards the two parties, as indicated by his +selection of their several chiefs for the highest seats in his cabinet. +Towards the close of his term, however, the government became more +distinctly Federalist. Hamilton's influence became paramount; and +Jefferson retired from office to put himself at the head of a very +earnest and aggressive opposition. + +[Sidenote: Relations with Foreign Powers.] + +The results of Washington's policy may be recognized, at this distance +of time, as having been in the highest degree beneficial to the welfare +of the young nation. He placed its finances on a sound basis. He +maintained order, and put a term to the aggressions of the Indians. He +compelled Algiers to prevent her pirates from preying upon our commerce. +He made friendly treaties with England and Spain. With the French +question he dealt in a manner most creditable to his wisdom, and in the +only manner by which the United States could escape being involved once +more in war. He issued a proclamation of absolute neutrality; and he +saw that it was adhered to in the spirit and in the letter. Towards the +close of his presidency, the arbitrary conduct of France towards this +country was such that a conflict became imminent. Even an invasion by +the French was threatened. This danger continued into the period of +John Adams' term; but the firm and vigorous policy of Washington and his +successor averted it, while the European, wars in which Napoleon soon +became involved diverted the attention of France elsewhere. + +[Sidenote: States Added to the Union.] + +[Sidenote: General Results of Washington's Administration.] + +Three States were added to the Union of thirteen during Washington's +tenure of office. Vermont came within the circle in 1791; Kentucky +followed in the next year; and her neighbor, Tennessee, became a state +in 1796. What a contrast in national expenditure there was between +Washington's administration and those of modern times may be judged +when it is stated that the average annual expense of the government in +Washington's time was something less than two millions of dollars. The +population, according to the first census taken in 1790 was a little +less than four millions. Now we number more than fifty millions. It may +be said, generally, of Washington's presidency, that it gave the new +government a good start on its career of growth, order, and prosperity. +By his statesmanship, which was pure, solid, and vigorous, rather than +brilliant, peace was preserved at home and abroad; and the result was +that that general happiness which Henry Lee spoke of as promised only by +the constitution had already at least begun to be realized. + + + + +X. THE WAR OF 1812. + +[Sidenote: The Period of Political Settlement.] + +The period between the inauguration of Washington and the declaration +of war against Great Britain in 1812 may be regarded as the era of +formation and political settlement in the history of the republic. +It must not be forgotten that, at first, many of the wisest American +statesmen looked upon Republicanism as an experiment, and did not +place implicit faith in its success. The accession of Jefferson to the +presidency, however, and the events of his administration, gave the +Republican idea full scope and trial. The most philosophical and +studious of the statesmen of that day, Jefferson had the courage to +test the theories for which he had contended against the Federalism of +Washington, Adams, and Hamilton, by a vigorous practical policy. + +[Sidenote: Jefferson's Ideas.] + +Jefferson was heartily supported in this by the great mass of the +nation; and it was he who, thus sustained, established those general +principles of policy and government which became final, and have +prevailed ever since. That suffrage is a right and not a privilege, +that we should make large annexations of territory, and become the +controlling power of the continent; and that a rigid economy should +be practised, leaving the States the largest scope of local +self-government: these were cardinal articles in the Jeffersonian creed. +For twenty-four years Jefferson himself, and Madison and Monroe, his +fellow-Virginians and his earnest political disciples, presided without +interruption over the destinies of the country. + +[Sidenote: Condition of the Union in 1812.] + +The condition of the United States in the year 1812 presented a +striking and most favorable contrast to that which they had exhibited at +Washington's accession. The population had increased from four to about +seven and a half millions. The sixteen States over which Washington +presided had swelled to eighteen. Ohio and Louisiana had been admitted +to the circle. But this was by no means the limit to territorial +acquisition. It was President Jefferson who added to the domain of the +Union that vast and fertile tract which is even now in rapid process of +settlement, and which was known as the Louisiana purchase. This tract +reached from the banks of the Mississippi to the base of the Rocky +Mountains. It embraced nearly a million square miles, or more than the +whole of the area of the Union as it then was; and fifteen millions of +dollars were paid to France in exchange for it. A great invention had +been put into practical operation during Jefferson's term. This was the +steamboat. Robert Fulton put the _Clermont_ upon the Hudson in 1807; and +thenceforth navigation by steam was to play a great part in the commerce +and economical progress of the land. + +[Sidenote: Inventions.] + +[Sidenote: Causes of the War.] + +President Madison, who assumed the executive chair in 1809, inherited a +quarrel with Great Britain from his predecessor, which soon ripened +into war. The great contest which raged between France and Great Britain +early in the century could not but affect the rest of the civilized +world. American commerce had already grown into importance, and was now +seriously crippled by the arbitrary course respecting trade adopted by +both of the belligerents. Each power forbade neutral nations to trade +with its foe. But while Napoleon followed the example of Pitt in making +a decree to this effect, the bearing of Great Britain towards this +country, in respect to the prohibition of trade, was far more arrogant +and vexatious than that of France. American ships were captured on +the high seas by British men-of-war, carried into port, adjudged, and +confiscated. + +[Sidenote: The Right of Search.] + +A still more serious assault upon our national honor was made by the +British government. It claimed the right to search American vessels for +British seamen, and proceeded to execute it. Thus sailors were taken +from our ships by the hundred; and, on one occasion, an American ship, +the _Chesapeake_, was fired upon and forcibly boarded by a British +man-of-war, within sight of the Virginia coast. For a while retaliation +was attempted in the shape of an embargo upon American vessels; but this +was soon found to tend to the utter extitinction of our commerce, and +the embargo was abandoned. Remonstrance with Great Britain proved to be +of no avail. The English ministry at that time was a strict Tory one, +and far from friendly in disposition toward the United States. Despite +the protests of our envoy, the practice of search was vigorously +pursued. + +[Sidenote: War Declared.] + +This was the state of affairs when James Madison became President. +The party represented by him was now clamorous for war, while the old +Federalists, especially those of New England, as earnestly deprecated +it. At last it became apparent that war was the only remedy for the +outrages committed almost without cessation on our commerce. The +President sent a message to Congress expressing this opinion; and on +the 18th of June, 1812, war was formally declared against Great Britain. +This was evidently in accordance with the will of the nation: but we +did not enter upon the conflict without the bitter opposition of the +Federalists. A convention of the leading members of that party met at +Hartford, held secret sessions, and issued an energetic protest against +the war. This aroused a deep sense of hostility in the breasts of the +war party; and, ever since, the Hartford Convention has been regarded +as at least an injudicious demonstration at a period when war already +existed, and when the government needed the support of every patriot to +bring it to a successful end. + +[Sidenote: Beginning of Hostilities.] + +[Sidenote: Naval Victories.] + +The Americans began hostilities by making an ineffectual attempt to +conquer Canada. Meanwhile the English promptly took up the challenge, +sent ships of war loaded with excellent soldiers, many of them veterans +of the Napoleonic wars, across the Atlantic, and engaged Tecumseh, +and other Indian chiefs inimical to the intruders upon their former +hunting-grounds, to aid them in the contest. While Tecumseh, however, +was defeated and killed, the successes of the American army were few +compared with the brilliant exploits of our naval forces. The War of +1812 proved that the Americans had studied well the British example and +system in naval warfare. It was emphatically a naval war, simply because +Great Britain could only approach us from the sea. The victories of Hull +and Perry showed the greatest maritime power on earth that, though our +navy might be inferior to hers in distant waters, it was more than a +match for hers on the Lakes and the American coast. If the _Shannon_ +captured the _Chesapeake_, and if gallant David Porter had at last +to desert the burning _Essex_, on the other hand the capture of the +_Guerriere_ and the surrender of the British squadron on Lake Erie to +Perry, more than compensated for our disasters. + +[Sidenote: The British take Washington.] + +It was the the last year of the war, which continued nearly three years, +that the British landed on our southern coast, and, making havoc of +villages and plantations as they went, took Washington, and burned the +Capitol and the President's house, from which Mr. Madison and his family +had happily escaped into Virginia. But the enemy found it impossible to +pursue their temporary success to a decisive issue. Both countries were +weary of the war, and overtures of peace having been made, four American +commissioners--John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, and +Jonathan Russell--were sent to Ghent, in Belgium, to meet British +commissioners and conclude a treaty. The treaty of Ghent was signed on +the 24th of December, 1814; and, singularly enough, while such subjects +as the boundary line and the fisheries were discussed, that treaty +contained no stipulation in regard to the British claim to the right of +search. + +[Sidenote: Battle of New Orleans.] + +In those days, when there were neither railways, steamships, nor +telegraphs, news was long in travelling from one continent to the other. +The tidings of the treaty did not reach New Orleans in time to prevent +General Andrew Jackson from winning glory by defending that city from +behind his cotton-bales. This was one of the most brilliant land-battles +of the war, and was fought on the 8th of January, just a fortnight after +peace had been formally concluded at Ghent. + +[Sidenote: Results of the War.] + +The War of 1812, while it left many questions unsettled between the +mother and the daughter country, practically put an end to the vexatious +disturbance of our commerce by Great Britain. It also tended to give a +longer lease of political power to what was then called the Republican +party, and prepared the way for the "era of good feeling," over which +the amiable though not conspicuously able President Monroe presided. The +war also brought certain men prominently before the public eye. Hull, +Bainbridge, Porter, Decatur, Rodgers, and Perry, were enshrined among +the country's naval heroes. General Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe, +and General Jackson, the hero of New Orleans, later reaped the reward +of the Presidency, the indirect result of their military exploits. The +gallant Richard M. Johnson afterwards became Vice-President; and it was +in the War of 1812 that General Winfield Scott won his first laurels, +and that General Zachary Taylor, long afterwards President, gave promise +of the military genius which later so much aided in bringing the Mexican +War to a speedy and victorious end. + +[Sidenote: Growth of the Union.] + +The period of the war and of the years immediately succeeding witnessed +a very rapid growth of population, and a notable swelling of the tide of +emigration westward. In 1816 Indiana came within the circle of States; +followed alternately by slave and free states--Mississippi, 1817; +Illinois, 1818; Alabama, 1819; Maine, 1820. and Missouri, 1821. The +great highway built between Cumberland and Wheeling was all alive in +those days with the wagons and groups of new settlers. A long era of +peace was to follow, and to give the country opportunity to increase, to +develop its resources, and to make rapid progress in its prosperity and +the development of its institutions. + + + + +XI. THE MEXICAN WAR. + +[Sidenote: An Era of Peace.] + +[Sidenote: Andrew Jackson.] + +An interval of over thirty years elapsed between our second war with +Great Britain and the war with Mexico. Although this period was one of +external, and, excepting the troubles which now and then arose with the +Indians, of internal peace, its social and political aspects are very +full of interest. Within its limits the first railway and the first +telegraph-lines were laid in the United States, and the great Erie Canal +was built. After three tranquil presidential terms, presided over by the +sensible though not brilliant Monroe, and by the shrewd, scholarly, and +positive younger Adams, a man succeeded to the Executive Chair whose +course was destined to revolutionize parties, to carry party bitterness +to a height of great violence, and to divert the political destinies +of the country into new channels. Andrew Jackson was well fitted by his +strong will and stubborn courage to do the dangerous work of his time. + +[Sidenote: Nullification.] + +Various considerations induced the State of South Carolina to defy +the Union. The alleged ground of her quarrel was the high rates of the +tariff imposed by Congress upon imports. This tariff she resolved to +resist; hence a resolution was passed by a convention in South Carolina +that after a certain date the tariff should be null and void within her +limits. It was further resolved that if the United States attempted +to enforce it, South Carolina should secede, and form an independent +government. John C. Calhoun was, or was charged with being, the +instigator of this movement. It was at once quelled, however, by the +prompt action of President Jackson. He sent troops and war-ships to +Charleston, under the command of General Scott; and "nullification" was +overawed and defeated. + +President Jackson also had the nerve to veto the bill creating a +national bank; and when, after two terms of service, he retired, he gave +up to the rule of his designated successor a nation of fifteen millions +of people, solvent, prosperous, and apparently destined to a long career +of peace and power. The four years of President Van Buren's term were +not notable for great events, and are chiefly interesting as exhibiting +the re-formation of parties, in which the lines between the Whigs and +the Democrats became more defined and distinct. Van Buren was the leader +of the Democrats, but was soon to lose that leadership by reason of his +connection with the fast-growing anti-slavery cause. Henry Clay was the +Whig chief; and continued to be so, despite the rivalry of Webster, down +to the time of his death. [Sidenote: Causes of the Mexican War.] + +[Sidenote: Texas.] + +It was during the term of President John Tyler, who succeeded to the +chief magistracy after poor worn-out old General Harrison had exercised +its functions for one brief month, that the events took their rise which +ripened into the War with Mexico. The large territory of Texas, lying +upon our extreme southwestern border, between Louisiana and Mexico, had +revolted from the latter nation and set up an independent republic of +its own. Texas had been largely colonized from the slave States, and +General Sam Houston, formerly of Tennessee, was its President. + +[Sidenote: Election of Polk.] + +The republic sought admission to our Union in 1837, but the application +was then refused. Seven years later, Mr. Tyler gave it a more hospitable +reception. A treaty was framed, and at first rejected by the United +States Senate. At last, in March, 1845, just as Mr. Tyler was retiring +from office, a resolution was adopted by both houses of Congress +annexing Texas, and this resolution was approved by the outgoing +President. The presidential campaign in the autumn of 1844, between +Henry Clay as the Whig and James K. Polk as the Democratic candidate, +was fought mainly upon the issue of this annexation, and the election of +Mr. Polk was looked upon as a confirmation of it by the people. + +[Sidenote: Boundary Dispute.] + +No sooner had the new President been inaugurated than what the Whig +leaders had earnestly predicted came to pass. A dispute arose with +Mexico as to the boundary between that country and Texas. Mexico claimed +that this boundary was the river Nueces; Texas asserted it to be the +Rio Grande. The matter was one of some importance, as the Nueces is +a hundred miles northeastward from the Rio Grande, and that much of +territory was therefore in dispute. The brief negotiations which +ensued with a view to the settlement of this question, proved abortive. +President Polk accordingly ordered General Zachary Taylor to occupy the +disputed territory with a small body of troops. Taylor concentrated his +men at Corpus Christi, near the frontier. + +[Sidenote: First Battles.] + +The Mexicans were equally prompt, and the first collisions occurred at +Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, near the Rio Grande. General Taylor +repulsed the enemy with little difficulty and but small loss, and, +crossing the Rio Grande, advanced upon and captured Matamoras. Thus far +the hostilities had proceeded when a formal declaration of war was made +against Mexico by the United States. Clay and the Whigs strenuously +opposed this action; but the administration party bore down all +opposition. Volunteers now flocked, especially from the Southern States, +to Taylor's standard; and in a few weeks he found himself at the head +of a resolute though not very well disciplined force of nearly eight +thousand men. Monterey, a fortified town of considerable importance, was +held by about nine thousand Mexican troops. General Taylor's objective +point was the City of Mexico. + +[Sidenote: Taylor's Campaign.] + +After an attack of three days, Monterey fell into his hands. Victory +followed his army everywhere. Santa Anna, a crafty and able man, who +had sat in the presidential chair of Mexico, was now in command of the +Mexican army, and confronted Taylor at Huena Vista. His gallant attempt +to stay the advance of the triumphant Americans, however, failed, for +Taylor defeated him in what was perhaps the most brilliantly and hotly +contested action of the war. Taylor's force at Buena Vista numbered +about six thousand men, the larger part of them being but rudely +disciplined soldiers. Santa Anna's command comprised at least twenty +thousand Mexicans. It was at Buena Vista that the Lancers, the best body +of troops in the Mexican army, were routed by the dashing onset of the +American volunteers. + +[Sidenote: Victory at Vera Cruz.] + +[Sidenote: Scott Enters Mexico.] + +General Scott now appeared upon the scene to reap fresh victories, +and to lend powerful aid, by his scientific skill and ripe military +judgment, in bringing the war to a decisive issue. He was despatched +with an army to attack Vera Cruz, the most important port and fort on +the Mexican coast. His force numbered between eleven and twelve thousand +men, and he was supported by Commodore Matthew Perry, who operated with +a fleet in the Gulf. Vera Cruz fell after a vigorous bombardment and +a brave defence. The Mexicans could no longer hold the fortress of San +Juan D'Ulloa, which was speedily occupied by General Scott. The two +victories of Buena Vista and Vera Cruz rendered the cause of the +Mexicans hopeless. The fall of the capital was only a question of more +or less delay. The resistance of the Mexicans was still obstinate, +though always ineffectual. The troops of the United States won in +succession the battles of Cerro Gordo, Cherubusco, El Molino del Rey and +Chapultepec. Finally, on the 14th of September, 1847, the American army +of six thousand, under Winfield Scott, entered the City of Mexico. This +was one year and four months after war had been declared by Congress. + +Besides these main operations, there were various collateral movements +designed to cripple the power and diminish the territory of Mexico. +General Kearney, with an independent force of volunteers, had marched +into and taken possession of the province of New Mexico; Colonel +Doliphan had in like manner occupied Chihuahua; while Colonel Fremont, +placing himself at the head of a band of American settlers recruited in +the valley of the Sacramento, and supported by Commodore Stockton, had +availed himself of the opportunity to hold Upper California for the +United States. + +[Sidenote: The Treaty of Peace.] + +Thus Mexico was subdued and compelled to come to terms, her enemy +dictating these from her own capital. Commissioners met at the city +of Guadalupe Hidalgo to conclude a treaty of peace. By this instrument +Mexico agreed to accept the Rio Grande as the boundary between herself +and Texas, adding thereby to the territory of the United States an area +of not less than five hundred thousand square miles; to make over New +Mexico and Upper California to the United States in consideration of the +sum of fifteen millions of dollars; and to guarantee the debts due from +Mexico to American citizens. This treaty was duly ratified and +exchanged in the spring of 1848--about two years after the beginning of +hostilities. + +[Sidenote: Political Effect of the War.] + +[Sidenote: California.] + +The political effect of the Mexican War was to add a large territory and +a fast-increasing population to the tier of slave-holding States, and +thus to aggrandize the slave-holding oligarchy, as opposed to the party +in favor of free soil. On the other hand, the military glory won by +General Taylor, and his adoption in the year after the war as the Whig +candidate for the Presidency, singularly enough brought into power the +party which had persistently opposed both the annexation of Texas, +and the war which had been undertaken to complete it. The Mexican War +provided the parties with four presidential candidates, Generals Taylor, +Scott, Pierce, and Fremont, two of whom succeeded in reaching the +summit of executive authority. When Colonel Fremont raised the American +standard in California, it was little imagined that he was acquiring +a province for the country the value of which was destined to be +incalculably greater than the Texan republic. Within a year, however, +the gold mines had been discovered, and that wonderful civilization of +the Pacific Coast which we now witness had begun to grow up in the far +western wilderness. + + + + +XII. THE SLAVERY AGITATION. + +[Sidenote: Slavery Inherited.] + +The United States inherited, and had to accept, from the colonial +system, a great moral and social wrong. Slavery, planted on our soil +soon after its first settlement, had spread not only through the South, +but had existed for a time even in the Puritan colonies of New England. +An active slave-trade had grown up, and was still flourishing at the +time that the constitution was framed. There is every reason to believe +that the most eminent and enlightened even of Southern statesmen, in +the very infancy of the Republic, regarded African bondage as not only +a moral, but, in many regards, a material evil. Washington and Jefferson +especially uttered, in no doubtful accents, their dislike of the system; +while such northern statesmen as Franklin, Adams, and Roger Sherman +protested in yet sterner tones against its continuance. + +[Sidenote: Strength of the Slave Power.] + +[Sidenote: The Missouri Compromise.] + +But slavery, like many traditional abuses of nations, was so securely +lodged, so difficult to uproot, that wise men at once deplored its +presence and despaired of its abolition. While, therefore, the framers +of the constitution refused to insert a direct recognition of slavery in +that instrument, choosing to regard it as temporary, and likely in +time to become extinct, other subjects, crowding upon the attention of +statesmen at the period of political formation, pushed this of slavery +for a while into the background. The first definite collision between +the upholders and the opponents of slavery occurred when, as a +consequence of the rapid growth of the country, the territories began +one after another to knock for admission into the household of States. +The dispute came to an issue in the year 1820. Missouri sought admission +into the Union, and it was attempted to admit her as a slave state. Then +the Northern statesmen declared that some limit or restriction should be +placed upon future admissions of States, in regard to slavery. + +[Sidenote: The "Slavery Agitation."] + +The debates in Congress were long and warm. Every argument which has +since become so familiar on the subject was advanced on one side and on +the other. The moral evil of slavery, its demoralizing influence upon +freeman and bondman, its cruelties in practice, were dilated upon by +some; others pictured "the peculiar institution" in its more patriarchal +and pleasant aspects. Finally, the northern members agreed to admit +Missouri as a slave State, on condition that thenceforth all new states +north of the line of 36 deg.30'north latitude--known as "Mason and Dixon's +line"--should be free; while all new states south of that line should +decide for themselves whether they should be free or slave. It was the +vain hope of the statesmen of Monroe's time that this settlement, known +in history as the "Missouri Compromise," would be accepted as final, and +that the mutual ill-feeling which had already become bitter between the +sections would be finally allayed by it. + +They flattered themselves that they had put a period to the agitation, +and that the irritating question was now cast outside the domain of +American politics. Perhaps they did not sufficiently reflect that the +same power which had established the boundaries of slavery might, +when the opportunity was ripe, erase them. The slavery agitation was, +however, only in its infancy. It had within it a vital and irrepressible +element of growth. With the advance of civil liberty, the growth of +education, it, too, must necessarily make progress. As yet it was in the +hands of so-called "fanatics." Respectable statesmanship, having made +the Missouri Compromise, would have no more of it. + +[Sidenote: The "Liberty Party."] + +[Sidenote: Garrison.] + +It was early in General Jackson's presidency that the small but +determined "Liberty party" of the North began to attract attention +by what was considered the extravagance of its utterances, and the +absurdity of its proposals. The Quaker Lundy published his "Genius of +Universal Emancipation"; Garrison put forth the "Liberator" at Boston; +and soon, in various parts of the Union, abolition tracts and fanatical +orators brought down upon them not only the execration of the South, +but the assaults of northern mobs. An insurrection, under the lead of +a negro named Turner, broke out in Virginia, and massacres and burnings +followed. The Georgia Legislature put a price upon Garrison's head; and +that devoted advocate of human freedom responded by founding the New +England Anti-Slavery Society--an example soon followed in various places +through the North. + +[Sidenote: Sympathy for the Slaves.] + +[Sidenote: Lovejoy Killed.] + +The cause was right, and grew despite every obstacle of mob violence, +persecution, contempt, and, not the least, the indignant hostility +of respectable statesmanship. Yet evidences began to appear, here and +there, that the sympathy even of official responsibility was gradually +leaning to the principle of liberty. The Massachusetts Supreme Court +declared the child Med, whose master had brought her to Boston, to have +become by that act free. There was still, however, much suffering in +store for the anti-slavery advocates. Garrison, in attempting to speak +before the Female Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, was dragged through +the streets by an enraged mob, and was only saved from death by being +hurried to the jail as a refuge. A hall in Philadelphia which had been +desecrated by an abolition conference, was burned. Elijah Lovejoy, an +Illinois abolition editor, was killed by a mob. These are a few among +many examples of the violence with which the abolitionists were treated. + +The old "Liberty party," however, grew gradually into the larger and +more powerful "Free Soil" party, of which the venerable John Quincy +Adams became the champion in the House of Representatives, and Martin +Van Buren the presidential candidate in 1848. It was still, of course, +a small minority, but its influence was now distinctly felt in the +legislative councils and in the politics of the country. The petitions +in favor of abolition which invaded Congress created alarm in the South, +and at last the southern members found it necessary to pass a rule +excluding these "incendiary documents" altogether. + +[Sidenote: The Compromise of 1850.] + +If the Free Soilers were becoming formidable, the South was also +resolved to assume the offensive. Its triumph in securing the annexation +of Texas as another slave State was followed, a few years after, by the +celebrated "Compromise" of 1850; by which, while California was admitted +as a free State, and the slave trade was abolished in the District of +Columbia, the Fugitive Slave Law was also conceded. This aroused the +indignation of very large numbers in the North, and the treatment of +fugitives under it, notably that of Jerry in New York State, and +of Anthony Burns in Boston, did much to develop and strengthen the +anti-slavery feeling. The outrageous character of the law was too +palpable to be unperceived and unresented. + +[Sidenote: The Free Sellers.] + +[Sidenote: Border Ruffianism.] + +The next effort of the slave power provoked the formation of a great +national anti-slavery party, out of the old Free Soil elements. This +effort, which, by the aid of the Pierce administration and some Northern +statesmen, was successful, was to destroy the Missouri Compromise of +1820 and thus open the way to the creation of slave States north, as +well as south, of Mason and Dixon's line. The immediate object of +this policy was to make slave States of Kansas and Nebraska, two great +territories which were ready for admission into the fatuity of the +Union. No sooner had the Nebraska Bill passed, in May, 1854, than the +terrible scenes of "border ruffianism" began. As the new law required +that the inhabitants of the territories should themselves decide whether +slavery should exist or not, the attempt was made to convert Kansas into +a slave State by invasions of "border ruffians" from Missouri. After +a long and bloody struggle, the cause of freedom triumphed in the two +disputed territories. + +[Sidenote: The "Irrepressible Conflict."] + +The events in that part of the Union served to win many converts to the +anti-slavery cause in the North. The Republican party was organized on +the eve of the Presidential election of 1856. Its chief doctrine was +that no more slave States whatever should be admitted to the Union. It +put a ticket into the field with Colonel John Charles Fremont as +the candidate for President, and William L. Dayton of New Jersey for +Vice-President. It could not be expected that so young a party would +triumph at its first essay; but when Fremont received 113 electoral +votes, while Buchanan had only 177, it was appreciated everywhere +that the "irrepressible conflict" between slavery and liberty was fast +approaching its crisis. + +[Sidenote: John Brown's Raid.] + +The self-sacrificing heroism of a fanatic, the most salient incident of +the slavery agitation during the Presidency of Buchanan, had a marked +influence in hastening the final issue. This was John Brown's raid upon +Harper's Ferry, for the purpose of setting free the slaves. The old +man's courage, his utter self-devotion to his cause, his noble death, +his simple and sincere character, appealed most strongly to the sympathy +of the opponents of slavery, and even compelled words of strong praise +from the lips of Henry A. Wise, the Virginia Governor, who signed his +death-warrant. + +[Sidenote: The South Prepares to Secede.] + +The cause of free soil at last attained its triumph in the election +of 1860. All things foreshadowed the success of Abraham Lincoln. The +northern people were ripe for decisive action against the extension, at +least, of human bondage. The Democratic party divided into two factions +at Charleston, and the factions put each a candidate into the field, +mutually to destroy each other. The South so far gave up the contest as +to make preparations, while the presidential battle was yet raging, +to withdraw from the Union. Then, as the grand, bitter, but necessary +result of the long-continued slavery agitation, the war came, and wiped +out slavery with the blood of patriots. + + + + +XIII. THE CIVIL WAR. + +[Sidenote: The Civil War.] + +The great American Rebellion of 1861-65 is still, perhaps, too near to +be judged with the calm and judicial spirit which gives its chief value +to history. Thousands of those who took part in it on either side are +yet living; millions who witnessed its progress, and watched its course +with varying emotions of grief and joy, who mourned its dead, exulted in +its victories, and hailed its termination, yet hold it in vivid memory. +Moreover, all that could be said of it, from bald narrative to +infinite discussion of this and that general, this and that campaign +or stratagem, of causes and effects, has already been repeated till the +tale has been, not twice, but many times told. + +The results of that awful yet necessary conflict are still being felt, +in one way or another, by all of us. Many a household still mourns the +loss of those who died on southern battle-fields. We feel the war in our +business, in our pockets. We feel it in the financial enigmas which +even yet await solution. And although we have come to a period of +reconciliation, when we can with free hearts garland with roses the +graves alike of the blue and the gray, we feel still the indirect +influences of the war in our political contests. + +[Sidenote: Origin of the War.] + +[Sidenote: Secession.] + +The war may be said to have had its origin in two not necessarily +connected circumstances. It was the fruit, on the one hand, of a certain +political doctrine; on the other, of a threatened and to-be-defended +social condition. The political doctrine was that called "State's +rights," from which two corollaries were deduced by Calhoun and his +disciples: "nullification," or the right of a State to disobey a United +States law; and "secession," or the right of a State to withdraw from +the Union at will. The social condition was that of slavery, threatened, +as the South thought, by the election of Abraham Lincoln, and to be +defended under cover of the political doctrine which Calhoun had +taught the South to credit and to cherish. Thus, while the cause of the +rebellion was slavery, its justification was an asserted constitutional +right. The North did not believe in slavery, or at least in the +extension of slavery. But what the North at first undertook to subdue +was not slavery in the States, but the altogether destructive doctrine +of secession. + +[Sidenote: South Carolina's "Ordinance."] + +[Sidenote: Fort Sumter Taken.] + +The threat loudly uttered during the election of 1860, that the South +would secede if Lincoln were chosen, was duly followed up by action in +a few weeks after that event. Before Christmas South Carolina had +passed her famous "ordinance," and by early February, 1861, Mississippi, +Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas had followed in her +footsteps. The senators and representatives of these States in Congress +retired front its halls, breathing defiance as they went. South Carolina +took the lead in military, as she had done in political action. Claiming +the national property within her limits, she attached and took Fort +Sumter in Charleston harbor. The way had been prepared for this by +Secretaries Floyd and Toucey of the Buchanan Cabinet, who had sent South +materials of war, and so disposed the navy as to render it for the time +powerless for aid in the Union cause. + +[Sidenote: Call for Troops.] + +Lincoln was now President. The guns fired at Sumter roused the North, +and gave the signal of war, proving that a conflict could no longer be +avoided. Meanwhile, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas +were hurried out of the Union by the political leaders. On the day +following the fall of Sumter, the President issued his call for +seventy-five thousand volunteers, and the governors were urged to send +such forces as they could at once to Washington, which was threatened +with an attack. Then came the assault upon the gallant Sixth +Massachusetts in the streets of Baltimore, the isolation of Washington, +and its relief. A blockade of the southern ports was proclaimed. + +[Sidenote: Bull Run.] + +After a few minor engagements, such as those in Western Virginia, in +which McClellan was successful, and at Big Bethel, the first great +battle was fought on July 21, 1861, at Bull Run. This was in consequence +of an attempt by General Scott to advance upon Richmond. The result was +the total defeat of the Union army, which recoiled in confusion upon +Washington. Later in the first year of the war, General Lyon gained some +advantages over the rebels in Missouri, and naval expeditions were sent +to Hatteras and Port Royal; General Scott yielded the command-in-chief +to General McClellan, and rebel privateers appeared upon the ocean, and +began their destructive depredations upon our commerce. Great Britain +had too hastily recognized the belligerent rights of the rebels, and in +November the capture of Mason and Slidell was followed by their delivery +again to the protection of the British flag. + +[Sidenote: Second Year of the War.] + +The second year of the war found no less than half a million of soldiers +enlisted in the army of the Union. It seemed as if we were now ready +to cope with rebellion in all its extent and strength. The hope of +an approaching and decisive triumph animated the hearts of the loyal. +McClellan now led the Army of the Potomac against Richmond, approaching +it from the east. Then followed the battle of Fair Oaks, and the +Seven Days' battles, of which that at Malvern Hill was the most hotly +contested. The Confederates were beaten, with terrible loss on both +sides. Cedar Mountain and the second Bull Run followed, the latter +proving a disaster as serious as the former struggle on the same field +had been. + +[Sidenote: Antietam.] + +Then came Lee's advance into Maryland, his capture of Frederick City, +and that great battle, Antietam, in which Lee was repulsed and retreated +into Virginia. But McClellan, having failed to follow up his advantage, +was relieved of the command-in-chief, which was conferred on Burnside. +Burnside's repulse at Fredericksburg was followed by a discouraging +retreat. But though the attempt to capture Richmond was foiled, in other +parts of the country many advantages were obtained by the Union forces +in the year 1862. + +[Sidenote: Union Victories.] + +Prominent among these were the victory of the _Monitor_ over the +_Merrimac_, in Hampton Roads; the capture of Roanoke Island and Fort +Pulaski; Grant's gallant victories at Forts Henry and Donelson, at +Island No. 10, and, later, at Pittsburg Landing; and the heroic taking +of New Orleans by Farragut and Butler. + +[Sidenote: Chancellorsville.] + +At the very threshold of the third year of the war, President Lincoln +issued the "Proclamation of Emancipation." Thus not only was the crime +of slavery wiped away, but a new source of strength to our forces was +provided by the emancipated negroes, who were enlisted to aid in the +confirmation of their freedom by final victory. The first half of +the year 1863 witnessed what was perhaps the gloomiest and most +disheartening period of the war. Hooker succeeded Burnside, only to meet +at Chancellorsville the same disastrous fate which had overtaken his +predecessor at Fredericksburg. General Lee was encouraged to assume the +offensive, and to invade Pennsylvania. The North was discouraged; the +expense of the war began to be grievously felt; the draft was becoming +very obnoxious; the desertions from the army were alarming in number. + +[Sidenote: Gettysburg.] + +Lee advanced by the Shenandoah Valley into the Northern States. But at +Gettysburg he met the reorganized Union army, under Meade. The collision +of one hundred and sixty thousand men, lasting for three days, resulted +in that hard-won Union victory which proved the turning-point of the +war. On the day of Lee's retreat from Gettysburg, the Fourth of July, +Vicksburg was surrendered to Grant. Soon after, Port Hudson fell, and +the Mississippi was opened to the passage of troops. Then the Battle +of Chattanooga was fought and won, and Tennessee was rid of Confederate +occupation. Meanwhile, the siege of Charleston was proceeding on the +coast, and before the end of the year Fort Wagner was taken. + +[Sidenote: Grant Commander-in-chief.] + +[Sidenote: Sherman's March to the Sea.] + +We have now reached the fourth year of the war, 1864. It was now clear +that the result was only a question of time. The first events of the +year were not brilliant. Kilpatrick made his famous but futile raid near +Richmond; Hanks met with disaster at Red River; Forrest captured Fort +Pillow and killed three hundred negro troops. The last act of the +momentous drama began by the elevation of General Ulysses S. Grant +to the command-in-chief in March. The two great movements which were +together to seal the fate of the Confederacy were at once prepared. +Grant, assuming command of the Army of the Potomac, made Richmond his +objective point. He advanced deliberately towards the southern capital, +and fought the terrific battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and +Cold Harbor. He laid siege to Petersburg, but without immediate result. +Meanwhile the gallant Sherman began his marvellous march to the sea, +took Atlanta, and at last entered Savannah in triumph. Sheridan, making +his famous ride, defeated Early at Cedar Creek. The _Alabama_ was +sunk by the _Kearsarge_ off the French coast. Mobile was captured by +Farragut. The _Albermarle_ was destroyed. + +[Sidenote: Surrender of Lee.] + +The Confederates were now penned in, and it only remained to make a +last strenuous effort to end the war. While Sherman advanced northward, +taking Charleston by the way, and Terry captured Fort Fisher, the siege +of Richmond became closer and more vigorous. Then Sheridan conquered at +Five Forks, turning the flank of the hunted and hounded Lee. Finally, +on the 3d of April, 1865, the Union troops occupied Richmond and +Petersburg; Lee surrendered on the 9th, at Appomattox; Johnston followed +by yielding to Sherman; and the Southern Confederacy was no more. + + + + +XIV. THE PRESIDENTS. + +[Sidenote: Number of Presidents.] + +Between 1789, when the government organized by the constitution +began its functions, and 1886, the people of the United States have +twenty-five times chosen a President; and of the Presidents, seven have +been chosen for a second term. Four of them, having died in office, were +succeeded by Vice Presidents. While the number of terms, therefore, +has been twenty-five, the executive chair has been filled by twenty-two +individuals. In referring to the line of Presidents, and scanning the +names of those who have exercised powers more extensive than those +of English royalty, we are struck by the fact that very few of our +Presidents have ranked first, in point of intellect, in their own +generation. It may be said, indeed, that Jefferson alone of them all was +without dispute the foremost statesman of his day. + +[Sidenote: Presidential Ability.] + +Comparing our elected chief magistrates with the various lines of +hereditary sovereigns of Europe, we find that pre-eminent ability is +scarcely more frequent among them than is presented by the houses of +Romanoff, Hohenzollern, and Hapsburg. When, however, we consider their +moral qualities as rulers--their patriotism and purity, their freedom +from a too grasping ambition, the fidelity and zeal with which they +have served the country as best they knew how--we are perhaps not +unreasonable in judging them superior, as a line of rulers, to any royal +house of which history affords record. Very rarely has it been that +a President has been even suspected of craving increased power for +himself, or of using his office for unworthy personal ends. Some have +been weak, some perverse and obstinate; but as the clouds of party +passion, which have sometimes obscured the motives and the acts of our +chief magistrates, pass away, we may recognize in their action honest +though now and then ill directed efforts to use their high office for +the general weal. + +[Sidenote: The Ablest Men not Presidents.] + +Our intellectually ablest men have not, with the exception of Jefferson, +attained the Presidency, though many of them have aspired to it. No one +can doubt that Hamilton was a greater political genius than the first +two Presidents. It can scarcely be questioned that Webster, Calhoun, +and Clay were greater in this respect than the three Presidents who +succeeded Jefferson. Madison was a man of culture, clear vision, and +political learning, but he was the disciple of Jefferson, and did not +reveal qualities of originality and constructiveness in statesmanship. +Monroe was a man of yet more limited capacity, unless Polk be excepted, +Monroe was the least able of all our Presidents. But he had a large +experience in public affairs, he was judicious and cool-tempered, and +thoroughly honest and simple-minded. He was personally liked, and after +Washington was the only President who was the unanimous choice of the +country.[1] + +[Sidenote: Monroe.] + +[Sidenote: John Quincy Adams.] + +John Quincy Adams, a trained statesman, who had been an ambassador, +a Senator, and a Secretary of State, was still inferior in point of +political intellect to Clay, his own Secretary of State, and to Calhoun, +the Vice-President; and there were several others at that time who might +justly be competed with him. So, although Andrew Jackson was perhaps the +greatest of our Presidents in executive vigor and stern force of will, +as a political figure his most devoted admirers would scarcely rank him +with Clay or Webster. Van Buren was rather a shrewd politician than an +eminent statesman; but he was a politician in a higher sense, and no +stain of dishonor attaches to his career, while his presidential term +was an honest and able one. + +[Sidenote: Later Presidents.] + +Many public men might be named who, living at the time of Harrison's +elevation, were very much his political superiors; in his very cabinet +were at least three, Webster, Crittenden, and Ewing; and John Tyler was +very far from being in the front rank of American statesmen, though his +political capacity has sometimes been underrated. + +Polk was the weakest of all our later Presidents, and he too presided +over at least three secretaries who were intellectually larger men, in +Marcy, Robert J. Walker, and Buchanan. The same may be said in comparing +General Taylor with his advisers, and Fillmore, Pierce, and Lincoln +with theirs; for while no one can fail to revere the grand moral +and practical qualities which make Lincoln illustrious, in purely +intellectual eminence he was excelled by Seward, Chase, and perhaps +Stanton. + +[Sidenote: A Conservative Republic.] + +[Sidenote: Origin of the Presidents.] + +Ours has always been a conservative Republic. The French Republicans +of '93 and '48, the Communards of '71, did not derive their wild and +visionary fanaticism from our example, although there can be no doubt +that our Revolution had not a little influence in hastening that +of France. When the people have been called upon to choose a chief +magistrate, therefore, they have not sought men of extreme views, nor +have humble birth and limited education often been recommendations of +candidates. It is notable that the first six Presidents were selected +from the class which in England is called the "gentry." Washington, +indeed, belonged to the high rural aristocracy of Virginia; Mount Vernon +was as much a patrician manor-house as are the "halls," "priories," and +"manors" of rural England; and he lived there in the style of a country +magnate, John Adams belonged to the sturdy New England yeomanry sprung +from the Pilgrims, and, as the descendant of John Alden, had some +reason to pride himself upon good blood. The three succeeding Virginia +Presidents were sons of gentlemen-farmers, and belonged to the +cultivated gentry of the Old Dominion. Jackson was the first of the +plebeian Presidents, and then came Van Buren, of the gentry by birth; +Harrison, the son of a signer of the Declaration, and thus well born, +and Tyler, another Virginia gentleman, the lord of Sherwood Forest. Polk +belonged to the same rural condition. Fillmore was the next President +of humble beginnings, and Lincoln the third; while Andrew Johnson, +who learned to read after he was married, and began life as a country +tailor, was the most lowly born of all our chief magistrates. + +[Sidenote: Military Presidents.] + +Those young men who, having a taste for and ambition in politics, +adopt the law as a stepping-stone to political honor, may derive +some encouragement from the classification of the Presidents by their +professions; for out of the twenty-two Presidents, no less than eighteen +were at some period of their lives practising at the bar. The four +who were not lawyers were the four military Presidents, Washington, +Harrison, Taylor, and Grant. Three other Presidents, however, derived +something of their fame from military careers--Monroe, Jackson, and +Pierce. Monroe was a revolutionary colonel, Jackson the hero of New +Orleans, and Pierce a brigadier in the Mexican War. But Monroe owed +his political eminence to diplomatic successes and the friendship of +Jefferson and Madison: while Pierce certainly did not win the presidency +by his Mexican exploits. + +[Sidenote: Presidential Succession.] + +No man has ever yet passed directly from the United States Senate to the +White House. Of the Presidents, Monroe, J.Q. Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, +Harrison, Tyler, Pierce, Buchanan, and Johnson had been senators; while +John Adams, Jefferson and Van Buren held the Vice-Presidency just +before their elevation by election to the higher office. The custom +of succession from the one office to the other, which prevailed in the +earlier years of the Republic, was broken when Madison was preferred to +George Clinton in 1808; and was revived only in the single instance +of Van Buren, whom the irresistible will of Jackson imposed upon the +Democrats as his successor. Washington, before becoming President, had +held the office of President of the Constitutional Convention. Polk had +only served in the lower House of Congress, over which he had presided +as speaker. Neither Taylor nor Grant ever held a state or national +office before being raised to the Executive Chair. Lincoln had served +a few years, with but little distinction, in the national House of +Representatives. The same may be said of Hayes, and of Fillmore before +he was chosen Vice-President. + +[Sidenote: Presidents Contributed by the Various States.] + +Virginia has had five Presidents, four of them having served in the +first quarter of a century of the national existence. Tennessee has had +three; Ohio, three; Massachusetts, two; New York, four; Illinois, two; +and New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana, each one. But Harrison, +though elected from Ohio, and Taylor, elected from Louisiana, were +both born in Virginia; and Lincoln, elected from Illinois, was born in +Kentucky. Therefore Virginia gave birth to seven of the Presidents. In +point of years, the ages of the Presidents have ranged from sixty-eight, +which was Harrison's age on his accession, to forty-six, which was +Grant's age when he became President; the average age being about +fifty-seven. + + + + +XV. MATERIAL PROGRESS. + +[Sidenote: A Twofold Progress.] + +It is manifestly impossible to give, within the brief scope of this +volume, more than a hint of the elements which have entered into and +stimulated the material progress of the United States during the past +century. That progress may be said to have been twofold; the progress +which we have shared in common with the civilized world, and the +progress which has been peculiar to ourselves. The agency which +invention and discovery have had in our advancement scarcely needs to be +pointed out. We have only to look around us, and remember the origin +of many of the comforts, conveniences, luxuries, nay even what we now +regard as necessities, that surround us and minister to our existence, +in order to comprehend how very vast, how much beyond easy calculation, +the material progress of the century has been. + +[Sidenote: Modern Comforts.] + +Every hour of the day, should you stop to reflect, you would find +yourself doing something, or aided by something, unknown to or unused +by the generation of 1776. Sitting in your parlor or library, your feet +rest upon carpets, which were introduced into American households in +1792; the book you are reading--which has far better paper, print, +binding and illustration than the old copy of "Pilgrim's Progress" which +your great-grandfather used to read--is lighted by gas, which did not +come into use till this century was well on its way; and that gas you +have lit by a friction match, an affair of marvellous simplicity, which +was unknown till after 1830. + +[Sidenote: Improvement in Dress.] + +You are writing, perhaps, with a steel pen; the Declaration of +Independence was signed with quills. It is, possibly, a rainy day. You +put on rubbers, and you carry an umbrella. The men of '76 had to do as +best they could without either. You burn coal in a furnace or stove; +they must fain have warmed themselves with more cheery but less +warming wood, in an open fireplace. Every article of your dress is an +improvement in convenience and comfort on those worn by Washington in +all his Presidential glory. + +[Sidenote: Rapidity of Transit.] + +Your walls are hung with photographs; your wife or daughter has a +sewing-machine. In the kitchen are endless contrivances which our +great-grandmothers would have greeted with speechless astonishment. You +can order a case of goods from Hong Kong on Monday, and be told that +they are ready for shipping on Thursday. You can go to San Francisco +in almost the same time that it took, only fifty years ago, to reach +Washington from New York. When General Jackson went to the capital to +be President, he could travel no faster than did the Jews, after the +captivity, from Babylon to Jerusalem. + +[Sidenote: Material Growth.] + +[Sidenote: Population.] + +Taking a broader view--for we might go on with the material details of +progress all about us _ad infinitum_, did patience and strength hold +out--we look abroad over the land, and note the great elements of +a progress peculiarly American, in the growth and distribution of +population, in manufactures, agriculture, and commerce. Each and all +have been incalculably aided by perpetual invention. A few leading facts +must suffice to show that our orators, in their most daring flights, can +scarcely exaggerate the marvels of our material advance. The population +of this country in 1776, including slaves, was about two and three +quarters millions. In 1886, it is without doubt more than fifty +millions. In 1790, when the first census was taken, the figure was a +little less than four millions. A notable circumstance in reference to +the movement of our population has been the increase of the proportion +of dwellers in our cities to those in the rural districts. In 1790, only +one-thirtieth of our population inhabited the cities. In 1886, probably +nearly one-fourth are included in the cities. + +In 1790 there were but six cities with a population of more than eight +thousand each. These were: Philadelphia, with about 42,500; New York, +with about 33,000; Boston, with about 18,000; Charleston, with about +16,300: Baltimore, with about 13,500; and Salem, with a little over +8000. The total was about 131,500. Now the aggregate of our urban +population is, probably, at least 12,000,000. It may be added that +the _centre_ of our population has shifted from a few miles east of +Baltimore, where it was in 1790, to about eight miles west by south from +Cincinnati, where it is now supposed to be. + +[Sidenote: Agriculture.] + +The earliest avocation of our colonies was that of agriculture; and +before 1776 our agricultural industries, owing to the discoveries which +had gradually been made as to the capabilities of the then settled +districts, had grown to important proportions. It needs but a glance +at the map to observe over what a vast area agricultural enterprise has +spread since 1790. We may fairly say that invention and improvement, in +the application of chemistry and mechanical discovery to the cultivation +of land, have kept pace with the territorial advance of agricultural +science. There can scarcely be named a farming operation which is not +performed by instruments far more perfect, and with a rapidity far +greater, than was possible with our ancestors. + +[Sidenote: Cheaper Tools.] + +Human labor has been greatly lessened in proportion to the results +obtained. Tools are cheaper; and whereas they were formerly made, to +a large extent, on the farms themselves, they are now perfected in +factories supplied with the most efficient machinery. There were in +1880 two thousand establishments for the manufacture of agricultural +implements, with an annual production valued at over $68,000,000. It +would take up too much space to give even a list of these implements; +suffice it to say that it is calculated that the value of those now in +use on American farms is at least $500,000,000. A hundred years ago a +man could only manage six bushels of grain a day--cutting, binding and +stocking, threshing and cleaning it. Now, with the aid of mechanical +appliances, a single man's labor can achieve almost eight times as much. + +[Sidenote: Advance of Agricultural Arts] + +To machinery must be added the advance in the arts of manuring, +draining, irrigation, and of grafting and obtaining greater varieties +of fruits and vegetables. The improvement in breeding and raising +live-stock must not be omitted. In this product the wealth of the +country was at least $2,000,000.000 in 1880. + +[Sidenote: First Mills.] + +Great as has been our progress in agriculture, it is scarcely so +remarkable as that in manufactures. In 1776 we were mostly a farming +community. Now, in New England at least, to a large extent in the Middle +States, and to some degree in the West and South, manufactures have +outstripped the farming industry. Manufacturing necessarily began, +indeed, very early in the settlement of the country; for ships had to +be built, and were built, soon after the colonization of Plymouth and +Boston. The first saw-mill was erected at Salmon Falls as early as 1635. +A printing-press was set up at Cambridge in 1638, and a book-bindery in +1663. The first fulling-mill for making cloth was started at Rowley in +1643. Iron manufacture was regularly established at Lynn in 1645. The +first successful cotton-mill in the United States was started by Samuel +Slater at Providence in 1793. + +[Sidenote: The Cotton Industry.] + +[Sidenote: Manufactures.] + +The growth of the cotton industry may be appreciated when we state that +its extent in 1831 comprised 795 factories and 1,246,500 spindles; +while in 1880 there were over ten million spindles, and the value of +the products reached nearly two hundred million dollars annually. The +progress in woollen manufacture has been equally rapid. Since 1850 the +number of factories in this industry has more than doubled, while the +value of the products has increased over fourfold. Looking over the +whole field of manufacturing industries, it is stated that the +estimated capital employed throughout out the country in 1880, namely +$2,790,000,000, does not really approximate to the total amount. +According to the census of that year, moreover, over two and a half +millions of persons were engaged in manufacturing; while about seven and +a half millions were employed in agriculture, and nearly two millions +in trade and transportation. Only a hint can thus be attempted of our +progress in manufactures. + +[Sidenote: Commercial Relations.] + +It need scarcely be said that commerce, as the great medium of barter +and exchange between States and with foreign nations, has necessarily +kept pace with the development of the industries which we have briefly +glanced at. The increase of our mercantile marine, up to the unhappy +period of the war, when it was almost swept from the ocean, kept pace +with the ever-increasing needs of the business of the country. Now it is +again slowly reviving from the disasters of the civil conflict. During +the past century, our commercial relations have extended to the remotest +corners of the earth, whither we send the commodities we have to spare, +and whence we derive those which we need for comfort, convenience, +luxury, and wealth. The extent to which steam applied to water +navigation, and telegraphy laid not only over the continents but under +the oceans, have stimulated our commerce in common with that of the +world, is more easy to be observed in general than calculated in detail. +With many nations we have treaties of commerce, and the time may not +be long in coming when such pacts will be reciprocated between all the +trading nations of the world. + + + + +XVI. PROGRESS IN LITERATURE. + +[Sidenote: English Literature.] + +[Sidenote: Majority of Authors from New England.] + +With English laws, customs, Protestantism, habits of thought, and +methods of culture, we also inherited the English literature. So rich +was already this inheritance when our colonies were settled, that there +was little need or incentive for the early Americans to strike out into +new literary paths, and create an original literature. Our ancestors +read Milton, Bunyan, Doddridge, Butler, Dryden, Pope, and Shakespeare. +It is a noteworthy fact that American literature not only took its start +from, but, up to within recent times, was mainly produced by the New +England and the Middle States. Even now, the noted writers in any +branch of letters born south of Virginia may almost be counted upon the +fingers. It is equally true that west of Ohio authors who have won +a general and permanent reputation are few. If we survey American +literature from the time of Cotton Mather (who may perhaps be called the +first author of the country whose works are still remembered and read) +to the present, we find that a majority of the best authors, both in +prose and verse, have been New Englanders. + +[Sidenote: Ante-Revolutionary Writers.] + +The rise of our literature having taken place in the colonies of +Puritan stock, and those most fully imbued with Puritan sobriety and +seriousness, it was natural that our earliest literary products should +be religious and philosophical. Cotton Mather, with his extravagant +"Magnolia"; Jonathan Edwards, with his stern treatise on the Will; +Franklin, with his shrewd maxims, and clear, strong, unadorned essays, +were about the only ante-revolutionary writers who are not by this +time forgotten. It was not surprising that the period of the Revolution +should develop a literature peculiarly political. There were, no doubt, +already poetasters, novelists, and essayists; but even their names are +strange to us of this age. Where are they and their works? What faint +traces are still left of them show us that they were mostly mere +imitators, and not brilliant ones, of the English authors of their day. + +[Sidenote: Political Literature.] + +But our political literature became, with the Revolution and its sequel, +most vigorous, philosophical, eloquent, and profound. The Declaration +itself was a masterpiece of political style, as well as of substance; +and Jefferson, its author, continuing for years after to discuss +political questions with a lucidity and vigor which were unrivalled +in America, took his place in literary history as perhaps our greatest +political writer. Close behind him came writers like Hamilton, Jay, +Madison, Ames, Freneau, and Tom Paine, all of them holding high rank in +this department of letters. + +[Sidenote: Post-Revolutionary Writers.] + +When we became an independent nation, literature naturally felt the +impulse and inspiration of the new national life. Poets and novelists +came up of a higher type than their ante-revolutionary predecessors; +writers like Dwight, Hopkinson, Trumbull, Barlow, Brockden Brown, and +Paine. But no one of these attained the rank of genius, nor did any of +them establish a great reputation; and if they are remembered at all, +it is rather by happy isolated pieces than by the general excellence of +their works. The American novels of the last century, unlike the English +novels of Swift, Fielding, and Goldsmith, have one and all passed into +oblivion. + +[Sidenote: William Cullen Bryant.] + +The position of American literature in 1886 may, especially in the +departments of history and poetry, fairly bear comparison with that of +England. Yet the first really great American authors, if we except +the theological and political writers of whom mention has been made, +published their first works at a period quite within the memory of +men still living. Our first great poet was William Cullen Bryant, who +survived to old age to observe to what vast proportions our literary +productions, both in quality and quantity, had grown. Our first great +biographer and essayist, Washington Irving, may be remembered as living +by the man of thirty-five. Our first eminent novelist, James Fenimore +Cooper, would only be ninety-seven if he were still among us. And our +first great historian, Prescott, died but twenty-seven years ago. + +[Sidenote: Rise of American Poetry.] + +The new career of American letters, indeed, may be said to have been +begun when William Cullen Bryant published "Thanatopsis," in the year +1816. Our writers then began to feel the influence of the vigorous +schools of English poetry of which Byron, Wordsworth, and Coleridge were +the shining lights. Like these, our own writers shook off the poetic +dominion of Pope, and declared form to be subordinate to the thought and +the feeling. Bryant, the enthusiastic disciple of Wordsworth, set the +bold example, and from that moment American literature received an +element of vitality which was given it its noble and rapid growth. It +is almost always the case that, in young nations, poetry is the first +branch of letters to be developed. The earliest masterpieces of Greek +and English literature are the "Iliad," the "Canterbury Tales," and +the "Faerie Queene." Perhaps the best German literature before Lessing, +worth remembering, was the songs of the Minnesinger. + +[Sidenote: Earlier Poets.] + +[Sidenote: Later Posts.] + +In the United States, Bryant was soon followed by a succession of poets +whose productions clearly revealed the magnetism of the English revival, +and gave promise of the rise of that poetic art which we have seen reach +its culmination in our own day. Richard H. Dana wrote the "Buccaneer"; +Fitz-Greene Halleck, "Marco Bozarris"; Edgar A. Poe "The Raven"; the +painter Allston turned easily from brush to pen, and added more than +one fine poem to our literature; Emerson rose to found a school of +transcendental poetry as well as philosophy; N.P. Willis became the +lyrical likeness of Moore on this side of the Atlantic; Percival reached +a brief popularity, and wrote some things well worthy of remembrance; +and the banker-poet Sprague filled a worthy place in our group of bards. +In the next generation came the poets of the highest culture and most +widely extended popularity: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf +Whittier, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. + +[Sidenote: Historians.] + +The United States have produced a race of historians whose works and +names may not unfairly be ranked with those of Hume, Macaulay, Hallam, +and Froude. Prescott and Irving have been followed by Bancroft, Motley, +Parkman, Adams, Kirk, Goodwin, Young, and Ticknor. Sydney Smith, were +he now living, would find his question, "Who reads an American +book?" speedily answered; for in English drawing-rooms and on English +book-stalls "Evangeline" and "The Wayside Inn" are to be found quite +as often as "In Memoriam" and "Idyls of the King"; and "Ferdinand +and Isabella" and the "Rise of the Dutch Republic," as often as the +histories of Macaulay and Froude. + +[Sidenote: Theological Literature.] + +Our theologians have kept pace, in the amount and intellectual force of +their writings, with those of the older continent. It is not astonishing +that, in a nation established by a sect for the purpose of doing God +honor, a race of great theological authors should arise. The names +of Hopkins and Emmons, of Dwight, Channing, Norton, Theodore Parker, +Wayland, Bacon, Park, Bushnell, and many others, will recur, to remind +us how active religious philosophy and speculation have been from the +time of Jonathan Edwards to the present. + +[Sidenote: Political and Legal Writers.] + +In other departments of letters our progress during the century, though +less marked, has been very distinct. Webster, Everett, Sumner, Winthrop, +and, it may well be added, Lincoln, have made a literary art, as well as +a practical career, of politics. American legal writers, like Greenleaf, +Kent, Story, and Parsons, are quoted in the English as in the American +courts, as authorities worthy of respect and trust. In the domain of +searching literary criticism, England has perhaps produced no author +since the days of Gifford and Jeffrey superior in learning, acuteness, +and grace to Edwin P. Whipple. + +[Sidenote: Humorists.] + +[Sidenote: Writers of Fiction.] + +Humorists have been many; in this field we count not only Lowell, Neal, +and Holmes, but the younger band, which includes Artemas Ward, Mark +Twain, Nasby, Bret Harte, Warner, and Leland. In the department of +essays and miscellaneous belles-lettres, the names of George William +Curtis, Thoreau, Tuckerman, Higginson, Marsh, and many more, crowd upon +the mind. Foremost among writers of fiction may be classed Cooper and +Nathaniel Hawthorne; and though in this field America can scarcely +contest the palm with the mother country, and the great purely national +novel has not yet appeared, the fertility of our novelists affords +promise that in time great and national romances will come. Meanwhile, +Mrs. Stowe, Donald G. Mitchell, T.B. Aldrich, William D. Howells (poet +as well as novelist), Henry James, Julian Hawthorne, Stockton, Miss +Phelps, E.E. Hale, and others, have delighted thousands by their +imaginative works. + +[Sidenote: American Dictionaries.] + +To present even a list, indeed, of American writers who may be called +noted, would much more than occupy the limits assigned to this chapter. +The multitude that crowds upon the memory, even in a cursory glance over +our history, is so large that even in mentioning any names at all one +runs the risk of some unjust omission. Suffice it to say that no field +of letters has remained wholly uncultivated in this country, and that +literary invention in the United States, though sometimes at a pause, +on the whole advances with their population and civilization. We have +philosophers, men of science, poets, critics, essayists, art writers, +theologians, fully able to cope with their literary brethren in the old +world. Let it be added that America has produced the two dictionaries +which are to-day paramount authority in every English school, college, +and university; and that in the science of language George P. Marsh and +William D. Whitney have carried their studies to depths as profound, +and have given the world results as valuable, as have any old-world +philologists. + + + + +XVII. PROGRESS IN THE ARTS. + +[Sidenote: Old-time Simplicity.] + +American art, like American letters, was of slow and difficult growth. +The early colonists, even those who, like the Virginia cavaliers and the +settlers in Maryland, possessed somewhat of the old-world culture and +taste, had little time for the ornamental. To worry a decent living +out of an inhospitable and reluctant soil, and to serve God after their +strict and severe fashion, were abundant occupation to the Puritans. +Therefore, could we carry ourselves back through the generations and +find ourselves in the streets and abodes of colonial New England, we +should observe but very few and slight attempts at decoration. + +Pictures, unless it were now and then a scriptural or historical +print, there would be none on the plain walls with their heavy beams; +varnishing and frescoing would be but rare vanities, if indeed such +could be anywhere discovered at all; as for rare vases, or bronzes, or +marbles, such things were assuredly unknown. The austere simplicity of +the place, the people, and the age, forbade not only a footing to the +arts, but refused all nurture to imaginative growths. The Puritans +especially had the lofty scorn of art which resented the idea of a +picture or a statue in a church with as much indignation as they would +have shown to the Pope had he invited them to return to the fold of +Rome. + +[Sidenote: John Singleton Copley.] + +As there was very little literature for America to be proud of before +the Declaration of Independence, so, in casting our eyes backward over +the annals of art, we can discover but one notable native artist in the +period between the early settlements and the Revolution. This was John +Singleton Copley. He was born in Boston in 1738, and became the pupil +of Smybert, an English artist of some talent, who had accompanied Bishop +Berkeley across the Atlantic and had settled in Boston. The pupil soon +eclipsed the master, and for years Copley stood alone as a popular +portrait-painter in New England. + +[Sidenote: Historical Pictures.] + +But even the monopoly of his profession did not suffice to give him +adequate support, or gratify Copley's ambition; and he was forced to +seek in a more art-loving land the full recognition and reward of his +genius. He left behind him many portraits which still exist as precious +heirlooms in New England families, and just as the storm of the +Revolution was gathering, he set sail for the mother country, which he +never afterward left. Before he went, however, a son had been born to +him in Boston, who was destined long after to reach the highest summit +of English legal dignity and rank--Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst. Copley was +especially great as a portrait-painter, but he also sometimes adopted +historical subjects. Of these the best known is his "Death of Lord +Chatham," which now hangs in the South Kensington Museum, in London. + +[Sidenote: Benjamin West.] + +Copley was soon succeeded by an American artist whose triumphs in +England afterward far outshone his own. Benjamin West was born in +Pennsylvania in 1738, and was the youngest of nine children, of Quaker +parents. His genius for art was discovered in an amusing way. When he +was seven sears old he was put to the task of fanning the flies away +from the sleeping baby of one of his sisters. Instead of doing so, he +sketched her face with black and red ink. His mother snatched the paper +from him, looked at it with amazement, and exclaimed: "I declare, he has +made a likeness of little Sally." From the Indians be got some of the +pigments with which they smeared their faces, and his mother's indigo +bag supplied him with blue; while from the house cat's tail he took +the hair for his brushes. West was well known as a portrait-painter +at fifteen. His Quaker friends at first demurred at the vanity of his +calling: but in a solemn meeting the spirit happily moved them to bless +him and consecrate him to art. He found rich patrons, who sent him to +Italy, where he studied the great masters with zeal and enthusiasm. + +[Sidenote: Royal Academy Founded.] + +This sojourn in the favored land of art, and the chance which procured +him an introduction to King George III. as he was passing through +England on his way home, deprived his native country of this famous +artist. Received and petted at the English court, he took up his +permanent residence in London. There, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, and +encouraged by the king, he founded the Royal Academy, of which he +became president; and as long as King George retained his mind, West was +constantly in the sunshine of royal favor. He was appointed "Painter +to His Majesty," and a splendid income rewarded his labors. He was +neglected by the Prince of Wales, but was recompensed for the loss of +his court associations by the patronage of the nobles and people. +Copley and West were the forerunners of a succession of American +portrait-painters not inferior in their art to their European +contemporaries. Both Copley and West aspired to something higher and +more creative than copying the lineaments of human faces, but it may be +said of them that in historical and imaginative painting they fell short +of the highest standard. + +[Sidenote: Peale, Stuart, and Trumbull.] + +Following Copley and West came, close together, three painters whose +works were of a high order, some of them being familiar to every one in +engraved copies. These were Charles Wilson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and +John Trumbull. Peale was a saddler's apprentice, Stuart the son of +a snuffmaker; Trumbull, on the other hand, was the son of one of the +foremost statesmen of the Revolution. To all three we owe portraits of +Washington from life. Peale painted him in his prime, just after the +battle of Monmouth; Trumbull painted him as he was a few years later, +at the surrender of Cornwallis; and Stuart painted him when the added +dignity of age had crept upon him, and he was President at Philadelphia. +Both Peale and Trumbull fought in the Revolution. Trumbull is now +best known as the painter of the historical pictures of the war for +independence which hang in the Capitol at Washington; of which the most +familiar is the "Battle of Bunker's Hill." + +[Sidenote: Washington Allston.] + +It could no longer be said, after these great painters had lived and +left enduring results of their labors, that America was devoid of a +genius for, or an appreciation of, art. The appearance of Washington +Allston, who as a colorist won the name of the "American Titian," and +whose noble conceptions of Biblical subjects, executed with wonderful +power, have given him permanent rank among the best artists of his time; +and of Henry Inman, whose versatile genius readily took up portrait, +historical, or landscape painting at will, served to carry American art +yet another grade higher. Rembrandt Peale sustained the tradition of his +father's ability by his own works; Sully came from England to win fame +here as a portrait-painter; Vanderlyn and many others rapidly rose +to establish art as a profession and adornment in this country. It is +worthy of note that two of the greatest of American inventors, Robert +Fulton and S.F.B. Morse, began life as artists; but found it more +profitable, in fame and fortune, to run steamboats and establish +telegraphs. + +[Sidenote: Artists as Inventors.] + +[Sidenote: Sculptors.] + +The sister arts have nourished in this country in a degree scarcely less +marked than painting. In sculpture, a later but prolific growth with +us, the names of Hiram Powers, Horatio Greenough, Crawford, Ball, Story, +Ward, Rogers, Hart, and Harriet Hosmer, sufficiently attest the progress +made and the reputation established in this respect. In drawing, +caricature, water-colors, and other minor branches of art, our progress +has been scarcely less notable; we may fairly claim to have our Gillrays +and Cruikshanks as well as our English cousins. + +[Sidenote: Art a Modern Necessity.] + +Art, from having been a very rare luxury among our forefathers even as +lately as the beginning of this century, has become an adjunct, it may +even be said a necessity, of our civilization. Drawing is being taught +in our schools, and is regarded as one of the polite accomplishments of +educated young ladies. Art galleries have sprung up everywhere, and art +stores are popular resorts in our larger cities. Art societies thrive +and flourish in many States, and art teachers are in demand in most of +our towns. Colonies of artists swarm in stately buildings in New York, +Boston, and Philadelphia. The time has come when no artist of merit need +starve for want of patronage. + +Thousands of Americans, travelling abroad every year, spend the larger +portion of their time in Europe in visiting those splendid art galleries +which the munificence and taste of kings and nobles have established, +and which are free to all the world. The taste for art has become +universal, and has penetrated all classes; few are the American houses, +in these days, wherein the evidences of this taste are not apparent. + +[Sidenote: Music.] + +Music has progressed with the other arts in popularity and culture; +though America, like England, has as yet produced no really great +composer. Every branch of music, however, is cultivated with us; and +music as a profession is even more certainly lucrative than painting. +America welcomes the most renowned singers and musicians in the world, +and the highest efforts of musical composition are performed here to +audiences sufficiently cultivated fully to enjoy and appreciate them. +We cannot doubt that the future will still further develop the American +love of all the arts; or that, in time, this continent will rival that +of Europe in great artistic productions. + + + + +XVIII. PROGRESS IN SCIENCE AND INVENTION. + + +[Sidenote: The Patent Office.] + +The progress in practical science and invention, in this country and the +civilized world, has been so amazingly rapid during the present century, +that the merest hint of a few of the most important elements of that +progress can alone be given. The fertility of the human intellect, in +devising quicker and more exact methods of doing those things which +contribute to the wealth and the pleasure of man, has accomplished +results so vast and so varied since the Declaration of Independence, +that the mind cannot survey the smallest portion of this field without +bewilderment and wonder. If we should visit the Patent Office at +Washington, and give ourselves up to a scrutiny of its records, its +tabulated results, and its long rows of cases of models, we should in +time gain some idea of the extent to which American minds have carried +the effort of invention. + +[Sidenote: Discoveries in the Exact Sciences.] + +Yet the Patent Office, while it exhibits the results of American +invention, fails to show anything like the total amount of useful +discovery which has been achieved on this continent since the foundation +of the government. There are those who discover and invent, and who do +not patent. There are discoveries which cannot be circumscribed by the +filling-out of blank forms, and an official restriction on their use. +This is emphatically the case with discoveries in the exact sciences, +which, while they have added immeasurably to the knowledge of mankind, +have also attained results the most useful and practical. + +[Sidenote: Meteorological Laws.] + +Illustrations of this truth may be found in the progress made by such +sciences as astronomy and meteorology. No one can doubt the value of +the result which accrues to human lore from a more accurate knowledge +of astronomy, of the mutual influences of the solar system, and the +physical character of its members. Nor can we deny that the rapid +strides which have been made within thirty years in the science of +meteorology are of the most immediate benefit to the material interests +of men. The simple statement that the predictions of "Old Probabilities" +as to the weather prove, in a large majority of instances, to be +justified by the event,--founded as they are, not upon mere guesswork, +but upon ascertained meteorological laws and a proved uniformity in the +direction of storms,--is enough to show the importance of the recent +discoveries in this field. One has only to reflect upon the changes in +the course of little and of great events wrought by the weather, to be +convinced of their large and permanent value. + +[Sidenote: Improvements in Machines and Methods.] + +We can look in no direction, however, without at once in some degree +appreciating, and being astonished at, the metamorphosis which has been +effected by the activity of scientific invention and discovery of +the most palpably practical kind. No practical profession, trade, or +industry can be named in which the improvements in machinery and +methods have not been such, within the century, as to alter most of +its conditions, and very greatly to multiply its efficiency and +productiveness. These improvements have descended, too, from general +systems to the minutest details. Cloth fabrics are not only manufactured +on a very different scale and extent, but every little appliance of the +machinery has been made better, and does its appointed work faster and +with greater precision. + +[Sidenote: Steam and Electricity.] + +[Sidenote: Conveyances.] + +If one were asked what two inventions made within the century have +wrought the greatest changes, the reply would be prompt that they are +locomotion by steam and communication by electricity. The steam-engine +and the steamship have made it possible to travel around the world, if +not in the eighty days required of Jules Verne's hero, at least in a +hundred; while the telegraph enables us to talk with our friends at the +antipodes--if such we have--within a week. What share America has had in +achieving these mighty agencies is signified by the names of Fulton +and Morse. Nor have other means of locomotion and communication been +neglected. The horse-car has to a large extent taken the place of the +omnibus and of the lumbering stage-coach; while vertical travelling, by +means of the elevator, has become easy and luxurious in our day. In the +making of carriages of every kind, the progress becomes very apparent +when we compare the light and elegant vehicles which fill our +fashionable avenues on a pleasant day, with the coaches in which +Washington and Lafayette deigned to ride on state occasions. + +[Sidenote: Iron Manufactures.] + +In the great industries, invention has supplied the means of changing +the rude ore or the raw material into every manifold form of use and +ornament, in an increased production which would have filled the men of +'76 with amazement. Machinery has come to do a vast amount of work which +manual labor used to do; yet, by a happy compensation in the economic +condition of things, human labor, far from being left in the lurch by +mechanical introduction and ever increasing efficiency, is in greater +demand than before. In the melting and puddling of iron, in its casting, +forging, and rolling, and especially in its turning and planing, +the inventions have been, perhaps, more striking than in any other +operations upon metals; and the importance of the improvements thus +effected in the manufacture of iron may be appreciated when we consider +to how many more precious uses iron is put than any other metal. The +advances made in the working of wood, and in that noble engineering +science which employs itself in the construction of canals, dikes, and +bridges, are not less notable. + +[Sidenote: Machines and Weapons.] + +To even mention the devices by which the manufacture of cotton and +woollen fabrics, of shoes, of silks, and very many other articles, has +been brought from rude processes to the rapid production seen to-day at +our great industrial centres, would require a volume. To America is due +the sewing-machine, which in the factory and in the household has given +a manifold value to labor, has cheapened time, and is assuredly one of +the chief triumphs of human ingenuity. We have done our part, too, in +devising deadly weapons for contending armies. The revolver, invented by +Samuel Colt, made a man armed with it six times as formidable as he was +before; and the breech-loader, first attempted by John Hall of Yarmouth, +Massachusetts, more than seventy years ago, was generally adopted in +Europe. It is said that the greater number of the military arms made +in the United States for Europe are on the breech-loading system. +The invention of what is called the principle of "assembling," which +consists in making the various parts of a machine "in distinct pieces +of fixed shape and dimensions, so that the corresponding parts are +interchangeable," has brought about a revolution in the manufacture +of other articles besides fire-arms. It is applied also to watches, +sewing-machines, knitting-machines, and even to agricultural implements +and the building of locomotive engines. + +[Sidenote: Labor Saving Appliances.] + +The kitchen, the farm, and the sitting-room have been invaded by +labor-saving appliances so numerous and so deft as to make each of these +domestic departments a sort of factory in itself. The spinning-wheel +has been abandoned for the sewing and the knitting machine, and the +hand-plough for the steam-plough, and the scythe for the mowing-machine, +and the rude kitchen knife and spoon for an endless variety +of contrivances, from the apple-parer, the egg-beater, and the +bean-shelters, to the lemon-squeezers, knife-sharpeners, and +coffee-mills. + +[Sidenote: Various Inventions.] + +It is equally vain to attempt the enumeration of the improvements in +the security of movable property, the rapidly changing devices for more +effective fire-alarms, the revolution in the system of fire prevention +with its steam-engine and its fire-alarm telegraph, the growing +efficiency of the science of aerostation, the invention of scales for +weighing heavy bodies, the processes for refining the precious metals, +the achieved idea of making ice by machinery, the great advance effected +in the making of glass, and the vast changes which have been wrought in +many respects by the perfection of india-rubber as an article of common +use. + +[Sidenote: Surgical Progress.] + +[Sidenote: Printing and Engraving.] + +Nor must we forget to hint at the discoveries which have given new +effect to surgical skill--the discovery of anaesthetics, the perfection +of artificial limbs, the repair of the body, and the valuable method +of lithotrity; while even the match need not be disdained as one of the +chief inventions of the century. Paper, too, and engraving, and +printing (with all its complications of stereotyping, electrotyping, and +heliotyping), photography (with its constant improvements), can only be +mentioned to open the mind to a wide vista of marvellous triumphs. +We have but to glance along the stalls of a modern book-store, to +appreciate that the arts of printing and engraving have made a more +rapid progress during the past hundred years than during all the +previous centuries since the invention of type; while it may fairly +be said that the United States can at last boast that not only is her +literature worthy to be compared with that of England, but that it is +as well printed, illustrated, and bound, and is presented on home-made +paper as elegant and as durable, as are the choicest publications of +London and Paris. + + + + +XIX. POLITICAL CHANGES. + + +[Sidenote: Sources of Government.] + +President Woolsey has forcibly remarked that states and forms of +government have had mainly two sources of origin. They have either +"slowly built themselves up for ages, finding support in historical +causes, and in past political habits"; or, they have been "the +artificial results of political theory." England presents the most +conspicuous modern example of the former class; while France, since the +Revolution, may be regarded as the chief modern example of the latter. +And as it was with England, our mother-country, so it has been, and +is, with us. It is true that the organism of the United States was the +immediate result of revolution, and is founded upon a constitution that +is written and fixed, or only with great pains and difficulty modified. +Yet, if we search further and deeper for the materials of which our +national fabric has been constructed, we shall easily recognize that our +freedom, like that of England, has really "broadened slowly down from +precedent to precedent." + +[Sidenote: Gradual Growth of the American System.] + +The growth towards American independence did not begin, the seeds of it +were not sown, either at Bunker's Hill or at Philadelphia. Indeed the +growth had then reached the period of fruitfulness. The progression +towards an independent nation, and a free nation, began at Plymouth and +at Jamestown. The Constitution only made articulate the spirit which had +been growing for more than a century, and it still left an unwritten law +set up by custom, habit, and characteristics most aptly nourished to the +ends reached in 1776, 1787, and 1789. While our written constitution was +made, we still retained the common law of England as the basis of our +own, and, like England, proceeded gradually to build upon this broad +foundation the superstructure of statute. + +[Sidenote: Origin of the Government.] + +If, therefore, the origin of our government was in one respect +revolutionary, it was not revolutionary as being sudden, accidental, +and without preparation. The revolution was, in fact, almost formal in a +political sense. The same people, the same traditions remained, and +the same growth went on. There was a new bond, binding the colonies +together, and holding them the more sturdily to purposes already formed +and undertaken. Yet it was certain that a new government, starting +forth, as ours did, at a period when political theories of diverse and +contradictory import were engaged in a very active struggle in Europe, +would meet with unusual difficulties, and be beset with grave dangers +from the outset. + +[Sidenote: The Contest of Diverse Political Ideas.] + +We note, therefore, in the very body which framed the constitution, the +rise of the contest out of which have come the most momentous changes +which our polity has since undergone. Happily for us, we have had to +witness no sudden and startling alterations in the form or spirit of our +institutions. What changes have occurred--and some have occurred of very +high and grave importance--have come gradually, have been foreseen. The +victories of parties in this country have never been by _coups d'etat_. +They have been won by light of day, with banners flying and trumpets +sounding. We have not been subject to that dread of sudden calamity, of +a bean-stalk growth of anarchy in a night, which haunts the French to +this day, and which makes both kings and peoples in continental Europe +sensitive to every untoward rumor. + +[Sidenote: Political Changes.] + +Of all the political changes which the United States have undergone +during the ninety-nine years of our national career, the most +conspicuous, perhaps, is that which has tended to increase the powers +of the central government, and diminish those of the several States. The +contest between those who believed in a strong central power and those +who jealously defended the largest share of independence for the +several States compatible with the bond of federation, began in the +Constitutional Convention; and the instrument which was there framed, +after long discussion and many perils, was really a compromise between +these two principles. On the one hand, the equality and dignity of the +States were conceded in the structure of the Senate, in the division +of the electoral votes by States, and in the "reserved rights" of the +States, which have been so often and so strenuously insisted upon since. + +[Sidenote: Early Political Parties.] + +On the other, the words of the Constitution throughout imply that the +United States constitute more than a league--a nation; and the money +power was lodged in the lower house of Congress, elected by the people +of the nation, according to their population. The opposing ideas +regarding the powers of the States and of the government, respectively, +gave rise to the two first political parties, the Federalist and the +Republican; and these have had as successors parties which have fought +the same battle over and over again. The later Whigs and Republicans, +on the one hand, and the Democrats, on the other, have usually been the +champions, respectively, of a strong central government, and of State +rights. The older Democrats insisted on a strict construction of the +Constitution, and opposed the undertaking of internal improvements and +the maintenance of a national bank by the general government; and +for the first sixty years of this century the State rights principle +prevailed in national policy with little interruption. + +[Sidenote: Rights of the States.] + +[Sidenote: Tendency towards Centralization.] + +It happened that the social institution and evil of slavery, which +had become confined to the Southern States, needed the defence of the +doctrine of State rights for its continuance. Nullification, in 1833, +and secession, in 1861, were the ultimate conclusions of that doctrine, +practically applied for the purpose of sustaining the system of human +bondage. A State had a right, it was said, to break her "compact" +with the Union; and the Southern States, following in the line of this +doctrine, did attempt to secede in order to maintain slavery. The war +which followed was the rock upon which the doctrine of State rights +split. The tide at once turned towards a strong central government. +Extraordinary powers, civil, military, and financial, were exercised to +put down the rebellion; and some of these powers, once assumed by the +general government, have been continued to this day. They have been +greatly strengthened by the enormous patronage which has accumulated +in the hands of the Executive; by the army of office-holders which, +scattered through the land, is subject to the influence of the central +power. + +[Sidenote: Results of Emancipation.] + +[Sidenote: The Fifteenth Amendment.] + +Connected with this change are some other changes, scarcely less +important. One of these is the establishment, throughout the Union, of +universal male suffrage. The emancipation of the slaves wrought a social +and economic change the final results of which are still problematical. +It also introduced a new political element, by endowing millions of +ignorant men with electoral rights for their own protection. Gradually +yet steadily through our political history, restrictions upon the +suffrage have been swept away. At first, not only was there a property +qualification in many of the States, but foreigners and negroes were in +some of them altogether excluded from the polls. The fifteenth amendment +to the Constitution crowned the edifice of universal suffrage in the +United States; and the floodgates, once open, can never be shut again. +A set of men once armed with the vote cannot be deprived of it: and all +the efforts of Know-nothing movements will probably be vain, whether +directed against the freedman, the Chinaman, or the European emigrant. +The only way to meet the evils which accompany universal suffrage is +by paths of education, and the creation of a pure and sincere public +spirit. + +[Sidenote: The Political Changes Gradual.] + +[Sidenote: Changes Effected by the Civil War.] + +It may be said, then, of the few great political changes which have +come over the spirit of our body politic, that they have been, like the +English revolutions, gradual, and, if on one occasion violent, at least +long contemplated and foreshadowed. On questions of commercial finance, +we are still where we were half a century ago. The antagonistic +principles of a protective tariff and of free trade are still struggling +for the mastery. The greatest changes--that produced on the government +in aggrandizing it at the expense of the States, and that produced on +the South by freeing and enfranchising the blacks--were brought about +by the civil war. The evil results which have flowed from them, mingled +with great good, are evident in many ways. Is it too much to hope that, +a generation hence, those of us who survive will look back gratefully +upon a survival of the good only wrought by these changes; and upon +a completed reform of the civil service, a purified government and +Congress, a people no longer eager to grow suddenly rich by wild +speculation, but content with the moderate prosperity attained by steady +enterprise and wholesome trade; and a South educated and reconciled, +with its civil and political freedom assured by its own enforcement of +equal law? + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[Footnote 1: Monroe was chosen for his second term by every vote but +one in the Electoral College. That vote was given by Mr. Hummer of New +Hampshire, on the ground that it was a dangerous precedent to elect a +President unanimously.] + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Nation in a Nutshell, by George Makepeace Towle + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATION IN A NUTSHELL *** + +***** This file should be named 9322.txt or 9322.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/2/9322/ + +Produced by PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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