Qass. Book. CiDPYRIGHT DEPOSIT HISTOEICAL BRIEFS. woKKS or PEor. sghoulek. A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES UNDER THE CONSTITUTION. 5 vols., 8vo. Cloth. $11.25. THOMAS JEFFERSON. 12mo. Cloth. $1.00. HISTORICAL BRIEFS. 8vo. Cloth. $2.00. DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Publislters. e^^^-^^ HISTORICAL BRIEFS. 7 JAMES SCHOULER. [itlj a 23iosrapi)2» \Kj^ A'^ NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY. 1896. ST-] Copyright, 1896, By Dodd, Mead and Compant. University Press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. TO THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION, AT WHOSE ANNUAL MEETINGS MANY OF THESE ESSAYS HAVE BEEN KEAD, AND FROM WHOSE MEMBERS, COLLECTIVELY AND AS INDIVIDUALS, I HAVE RECEIVED THE CHIEF LITER- ARY ENCOURAGEMENT OF MATURE LIFE, 3ri)ts Folutne IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. PUBLISHERS' NOTE. With the exception of two Review articles, which it was thought best to omit,^ this volume contains all of Professor Schouler's Historical Miscellanies which have hitherto been read or printed by him ; and in order to complete the range of discussion pursued by the general essays contained herein, he has added two — " Historical Monographs " and " Historical Style " — which are published in this book for the first time. Our author's lecture courses, and the many professional papers from his pen which have appeared in the legal periodicals, are of course omitted. The Biography will be found a unique and impor- tant feature of the present volume, and the publishers trust it may prove interesting and helpful to the gen- eral reader. The narrative is prepared from fresh and original materials supplied by the author himself, and its truthfulness may be relied upon. 1 "Our Diplomacy during the Rebellion," North American Review, April, 1866; "The Hawaiian Conquest," The Forum, February, 1894. CONTENTS. I. HISTORICAL BRIEFS: Page Francis Parkman 1 Historical Grouping 16 Spirit of Research 22 Historical Industries 34 Historical Monographs 48 Historical Testimony 60 Historical Style . 71 Lafayette's Tour in 1824 85 Monroe and the Rhea Letter 97 President Polk's Diary 121 President Polk's Administration .... 139 Reform in Presidential Elections .... 160 IL BIOGRAPHY: 1 169 II 177 III. (1839-1S46) 188 IV. (1847-1855) 206 V. (1855-1859) 223 VI. (1860-1866) 242 VIL (1866-1872) 261 VIII. (1873-1896) . 281 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. FRANCIS PARKMAN. The illustrious scholar and liistorian, whose death we have deplored so recently, found physical draw- backs to his work to hinder and discourage. But all the greater is his meed of success because he sur- mounted them. His life was, on the whole, a happy one, and rounded out in rare conformity to its ap- pointed task ; he passed the Psalmist's full limit of jrears, as few of our English-speaking historians have done ; and, however slow or painful might have been his progress, he completed in his riper years the great enterprise which he had projected in early life. Like one of those fair roses which in hours of recreation he so fondly cultivated, his literary reputation has lingered in full blossom, dispersing its delicate fra- grance and beauty among all beholders. Circumscription in the activities of the present life, when once felt to be inevitable, will turn the studious mind to closer communion with the past ; and a last- ing solace, no less than a source of usefulness, may be found in identifying one's self with those earlier generations of mankind, among whom he moves superior, with his own little particle of Divine om- Reprinted from "Harvard Graduates' Magazine," March, 1894. 1 2 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. niscience, cognizant of the consequences where they had groped, blindly, and feeling for them accordingly a human sympathy somewhat allied to compassion. Two eminent historians at least ^ have Massachusetts and our own Harvard University sent forth to the world, especially consecrated thus to their vocation, — William Hickling Prescott and Francis Parkman ; and it must surely prove strange if the individual career of the earlier of these studious invalids did not largely influence the later. Both came of native New England stock, in which culture and taste were hereditary; both were true-hearted gentlemen by temperament and training ; both had strong social and family roots in proud, intellectual Boston, so that seclusion simply clarified their acquaintance. Each inherited a fortune sufficient to relieve liim from pecuniary anxiety. The literary tasks of the two were closely related in sul)ject and method of development ; Mr. Prescott's theme comprising Span- ish dominion in the New World, Mr. Parkman's the later dominion of France ; and each directing his re- search to distant European documents, wliile out of pictorial incidents which involved the native races he constructed narratives which, grouped together, might vividly illustrate a broad historical period, without assuming the pronounced garb of consecutive histoiy. Their struggles against partial blindness and disability from the outset were singularly alike, and to some extent their experience in the assistance of an amanu- ensis. Some new tale of patience and iron perse- verance under literary obstacles may possibly await us from Mr. Parkman's surviving family. But long ago he must have been deeply impressed in his own 1 Unless tradition errs, a third might fittingly be named, in Richard Hildreth. FRANCIS PAEKMAN. 3 person with the facts of Mr. Prescott's beautiful life, which, as written by the felicitous pen of George Ticknor, is certainly the most stimulating biography for studious aspirants that ever was written. Mr. Prescott's fame was at its meridian when Mr. Park- man's star first dawned, and his most popular work, " The Conquest of Mexico," — a dramatic episode and a tragedy, as is also the " Conspiracy of Pontiac," — came out while Boston's younger delineator was at college. Often, indeed, must this junior explorer of colonial history have felt in his own heart, whether prompted or unprompted, as he pursued his studious round, what Mr. Prescott has so fittingly recorded: " On the whole there is no happiness so great as that of a permanent and lively interest in some intellect- ual labor. No other enjoyment can compensate or approach to the steady satisfaction and constantly in- creasing interest of active literary labor, the subject of meditation when I am out of my study, of diligent and stimulating activity within; to say nothing of the comfortable consciousness of directing my powers in some channel worthy of them, and of contributing something to the stock of useful knowledge in the world." Francis Parkman was born in Boston, September 16, 1823. He came of a line of honorable Massachu- setts ancestors, among whom were college graduates and Congregational clergymen -with literary acquire- ments. From his grandfather, a wealthy and prosper- ous Boston merchant, he seems to have inherited that decided taste for floriculture which became a marked accomplishment ; fondness for books and study being, in a broader sense, a familj^ trait. His father, whose Christian name he bore, had been a favorite pupil and admirer of Dr. Channing, whose liberal tenets 4 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. he preached at the New North Church in Boston, of which he was pastor for many years. His uncle, George Parkman, was a physician. Both father and uncle gave freely from their ample means to Harvard University; the one to aid the Divinity and the other the Medical School ; and the Parkman professorship of pulpit eloquence and pastoral care commemorated in our college catalogue the family surname years before a son's literary fame promised it an academic lustre far greater than beneficence alone could bestow. An inbred taste for letters combined from early boyhood with a love of woodland adventure to direct the youth's destiny. Frail when a child, Francis was sent to the country home of a maternal relative, near the Middlesex Fells, where he remained for several years. That magnificent forest tract, still in its primitive wildness, gave him a first sympathetic ac- quaintance with out-of-doors life, which he never lost. Returning home, when turned of twelve, he pursued his classical studies at a private school in Boston, and entered Harvard College in 1840, just seventeen years of age. Here once more the fondness for forest life was manifested ; he spent one college vacation in camping and canoeing on the Magalloway River, in northern Maine, to this day a favorite haunt of the sportsman ; and in the course of another, he explored the calm waters of Lakes George and Charaplain, a region redolent with traditions of the old French and Indian War. Sickness once more diverting him from his regular studies, he was sent on a voyage to Europe, from which he returned in season to graduate with his class in 1844. In the course of his foreign tour he visited Rome, and, lodging in a monastery of the Passionist Fathers, he learned something by observa- tion, for the first time, of those missionary agencies FRANCIS PARKMAN. 5 which the Roman Catholic Church had employed in former centuries with so much effect for reclaiming the red tribes of our great interior wilderness. By this time, and indeed as early as his sophomore year at college, and before passing out of his teens, young Parkman had formed the distinct design of writing a history of the French and Indian War ; and what to others might have seemed the casual recrea- tion of youth bore immediately, from his own serious point of view, upon a precocious purpose. Heeding the wishes of his elders, he gave some two years after graduation to the dry study of the law ; but destiny proved paramount, and in the summer of 1846 he was seen starting for the far West, with a young kinsman and college-mate for a companion, ostensibly seeking personal adventure, but in reality resolved upon pre- paring himself by personal observation for the great literaiy task of life. A printed volume, which gath- ered in the course of three years a series of sketches he had meantime contributed to the " Knickerbocker Magazine," descriptive of these wild experiences, was his first exploit in authorship ; and under the style of the " Oregon Trail," these sketches with their original title first modified, and then restored, made up a book still prominent in our literature. Here the narrator himself is traveller and pioneer, supplying materials of contemporaneous description for historians of a later day to draw upon. An acute comprehension of strange scenery and strange people remote from con- ventional society, faithfulness to facts, and the power of delineating with humor and picturesque effect whatever may be best worth describing, are evinced in this earliest effort ; and the impressiveness of the volume is greatly enhanced by the preface which the author inserted in a later edition, recalling vividly 6 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. from the retrospect of another quarter of a century the wild scenes and lonely cavalcade which were already of the remote past, never in that once remote and lonely Pike's Peak region to be beheld again. It was in 1846 that the INIexican War was declared, whose first announcement reached our young explor- ers while they were far out on the plains, though in season to give them that summer a sight of Doniphan's military expedition, as well as of those more peaceful emigrant bands whose winding way was toward Ore- gon, California, and the Salt Lake wilderness, igno- rant of gold and bent only upon agriculture. Curious observers only of such momentous caravans, the two Boston youths indulged their bent by camping among the Sioux Indians, and living upon rough and precari- ous Indian fare, listening to Indian legends, studying Indian traits and customs, and hunting the buffalo with their roving companions. The young historian gained the information he sought ; but he paid dearly for his rash opportunit}^ for he was confirmed in invalid habits for the rest of his life. " The Oregon Trail " is autobiographical, and so too are occasional passages in the prefaces which Mr. Parkman has written for his later successful works, more strictly historical. Of the probable influence upon his labors of the renowned Prescott, his older fellow-sufferer and fellow-citizen, we have spoken. To Washington Irving's "Astoria," Mr. Parkman's " Oregon Trail " makes familiar reference ; and very likely to recitals of Indian hardships borne by his New England ancestors were added, by the time he became a college student, the fascinating delight of Cooper's "Leather Stocking Tales," whose romance of the French and Indian period has not yet lost its attractive hold upon American youth. Fortified FRANCIS PARKMAK 7 further by his own practical contact with primitive life, whose recital had marked his first launch in literature, he buckled down to the graver task of historian and portrayer of the past. But the star of strength and of the unconquerable will he had now full need to invoke. From the day he returned from the far West to tlie day of his death he was never again entirely well. Chief among the obstacles to retard his progress was the condition of his sight; and for about three years the light of day was insup- portable, and every attempt to read or write com- pletely debarred. Indeed, as Mr. Parkman has recorded, there were two periods preceding 1865, each lasting several years, during which such labors "would have been merely suicidal," and his health forbade reading or writing for much over five minutes at a time, and often forbade it altogether. Onl}- by the most rigid perseverance and economy of strength could such disheartening obstacles be overcome. In sifting materials, and in composition, he had to rely largely, like Mr. Prescott, upon memory and the sense of hearing. His amanuensis would repeatedly read the papers aloud, copious notes and extracts being simultaneously made ; but instead of composing in solitude and having recourse to the stylus and noctograph, he relied rather upon dictation to his secretary, who would write down the narrative as he pronounced it. "This process," he adds cheerfully of his own general plan, " though extremely slow and laborious, was not without its advantages, and I am well convinced- that the authorities have been even more minutely examined, more scrupulously collected, and more thoroughl}^ digested than they would have been under ordinary circumstances." The habit of travelling, to visit described localities, 8 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. — favored as it is so greatly in later times by our improved facilities of travel, — is one for every nar- rator of events to turn to account; for not only may interesting traditions be gathered on the spot, but one procures details of local coloring which others could never catalogue for him, and gains besides the inspiration of great surroundings. To Mr. Parkman, with his delicate constitution, such journeys must have afforded a relaxing relief and diversion, besides the indulgence of a strong natural taste and disposi- tion. Through wild regions of the North and West, by the camp-fu-e or in the canoe, he had already gained familiar acquaintance, and he still continued to visit and examine every spot, near or remote, where the important incidents which he described occurred. The extensive seat of the final French and Indian struggle, the whole region of Detroit, the St. Lawrence, and Plains of Abraham, as well as remote Florida, became thus familiar to him. "In short," as he wrote in 1884, reiterating what he had said in other volumes already, " the subject has been studied as much from life in the open air as at the library table." But none the less was Mr. Parkman a steady worker in his library; and his search for original documents and among masses of rare material was incessant. Whatever might be the immediate sub- ject, he gathered such valuable collections of papers, in any way accessible, as might aid his description. The truth of the past, and the whole truth, he dili- gently inquired into. He was not content with sec- ondary authorities, but searched for primary ones in the most conscientious and thorough manner; and he founded each narrative as largely as possible upon original and contemporary materials, collating with FRANCIS PARKMAN. 9 the greatest care, and only accepting the statements of secondary writers when found to conform to those who lived in the times. In short, as he expressed himself, he was too fond of his theme to neglect any means within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true. All this was necessitated to a considerable extent by the crude and promiscuous character of the publications offered in the present choice of subjects; for the history of the French colonization in America was as wild, when Mr. Parkman took it up for research, as that colonization itself. "The field of the history," as he forcibly observes, " was uncultured and unreclaimed, and the labor that awaited me was like that of the border settler, who, before he builds his rugged dwelling, must fell the forest trees, burn the undergrowth, clear the ground, and hew the fallen trunks in due proportion." Yet under the old French rdgime in Canada the pen was always busy, and among reports to be found in the French archives were voluminous records. To make his investigations closer he visited Europe in 1858, soon after the death of his wife, and prosecuted his researches among the public collections of France, Spain, and England. Other visits followed in 1868, 1872, 1880, and 1881, after the scope of his historical work had enlarged, chiefly at Paris. His preparations for composition were thus exhaustive, and he spared neither labor nor expense. Nor with all his j)reparation did he feel that his work could be satisfactory unless as a narrator he could enter fully into the atmosphere of the times he described. " Faith- fulness to the truth of history," as he justly observed, " involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed mth the most minute exactness, and still 10 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings, near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them. He must himself be, as it were, a sharer or spectator of the men he describes." Two other observations from Mr. Parkman's pen are so apt and admirable that we cannot refrain from quoting them. One relates to historical citation, a matter in which critics are apt to be over-exacting, as though historians ought to load down pages with pedantic notes, the usual display of second-hand assistance, and not be trusted at all upon their respon- sible statements. Observing on his own behalf that his citations are much less than his material, most of the latter being of a collateral and illustrative nature, "such," he well adds, "is necessarily the case, where one adhering to facts tries to animate them with the life of the past. " And, again, seeking to be fair and impartial in his estimates of men and measures, he challenged the descendants of those who thought him otherwise to test his proofs. " As extremists on each side," he wrote finally at the close of his labors, "have charged me with favoring the other, I hope I have not been unfair to either." With views of his vocation so just and honorable, Mr. Parkman, slowly of necessity, but ^dth firm tenaciousness, wrought out his literary plans. His first work, "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," in two volumes, was published in 1851 : the subject being a dramatic one of war and of conquest, and chosen by himself most happily for the portrayal of forest life and the Indian character. It was not until January, 1865, that his next volume appeared, on " Pioneers of FRANCIS PARKMAK 11 France in the New World ; " and meanwhile he had made an unsuccessful venture with a work of pure fiction. So long a gap in his historical labors he never left again; for by this time he had accepted sickness and physical trial as permanent incidents of his career, while his historical plan had widened into its fullest scoj)e. At first intending to limit himself to the great closing struggle for supremacy between France and Great Britain, he had decided at length to cover the whole field of French colonization in America. Under such an arrangement, "Pontiac's Conspiracy " would take its place as a sequel to his works written later, while its own introductory sketch served as the base of more extended and consecutive narratives to follow. Other volumes were accord- ingly under way when " Pioneers of France " appeared ; and in 1867 he published " Jesuits in North America," a thrilling record of missionary labors, which was followed in 18G9 by " La Salle, and the Discovery of the Great West," a recital of explorations about the upper Mississippi. "The Old Regime in Canada" came out in 1874, treating of the transition period of 1653-1680 ; and to this succeeded, in 1877, " Count Frontenac, and New France under Louis XIV.," the story of the bravest warrior and viceroy France ever sent to this continent. These works, following the earliest, were in single volumes, each taking its inde- pendent place in a series of narratives entitled " France and England in the New World." By this time the patient scholar had reached the full prime of life, and time admonished him to economize his remaining strength to the utmost. He interrupted the course of description sufficiently to make sure of that romantic period, the British conquest of Canada, which had first captivated his youthful imagination. " Montcalm 12 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. and Wolfe," a work of two volumes, was therefore his next undertakmg ; this he finished by 1884, soon after rounding his threescore years ; and leaving the climax of battle upon the Plains of Abraham for a closing scene, he now turned back once more with his veteran pen to fill the intervening gap. In 1892 two more volumes, entitled "The Half-Century of Conflict," and embracing the period 1700-1748, preceded " Montcalm and Wolfe " in the completed series. Mr. Parkman's monumental work, in spite of intervening obstacles which prolonged its execu- tion, was now finished, with the same conscientious, thorough, and painstaking devotion which had always characterized him, and he now took final leave of his labors. His calculation of allotted strength had not been wide of the mark, for the very next year after laying down the historical pen his earthly limit was reached. He died a gentle death on the 8tli of November, 1893. ]Mr. Parkman's peculiar merits as a historian we have already indicated, — thoroughness of prepara- tion, a painstaking accuracy, justness in balancing authorities, scholarly tastes and comprehension, and the constant disposition to be truthful and impartial, to which were added skill and an artistic grace and dignity in composition. His style was crystal-clear and melodious as a mountain brook, which flows obedient to easy impulse, setting off tlie charms of natural scenery by its own exquisite naturalness. The aroma of the woods and of woodland life is in all his books, among which, perhaps, "The Conspiracy of Pontiac " will remain the favorite. Here and con- stantly in dealing with the Indian, with the primeval American landscape and its primeval inhal)itants, his touch is masterl}^ and unapproachable; and so, too, FRANCIS PARKMAN. 13 in describing the sympathetic contact of France with a race whicli British interference doomed to destrnc-- tion. French explorers, French missionaries and warriors, stand ont lifeUke from tliese interesting narratives, since lie wrote to interest and not merely to instruct. Generalization and the broader historical lessons are to be found rather in the pages of his preface, as Mr. Parkman wrote, than in the narra- tives themselves, most of his later subjects being, in fact, extended ones for the compass of the book ; and with his wealth of materials he kept closely to the tale. But in these preliminary, or rather final, de- ductions may be found pregnant passages of force and eloquence. A life so symmetrical in its literary scope and occupation, and so minutely adjusted to the draw- backs of ill-health, could hardly have projected far into the active concerns of his age. On a few occa- sions only Mr. Parkman was tempted to discuss problems of the day in the magazines, when the con- servatism of his temperament became manifest. His clear preference was for literary topics and subjects cognate to his studies. He felt, however, and felt deeply, the tremendous tumult, culminating in bloody strife, which went on without his domestic cell , and the preface to his "Pioneers of France," a volume published just before that fratricidal conflict ended, and dedicated to young kinsmen "slain in battle," reads like a solemn requiem. Somewhat later, after victory for freedom and the Union developed evil tendencies, his mind once more compared the regime of earlier centuries, and noted those vices in which democracy and autocracy approach one another. A home atmosphere made his studious seclusion redolent of lifelong friendships and attachments. A widower 14 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. for half his life, with two daughters who have married and survived him, his winters were usually passed in the heart of his native Boston, and his summers in a once picturesque suburb, long since comprised within the same civic confines. He dedicated his various volumes to kinsmen dear to him, to a choice friend or two who had lightened his studies by helpful sym- pathy, to his college class of 1844, and, finally, and for the last time, to Harvard College, the alma mater under whose influence, as he acknowledged, his life purpose had been conceived. To the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which he was vice-president and a most honored member, Mr. Parkman gave from time to time his collections of manuscript material used in the preparation of his works, which formed, when completed, some seventy volumes, mostly in folio. Harvard honored him with its degree of LL.D., and he served upon its Board of Overseers, and more lately as one of the Corpora- tion Fellows. But his immediate interests extended elsewhere as his fame increased. In recognition of his taste for gardening he was chosen president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, besides occupy- ing for two years a chair in the Agricultural Depart- ment of his own University. When in 1880 was formed in Boston the St. Botolph Club, whose especial aim was to bring together men of talent and eminence in art, literature, and the professions, wealth being regarded secondary, Mr. Parkman was its conspicuous choice for president, and for six years he filled that trust with marked zeal and fidelity; and after declining health compelled him to retire, he still stood upon its list as vice-presi- dent. Faithful in these earlier years to its interests, he was constantly to be seen at its Saturday evening FRANCIS PARKMAN. 15 gatherings, genial and approacliable to all, and pro- moting its hospitalities by as cordial a solicitude as though he were host in his own private parlors. Many of other circles in life, who met him then and there for the first and only times, were surprised to find him in appearance, when approaching threescore, not an invalid bent with years and sufferings, deli- cate, with pallid face furrowed with wrinkles, but decidedly elastic in step, fresh and handsome in appearance, with an impressive aspect of well-pre- served and even healthful maturity. His height could scarcely have been an inch under six feet ; his whole frame was compacted and even sturdy-looking ; his hair, though tinged with gray, Avas abundant, and his head and full neck were firmly set upon broad and capable shoulders. He showed a high forehead, a face closely shaven, which exposed strong and resolute features, a chin and mouth bespeaking firm- hess and persistency, at the same time that his beam- ing eyes, of a soft brown color, were full of kindly and even tender expression. In his whole demeanor he showed dignity and an innate gentility happily comlDined. A portrait of two thirds length, painted at this period and an excellent likeness, is among the ornaments of the club in its new house ; and on the evening following Mr. Parkman's funeral, when the members gathered for a memorial meeting, and this oil painting in its appropriate frame, decked with crape and laurel, stood in the picture gallery with a full light thrown upon it, it truly seemed, while one after another in sombre shadow pronounced a tribute, that the gentle and graceful figure was about to glide forward from the canvas to give a parting hand-grasp in silent and sympathetic benediction. HISTORICAL GROUPING. Not far from where I am now standing, a grateful city has erected a stately monument to its soldiers and sailors who died in the late Civil War. This monument was erected about fifteen years after the war was over. At the base from which rises its pure granite shaft, may be seen bas-reliefs in bronze, one for each side, which depict appropriate scenes, with portraits to recall the heroic men who bore part in them. One of these metallic studies idealizes the departure of a Massachusetts regiment, in 1861, for the seat of war. How often do I recall that scene, as I many times witnessed it in impressible youth! Most fitly, the artist's central figure is that of our immortal war governor, John A. Andrew. But among the images grouped about him, that of the man is absent who, next to the governor himself, bore the chief part in organizing and despatching our State troops, and whose face was scarcely less familiar to our Massachusetts soldiers, whether departing or returning. Others historically associated with such scenes are wanting; while among the embossed like- nesses more or less appropriate, which are here pre- served for posterity, one is that of a distinguished citizen who in 1861 was crying down war, and urg- ing that Southern States be permitted to secede in Read before the American Historical Association, at Boston, May 23, 1887. HISTORICAL GROUPING. 17 peace; another likeness recalls a son honored here indeed, years later, but who through this whole period of fraternal strife resided in a far distant State and city. I do not bring up this circumstance for reproach, but because it fitly introduces and illustrates the point to which I wish briefly to direct your attention. My subject is Historical Grouping, or what, perhaps, I might better style Historical Back- ground. Whatever memorable scenes of the past it may be the function of historian or historical painter to recall, he should delineate with scrupulous fidelity to truth the lesser as well as the greater surround- ings; his canvas should group those together, and only those, who were actually related to the event and worked out in unison the great issue. Two chief considerations enforce this duty: (1) That in the mad zeal of our modern age for present and future, the past is easily overlaid and obliterated; (2) That while Fame takes decent care of her chief hero, of the actor most responsible, she easily neglects the subordinates, however indispensable their parts misfht have been. " Set me down as I am " is the common appeal of patriots of every rank to posterity and the impartial historian ; and the true relation to the event which the scholar must consider is not that of one individual, but of many, in the nicely graded proportion of foreground and background. The Chief Executive, the warlike commander, the great personification of his time, him we follow with the eye ; we discuss and re-discuss his achievements ; we analyze his traits, over and over, even until wfe obscure them by our own ingenuity; we study his individual growth from infancy up, anxious to dis- cover in a single brain, if we may, the seed which must have germinated in other minds and dispersed 2 18 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. results to germinate again and still more widely, before tlie perfect flower and perfect opportunity could possibly have bloomed. The great hero of the age is still, as ever, the man most responsible for what was successfully accomplished; yet what hero ever achieved a great success, except by happily combining the wisdom, skill, and valor of others whose ideas, whose lives were intertwined with his own, and by bringing this whole subordinate force to bear properly upon the occasion ? Let us look more particularly to the manifold influences and counter influences which work out the great problems of an age and republican system like our own. The public movements of American society in the present century are not accomplished without the combined force of elements more or less hidden from the casual vision, which in a large degree are coequal. The scholar, the recluse philosopher, the poet, the orator, the editor, the teacher, the legislator, the statesman, gives each an impulse and direction to afl^airs far greater, in normal times, than the professional warrior. Nor is it the individual mind that sways American politics, but rather the majority or average mind, the mind that has been brought by toilsome precept and discipline to the point of earnest conviction. History has its leaders still; but the leader who unites the highest expression of thought and action rarely appears in the modern days; our foremost adminis- trator is apt to be more vigorous than original, and in this country, at least, we look no longer for the autocrat, the warrior chief, who plans conquests and drains his people that he may march an army whither- soever he will. A further thought rises in this con- nection; namely, that the reputation once achieved has now no sure bulwark to protect it. The sacrifi- HISTORICAL GROUPING. 19 cial days are over. The people observe no longer the calendar of their demi-gods. Ulysses cannot reckon upon offices of tenderness, when he is gone, from his blameless Telemachus. So great and so constant becomes the pressure and counter pressure of ideas in our modern life, that civilization seems to wear into the solid land itself, like some turbulent torrent, washing away at one bank and bringing down allu- vium at another. The past, with its traditions and examples, is ignored; not that we mean to falsify, but that we are indifferent to it; novelties absorb the present attention; the son cavils at the faults and limitations of the father; and in the headlong and incessant push and jostle of men, parties, and ideas, it is not enough for fame that a man filled well the measure of his own age, if a new age requires new measures. Such being our present situation, in place of the few ambitious great, we find the scope fast enlarging for the many men and tlieir petty and manifold ambi- tions. And no easier or cheaper means of gratifying a petty ambition can be found than in clustering about the leaders who have gained recognition and come into fashion, buzzing at their ears, and borrow- ing somewhat of the lustre and prestige of good neighborhood. Of the deserving recipients of applause some die late, some early; all do not leave their papers sorted and ready for posterity to judge of their own admitted inspiration. Here, then, is the opportunity for the parasite, the flatterer, the eleventh-hour convert, indeed, for all survivors who can grasp the key of the situation for themselves and their friends, to work seasonably upon the platform and into the conspicuous background, when the artist appears: just as loiterers elsewhere insinuate them- 20 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. selves into a group when they see the camera mounted.. The picture is taken and pkiced on exhibition for the admiration of posterity. Who are not friends, who are not enthusiasts, when the man, the cause, has triumphed? And as for the artist whose handicraft was thus employed, why should he be less susceptible to the kindness of benefactors than the great masters into whose immortal paintings of saints and martyrs, and of the Holy Family itself, were introduced the portraits of their own patron bishops and duchesses ? Against all this false grouping for historical effect, wherever it may be found, this sordid commingling of souls noble and ignoble, this separation of the acknowledged leader from associations which com- bined to produce his great action, and gave him strength, dignity, and sympathy at tlie momentous opportunity, I invoke the justice, the scholarship, and the incorruptible honor of the historian. Let him take his impartial stand among bygone men and events, and, so far as in him lies, reproduce the past as it was. Let him extricate reputations from the dust of oblivion and cunning entanglements, and award posthumous honors anew without fear or favor. Let him observe the laws of perspective, and bring foreground and background into their just and har- monious relation. Let him distinguish scrupulously between the recognition which follows success and that rarer sort which precedes it in the day of personal sacrifice. And in order to do all this, let him not trust too closely to epitaphs placed on tombstones of the dead by the immediate survivors, nor to effigies bronze or brazen; for much depends upon the bias and worldly hopes of the men who set them in posi- tion. To rescue history from the age most dangerous because most likely to pervert its truth, and yet at the HISTORICAL GROUPING. 21 same time the age most plausible in its expression — that age, I mean, which next succeeds the event — should command one's diligent effort. For every epoch is best read and explained by its own light, by its own contemporaneous record; and every other record ought to be held but secondary and subservient in comparison by the student who searches for the real truth of events. This last observation may be thought a trite one ; but I am well convinced that it is at the very foundation of historical study and criticism, such as a society like ours ought to practise and inculcate. SPIRIT OF RESEARCH. What, let us ask, is history? And by what image may we present to the mind of the student a proper conception of that department of study? Emerson, our American Phxto, pictures as a vast sea tlie uni- versal mind to which all other minds have access. "Of the works of this mind," he adds, "history is the record." That idea is a leading one of this phi- losopher. Man he considers the encyclopedia, the epitome of facts; the thought, he observes, is always prior to the fact, and is wrought out in human action. Such a conception may suit the philosophic mind; it may commend itself to men of thought, as con- trasted with men of action. But it seems to me too vast if not too vague a definition for an appropriate basis to historical investigation. No one can project history upon such a plan, except man's ]\Iaker, the Universal ]\Iind itself. Thought itself may precede the fact, but the two do not coincide nor form a per- fect sequence. The empire of thought differs- greatly from that of personal action; we each live but one life, while we may propose a hundred. The works of the mind involve all knowledge, ail reasoning, all experience. Nor can we with accuracy picture the human mind as a tranquil sea tossing only in its own Read before the American Historical Association, at Washington, December 31, 1889. SPIRIT OF RESEARCH. 23 agitations, but rather as an onward force working through strong physical barriers. History, in truth, is the record of human thought in active motion, of thought which is wrought out into action, of events in their real and recorded sequence. The individual acts upon his external surroundings ; those surround- ings react upon him and upon his fellows. Men, tribes, nations, thus acting, mould one another's career and are moulded in return. History leaves the whole boundless empire of unfettered mental philosophy, of fiction, of imagination. It deals with facts ; it notes and narrates what has actually transpired and by whose agency ; and it draws where it may the moral. History, in short, is the record of consecutive events, — of consecutive public events. This broad truth should be kept in view, that the human mind (under which term we comprise volition, and not the intellectual process alone), that the indi- vidual character acts upon the circumstances sur- rounding it, upon external nature, upon external fellow-beings. These persons and things external not only modify and influence one's attempted action, but modify his thought and feeling ; they react upon him, form and influence his character, his destiny. This makes human history, and it makes the forecast of that history forever uncertain. The picture, then, that we should prefer to present to the imagination is not of one vast universal mind, calmly germinating, fermenting, conceiving; not of one mind at equilibrium, having various inlets — but of a torrent in motion. They did wisely and naturally who mapped out for us a stream of history flowing onward, and widening and branching in its flow. Downward and onward, this impetuous torrent of human life obeys its own law of gravitation. It 24 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. advances like a river, with its feeders or its deltas; or like the march of an immense army, now re-en- forced, now dividing into columns, now reuniting, — but going forever on and never backward. Let us reject, therefore, the idea of an a i^riori history and whatever conception conjures up a human mind plan- ning history in advance and then executing it. Buckle was oppressed to death by the burden of such an idea as that of reducing the whole history of this world's civilization to a law of natural selection. There is no rigid scientific development to the human race. The particle of divine essence which is in man formulates, creates, compels to its will, changes because of its desire for change ; though, after all, it bends to the laws of natural necessity. The man of genius may invent; he may construct a wonderful motive-engine which jDropels by steam or electricity ; yet he may be battered to pieces by this same machine, if ignorant or careless of some latent physical cause. We speak, too, of prophecy; but prophecy is vague. " Westward, " says Bishop Berkeley, "the course of empire takes its way;" and he looked through the vista of a century. But who, of all our statesmen and philanthropists who flourished forty years ago, — and wise and great, indeed, were many of them, — fore- told with accuracy how and through what agencies the problem of American slavery, which they so earnestly discussed, would reach its historical solution ? To take, then, our simile of the onward torrent from distant sources, or the army advancing from afar: observe how absorbed was ancient history with the larger streams fed by hidden fountains ; how its narrative was confined to the great leaders of thou- sands and tens of thousands. But in modern history each individual has his relative place ; and looking as SPIRIT OF RESEARCH. 25 through a microscope we see an intricate network of rills from wliich the full stream is supplied. In this consists the difference between ancient and modern life, ancient and modern history. Simplicity is tHe characteristic of the primitive age; complexity is^ that of our present civilized and widely multiplied society. The ancient force was the force of the pre- eminent leader, — of the king, the warrior chief ; but the modern force is that rather of combined mankind, —of the majority. Individuals were formerly absorbed under the domination of a single controlling will, but now they are blended or subdued by the co-operation of mils, among which the greatest or the pre-eminent is hard to discover. The course of history all the while is consecutive, knowing no cessation. There is a present, a past, and a future; but the present soon becomes the past, the future takes its turn as the present. And, after all, the only clear law of history is that of motion incessantly onward. As students of history, we seek next a subject and a point of view. Look, then, upon this vast chart of the world's progress. Retrace its course, if you will, and choose where you shall explore. Do not choose at random, but with this great universal record to guide you as a chart; as a chart capable, indeed, of correction, but in the main correct enough to serve the navigator. Having thus chosen, circumscribe your work: confine your exploration to a particular country, to a particular period, say of twenty, thirty, or a hundi'ed years ; let your scrutiny be close, and discover what you may to render the great chart fuller and more accurate than hitherto. If universal history be your subject, you will not go far beyond tracing the bold headlands, while oij. the other hand, with a small compass of work, ydu may contribute wnile on tne rork, ycii ma 26 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. much information of genuine value to your age. ExjDlore from some starting-point; you can descend upon it like a hawk. You may require some time to study its vicinity, to look back and consider what brought the stream to this point. But your main investigation will be not by exploring to a source, but by following the stream in its onward and downward current. In the present age one must be ignorant of much if he would be proficient in something. Our chart of history opens like an atlas ; it presents page after page of equal size, but with a lessening area for the sake of an increasing scale. One j)age exhibits a hemisphere, another a continent, another a nation; others, in turn, the state, the county, the municipal unit. From a world we may thus reduce the focus, until we have mapped within the same spaces a town or city, or even a single house ; from a population of millions we may come down to a tribe, a family, or even (as in a biography) to a single indi- vidual, and we retrace the human course accordingly. Or we may trace backwards, as the genealogist does, in an order reverse to biography or general history. As we have projected, so we work, we investigate. In such an atlas as I am describing, how different appear both civil and physical configurations at different epochs. Compare, for instance, a map of the United States of our latest date with earlier ones in succession from 1787. Not only in national names and boundaries do they differ, not only in the obscure or erroneous delineation of lakes and rivers in unex- plored regions, but in that dotting of towns and cities, that marking of county divisions, which posi- tively indicates the advance of a settled population and settled State governments. Maps of different SPIRIT OF RESEARCH. 27 epochs like these, where they exist, are part of a permanent historical record. Involved in the study of any civilization is the study of its religion, of its literature, of its political and military movements, of the appliances of science, of the changes and development of trade, commerce, and industries. Each of these influences may be traced apart, or their combined influence may be shown upon the course of some great people. In this present enlightened age, nations intersect one another more and more in their interests, and you may feel the pulse of the whole civilized world through the daily press. How different the task of preparing such a history as the nineteenth century requires, from that of ancient Athens, of China, of mediseval Britain, of early America. But in all tasks unity and selection should be the aim, and above all circumscription. One must measure out his work with exactness, make careful estimates, and work the huge materials into place, besides using his pencil with the dignity and grace of an artist. In a word, he should be an architect. It is because of this union of the ideal and practical that Michael Angelo deserves the first place among men distinguished in the fine arts. And for this reason, too, we may well rank Gibbon as the foremost among historians ; as greater, indeed, than Thucydides, Sallust, or any other of those classical writers who have so long been held up for modern reverence. And this is because, with sldll equally or nearly as great as theirs, he conceived and wrought out a task far more difficult. In his- torical narrative the greatest triumph consists in tracing out and delineating with color and accuracy a variety of intricate influences which contribute to the main result. And who has done this so well as 28 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. the author of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," that greatest of all historical themes, that most impressive and momentous of all human events ? See the hand of the master unfolding the long train of emperors and potentates ; painting the revolt and irruption of distant nations, of remote tribes ; gather- ing upon his canvas the Greeks, the Scythians, the Arabs, Mohammed and his followers, the fathers of the Christian Church, the Goths and northern barba- rians, who were destined to shape the civilization of modern Europe; leading his readers with stately tread through the whole grand pathway down which the highest type of a pagan civilization sank slowly into the shades and dissolution of the dark ages. I will not deny that Gibbon had faults as a historian ; that his stately pomp might become wearisome, that he partook somewhat of the French sensuousness and scepticism which surrounded him as he labored. But of his profound scholarship and artistic skill there can be no question. Contrast with a task like his the simple narrative of some brief strife under a few heroes or a single one, — like the history of the Peloponnesian or Jugurthine war, or like that of the Cortes invasion of Mexico which our own Prescott has so admirably descriljed, — and see how immense is the difference. Yet I would not be understood to disparage these other writers with simpler subjects. They have instructed and interested posterity and their own times, their fame is deservedly lasting; there is room in historical literature for them and for all. And our Anglo-Saxon appears to be, of all his- torical explorers, the best adapted to portray the manners and events of foreign nations and distant times. Thucydides and Xenophon wrote each of his own country alone ; and so did Sallust, Li^y, Tacitus. SPIRIT OF RESEARCH. 29 But Gibbon perfected himself in a foreign literature and tongue so as to write of other lands; and so, too, did our Prescott and Motley. Here let us observe how much easier it is to be graphic, to interest and attract the reader, when one's story has simple unity and relates to personal exploit. Biography, or the study of individual leaders, is at the foundation of the narratives which are most widely read and most popular; in the Bible, for instance, in Homer, in the wars of Alexander, Csesar, or Napoleon. Biography excites interest because it develops, as in the reader's own experience, the growth of a certain individual life to which all other lives bear but an incidental relation; and for this reason, too, biography is partial. The modern tem- perament, however, leads us to investigate, besides, the growth of the people who were ruled, the devel- opment of their laws, manners, customs, and institu- tions. In either case the interest that moves the reader is human. That military and political course of a community with which historj^ is chiefly engrossed moves far differently, to be sure, under an absolute monarch than in a democracy; in the former case foibles and caprice are those of a person, in the latter they are those of a whole people. Yet we observe in all but the ruder ages of mankind the refining influence upon rulers which is exerted by philosophy, by religion, literature, and the arts. Note this, for example, under the reign of Solomon, of Pericles, of Alexander, of Constantine; and yet it is a lasting regret to posterity that out of epochs like theirs so little is left on record concerning the daily lives and habits of the people they governed. That must be a rigid tyranny, indeed, whose government has not recognized to some extent the strono- thouoh insen- 30 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. sible force of popular customs. Custom constantly crj'stallizes into laws, which the legislature, the court, or the monarch stamps with authority; and thus are local institutions pruned and trained like the grape-vine on a trellis. We find in the most primi- tive society wills and the transmission of property recognized ; buying and selling ; trade and commerce (whence come revenue and personal prosperity); marriage and the seclusion, greater or less, of the family circle. How seldom has the reader associated all these with the wealth of Solomon and the Queen of Slieba, with the vicissitudes of Croesus, the volup- tuous pleasures of Xerxes, Cleopatra, or the later Ceesars ; and yet it is certain that unless the subjects of monarchs like these had pursued their private business successfully, amassed fortunes of their own, brought up families and increased in numbers, the monarch could not have been arrayed with such luxury; for royal revenues come from taxation, and the richest kings and nobles take but a percentage from the general wealth. The customs of one nation are borrowed by others ; Moses, Lycurgus, Solon, among the great lawgivers, framed codes each for his own people after observing the institutions of other and older countries, and considering how best to adapt them. Government has rightly been likened to a coat which is cut differently to fit each figure, each nation , and, more than this, the garb itself may differ in pattern, since the object is to clothe different communities appropriately to the tastes and habits of each. We shall continue to regret, then, that the ancient writers have left us so little real illustration concerning the habits of these earlier peoples, — how they worked and sported, and what was their inter- course and mode of life. Research in archaeology SPIRIT OF RESEARCH. 31 may yet supply such information in a measure ; and of the institutions, the embodied customs, we have, fortunately, some important remains. No contribu- tion survives, more valuable to this end, than the books of Roman jurisprudence which were compiled under Justinian. Though one of the lesser rulers of that once illustrious empire, he has left a fame for modern times more conspicuous than that of Julius or Augustus Csesar; and this is because he brought into permanent and enduring form for the guidance and instruction of all succeeding ages the wisest laws, the best epitome of human experience, the broadest embodiment of customs, which ever regu- lated ancient society in the mutual dealings of man and man. As for the progress of our modern society which emerges from the mediaeval age succeeding the Roman collapse, its advance in knowledge and the arts, in the successive changes of manners and pursuits, there is much yet to be gathered and exposed to view for illustration; though with respect to England we owe much to Macaulay for setting an example of investi- gation upon that broader line which Niebuhr and others of his school had initiated for Roman history. And Macaulay achieved the additional triumph of making such investigation attractive. Statutes and judicial reports (to quote Daniel Webster) are over- flowing fountains of knowledge respecting tlie progress of Anglo-Saxon societ}', from feudalism down to the full splendor of the commercial age. And from the modern invention of printing, let us add, and particu- larly since the growth and development of the modern press, we find (with all the faults of fecundity and fallibility which are peculiar to journalism) a picture of the world's daily life set forth which far surpasses 32 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. in its vivid and continuous detail any collection of ancient records. Our modern newspaper may pander for the sake of gain ; it may avow no higher aim in affairs than to please a paying constituency j and yet, for better or worse, it wields and will con- tinue to wield an immense power. The reporter may be brazen-faced, inclined to scandalous gossip and ribaldry; the news may be spread forth disjointed, founded on false rumor, requiring correction; edito- rial comments may be wilfully partisan, or thundered from the Olympus lieight of a safe circulation ; but, even at its worst, so long as it is duly curbed by the laws of libel so essential for the citizens' protection, what with advertisements, business news, the discus- sion of current topics, the description of passing events and the transient impression made by them, our newspaper holds the mirror up to modern society; wliile at its best, journalism sits in her chariot, pencil in hand, like that marble muse herself in our national capitol, over the timepiece of the age. The news- paper's truest revelation is that unconscious one of the passions and prejudice of the times, and of that cast of popular thouglit under which events were born ; it preserves imperishable the fashion prevailing, for posterity to look upon with reverence or a smile. But in the present age the journalist should beware how he presents his columns to bear the double weight of universal advertiser and universal purveyor of knowledge, lest he make a chaos of the whole. As in the former centuries records were scanty, so in the century to come they will be found superabundant, unless fire or deluge diminish them. Pregnant facts, such as in the past we search for in vain, lie buried, under prevalent methods, in bushel-heaps of worth- less assertion. To know the old era, you must search SPIRIT OF RESEARCH. 33 with a lantern; to know the new era, you must winnow. Research is a fitting word to apply in historical studies; for by this word we import that one is not content to skim the surface of past events, but prefers to probe, to investigate, to turn the soil for himself. It is original exploration which makes such studies attractive and stimulating. We walk the streets of buried cities and roam through the deserted houses, once instinct with life, piercing the lava crust of careless centuries; we place our hearts and minds, richer by accumulated experience, close to the pas- sions and intellects of an earlier age ; and we listen to the heart-beat of a race of mankind who reached forward, as our own race is reaching and as all races reach in turn, to catch the omens of a far off destiny. The grand results and the grand lessons of human life are ours in the retrospect, and in the retrospect alone. And while retracing thus the footprints of the past, we shall do well if we deduce the right moral; if we judge of human actions dispassionately and as befits scholars of riper times and a broader revelation; if we keep under due constraint that laudable but dangerous passion for new discovery, so as neither to revive buried calumnies nor to weigh evidence with a perverted bias to novelty. Let our judgment give full force to the presumption that the long-settled opinion is the true one, and let our spirit of research be imbued at all times with the fearless purpose to know and to promulgate the truth. HISTORICAL INDUSTRIES. Historians are sometimes said to be a long-lived race. To historical students, at all events, this is a comfortable theory. Recent examples of a productive old age, such as Ranke so long supplied, and our own illustrious George Bancroft, may have lent strong force to the supposition. History herself, no doubt, is a long-winded muse, and demands of each votary the power of continuance. But I doubt whether sta- tistics would bear out strongly this theory of a long- lived race. Among modern historians, well-known, who have died a natural death, neither Niebuhr, Gibbon, Macaulay, nor Hildreth reached his sixtieth year ; both Prescott and Motley died at about sixty- three.^ On the other hand, to take poets alone whom many of us may have seen in the flesh, both Long- fellow and Lowell passed, well preserved, the bounds of threescore years and ten ; while Bryant, Whittier, and Holmes, the last of whom still vigorously sur- vives, enjoyed life much beyond fourscore; and of English composers the most famous, both Tennyson and Browning mellowed long before they dropped. Undoubtedly, however, steady and systematic brain- work without brain worry, conduces to health and Read before the American Historical Association, at Chicafjo, July 11, 1893. 1 Francis Parkman has recently died at the age of seventy, longer spared for his work than any of those above mentioned. HISTORICAL INDUSTRIES. 35 long life, whatever be the special occupation; and who may better claim that precious condition of mind than tlie average historian ? For of all literary pur- suits none on the whole appears so naturally allied to competent means and good family. Public office and influence — the making of history — have belonged in most epochs before our own to the aristocracy, superior station being usually linked in the world's exi^erience to wealth ; and it is the scions and kindred of those who have been actors and associates in events, if not the actors and associates themselves, whose pens describe past exploits most readily. These have gained the readiest access for their studies to the public archives, — ransacking, moreover, that private correspondence of illustrious leaders defunct, which family pride guards so jealously ; and with mingled urbanity and scholarship they maintain the polish of easy intercourse in the courtly circles of their own times. One ought to be a man of letters and liberal training for such a life, a close student, and yet, in some sense, a person of affairs. It costs long leisure, and money too, to collect materials properly, while the actual composition proceeds in comparison but slowly. Nor are the royalties from historical writ- ings, however successful and popular, likely to remunerate one greatly, considering his aggregate outlay; but rather than in any enhanced pecuniary ease, his reward must be looked for in the distin- guished comradeship of the dead and of the living — in the satisfaction that he has performed exalted labors faithfully for the good of his fellow-men, and found them in his own day fairly appreciated. Happy the historian, withal, whom fame or early promise has helped into some collateral and congenial employment of indirect advantage to his task. 36 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. Calmness and constancy of purpose carry us on steadily in work of this character, vnih. powers of mind that strengthen by habitual exercise. It is not brilliancy of assault, it is not the pompous announce- ment of a narrative purpose, that determines the historian; but rather silent concentration and perse- verance. The story one begins will never be thor- oughly finished while the world stands ; and on the one hand is the temptation of preparing with too much elaboration or fastidiousness to narrate rapidly enough, and on the otlier of trying to tell more than the circumscribed limits of preparation and of per- sonal capacity will permit. Men who are free from financial anxieties will be tempted aside from the incessant laborious work by the seductions of pleasure. Thus Prescott, the blind historian, with excuses much strong-er than INIilton ever had for social ease and inaction, found himself compelled to overcome his temptations to sloth by placing himself habitually under penal bonds to his secretary to prepare so many pages by a given time. More, however, than the gift of time and income the world will scarcely look for in a literary man. It is the publisher, rather, who projects encyclopedias and huge reservoirs of useful information, and who embarks large money capital in the enterprise. A few celebrated authors, to be sure, have figured, some in a dormant sense, as publishers of their own works ; like Richardson, the English novelist, for instance, the Chambers brothers, and, most disastrously for himself. Sir Walter Scott. Many literary men of means own their plates, while putting firms forward to print and publish for them notwithstanding. But it is reserved, I believe, to America, and to the present age, to furnish to the world the first HISTORICAL INDUSTRIES. 37 unique example of bookseller, book collector, histo- rian, and publisher, all combined in one, whose for- tune is devoted to the fulfilment of a colossal pioneer research. We must count, I apprehend, the living historian of " The Pacific States " among the wealthy benefactors of our higher learning; for that prolihc brood of brown volumes such as no other historian from Herodotus down ever fathered for his own, can hardly have repaid their immense cost and labor of preparation, even with the ultimate sale added of the famous library whose precious contents gave them substance. Mr. Bancroft's "Literary Industries," a stimulating and well-written book, recounts fully the methods he employed, with a corps of literary writers under his personal direction, in ransacking the contents of that huge library, since offered for sale, to furnish forth his own compendious treatises .upon the archaeology, history, and ethnology of our Pacific Coast, hitherto but little illustrated by its latest race of conquerors. And he felicitates himself that an enterprise, other- wise beyond any one man's power of execution, was brought by his own organized efforts within the com- pass of some thirty years. I will not undertake any direct criticism of such comprehensive methods as his, nor seek to disparage labors so generously and withal so successfully rounded out to a close. But this present age runs -very strongly, as it seems to me, — and perhaps too stTongly, — to vast executive projects in every depart- ment of human activity. We are apt, in consequence, to sacrifice high individual thought and mental crea- tiveness to feats of technique and organized mastery ; while oiir trusts, our syndicates, and combiners of capital seek so constantly to monopolize profits, both 38 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. moral and material, for themselves, by welding and concentrating the lesser resources of individuals, that single endeavor faints in the unequal rivalry. Such a development artfully conducts the human race back, sooner or later, to a species of slavery ; it hands over the many to the patronage of the powerful few; and, unless checked, it must prove eventually fatal to the spirit of manly emulation. Just as the surf of property accumulation breaks fitly at each owner's death upon the broad bulwark of equal distribution among kindred, so would it be wise, I think, could public policy contrive by some indirection to limit in effect the achievements of a lifetime in every direc- tion to what fairly and naturally belongs to the scope of that single life in competition witli others ; and at the same time that it lets the greatest prizes go to the fittest, could it but encourage each member of society to achieve still his best. At all events, if you will, let huge engineering, let the products of organized exploit, go to increase the material comfort of the race; but for art, for scholarship, for literature and religion, for whatever appeals most to imagination and the moral life. I would keep the freest play possible to the individual and to individual effort. One forcible preacher reaches more hearts than the composite of a hundred preachers. And, furthermore, in gathering historical facts, we should remember that what may be con- venient for simple reference is not equally so for con- secutive reading. Tliere is a natural progression, coincident with the stream of time, in all history, all biography, all fiction; and to attempt to read back- ward, or on parallel lines, or by other arbitrary arrangement, produces nausea, drowsiness, and con- fusion of ideas. In Washington Irving's grotesque HISTORICAL INDUSTRIES. 39 dream in the British Museum, the bookmakers at their toilsome tasks about him seemed suddenly trans- formed into masqueraders decking themselves out fantastically from the literary clothes-presses of the past about them. Co-operative history, or the alliance of various writers in one description of past events, is a favorite device of publishers in our late day, for producing volumes which may give each talented contributor as little personal exertion as possible. Of such enter- prises, that which assigns to each author his own limited period or range of events, is the best, because the most natural, and here it is only needful that each should confine his labor to his own portion, avoiding the dangers of comparison. Less satisfac- tory, because far more liable to contradiction and con- fusion, is that co-operative history which distributes topics such as the progress of science, education, religion, or politics, for a general and detached review, and, instead of any proper narrative at all, supplies a mass of heterogeneous essays. The latest plan of the kind which publishers have brought to my notice, is history upon an alphabetical arrangement, resem- bling a Gazetteer, — which proposes, of course, the use of scissors more than pen or brain. Mr. Hubert Bancroft's plan is, finally, that of a literary bureau, with salaried workers more or less trained, over whom presides the one nominal historian. In this nineteenth century jom may thus see his- torical chasms bridged, and jungles, once impene- trable, laid open to the sunlight. But where can one safely define here the limits of original author- ship ? At what point does the elucidation of facts rise above the dignity of manual labor? And how far, in fine, may you trust the chief executive of such 40 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. an enterprise for liis responsible scholarship; rather than merely as the editor of a vast compilation, or as one who rubs into shape, and gives a literary gloss to materials of doubtful authenticity ? Let me address myself, then, rather to the encour- agement of that great majority of historical students and writers whose purpose is to accomplish, and to accomplish conscientiously, results which may fairly be comprehended within the space of a single and unaided human life. Even they who plead most forcibly for co-operative investigation in history distinctly recognize the advantage of unity in research and expression, and they concede that, where one may master his own subject seasonably enough, the single skilled workman is preferable to the many. For my own part, not meaning to boast, but to encourage others, I may say, that legal and historical works — the one kind by way of relief to the other — have fairly occupied me for twenty-five years, with considerable ground covered in their publication. Another worker may produce better solid books than I have done, but he will hardly be moved to produce a greater number within the same space of time, or to pre-empt a wider range of research. Whether it be from an innate distrust of hired sub-workers, or for economy's sake, or from the pride of resi^onsible authorship, or because of habits which I early formed in life of concentrating and warming into interest wherever I personally investigated, — or whether, indeed, from all these considerations combined, — I never employed literary assistance of any sort, except for sharing in the drudgery of index-making, for copying out my rough drafts in a neat hand for my own revision, and for transcribing passages from other books which I had first selected. And once HISTORICAL INDUSTRIES. 41 only, when engaging my amanuensis (a very intelli- gent man), where historical controversy had arisen upon a minor point, to examine and collate the accounts of various old newspapers, I found, upon reviewing his work, that he had overlooked a single circumstance among these numerous descriptions, which was almost decisive of the issue. In fine, every real research, where I have published, and every page of composition, has been my own; and having regularly contracted with my publishers to create a book, instead of hawking about its manu- script when completed, and having always been per- mitted when ready to hand my copy to the printers, without submitting it to any mortal's inspection, — I have pursued my own bent, in shaping out the task as 1 had projected it. I have shown my manuscript to no one at all for criticism or approval ; nor have I received suggestions, in any volume, even as to literary style and expression, except upon printed sheets from the casual proof-reader, as the book went finally through the press. The counsel of genuine and disinterested literary friends, if you are fortunate enough to have them, is doubtless sweet and stimulating; and for the want of it a book will often suffer in matters of expression, as well as of fact. But the recompense, on the other side, comes after a time, in one's own confirmed skill, self-confidence, individuality, and the power to de- spatch; and often as I have reproached myself for little slips of language (revisiaig ajjd even altering my plates, u]1bn opportunity), I have seldom seen reason to change the record or coloring of historical events, and never an important deduction. Instead, then, of employing other persons, trained or untrained, to elaborate or help me out with the 42 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. responsible task of authorship, I have sought, as the most trustworthy of expert assistance, where such aids were needful, the labors of accomplished scholars who had gone through the ordeal of authorship before me. Books and authors, in fact, I have employed for special investigators, and an amanuensis for amanuen- sis work alone. Original records and information are preferable to all others ; but secondary sources of knowledge 1 have largely accepted as a labor-saving means, where I could bring my own accumulated knowledge and habits of verification to bear upon them, so as to judge fairly of their comparative worth. 1 have not disembowelled nor re-distributed their contents ; but I have learned to dip into them for the quintessence of information they could best impart. To all authors, to all earlier investigators, 1 have applied diligently whatever materials of con- sequence were inaccessible to them, or derived from my own later and more advantageous study. Special assistance, 1 admit, may be very valuable, when of an expert character. Eminent historians who have University pupils, eminent barristers as the patrons of the shy and briefless, — often employ junior minds, well-trained young men of poverty and ambi- tion, upon the drudgery of their own more affluent investigation. In law-suits the judge will often put out the analysis of complicated facts at issue to some member of the bar, to investigate as auditor and make a report which shall stand as prima facie evidence of the truth. INIuch the same confidence may you repose in the published monograph of some reputable historical scholar, if you desire economy of labor. Such assistance is trained already for your purpose, and one obvious advantage of employing it is, that you may cite the author and throw the responsibility HISTORICAL INDUSTRIES. 43 of your assertion upon his shoulders. Yet, after all, one should be prepared to do most of his own drudg- ery; for nine-tenths of all the successful achieve- ments in life, as it has been well observed, consist in drudgery. Whatever subordinate or expert assist- ance, then, may be called in by the responsible histo- rian, let him always reserve the main investigation to himself. In no other way can he rightfully blazon his name upon the title-page of his book, or approach the true ideals of excellence and thoroughness. The trained assistance one employs with only a mercenary interest in the study accomplishes but little, after all, as compared with the one mind inspired for its task, which concentrates the best of its God-given powers upon precisely what it seeks, and gains in skill, quickness, and accuracy by constant exercise. Judg- ment and intuition may thus move rapidly forward and seize upon results. The student absorbed in his subject brings to bear at every step of preliminary study his own discrimination, analysis, and compari- son, qualities which he can never safely delegate; even in crude facts he is saved the alternative of accepting promiscuous heaps from journeymen at second-hand, or of verifying personally their labor, which is the worst toilsomeness of all. And it is by thus throwing himself into the very time of which he treats and becoming enveloped in its atmosphere, that the narrator may hope to kindle his own imagi- nation and grow deeply sjaupathetic with his subject. Fiery phrases, pictorial hints, startling details, sug- gestions of effect, meet here and there his quick, artistic eye, which a subordinate would never have discovered among the dull ruljbish of surrounding circumstances. Pen and memory learn to aid one another in the exploration; one needs to abstract 44 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. nothing from the books which serve him as a basis, nothing indeed, anjnyhere, but what may best aid his immediate purpose ; the drift of long correspondence, speeches and documents of merely subsidiary value, he gathers at a glance, and a few trenchant passages will serve for his quotation. What self-directing scholar has not felt his pulse quicken and his heart beat high when in such close communion with the great actors and thinkers of the past, or as he reads contemporary reports of the event, and lives transac- tions over again amid their original surroundings? And, if in such personal exploits among the buried cities, new pregnant facts, new points of view are revealed corrective of prevailing misconceptions; if some sudden insight into motives, public or personal, lights up his lonely induction, — how does the soul dilate with that greatest of all the triumphs of research, — the triumph of discovery. Nor let it be said, as an objection to such expendi- ture of time, that an economizing historian ought to reserve liis best strength for the loftier task of arrange- ment and final composition. Let us not turn literary skill to meretricious uses ; let us beware how we steer blindly among conflicting statements, or accept for facts what only our paid j)upils have collected. Due preparation is no less essential to the historian than the art of telling his story; for he has never of right the free range of his imagination. There should be a time to study, and a time to compose ; the one task should aid and alternate with the other. Nothing, I ani sure, so relieves a laborious literary life as to diversify its pursuits, — to change the subject or the mode of occupation. And in historical literature, if we would save ourselves the excessive strain which soon exhausts, let us turn the pen which has been HISTORICAL INDUSTRIES. 45 vigorously employed for a sufficient time upon the narrative to prosaic annotation and abstracts. Let us leave the recital of results for one chapter or volume, to gather material and study for the next. We need not fear to roam the broad fields of investi- gation over, if we hold fixedly to our purpose. The bee culls sweetness from the flower cups, before treading out the honey. And the indolence which every investigator should chiefly guard against is that of subsiding into the intellectual pleasure of filling and refilling his mental pouch for his own delecta- tion, while never setting himself to manufacture that others may derive a profit. As a most important means of economizing time and personal labor, we should fix clearly in advance the general scope and direction we mean to pursue, and then adhere to it, limiting the range of investi- gation accordingly. Authorship in history requires resolution, and an intelligent purpose besides in the development of the original plan throughout its entire length and breadth. For as the area of mental research is of itself boundless, the individual should fence off for himself onl}^ a certain portion. Chance and opportunity may unquestionably lead us on from one task of exploration to another. We may, like Gibbon, carry our work purposely to a given point, and then leave a still further advance to depend upon health and favoring circumstances. Or, as Prescott, Motley, and Parkman have done, we may let one dramatic episode, when fairly compassed and set forth, conduct to another and kindred one, so as eventually to group out the life's occupation, whether longer or shorter, into one s^nnmetrical whole. But to attack mountains of huge material blindly, without a just estimate of life and physical 46 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. capabilities, can bring only despair and premature exhaustion. It is not strange at all, if, after announcing and planning a work of so many pages or volumes, you find the burden of materials increasing on your hands ; but you are a novice in book architecture, if, nevertheless, you cannot build according to the plan ; and you are certainly the worst of blunderers, if you throw the superabundant materials blindly into form, as they come, and still strive to erect by con- tract, as a cottage, what should have been only undertaken for a castle. In all literary workmanshij), or at least in historical, there should be specifications, and the specifications should correspond with the plan; the rule and compasses should be applied so as to give due proportion to every part of the work. In the lesser details one must be prepared to com- press, to sacrifice, to omit, and no reader will miss what is judiciously left out as does the author himself. By thus keeping T\dthin one's intended space, as carefully mapped out in advance, — and I would advise every projector of a book to get practical sug- gestions from his pul^lisher, and then clearly settle as to size and subject before he tackles to the task, — • by thus doing we circumscribe at once the field of investigation; and by apprehending well that in which we mean to be impressive or original, by con- ceiving fitly our main purpose in authorship, we are prepared to apply ourselves to the real service of our age. Some wi^iters set their minds to work upon manuals, upon the abridgment of what they find at hand for a certain period and country, some upon amplifpng; but no one should undertake to narrate history with the same fulness as one who has told the HISTORICAL INDUSTBIES. 47 tale before, unless lie is confident that lie can truth- fully put the facts in a new light, or add something really valuable which has not been already set forth elsewhere. Let it be admitted, in fine, in all historical writing, that much patient and minute study must be bestowed for one's own personal gratification alone; that one may spread the result before his readers, but not the processes. Whatever the historian may print and publish for the edification of the public, let him endeavor to make the result apparent for which he ]3rospected ; let him tell the tale, unfold the particu- lars, and inculcate the lesson with the pertinence and force which best befit the character of his undertak- ing; and let him show his essential excellence pre- cisely where the public has the most right to expect and desire it. HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS. Some of my friends think that I do scant justice to co-operative methods of historical work. Perhaps they have misapprehended my meaning. The main object of my former essay ^ was to oppose to all boasted advantages of new and monopolizing plans of literary labor — of capitalized scholarship, if I may be allowed such expression — the immense synthetic power of which the single trained and healthy scholar is capable who pursues his own consistent course of literary production with diligence and constancy. To a generation intent upon vast undertakings, and in all departments of industry setting so much store by organized co-operation and so little by individual achievement, I have dared to plead something for the individual. The illustrations of what an average life, rightly and systematically conducted, may accom- plish with the pen, are, indeed, easily multiplied. Inventive writers stand necessarily apart ; and where invention and learning happily combine, the accumu- lated written expression of a single human brain may prove prodigious. Bring together, if you will, the manuscripts of some illustrious preacher, journalist, public officer, or business director, accumulated in chronological mass at his decease, and the prolific results are amazing. 1 See preceding paper. HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS. 49 In the realm of intellectual thought and study, what achievement worthy of a lifetime should be thought impossible, if we regard fairly, as individuals, our average limitation ; if we curb the desire of selfish aggrandizement, content to begin where others have left off, and to end where others still may follow? As for the individual task well in hand, one accom- plishment leads to another, and the lesser develop- ment opens to view the greater. Habit and experience smooth out the earlier difficulties, and by a little arith- metic despondency may be corrected. For that which looms up so formidable prospectively to the imagina- tion is readily built when you figure out that just so much labor and so much progress from day to day for a given number of years will bring you to the finish. But I am far from meaning to disparage those wider possibilities of literary usefulness which the emploj-ment of co-operative or subordinate labor may afford. Especiall}^ valuable must be such labor in the collection and classified array of solid facts. The more concrete and simple those facts and the clearer the general scope of the unified undertaking the better can the task be apportioned. For some com- prehensive dictionary, cyclopedia, or catalogue, for instance, combined labor is essential; nor is a news- paper or magazine otherwise made readable, where the popular taste demands selection and variety. A labor-saving contrivance is needed in the one instance ; in the other a feast for various appetites. But for history or biography, and where facts themselves are found complex and scientific deduction inappropriate, — and where, too, characterization, consistent sum- mary, and social application must find a place, — the reader's continuous interest can only be engaged by 4 50 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. the closest unity of design. And so, too, should it be said, wherever any one tells a story. Co-ordinate work finds here a closer en\ironment, and if not laid off by eras or spaces of narration can scarcely be laid off well at all. In poetry and fiction you are content with the product of one creator; one ^i\'id mind illuminates and instructs. ^NlidAvay, it seems to me, between the collector of facts and the imaginative writer stands tlie historian; like the prophet in the valley of dry bones who gathers the fragments of dead men together and makes them live again. His mental equipment is not complete if he is a collector alone, nor if he is a narrator alone. The molten mass should flow from his own heated crucible into the moidds he makes for it. To waive for a moment the question of co-ordi- nate aid, a capable historian may and ought to know how to use much subordinate assistance to advantage. There is the drudgery of the amanuen- sis, of the secretary, of our modern type-writer, of copinng out compositions for the press, and of re^^is- ing proofs. Passages which the responsible author has marked in other books may be thus drawn off ; parallel statements collated, citations -v^Titten out. So, too, under one's judicious super%-ision, reference lists or an index may be compiled, statistics tabulated, and explorations made into newspapers and bulky public documents for special statements, facts simple in themselves or readily verified, which laborious search can alone reveal. After considerable experi- ence one may train this clerical subordinate into an intelKgent hunter for special material, or teach him to make good briefs and abstracts, and in various ways save wearisome details to his employer. But the scenting of the game is one thing and bringing HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS. 51 down and bagging it is quite another. All such secondary assistance — for I speak not yet of scholars and experts competent to co-operate — must be of moderate scope, and a proper training takes time. The mind that can appropriate and apply such labors must have wrought out its OA\ai broad experience, and carried constantly its consecutive plans. Like senior counsel in a case, like the Attorney-Gen- eral with a "de^dl," or the judge whose logical processes are aided by the precedents which some secretary has arranged for his inspection, our present investigator, knowing better than to estimate the weight of authorities by the weight of books, applies his own sense and discrimination to all testimony thus brought before 'him, making sure that it has been sought in the right quarters and rightly gathered. His own mind has been trained to conduct dry inves- tigation and connect results by quicker divination than any subordinate can apply for him. But now to speak of historical monographs, — a species of publication to which I have repeatedly alluded, and never without respect and commendation. Here we have treatises to consult which have been thought worth printing, and for whose accuracy in each instance some trained scholar vouches over his personal signature. Such studies deserve more cre- dence than the gathered pile of some unknown clerk whose chief aim in life may have been to earn his daily pittance. For the monograph, be it brief or extended, purports to supply the results of an expert investigation into some recondite topic ; and its credi- bility acquires weight from the circumstance that the person who prepared it was one of our own craft, of liberal attainments, who worked presumably under the strongest inducement to be accurate. He seeks 52 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. scholarly reputation; and the higher his reputation already, the more confidence, if he be unbiassed, do we incline to give him. Special investigations of tliis kind, for which there is always an ample field in the study of social institutions, I have elsewhere likened to that of an auditor or master of chancery, in legal practice, whom a court will appoint for its own con- venience, to take testimony on complicated details of fact and submit his report. This auditor or master is no common citizen, di'afted into the service casually as men are drawn for a jury, but an honored member of the bar worthy in that particular case to have sat upon the bench or served as counsel. Nor, with even such high assurance of his capacity and fidelity, is his report (which is a sort of monograph) taken for more than it is worth. It is 'prima facie, evidence of conclusions on a particular branch of the case and no more. The tribunal has still to survey the ampler field of controversy, and finally to adjudicate upon the general merits of the whole cause where this investigation may have disposed of a particular. I hail the auspicious efforts of those higher Uni- versity instructors who are busily training young men of the present generation to become experts and co- laborers in the grand universal study of the past ; who organize and send forth new exploring expeditions to those hidden sources of human history where rich treasures of fact have long lain buried. And as a marked triumph of such new instruction the de- cision of our Federal Supreme Court, last year, in the income tax case, serves for illustration, where, by the virtual admission of its grave majority, a reversal of past precedents was due, most of all to an exhaust- ive historical presentation, for the first time, of those essential conditions under which the State resoui'ces HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS. 53 of taxation, at first exclusive, were bestowed in 1787-89 upon the new and more perfect Union. ^ Why American scholarship has done little in its earlier growth, for such leacUng investigations, is obvious. Americans, until thirty years ago, had but little leisure or money to waste upon books and pursuits unremunerative in cash. A liberal college education went almost exclusively to the mental equipment of young men for one of the three grand professions or for mercantile pursuits. General graduate studies were not encouraged in this country to any great extent. Hence history was taught at our higher institutions, not to train men to habits of individual research, but rather so as to memorize past events and hang great examples round the cham- bers of the mind on the pegs of chronology. As for historical productions, moreover, whatever literary market might exist was confined to the narratives of heroic prowess or text-book abridgments for the com- mon schools. Monographs, in such an age, if pre- pared at all, were but the chance diversion of men otherwise actively employed, or the orator's staple for an occasional address. Patriotism or family pride might be stirred on some choice anniversary, but the college educator gave no great impulse to solid study in the historical direction nor to a combination of critical results. We had two or three grand histo- rians, but they were stranded men of ample fortune. Even learned societies found not readily their mission in those days. How often, still, does that brief epitome of ephemeral facts, prepared like a school- boy's composition, serve as the prelude to some general chat or a more solid hot supi^er! In the 1 Pollock V. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 U. S. 601 (May, 1895J; Chief Justice Fuller's opiuiou. 54 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. publication of monographs, or better still, in a syste- matic effort to collect and print rare letters and manuscripts, a growing field has been found for associations which bring congenial men together in State or local organization, whose hobby otherwise is genealogical lore, or the biography of deceased members. And more useful still for future promise, is that systematic training of critical investigators which our highest Universities are of late developing. It was the Johns Hopkins University, scarce twenty years old, which first adapted the Heidelberg his- torical methods to American use under its munificent endowment; and now, with splendid equipments of their own, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and other leading institutions of the land extend like facilities for post-graduate instruction. Under such admirable education a race of native investigators, I trust, is growing up, w^hose enthusi- asm, if not rewarded as it deserves, with the highest trusts of political office, will yet impress upon our local communities convincingly how public affairs ought to be administered. They will strengthen the cause of good government on the people's side and rule at the polls by disseminating correct ideas and information. Their combined research will be directed to comparative facts which illustrate domestic, busi- ness, and social manners and customs, legal and political institutions. For the Freeman apothegm ^ — though perhaps embodying the truth without the whole truth — opens regular search in the right direction. As a further result of this new systematic training, we may look for a better classification, a more thor- ough gathering of archives and private papers which 1 " History is past politics ; politics is present history." HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS. 55 evidence great events. The indexing of documents in our American State Department is a step taken in the right direction ; and wortliy of all commendation is the fresh editorial work which has lately begun upon the hoarded correspondence of our earliest Presidents. To turn on the fullest light becomes the prevalent historic disposition and the true one, avoid- ing, nevertheless, as we ought, the scandalous inva- sion of private life and of matters unessential to public and popular development. Our American Congress has made its own noble benefaction to history by throA^dng open for universal inspection the whole record of our late Civil War, Union and Con- federate, in the nation's possession, — a monument in multiplied print, unparalleled probably in the world's exj)erience, to the modern power of public opinion. Scholars have in this voluminous testimony the right materials upon which to base a military narrative of events while yet the public judgment is impressible ; and the danger once imminent that the battles and leaders of the Civil War would be re- created from the false, contradictory, and slipshod statements of casual survivors has been averted as it ought to be. For — let alone the differing bias of the concurrent and the retrospect, the personal dispo- sition to shift and justify where circumstances have changed and one's cause was lost, the boastful swell that the swaggerer takes on when rivals and cross- examiners are dead — a sufficient warning against implicit reliance on such testimony may be found in the honest lapses of memory alone. On this point let me mention my own experience. My part in the Civil War was humble enough, but my disposition to recite what I had seen as honest as any man's. Details of the picture which youthful memory engraved o6 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. gradually on my mind were materially changed, when a diary which I had carried on my person through a whole campaign disappeared from among my papers and turned up again for inspection some twenty years later. For no testimony so surely and so often confounds the subsequent tale of the same witness as his contemporaneous. A needful stimulus has been given to the produc- tion of monographs by the increased means of placing them generously before the public. Formerly a rich man only, or a few interested subscribers, Avould bear the cost of printing; for publishers saw no profit in such essays, and see none still, while the periodicals admitted them but rarely. But latterly our learned societies have furnished printed collections of their own, and still more recently our foremost Universi- ties. The American Historical Association and the American Historical Review are among the latest hopeful agencies in this useful direction, and with especial reference to national exploration. Two things seem highly desirable for the widest usefulness of such critical and co-operative labors : one, that the collection of our monographs be intelligently directed to the most obvious wants of the age; another, that a reference index, well classified and arranged, and kept up to date, shall direct the consulting scholar for any topic or period to such monograph literature as may assist his search for information. Yet, after all, however valuable the writing of monographs may become, however essential to the elucidation of historical truth in the by-places, we should not overestimate its practical importance, nor, as it seems to me, expect such essays to supplant that more comprehensive survey and description of the past which historians have hitherto considered HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS. 57 their natural task. For the writer of a historical monograph is the historian in his worksho]3, or, if we prefer, the historian's own skilled assistant, whose product must enter into the tissues of his own task like all other nutritious substances. Often is the conductor of a comprehensive narrative led into these recondite channels or feeders which he pursues at leisure and describes in monographs of his own. I still recall the analogy of that complicated suit in chancery which one directing tribunal expects to work to final results notwithstanding the incidental issues of fact which may have been put out for a finding. There is no royal road to capacious learn- ing, still less to capacious wisdom. Monographs serve the special effort, just like a magazine article. The writer of a monograph may elaborate farther. Many monographs may make a narrative of events; but not unless they are consecutive, in just accordance with a master-plan, and with the thread held fast by a master. The more persistent and systematic our exploit into realities, the broader becomes the range of our knowledge and experience, and the better is one qualified to write of human life, past or present, in its amplest relation. Specialized investigation, taken by itself, is like boring for a well, and the deeper we dig the closer we find our environment; we may reach a new water-spring far below, but the starry sky al)0ve us is but a small disk in sight, while the topography of the earth's vast surface about our entrance-place has vanished. Some ampler surveyor, some intelligence more comprehensive, must direct these literary divers, or at least apply what they have dipped out in discreet combination. The hidden treasures brought thus to light must be coined into money and made to circulate. Culture finds little 58 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. to attract, little artistic delight, in a bare wilderness perforated with the pickaxe. Who is this director of research, this medium for moral lessons, this guide of posterity, but the true historian, whose own wide range of philosophy and study entitles him to the confidence of the public? From the literary standpoint alone we find that the books describing liuman life and in^v ntion which influence us the most, which are the most readable, are, on the whole, of individual fruition and not co-operative ; for though each vivacious intellect that finds admirers will find censors as well, the public seeks still, as it has al- ways sought, its prime inspiration from single minds of a superior cast capable of much continuity and impressive presentation. This you cannot look for in works where different writers, differently brought up, and with a different growth of ideas, strive to give you their composite thought. A dictionary or gazetteer for ready reference may be thus constructed, but not a narrative. Different eras for treatment may of course be apportioned among different narra- tors ; for this is merely to subdivide, and the story or history ' remains what it always was, an unfinished tale. Concrete facts, in a word, bottom facts, are not enough to make books readable ; there must be a dignified marshalling of matter, pictorial grouping, effective massing, vivid characterization and descrip- tion, a sound political and social philosophy. In preparing materials for any extensive exposition of history one should first draw up carefully a rough sketch of the main epochs or topics to be embraced. It is well, I think, to keep some handy blank-book for such a sketch ; and in preparing the classified plan to mark each running chapter or subdivision which one proposes to occupy by some arbitrary sign, such HISTORICAL MONOGRAPHS. 59 as a letter of the alphabet. This same blank-book may also contain a list of the anthorities which the writer has examined or means to examine under each topic. Slips, note-sheets, and large paper, distin- guished each in an upper corner by the arbitrary sign of its topic, such as I have suggested, can then be used, as convenience may serve, for the notes, cita- tions or abstracts, adduced in the course> of one's pre- paratory study ; and by large envelopes for the slips, rubber bands or pins to connect the sheets, and pack- ages or portfolios to keep these alphabetical topics apart, an author's amplest materials become easily arranged for special review and comparison when active composition begms. As for secondary narra- tives fit for basing one's own story upon, a rapid worker may, by keeping several such books open before him at parallel pages, comjDose as he writes, and so economize his time and labo^.. Where your materials first collected have since been condensed and digested, and one draft of composition follows another, writing paper of different color or quality may serve to distinguish the revised from the unre- vised portion. At all events, one should before com- posing make careful plans for his book and fix upon a rough outline, however much he may change the plan in details as his book progresses; for brain-work systematically applied is indispensable to all long- sustained productive effort. HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. Our common law, wliieh is not given to flattery, pays a delicate compliment to writei-s of liistoi}-, in permitting their works to be cited in court with something of the autlienticits* of official documents. This privilege, which books of art and science have not yet attained, and books of speculation never can, should confu-m us in the conviction that the truth of history is above everything else what historians should strive after; that the accurate and diligent presentation of past events, of past public facts, of past manners and customs, must constitute after all the basis of their permanent reno\\'n and usefidness. Opinions change from age to age ; but facts well interpreted once are interpreted forever. Hence the deductions, the moral lessons of history, one should hold subordinate to a candid, conscientious, and cour- ageous exploration for the truth and the whole truth ; all hypotheses should be kept under curb : the -^Titer's imagination ought to be like that of a painter whose model is kept before his eyes. "V\'e should not seek unduly to stir the passions of our readers, nor to color artfidly for effect ; it is enough if we can interest and gain their spnpathy. Fancy, theorizing, false ideals, and false inferences have no place in such sober efforts ; conjecture should not supplement study, nor Eead before the American Historical Association, at Washington, December 27, 1S95. HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 61 ought the fagots of study to be piled, as fuel for that ignis fatuus., the philosophy of history. For the realm of the historian is the actual, and his art should be to reproduce life's panorama. Not only, then, does eveiy historical writer who goes into print owe it to the public to be as accurate as possible from the commencement, but errors or omissions of fact and misleading deductions which he afterwards discovers should be promptly and heroic- ally corrected. He cannot afford to set up for a guide, and remain to the end a false one. That which he has once published ought to be published under his tacit pledge to make afterwards all needful correction ; and he may fairly ask to be judged by his work only as he finally leaves it. There should be vision and revision. Not a single monograph which clears up minor particulars, where he had not per- sonally searched, should be wasted upon his notice ; not a criticism by one competent to correct, however harshly and unfeelingly expressed. It is better, of course, to be wholly right at first; but that is not easy. Knowledge which in a measure we must all of us gain at second-hand cannot be infallible j and the best we may promise is, to purpose right and maintain that purpose. So positive is it, as Cicero has elo- quently stated the maxim, that each historian should dare to say whatever is true and fear to record a falsehood. Nor can we, I think, pay the common law a better compliment in return for its flattering confidence, than to adapt to our o^^ti use for investigation some of its familiar rules and methods for the right elicit- ing of truth from testimon3\ Historical scholars are investigators ; and they should be trained to investi- gate, — to weigh and measure together the authori- 62 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. ties, and not merely to collate and cite them. We relax, of course, as we must, that rigid distrust which the old common law showed in excluding from the witness-stand all interested parties. We adopt that better rule of modern tribunals which hears all testi- mony founded upon direct knowledge of the matter at issue, applying a strict scrutiny, however, and a searching cross-examination to each individual wit- ness. We ask his means of knowledge, his character for truth and veracity, the bias or prejudice under which he testifies. We reconcile contradictions, bal- ance probabilities, consider presumptions and the burden of proof, compare and adjudicate. What is deliberately written down we prefer for exactness to the oral ; primary authorities to secondary ; what one admits against himself to what it suits him to declare ; testimony solemnly given under oath, or upon the death-bed, to the careless and casual utterances of every- day life ; that which is corroborated to that which is unsupported or denied ; the probable to the improbable. Whatever one says when the event is recent, we trust sooner than that which he says far subsequent, in reliance upon a too treacherous memory ; and for ourselves we choose, wherever we may apply it, the observation of our own immediate senses to that hearsay, upon which, in spite of himself, each investi- gator of the past, each historian or chronicler, must so greatly rest. The scholarship, then, and the reputed honesty of every writer whose works we are to study, become of prime consequence in judging of his credibility ; and so, too, though perhaps in a less degree, the conscious or unconscious bias under which he wrote. Patriot- ism itself gives to each loyal citizen a bias or preju- dicial direction; and this is sure to affect historical HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 63 narrative, since one does not easily separate his task from the lesson he has in view. This bias becomes very strong where one's country or State was a bel- hgerent, or his immediate fellow-citizens engaged in civil war. The prepossessions of religion and politics have also an immense influence. You do not expect a Macaulay to do entire justice to Tories, nor an Alison to Frenchmen, nor a Lingard to Protestants and the English Reformation, nor a Gibbon to the Christian religion. Our American school histories glorify without stint the heroes of 1776 and the American Revolution • over the causes and course of our latest civil strife they become politic enough. What American youth, however, is trained to apolo- gize for the King and Parliament that strove patrioti- cally to maintain the integrity of British dominion, or to do honor to our colonial loyalists who remained loyal ? One of the most valuable contributions to American history, of recent years, embraces a narra- tive of the Mexican War as the Mexicans wrote it. Will the time ever come, in the advance of race edu- cation, when the negro or the red man may compose a history of this continent and its civilization from the standpoint of his o^vn race experience? Impartial treatment, and the effort to deal fairly by all races and all nations and all men, are qualities praiseworthy in any -writer ; yet we must confess that a cold and colorless narration fails of effect, and that each one of us dearly desires the applause of his own countrymen and constituency. There are special risks to be run, therefore, when writing of times and conten- tions which have not yet cooled down and solidified, so to speak ; and here is it that they have the advantage as narrators, who, like the British Gibbon and Arnold, and perhaps our own Prescott and Motley, devote 64 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. their literary skill and scholarship) to describing some period of the distant past, and to countries and civili- zations only remotely connected with their own. Or if, like Freeman of the one country and Parkman of the other, or like Guizot of France and the great in- vestigators of modern Germany, they search into the institutions of their own native land, they stake out some period for their toil far enough back to admit of a passionless perspective. And yet, after all, the vivid portrayers of their own times and countries have hitherto enjoyed the surest posthumous confidence, es^^ecially when, like Herodotus, Thucydides, Xeno- phon, or Ctesar, the writer describes scenes and events of which he has personally partaken. In biography, again, where history is seen teaching by example, we find an obvious bias of the writer to ascribe all the influence possible to the hero of his tale, — to make him, if he can, the radiator of events, the centre and sun of the system, round which all other luminaries of his age revolved. The official biographer, more especially, to whom family papers are confided, is apt to be one of the family seeking to keep up the ancestral renown, or some family friend trusted for the pious duty ; and hence the laudatory strain, the panegyric, the effort to revivify the dead man's friends and to slay his slain, that we not un- frequently witness in such narratives, with amiable emotion, but withal a little sceptical. More candor, certainly, we look for in a family biography than in an epitaph or a funeral oration ; but we should be disappointed enough not to find from such a biogra- pher the strongest defence of his hero, as to all con- troverted points of his career where public opinion had been in suspense or misinformed ; and we should expect, moreover, a fair peep into the private port- HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 65 folio for family letters and confidences, which histoiy would feel free to appropriate in its own way as its own authentic material, regardless of the family in- junction. All filial prepossessions, all that personal partiality which close intimacy exacts as its tribute, let us treat with reverence, provided we are left to estimate for ourselves and to supply the corrective that justice to others may demand. For my part, I do not envy the man who is too callous to become intimate at all ; who can explore a kindred human heart as though he held a surgical instrument in his hand; who can enter the recesses of a noble soul, whatever its human shortcomings, without one throb of emotion. Love, compassion, need not, of course, be that emotion in every instance ; there is the earnestness of sympath}^ in one biographer, and the earnestness of antipathy in another. Let us, however, have earnestness ; for the writer, historian, or biog- rapher to be most distrusted, is he, in my opinion, who gains no earnestness at all from his subject, but remains wholly neutral, negative, and external, — critical, quizzical, or cjaiical, as the mood may move him, — or extending the arm of judicial patronage, like some self-chosen Rhadamanthus who practises before the looking-glass. There is still another bias to which all literary authorship is peculiarly liable, now that our great purchasing public supplants the influential patron to whom a book was formerly dedicated. I mean that of pampering, for the sake of immediate circulation and profit, instead of writing out what one thinks at heart, and supplying to those who seek knowledge the strong meat of correct information. So immense has become the power of fiction in the community of late, that facts themselves are too readily accepted 5 66 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. with a fictitious embellishment ; and readers, even of the more solid books, will, many of them, ask chiefly to be amused or excited, and not to have their own complacency disturbed. Publishers often seek what is i)opular, what will sell readiest and coin money; and their mercenary estimates may distort the views of an author, so as to hinder him from remaining constant to his best ideals, God forbid that an author should not make himself interesting if he can, or write books that are salable ; but the higher grade of scholarship will refuse to suppress or misrepresent for the sake of popularity, or to make tlie unripe fruits of study look tempting by applying the high polish of a brilliant style. He will not degenerate from historian into a goss>ip, nor like a gossip shift his views of men and measures to suit his trivialities. Here let us distinguish, as the law of evidence bids us, between the two great classes of authorities offered in testimony, — the primary and the secondary. No one should investigate into historical facts, without this fundamental distinction well borne in mind. Under primar}^ authorities we comprehend, of course, all public records and documents, official reports, every original source of information ; and we may fairly refer to the same head for ourselves the private and contemporaneous statements and correspondence of those who were actors or eye-witnesses in the events or experiences which they describe ; and, furthermore, though "\vith cautious reserve, reports of the contem- porary press, from contemporary observation. Sec- ondary as to classification, and quite subordinate and subsidiary to all this, let us reckon newspaper com- ment and generalization, and the literary remnants, materials, and memoranda of those Avho simply relate what others have told them. All such materials are HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 67 but secondary; and so, necessarily, are those other narratives, however trustworthy, which we are com- pelled to consult, more or less, under an}'^ circum- stances, because primary evidence is not accessible, or our own power and opportunity for research are limited. Works of travel afford much coloring matter for histoiy ; but only so far as the traveller tells what he saw with his own eyes. The very book we toil upon with pains and put forth, Avhatever our own primary sources of information, becomes but second- ary proof to our readers, so far as we have not stated facts as eye-witnesses. Hence, in historical studies, you may separate quotations from the context for trustworthy matter, or accord to the same writer more credence in one connection than in another. Quota- tions may be verified ; and with the help of citations we may go over the whole original ground for our- selves, though we are not likely to do so. Writers themselves like to be trusted ; they cannot turn the processes of their own investigation inside out, nor display to the reader all the testimony which the res gestce afforded them. Time enters into the essence of all human labor ; and one would hardly be a laborer himself if he did not hope to save labor to others. Primary evidence, then, under some such classifica- tion as I have endeavored to indicate, should in all cases be preferred by the investigator to secondary, wherever available ; for in spite of what literary indo- lence may claim to the contrary, you gain thus not only greater moral satisfaction, but often an economy of time besides. You are saved a comparison of col- lateral statements with the added danger of restating errors. Fill your pitcher at the fountain-head and you need not scoop and scrape further down among a 68 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. hundred rills. Seek original records, original reports, original letters, original documents, or the authentic publication of them, — not content with mere extracts or abstracts which others have made, — and you will be often surprised to iind how some suggestive phrase or turn of expression, which did not attiact the writer who I'ead the whole instrument before you, — since his standpoint was a different one, — will flash out from the dull verbiage with a new and forcible appli- cation. For the standpoint of the j^resent does not coincide with that of former times, nor does the array of facts that immediately interests, or the desired application of past experience to present action, cease to vary with varying eras. How different must be the method of historical research among primary documents which illustrate our present annals from those of earlier centuries ! Far behind us lie the chronicles, the musty archives, the rare manuscripts of those feudal governments which flourished when printing was unknown and literary appliances were rude. We live in the parting radiance of a great century of popular development, looking towards the horizon of a new, and, as we hope, a greater one. Government, once conducted in secret councils, now pursues its routine out-of-doors, observed of all men, until the official evidence of the times becomes an overwhelming mass. Public documents are iirinted, multiplied, scattered broadcast from the press, so that you may burn or make pulp of the share which falls to your own use, and yet leave copies behind in superabundance for the information of posterity. Current literature, current journalism, current read- ing matter, good and bad, swell the stores elsewhere accumulating for that ideal personage, the future historian ; besides those official publications. State and HISTORICAL TESTIMONY. 69 national, executive, legislative, and judicial, which overflow the huge public basins built to hold them. On yonder hill ^ legislation, one department of gov- ernment alone, has stretched far its marble wings northward and southward, and at length added great catacombs down deep underneath the foundation walls of its temple, to hold the buried treasures of Congressional committee-rooms. There rest in a common tomb the corpses of bills safely delivered and of bills still-born, shrouded petitions, and the reports upon petitions ; this immense mass displaying for posterity's information the whole embryo process of legislation, — all the minutire, in short, that politi- cal science might ever wish hereafter to exhume, except, indeed, the mysterious lobbying and log-roll- ing that may have so often influenced their delicate creation. To historically reconstruct the earlier cen- turies, it might be enough to compare the meagre secondary authorities extant, or through official favor gain access to lean archives mysteriously locked ; but to reconstruct this nineteenth century you must thrash out the golden grains from storehouses already crammed with chaff, whose doors stand open. Besides that keenly discriminating scent for the useful among old rubbish, our future historian will need, like us earlier brethren of the craft, habits of careful comparison as to whatever materials, whatever evidence, he admits into his case, — not mingling primary and secondary proof indiscriminately, as though of equal value ; not taking any witness upon his ipse dixit., apart from his means of knowledge, his probable bias, and his general worthiness of credence ; not deciding issues by numerical count of the authori- ties, like that old Dutch judge who summed up in 1 Capitol Hill, "Washington, D. C, where this paper was read. 70 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. favor of the litigant producing the greater number of persons on the stand; not interpreting a great constitutional document, as some would interpret Shakespeare, so as to make it the text of their own fanciful inspiration; but reading all authors, all testimony, in the light of the age in which they existed, and illuminating the whole pathway of past events with the fullest lustre of surrounding- circumstances. Furthermore, on weighing and determining where witnesses contradict, as they often must, and the truth of events is not clear, our scholar will consider the presumptions proper in each case ; he will not reject that which has passed into established belief, for the sake of novel and ingenious estimates, without putting the burden of proof where it belongs, and taking the new proof for simply what it is worth. Nor will he disdain that popular verdict, always deliberately and upon good evidence rendered, and always presumptively correct, though liable of course to final reversal, which is known as the judgment of history. Some important element in the formation of a country's earlier civilization, or some individual influence, may have been overlooked or too lightly regarded, in posterity's estimate ; happy, then, is the historical scholar who can produce new testimony, and set opinion right; but he asks more than the law of presumptive evidence will grant him, when he undertakes, on the strength of that testimony aided only by conjecture, to set the past judgment of his- tory wholly aside, and reconstruct past civilization upon liis new theory, as though the burden of proof did not rest still upon his own shoulders. HISTORICAL STYLE, I DOUBT whether I ought to discourse at all upon this particular topic. There are various critics for whose literary opinions I cherish high respect, who have not scrupled to berate me as one of bad taste in historical expression. Even when they have come to acknowledge that there is some force in the new materials brought to light in my five volumes, and that my work has after all some merit in point of scholarship, they still maintain their disapprobation of its rough, harsh, and "swashbuckling" style. "I cannot get over your facts," writes very frankly one New England professor, whose critical acumen is reputed so great that I am almost tempted to believe him ; " but 1 must still say that I think your style very inelegant." And yet there are other critics, equally competent, who have gone out of their way to commend this same historical composition as warm, vivid in its coloring, lucid, epigrammatic, and "intensely interesting;" which is praise enough for any man. And years ago the present author was pronounced in a leading law periodical " the best law-writer of our day in point of style." All these are the unsought comments of personal strangers to myself, and not my own. I conclude, therefore, that men of good critical acquire- ments differ among themselves in their estimates of what should constitute a meritorious style. This, I 72 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. imagine, is partly clue to the fact that some whose ordained function it is to criticise and not perform, set up an ideal of all-round perfection that neither they themselves could have attained nor any other man who ever lived ; but more still I ascribe it to that difference in prepossessions and affinity with which they encounter the particular book and its subject- matter, and hence to a differing capacity for sympathy with the writer. If what an author has written reaches his reader's heart, moves him to better thought and action, and makes the responsive chord of patriot- ism beat quickly, all close analysis of style merges in the immediate effect produced. Some critics have warm feelings, others are cold, negative, unresponsive, even where their opinions are much alike ; some flatter the well-assured only, others wish to extend a help- ing hand to new-comers. "Live and let live" is a good reply for all literar}^ writers to make to their critics. The patient fruit of twenty years' thought and study, as the sage ]\Iontesquieu reminds us, is not to be estimated lightly nor dismissed with a cursory glance. Let us recall modestly the instance of ]\Lacaulay, who, after his splendid success and popularity, looked over the volumes he had written, and, owning their deficiencies in many respects, took final courage in the thought that he might after all have written much worse, and at all events had done something with his pen for the advancement of learning. In recalling a former apology for my literary short- comings,^ I am pleased to find that Gibbon, the writer of history whom I most admire, made his extensive work liis own original product, sending his own written copy to the press, as his memoirs inform us, ^ See paper on "Literary Industries." HISTORICAL STYLE. 73 without external aid or suggestion. Yet external aid may improve particular expressions; Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence is in point, which critical debate in Congress modified into a model document fit for immortality. High-sounding phrases, such as a fervid mind works out in its lonely chamber when excited with its subject, need often to be pruned. But for all this the best of revisers in the long run is the writer himself; and to write his- tory well requires, as Jefferson himself has observed so fitly, "a whole life of observation, of inquiry, of labor and correction." A few observations on this same subject of his- torical style I would ask leave to offer as the result of my own matured reflection. First of all, an author's style should be the image of himself, and if it exposes him instead as the copyist of other minds, it must fail of impressiveness. A literary writer need not be a genius, but he should be genuine ; he should be sincere and true to his preconceived purpose ; he should put forward his stock of erudition and influ- ence, as one who thinks for himself, judges for him- self, seeks the truth, and writes accordingl}^ Carlyle was not perhaps a historian in his breadth of judg- ment, but he wrote on historical subjects with picto- rial skill ; and though rough and impetuous in style, exaggerated and at times almost hysterical, he deliv- ered his message as one who felt the Deity within, and after his own characteristic method was pro- foundly effective. He wrote in rugged earnest, and the world believed him honest. Emerson, on the other hand, a contemporary and friend, who harmon- ized with Carlyle in many ways, was in concrete expression the antipodes. The calm mood of the Greek philosopher suited his own more tranquil con- 74 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. tact with life ; he equally was in earnest and true to himself 5 hut his method was to string pearls of thought together in apothegms. Was tliis smooth composition in a literary style? Yet many writers may well have envied Emerson's literary influence. Among American statesmen famed for their mastery of expression, the clear and peremptory diction of Hamilton in his correspondence stands in marked contrast with Jefferson's graceful and philanthropic flow; Calhoun and Webster could no more have exchanged in debate their respective methods of oratory than their political views or their strikingly different physical frames. Yet each and all of these men, and many more who might readily be men- tioned for illustration, found scope for a wide popular impression because the style of each was appropriate to the individual and characterized him ; not one of them was weak enough to model himself after a contemporary. Next, to borrow the advice of our admirable Prescott, whose literary taste was exquisite, one should chiefly "be engrossed with the thought and not with the fashion of expressing it." For the chief thing after all in effective writing is to put clearly the idea intended. Private and familiar letters often exceed in interest the formal ones more sedulously composed, because there is more of a j)erson's plain self in them, and moreover a pith and directness that shows the writer to be intent upon imparting what he has to say. And the same holds true of familiar conversation with those you know intimately enough to speak as the heart prompts you. Contrast, for instance, as printed in the same volumes, the confi- dential family letters of our second President with his ceremonious official responses which exchanged lofty HISTORICAL STYLE. 75 platitudes; and yet John Adams was a forcible Avxiter. We might compare many a scholar's chance notes jotted down, while he was warmly pursuing his facts, with the stately composition he afterwards elaborated for the printer, and we should see that the preparatory work, however hasty, was often in point of readableness superior because he was not engrossed with the expression. "Tacitus," once remarked Dr. Johnson, "seems rather to have made notes for an historical work than to have written a history; " but for all that, among the world's historians Tacitus ranks vni\\ the greatest; and deservedly so, assuming that his notes were accurate. It has been said of some great English statesman whose style was pellucid and forcible — I think it was Cobden — tliat he would formulate carefully the sub- stance of what he had to express and then express it in the first words that occurred to him. Many a bright man tells well the tale of his own personal adventure, since he has only to renew his sensations and describe them with effect, whereas to throw one's self into another's sensations and reproduce them well requires a certain sympathetic creativeness. In either case one should be intent upon the symptoms and due sequence and keep to his narrative. Clear thinking and clear expression go naturally together. But all this we may fairly qualify by observing further that expression, to be adequate, requires much training, like skill in any physical pursuit. For the choice and command of language, as Gibbon well tells us, is the fruit of exercise. There is no perfection in nature without sldll. In art, not chance, lies true ease in writing, as the poet says; by which I understand is meant that art which has attained to something of the perfection of a second 76 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. nature. The musician, the dancer, the gymnast, the actor, the consummate orator, moves us deeply because he strains after nothing, but in his higher plane seems perfectly natural ; his grace, his strength, his power to interpret and apply, is but the superior endowment which incessant training has made supreme. The man who guides you among the high mountain summits has lived and lingered among them most of his life. Compare Shakespeare's earlier and later plays and you will see how the imagination, at first so labored in its expression, embodied its rich ideas in his prime as freely as the pen could move. Daniel Webster's compacted power of statement, simple as it seems, was the result of long effort and experience ; and with all Clay's impassioned imagery which appealed so strongly to the heart, we cannot doubt that, sponta- neous as he appeared, he was a most carefully trained orator. Public speaking and the writing of public history are closely allied ; and if in either pursuit the utterance finds real dignity, it is invariably because study and sustained effort have lifted one to a higher plane of intellectual life, so that in his greatest mood grandeur of expression comes from grandeur of feeling. Elegant extracts, quotations kept in a castor to be peppered over one's composition so as to give an affected spice of learning and loftiness, I hold in little estimation. But to feel the stir in your soul of the noble passages remembered which others have written is quite another matter. It is the memory of such passages, of bosom-lines, of past fables or fancies, which well up in the thoughts while one is writing, and whose verification may be left for another time, that may well mingle with his own composition. Burke for a prose writer, jNIilton for a poet, have HISTORICAL STYLE. 11 formulated grand and inspiring ideas and images that may well lie slumbering in your recollection until the glow of solitary writing calls them from the inner chamber of the brain. What critic but a stupid one would take Webster to task for having paraphrased "Paradise Lost" in so many of his most eloquent passages, instead of reciting by lengthy verse ? That great master of speech knew that eloquence lay in impetuous imagery and not in the display of pedantry ; hence when he quoted at all it was rather by preg- nant phrase or allusion than by rote. We writers, knowing wherein our literary work shall consist, may gain skill likewise by the study and absorption of master composers, master passages, which stir us to our best. And in perfecting our own individual style of literary composition let us not only observe the idioms, the construction of sentences, the general arrangement, in compositions which other authors have made effective and which affect ourselves, but enrich our own vocabulary besides by figurative and appropriate words and epithets, such as we find in our casual meditation or whenever we are reading-. There is somewhat of a changing fashion in literary style just as there is in dress and architecture. A century ago or more men seeking intellectual culture were so enamoured of the " Spectator " that they would transcribe its essays again and again to acquire that elegant grace of good breeding and classical persiflage which gave the Addisonian school such renown. Dr. ' Johnson set the fashion of pompous and well-balanced sentences, which, though of somewhat ornate and imposing construction, gave doubtless a dignity to high discourse in prose. For a choice English style, appropriate to orations and history, I doubt whether anything will ever prove so truly classical and rich as 78 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. that nearer the simplicity of the Elizabethan age, with which Webster, Irving, and Prescott supplied our literature half a century ago ; though the preva- lent and latest fashion tends rather to pith and a familiar directness of expression, with less wealth of reading and imagery thrown in, and more of the French repartee and sententiousness. Macaulay intro- duced into historical writing an English style pecu- liarly his own which many have admired, — that of the modern reviewer, brilliant, dogmatic, ephemeral in its application, with a vast outpouring of contem- porary detail over the main narrative, and a glittering array of statistics in the background. He has bred many imitators ; as, for instance, in that emphatic " I purpose " of the first paragraph in the introductory cliapter which unfolds the historian's plan to the reader, — a plan, by the way, which he did not live to fully execute. This is a Homeric introduction; and Thucydides (in the third person, however) begins after much the same strain. Such an opening smacks of egotism, as some Avould say ; but perhaps it marlvs rather an effort to dispense with the usual " preface " which other solid writers employ more familiarly for a like purpose. Imitation is always a sign of dependence or imma- turity ; but some writers are so imbued with its sjjirit that they transport their shrine from one object of worship to anotlier; and authors who have formed a good style of their own have been known to spoil it by coming under the captivation of some new master. We should do well to get rid of such subservience and stand on our own pedestal. But when one is about to engage in some great literary task of inven- tion, it may strongly stimulate him to explore the production of some master mind and study its grasp HISTORICAL STYLE. 79 of similar work. Prescott prepared himself for his famous " Conquest of Mexico " by reading other nar- ratives of individual enterprise, — Voltaire's " Charles XII." and Livy's "Hannibal." Dignified reading stirs the blood for dignified composition ; and yet to write well the first chapter of a dignified narrative costs many a futile effort before the will gains domi- nance. Any book meant to be popular needs most of all to be lively and entertaining; but for all that it need not fail of lofty expression when developing the serious drama of governmental life. One should make good use of the concrete; and there is much choice for good taste to exercise among historical material. Look for facts of kindling suggestion, and for such as illustrate most clearly and give at once most vividly a deep insight into the age. It is well for the narrator to strike into some new path; to shape an easy transition from one scene or topic to another, so as not to fatigue the reader by keeping his gaze too constantly in one direction. As to one's final composition for the press, Prescott' s idea is the correct one : that the only rule is to write with freedom and nature, even with occa- sional homeliness of expression, and with such variety in alternating long and short sentences (and para- graphs too, we might add) as may be essential to har- monious effect. With "Ferdinand and Isabella," his first work, this conscientious self-critic was not well satisfied, for he felt that ho had elaborated it too carefully. Indeed, as his biography shows us, he wrote and worked over those two maiden volumes for ten years, and even then felt almost afraid to print until his father told him it would be rank cowardice not to do so. " After all, " as the scholarly Prescott well concludes, " it is not the construction of the sen- 80 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. tence, but the tone of the coloring, which produces the effect. If the sentiment is warm, lively, forcible, the reader will be carried along without much heed to the arrangement of periods, which differs exceed- ingly in different standard writers. Put life into the narrative if you would have it take. Elaborate and artificial fastidiousness in the foim of expression is highly detrimental to this. A book may be made up of perfect sentences and yet the general impression be very imperfect." As an author's habits and experience in composi- tion may be of use to others, let me follow so laudable an example and state my own. We shall admit that a creative and highly imaginative writer, and a poet most of all, must wait for his inspired moments and forge his best work in the heat of some glowing occa- sion. But they whose intellectual occupation requires a study and prolific product should habituate them- selves to continuous and systematic labor of the pen and make inspiration their handmaid; and among such steady producers we may reckon the preacher, the journalist, and the regular historian. Concentra- tion of the faculties, where imagination must be brought into play, with the application of realities, and a full style is of consequence as Avell as a flow- ing one, is gained with difficulty, to be sure ; but habit triumphs in securing it. In my law treatises, which, inclusive of changes in the various editions, cover some six thousand anq)le pages of text and notes, and in whose treatment clearness in the development of principles was of the chief consequence, I have, with rare exceptions in certain paragraphs, sent regu- larl}' my first and only draft to the printer as written out with the running pen, keeping the general plan and proportion of each volume well in view, and feel- HISTORICAL STYLE. 81 ing my own way from one legal doctrine to another, so as to impart knowledge by induction as my own mind comprehended it. The summary of law or general conclusion on any topic followed thus the exposition; and as for the introductory chapter to each volume, so-called, which took a general survey of the field, I usually wrote it last, gathering perti- nent suggestions as the main investigation proceeded. The professional mind intent upon illustrating and tracing out rules and their subtle limitations, as applied by our courts, compares and comments upon the mass of cases, and may leave warmth of coloring to take care of itself, so long as he applies a logical analysis and sound sense and is himself interested. In historical composition, on the other hand, one feels the greater sublimity and scope of the task, in a literary aspect, and having rules less ready at hand to rest upon and the ipse dixit of others, trusts less to his first simple expression. Political maxims, metaphors, images, comparisons, troop forth from the mind into the pen, and obstruct the limpid course of his narra- tive. The first expression needs condensing in such a case even after it is clear. Macaulay himself is recorded as having reduced a day's stretch of writing to a third of its original bulk; and most historical manuscript, I apprehend, will bear a careful revision and compression. I formed early a plan for such historical composition which I recommend to others. After working out the daily task I would hand the manuscript with its rough alterations to my amanuen- sis, to be neatly copied on good paper and spread out on wide lines ready for my final revision. This copy was laid aside, and after some convenient interval of weeks or months, I would turn from rough com- position and devote a good space of time, when full G 82 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. of the particular chapter and in a glow with the sub- ject, to revising a batch of this convenient copy with a free and rapid pen. JManuscript in this final shape was sent to be printed. To print and read proofs of the earlier pages while you are still composing the later ones keeps you fully absorbed and abreast of your main subject, and urges the mind on to harmo- nious completion. One is pleased to find that so much that looked bad in the manuscript beams out neat, concise, and attractive from the printed page. I at least have found this a great encouragement; and yet I admit it is not safe to begin the press-work of a volume while you are composing it, unless your good health and spirits, and leisure too, may be reckoned upon. The hardest thing of all in such responsible compo- sition is to pitch to the right key at the start and sound the dominant chord. Even Gibbon, who is said to have acquired such final ease of expression that he would send his first rough and unaided copy to press, relates that he experimented long before he could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and rhetorical declamation. His first chapter, he tells us, was composed three times and his second twice, — an experience, I dare say, which many later writers of a similar pursuit have repeated. Another habit which he formed, and which I think worthy of all emulation, was that of arranging well in his mind the facts and form of expression before he sat down to the desk. It surely saves much manual labor to think before you take up the pen. At the close of each day's task, and while the mind is still excited, you are likely to discern a clew to the next day's commencement, or some better expression of what you have just written; and in either case you might HISTORICAL STYLE. 83 jot down a memorandum. Rumination on a quiet afternoon's walk will aid you to memorize materials and give them some sort of shape for the next day's pages ; and after a peaceful night's rest such details as you may have scanned or thought over group themselves so fairly that you enter your morning study sufficiently advanced in thought to begin the new day's work intelligently and in a becoming frame of mind. It is better to guide your thoughts thus gently into the right channel than to attempt to force them at command in your study-chair, with pen in hand and eyes rolling idly to seek that spontaneous inspiration which does not descend. There is one thing, however, which it seems to me that every author should observe who hopes to build with success the lofty prose. He must aid the triumph of continuity of thought by keeping con- tinuity itself down to a reasonable span. Whether by pure recreation or by changing the mental move- ments, he should give his brain all the relaxation it regularly needs. Some great historians have risen with the sun and lighted their winter fire while their household slept : and at all events the morning hours which end with noon seem to me decidedly the best for smooth writing, because the mind comes fresh and recuperated to its toil. But whatever hours or time of the day one may prefer, he should fix his routine and hold fast to it. Nor should he under any cir- cumstances give more than three or four consecutive hours of each day to real intellectual composition. For the rest of one's daily course of work, be it longer or shorter, let him examine proof-sheets, attend to his business affairs, study materials or collect and arrange tliem, and keep up his correspond- ence. For those of us mature mortals not of iron 84 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. constitution, a full third of every day belongs to out- of-door exercise, light reading, and social intercourse, and another third to sleep. The mind that moves steadily on, oppressed by no spasms of exertion and no worry, accomplishes far more in the end than that which races recklessly on unchecked and then suc- cumbs to over-effort. And even for our intellectual hours it is well, as my personal experience convinces me, to turn from one mental employment to another; to vary composition with study and note-taking; and to compose, if one may learn to do so, in different places of abode and among different local surround- ings, as where one changes from his winter to his summer home, from the roar and rush of city life to the birds and the green pines. The brightest intel- lect fades and flickers out where the will has abused it i just as the diamond itself, which is after all but a crystallization, dissolves, when we are foolish enough to apply the blow-pipe, into the same dross as common charcoal. LAFAYETTE'S TOUR IN 1824. Lafayette's final visit to the United States, in 1824-25, was in two aspects most remarkable. A venerated hero returned after an absence of full forty years, to see our prosperous nation enjoying in peace the independence in whose cause, when first he stood on this soil, his sword was drawn. And this hero was himself a foreign nobleman; one who in youth had so generously given of his treasures and his blood to the American people as to seem an American by adoption; and who yet became afterward identi- fied, in the prime of manhood, with the cause of liberty in his own native land, as the conspicuous, perhaps the only, revolutionary leader of France of those times whose record left nothing to blush for. A guest like this no nation was ever likely to enter- tain a second time. The splendor of Lafayette's later reputation in the old hemisphere heightened his earlier renown in the new. His whole life had been consecrated to the cause of liberty and human rights. Republicanism itself was ennobled when one so illus- trious could be claimed as friend and father. No wonder, then, that on Lafayette's return to the United States, after so long an absence, the heart of this whole people was poured out in salutation. To use Clay's felicitous expression, it seemed a realiza- tion of that vain wish that the patriot-father might Eeprinted from 10 Magazine of American History, 243 (1883). 86 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. revisit his country after death, and contemplate the intermediate changes which time had wrought. But that figure of speech was inadequate; for the man who now revisited America, and stood in the midst of posterity, was not like the risen dead, but rather as some long-absent champion, who, leaving America free, had gone out to liberate new worlds. There had been no grave, no oblivion, to close over the patriot in this instance, but the bond of sympathy which united this people and their benefactor had remained constantly unbroken. Seas had divided, but absence made hearts fonder. The season of his arrival was most proj^itious for thus pledging anew this most precious of interna- tional friendships. Our second war with Great Britain had in its happy termination secured a per- manent confidence at home and abroad in American institutions, and divorced the United States forever from Europe. Under the long and eminently prudent administration of jNIonroe, now drawing to its peaceful close, our people enjoyed a constantly growing pros- perity. What they remembered of dangers past, served most of all to endear the recollections of the great founders of this republic, their sufferings and sacrifices. The memories of '76 were peculiarly tender; battle monuments had been planned and liberal provision made for aged survivors of the revolutionary struggle. Children refused to nourish the old party feuds of their parents ; we had ceased to be partisans of England or France* in politics we were all Americans and republicans. Those leading spirits of the late momentous half-century of war, hatred and bloodshed, were disappearing. George III. and Bonaparte had recently died, within a few months of one another. The few survivors of LAFATETTE'S TOUR IN 1824. 87 American independence who lingered on the scene inspired reverence, but tliey had ceased to participate actively in affairs. Monroe was of necessity the last President of the United States identified mth the revolutionary epoch. And Lafayette himself, once the young companion of Washington, had now become the sole surviving general officer of Washing- ton's immortal army. In honoring Lafayette thus publicly our govern- ment appears to have irritated, willingly enough, though not purposely, the Bourbon family, who once more (for a brief spell as events proved) occupied the throne of France. Congress at the same session, in fact, which opened with that celebrated Presidential message announcing what has since been styled the "Monroe Doctrine," passed its resolution of February 4, 1824, complimentary to Lafayette, which, in view of his intended visit, authorized a national ship to bring him over. Our new minister to France, James Brown, bore to Lafayette almost simultaneously an autograph letter from the President which made a like offer, and assured the marquis of the sincere attach- ment of the whole American nation and their ardent desire to see him once more in the United States. Monroe's timely protest against any further extension of Europe's political systems to the American conti- nent, had meantime, in connection with England's disfavor, oj^erated to check the scheme which France and the " Holy Alliance " meditated, at the fall of Cadiz, for subjugating the Spanish-American repub- lics and restoring the rule of royalty. Loyal to the principles he had always maintained, Lafayette had of late incurred the resentment of Louis XVIII. by speeches opposing the government policy in the French chamber of deputies. A corrupt ministry 88 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. now succeeded in remo\dng liim from the national representation, and Lafayette was left free to accept his invitation to America. While offering no con- straint upon his movements, either in departing or returning, the French government, nevertheless, by means of its police and gendarmes, checked the public expressions of love and gratitude which Lafayette's fellow-countrymen would eagerly have rendered. Lafayette's star had risen and sunk repeatedly with the vicissitudes of France, and the time now approached when, the Bourbons finally dethroned, this veteran soldier of freedom would once more be worthily trusted by his countrymen. But in the mean time, and while in temporary disgrace, the opportunity was offered for \dsiting the United States, and accordingly Lafayette came. I shall not attempt to set forth the narrative of Lafayette's memorable tour. The main incidents of the journey are well preserved in the published jour- nal of Levasseur, Lafayette's private secretary, and in American newspapers of the da}^, particularly "Niles's Register." Quincy, in his "Figures of the Past," well describes Lafayette's visits to Boston. The hero traversed every State and every section of this Union, and wherever he went he was welcomed with love and respect. His health and his spirits improved almost constantly, and but one accident, and that hardly a serious one as to personal consequences, — the sink- ing of a steamboat on the Ohio, — interrupted the progress of the nation's guest. What I wish in this paper is to state some historical facts connected with Lafayette's tour, which are not generally known, and which I have gathered from some unpublished correspondence, chiefly among the Monroe and Gouverneur manuscripts. LAFAYETTE S TOUR IN 1824. 89 The general impression has been that Lafayette's visit to the United States was mutually intended for his pleasure and the public gratification, and for no more. This view, however, is not strictly correct. True, there was no special political significance attached to the tour, though this idea some French- men entertained at the time, imagining that some plan of conquest was on foot in which he was to bear a part. True, too, that Lafayette's long-cherished wish to revisit the scenes of his youthful exploits had of late been constantly reciprocated by the American press and his private American correspondents. But in the present instance our administration was tacitly pledged to bestoAv upon the last of the illustrious revolutionary leaders some tangible proof of the public gratitude, such as, it was well understood, he had good reason to demand. Lafayette was far from affluent at this time, and the loss of royal favor involved a private sacrifice to one of his rank. He, a stranger to these colonies, and owing us nothing, had in our hour of peril voluntarily expended from his own means, sacrificed his ease, shed his blood, and risked his life in our service. As a revolutionary officer, he was entitled to public lands, and having, in fact, received a specific grant from Congress at the annexation of Louisiana, the location made by his agent in that territory near New Orleans proved to be in conflict with some earlier grants. Respecting that claim, Lafayette appears to have been in corre- spondence with Edward Livingston, who had recently been elected to Congress from Louisiana, and under- stood the embarrassments which had arisen. Hence President ]Monroe, and men prominent in influence with his administration, becoming acquainted with Lafayette's pecuniary affairs, encouraged him in his 90 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. half-formed purpose of coming to this country, at the same time treating the chximant with the utmost tact. The greatest dehcacy was shown in all the arrange- ments prepared for Lafayette. And thus was it that, returning to America in the modest expectation of, perhaps, honorable attentions, he found at once, on his first landing in New York, a whole community's gratitude to be his welcome. Where, indeed, could one better be than in the bosom of a family like this ? So astonished was he, so overcome, to find a great demonstration made for him where he had expected to land quietly and engage private lodgings, that his eyes flowed with tears, and, violently pressing both hands to his heart, he exclaimed, "It will burst!" But the same public demonstrations which greeted Lafayette on his arrival at New York were exhibited wherever else he went. In the course of some fourteen months he traversed the whole country, visiting every State in the Union and all the leading cities, and received everywhere the same sincere token of reverence and affection, though the characteristic expression might differ. The nation's guest was felt to be the people's friend. With chief magistrates, national. State, and civic, to perform the honors on their own behalf, the great body of American citizens themselves constituted his host. They took Lafayette into their own keeping, carried him from j^lace to place, and feasted and applauded him as long as he would remain. The wish, expressed on many a public occasion and cheered, was that he would become at length an American citizen, and end his days here. When at last he re-embarked for France, the round of hospi- talities had been by no means exhausted, and many invitations were of necessity declined. LAFAYETTE'S TOUR IN 1824. 91 The tacit pledge of Congress, that the honor paid Lafayette shoukl not be an empty one, was not for- gotten. By an act approved on the 28th of Decem- ber, 1824, the sum of |200,000 was voted him, together with a township of land, to be located on any of the unappropriated public domain, in consid- eration of his services and sacrifices in the war of the Revolution. This munificent grant readily passed both houses by a vote unanimous. A joint com- mittee waited upon him with a copy of the act, asldng him in behalf of Congress to permit this partial dis- charge of the national obligation. Taken by surprise as he was by this munificent donation, Lafayette could but accept it under the circumstances. Not only did the voice of the nation sustain Congress in its generous action, but several of the States, Virginia, New York, and Maryland, for instance, would have added their own largess, had not Lafayette himself repressed their generosity. If Lafayette's appearance somewhat surprised, he did not long disappoint, the spectator. He presented a fine, portly figure, nearly six feet high; his weight of years was lightly worn, and his only apparent infirmity was a slight lameness, resulting from his old wound at Brandy^vine. That lithe, graceful youth, with elastic step and joyous face, whose bronze image is passed by New Yorkers of the present day in Union Square, had, indeed, vanished ; yet Lafayette's appearance astonished by its vigorous contrast with those bent and gray-haired veterans who saluted him as their compatriot. This was partly the eifect of French art, though more was owing to Lafayette's French vivacity and perennial good- nature. Looking closely upon his face, one saw traces of his sufferings ; and Quincy tells us that the 92 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. brown wig wliicli set low on liis forehead, concealing some of his wrinkles, did yeoman's service to one who rode so constantly in an open carriage. Lowing with uncovered head. The old Indian chief, Red Jacket, who had been with Lafayette in 1784, frankly expressed his amazement that time should have left the general so fresh a countenance and so hairy a scalp. We must remember, too, that Lafayette's American renown came to him remarkably early in life. He was scarcely twenty years of age when he bore to Washington a major-general's commission, which Congress had conferred upon a titled foreigner only as a mark of honorary distinction, but which soon became the credentials of his active service. What, one may inquire, were the strongest impres- sions produced upon Lafayette himself by this Ameri- can visit, so impressive to his American hosts? Of these, some indications are to be found in Lafayette's correspondence with American friends after his return home, as also in memorials of the tour which others have preserved. Lafayette himself appears never to have summed up the results of his experience here, nor could he have been expected to do so. Tliat he Avas both delighted and surprised with the constant enthusiasm of his reception cannot be doubted. These honors from tlie land of his earlj^ exploits were sub- stantial honors too. For himself, personally, it was a memorable episode in an eventful life ; a relief from oppressive cares ; a vacation tour during which old age revelled among the scenes and recollections of a well-spent youth, and where he could forget the vexations and responsibilities of official station. Here he was truly a benefactor; a successful philanthro- pist; a father visiting a distant son well established in his own home. LAFAYETTE'S TOUR IN 1824. ~ 93 Lafayette was at heart a consistent republican, and a man of liberal principles, sympathizing fully with our political institutions. The nature of our govern- ment he had long intelligently comprehended. But as a Frenchman, and with reference to preserving firmly the essential liberties of his own countrymen, he believed that a constitutional monarchy was the form of government best adapted to the existing wants of France. Of the sincerity of that belief, already demonstrated on one signal occasion, he was to give a last proof soon after his return. Hence American institutions afforded Lafayette, at this time, no occasion for minute study; for the bent of his mind was practical, and for his generation, at least, France had done with broad experiments of self-government. Holding these views, Lafayette carried nevertheless a heart whose generous emotions had not been stifled by the hard vicissitudes of ex- perience, and though himself of aristocratic rank, he felt a personal interest in mankind as brothers. The example of the American republic seemed precious in his estimation beyond any immediate reckoning. " Perpetual union among the United States, " was his toast on one occasion: "it has saved us in our times of danger; it will save the world." Gratitude to America for its own gratitude was doubtless the feeling predominant on this tour. Next, the rapid development of the American nation, under its constitutional government, doubtless im- pressed him: the immense extension of our terri- torial area since the revolutionary war; the threefold increase of population ; the rapid development of the West; the original number of the States nearly doubled. Here, too, he saw that every one had his pursuit in life, so that many who accosted him seemed 94 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. to wonder how a Frencli nobleman supported himself. More than once he observed chief rulers and high dignitaries travelling without peculiar distinction; a high cabinet officer, who had served in European courts besides, preparing his bed upon the saloon floor of a crowded steamboat ; the governor of a State pull- ing in a skiff to help unload a sunken vessel ; states- men often seeming to receive social honors as secondary to some private citizens. The only time during his tour that Lafayette's carriage was stopped for a toll was once when he rode with the President of the United States. But the universal respect for law and order moved him to admiration. It seemed as if the largest crowds that gathered to honor his approach had resolved not to disgrace American institutions in the eyes of their fraternal guest. Lafayette's entrance into Philadelphia caused not the slightest disturbance of the peace, though its popu- lation of 120,000 souls was augmented by 40,000 strangers, who came to participate in the rejoicings. Multitudes huzzaed that day in the streets as the procession passed, and multitudes at night walked the streets for miles to witness the illuminations ; and yet there was found no need of increasing the police, nor, as the mayor announced, was a single complaint reported the next morning. As a Frenchman and a guest, however, Lafayette was less likely to draw such political comparisons than to comment upon wliat our general humanity inculcates. Two suggestions which he made in a fatherly way from this latter standpoint deserve our chief remembrance. They related to prison reform and negro emancipation, and were addressed frankly to those immediately responsible for existing systems and capable of changing them. LAFAYETTE'S TOUR IN 182J^. 95 Visiting Pliiladelpliia, where he was shown a new and commodious prison neariy finished, on the plan of soHtary confinement, — a mode of punishment which Pennsylvania had within twenty years adopted in its fullest extent, — Lafayette, recalling his personal experience, observed that solitary confinement was a punishment which might lead to madness, and by no means, in his own case at least, had caused a refor- mation of opinions. So, too, did the sincerity of Lafayette's convictions on the subject of human slavery force him to com- mend its abolition whenever a word of judicious counsel might aid the cause. The rapid development of New York, where traces of the former existence of this institution were now fast disappearing, he placed in sad contrast with the condition of other Atlantic States to the southward where the evil still remained. His heart was pained by the exhibitions of human bondage which he witnessed at the South just after his Northern tour. And as he found oj^portunity, while in Virginia, he discussed the delicate problem, and especially when visiting the ex-Presidents Jeffer- son and Madison, never failing on his part to defend the right which all men, without exception, have to liberty. ]\Iost Virginians with whom Lafayette thus conversed treated his suggestions with entire courtesy ; they frankly condemned the principle of slavery, and though citing strong objections to a general and immediate emancipation, appeared ready to rid them- selves of the curse, could only some feasible method be shown. For that ancient State of proud revolutionary tra- ditions and illustrious leaders, Lafayette undoubtedly felt a peculiar tenderness, with perhaj^s a pang of disappointment at its present condition. There re- 96 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. posed the ashes of his paternal friend and exemplar, the first in war and peace. Jefferson, too, who died soon after his visit to Monticello, was a beloved com- patriot. The later survivors of the famous Virginian trio, Madison and Monroe, were, and continued after his return to France, Lafayette's cherished corre- spondents. Hearing in later years that Monroe had been struggling with poverty, after retiring from public station, Lafayette generously offered his purse ; but Monroe, with a delicate sense of honor, refused to be thus relieved. There is an autograph letter among the Monroe papers probably never published, which the writer has been permitted to read, written from Paris in 1829, in that neat, angular, half-feminine hand, so characteristic of Frenchmen, — one of the last ever penned by Lafayette to his Virginia friends. This letter was written in view of the approaching Virginia convention of that year, and was addressed to ex- President Monroe himself, who presided at that con- vention. It contains Lafayette's final appeal for brinoino- A^'irsfinia into the sisterhood of free States. "Oh, how proud and elated I would feel," he writes, " if something could be contrived in your convention whereby Virginia, who was the first to petition asrainst the slave trade and afterwards to forbid it, and who has published the first declaration of rights, would take an exalted situation among the promoters of measures tending first to ameliorate, then gradually to abolish, the slave mode of labor." Happily might the Old Dominion preserve that letter in a golden frame had she followed voluntarily liLs disinterested advice. MONROE AND THE RHEA LETTER. The Seminole War of 1817-18 was hardly worthy of its imposing title, so far as concerned the belliger- ent parties themselves and their encounters; but in respect of the political controversies, domestic and international, which General Jackson's conduct of that war provoked, it assumes in our history a memo- rable importance. Roving Indians from East Florida, a province which Spain at that time held by a feeble and loosening grasp, approached Fort Scott on the Georgia frontier, surprised a boat-load of United States troops with their wives and children, who were ascending the Appalachicola River, and cruelly butchered the whole party. The administration at Washington, on receiving the startling news, ordered General Jackson to the front. The hero of New Orleans displayed his customary energy and prompt- ness. Having raised an additional force of volunteers, he marched rapidly from Nashville to the southern frontiers, and drove the bloodthirsty Seminoles into Florida. Pursued to St. Mark's after a slight encounter, the enemy escaped southward into their inaccessible swamps, and in less than six months from the date of the massacre this Indian war was over. But Jackson was not content that hostilities should end thus easily. Two British subjects had come into Reprmtod from 12 Magazine of American History, 308 (1884). 7 98 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. his hands, Arbuthnot and Ambrister, and these, having been tried by drum-head court-martial on the charge of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, he caused to be summarily executed, — the one hanged and the other shot. Next, turning aside from the homeward march, he captured Pensacola, as he had already captured St. Mark's against the protest of the Spanish commander, and hoisted the stars and stripes in place of the Spanish colors; here once more alleging that the king's officers thus displaced had instigated the Seminoles to make war over the American borders. The British people were greatly incensed at what they called the murder of two fellow-countrymen; and as Castlereagh told Minister Rush there would have been a war over this "if the ministry had but held up a finger; " but the British ministry, having at this time the strongest motives for maintaining cordial relations with the United States, waived apologies. As for Spain, King Ferdi- nand betrayed an impotent rage; but President Monroe promptly disavowed General Jackson's acts and restored the Spanish posts, at the same time sustaining in the main our general's charges of Spanish complicity; in which posture of affairs the leading European powers refused to espouse Spain's quarrel, and the king after much hesitation signed a treaty which finally ceded the Floridas to the United States for 15, 000, 000 upon stated considerations. This cession, negotiations for which had been pend- ing some fifteen years, was not in the end procured without a skilful management of these Seminole difficulties, and to the happy result Jackson's rude exposure of the imbecility of Simnish domination doubtless contributed. Not less memorable is the Seminole War for the MONROE AND THE RHEA LETTER. 99 influence which it came to exert upon the internal politics of our country. Jackson's summary seizure of the Sjjanish posts was a popular act, and such he had meant it to be. Our people, and those especially of the Western States, had long borne with impa- tience the delays of a fruitless diplomacy, confident all the while that in order to obtain a full settlement of spoliation claims, old and new, and gain title to a territory once paid for, as to West Florida at least, when Louisiana was purchased, nothing could be easier than to march a resolute body of troops into Florida, dislodge the Spanish garrisons, and take possession in the name of the United States. This Jackson did on his own responsibility; and already the most conspicuous man of the age among our mili- tary generals, he leaped at once into prominence as a candidate for the next presidency. All presidential candidates in that day belonged, so to speak, to one party; and Sivilians like Crawford and Clay, who themselves were ambitious rivals and competitors for the succession, committed the fatal error of setting on foot a Congressional investigation ; hoping thereby, as Jackson's friends have claimed, to procure a public censure and crush this new popular favorite. But the President himself stood firmly by the general at this crisis, as also did Adams and Calhoun of the cabinet, and the result of the investigation was the utter discomfiture of those who started it, Jackson becoming a stronger and more formidable candidate than ever. From Jackson's gratitude the Secretary of War presently reaped a tangible reward in his own successful advancement to the vice-presidency; but in the moment of his highest elation, and while he reached out his hand for the chief magistracy, Calhoun received a fatal stab in the back. Cra^^dFord, his 100 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. quondam associate and bitter enemy, betrayed to the old general the Cabinet secrets of 1818, showing that Calhoun had declared, when the seizure of Pensacola was announced, that Jackson ought to be court-mar- tialled. Being asked to explain, Calhoun sought to excuse himself. All the papers and traditions of the Seminole War were ransacked for his justification; but the angry President remained implacable, and under the deadening weight of Jackson's displeasure Calhoun with his national aspirations sank as in a quicksand. No longer influential with the mass of national voters, he devoted his commanding talents thenceforth to the philosophy of nullification, to State rights, and Southern secession. In fine, the Seminole War and its controversies bore, indirectly, no slight influence in producing the tremendous civil conflict of 1861. In recalling the story of the Seminole War, I came upon a letter of General Jackson's, written January 6, 1818, which played a very singular part in the discussions which that war elicited. I print it in the foot-notes, as it appears in Parton's "Life of Jackson," with the essential passage denoted by italics.^ That 1 This letter reads as follows. See 2 Parton's Life of Jackson, 433 : General Jackson to President Monroe. Nashville, 6th January, 1818. Sir : A few days since I received a letter from the Secretary of War, of the 17th nit., with inclosures. Your order of the 19th ult. througli him to Brevet Major General Gaines to enter the territory of Spain, and cliastise the ruthless savages who liave been depredating on the property and lives of our citizens, will meet not only the appro- bation of your country, but the approbation of Heaven. Will you, however, permit me to suggest the catastroplie that might arise by General Gaines' compliance Avith tlie last clause of your order ? Sup- pose the case that the Indians are beaten : they take refuge either in Pensacola or St. Augustine, which open their gates to them ; to profit MONROE AND THE RHEA LETTER. 101 passage may be considered as the text of the present article, my object being to lay before the public, and I may confidently say for the first time, a full and true narrative as to what for convenience I shall style "Jackson's January letter." Parton, in his "Life of Andrew Jackson," follows Benton; and Benton, in preparing his "Thirty Years' View," was misled — honestly, no doubt — by a lengthy document on the subject of the Seminole War wliich he found among Andrew Jackson's postliumous papers, but whose publication Jackson himself never positively by his victory, General Gaiues pursues the fugitives, aud has to lialt before the garrison until he can conimuuicate with iiis government. In the meantime the militia grow restless, and he is left to defend himself by the regulars. The enemy, with the aid of their Spanish friends and Woodbine's British partisans, or, if you please, with Aury's force, attacks him. What may not be the result ? Defeat and massacre. Permit me to remark that the arms of the United States must be carried to any point within the limits of East Florida, where an enemy is permitted and protected, or disgrace attends. The executive government have ordered, and, as I conceive, very properly, Amelia Island to be taken possession of. This order ought to be carried into execution at all hazards, and simultaneously the whole of East Florida seized, and held as an indemnity for the out- rages of Spain upon the property of our citizens. This done, it puts all opposition down, secures our citizens a complete indemnity, and saves us from a war with Great Britain, or some of the continental powers combined with Spain. This can be done without implicating the government. Let it be siynijied to me through anij channel (saij ^[r. J. Rhea), that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States, and in sixti/ days it will be accomplished. The order being given for the possession of Amelia Island, it ought to be executed, or our enemies, internal and external, Avill use it to the disadvantage of the government. If our troops enter the territory of Spain in pursuit of our Indian enemy, all opposition that they meet with must be put down, or we will be involved iu danger and .disgrace. I have the honor, &c., Andrew Jacksox. Hon. J.\mes Monroe, President United States. 102 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. sanctioned. Parton, if not Benton himself, has been puzzled by the mysteries involved in that January letter. Those mysteries, however, are solved in part by the later published volumes of that most valuable historical work, John Quincy Adams's "Diarj^," though no one, I believe, has called attention to the point; and they are essentially cleared by the testi- mony of the Monroe manuscripts now in possession of the government, and of the Gouverneur papers which are still held in Washington by the last of Monroe's lineal descendants. I believe I violate no confidence in using the substance of their contents for the purpose of this narrative, in connection with the publications I have referred to, well knowing that the American people value truth and justice in history, and that they would not willingly suffer false imputations to tarnish the fame of an honored Presi- dent, who has reposed more than fifty years in the grave. Jackson's January letter, it is perceived, indicates on the general's part a personal wish to carry the war into Spain precisely as he afterwards did. Heed- less, perhaps, of the duplicity, of the lawlessness to which such a course must have committed the respon- sible Executive of the United States, Jackson urged Monroe to drop only a sly hint, and in sixty days the Floridas would be ours. The secret channel indicated was through John Rhea, better known to statesmen of the day as "Johnny Rhea," — a member of Congress for many years from Tennessee, a native of Ireland, a man never of much reputation, who is remembered in history only as one of Jackson's constant parasites. It is well known that this January letter was written from Nashville before Jackson had received the marching orders which were already on their way to MONROE AND THE RHEA LETTER. 103 him from Washington, and in ignorance of their contents. Those orders directed him to proceed to the scene of war and take command, observing the restrictions already imj)osed on his predecessor, General Gaines, — restrictions of whose import Jack- son's own letter shows that he was already apprised. In other words, Jackson might cross the Florida line, provided the hostile Indians could be reached and punished in no other way; but on no account was he to molest or threaten a Spanish post ; and should the enemy find refuge within a Spanish fortress, he was to relinquish the pursuit and take no further steps without receiving new and explicit orders from the war department.^ Jackson was resolute, headstrong, self-reliant, dis- inclined to obey orders from any one, strongly per- sistent in his own views, and by no means considerate toward those he fought or argued against. Monroe, on the other hand, was at this epoch, as all accounts agree, patient, tolerant, slow in reaching conclusions, but magnanimous and considerate, — an Executive who both sought counsel and encouraged the confi- dence of his counsellors ; a chief magistrate who took just and comj)rehensive views of public policy, who was sensitive that all his official acts should be rightly performed, and as a man the soul of generous honor. What impression would such a private letter from a commanding general have been likely to produce upon the mind of such a President, under circum- stances like these ? Much the same, we may imagine, as McClellan's famous letter on the slavery question, written while engaged in his Peninsular campaign, produced upon President Lincoln's mind. The gen- eral had meantime received his military orders and 1 See 2 Parton's Jackson, 433. 104 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. was bound to pursue tliera; consequently, personal advice on delicate questions of a political character, whose tendency was to compromise the Chief Execu- tive, would be weighed but not discussed by the latter at such a juncture. In truth, free advice from Jackson was nothing new to Monroe; he had been receiving it ever since his election to the presidency ; and, appreciating Jackson's friendship as well as the originality and force of all he might say, he had con- stantly encouraged him to speak his mind freely, but at the same time pursued the tenor of his administra- tion after his own deliberate convictions. In point of fact, however, Monroe never read nor reflected upon Jackson's January letter at all until after Pensacola had fallen. This will conclusively appear in the course of the present narrative. For historical facts one should trust most of all to contemporary testimony. Later narratives, solely derived from personal recollection, are not- to be depended upon ; for not only do events fade from the memory after a long lapse of years, but they are grouped differently as viewed in the prospect or the retrospect; important links may in time have disap- peared, while the bias of the narrator must be to make the sequence of anticipation coincide with that of actual results, — a state of things which rarely occurs in real life. Let any one who doubts this tell from memory the story of his own personal experi- ences, dating ten or fifteen years back, describing the time, the persons, the surroundings, and the impres- sions he received, and then compare this story with the details recorded l)y him in some letter or note- book when all was fresh in the mind. Nothing, then, which admits us to the inner secrets of the Monroe administration upon the Seminole question can be so MONROE AND THE RHEA LETTER. 105 trustwortliy as the correspondence in 1818 of the parties concerned and John Quincy Adams's scrupu- lous Diary. As Adams himself, Monroe's Secretary of State, while thoroughly conscientious, was a keen and unsparing critic of his political associates and chief- tain, in what he thus jotted down, and at the present juncture the only one of them all who showed a dis- position to sustain Jackson's conduct to the utmost, we may trust his recorded impressions as not too indulgent toward the administration. His minutes of the Seminole discussions show clearly enough that the capture of Pensacola was an entire surprise to the Cabinet, Calhoun included, and to the President, who had summoned them for counsel. The question for consultation here was not (as Jackson, long years after, chose to believe) whether to punish the general commanding for disobedience, but whether to approve or disapprove of his proceedings. Not only did Monroe state the capture as a breach of orders, but the news of Pensacola's surrender came at the very moment when, under the favor of the French minister at Washington, negotiations with Spain for the pur- chase of Florida had been taken up anew, with fresh hopes of success. Despatches relating to the execu- tion of Arbuthnot and Ambrister had miscarried, and hence the full scope of Jackson's conduct did not yet appear ; but, as to the Spanish posts, all the Cabinet finally concurred in the conclusion that their capture must be disavowed as having been made without authority. The President generously admitted that there might be justification for taking Pensacola under some circumstances, but that Jackson had not made out his case. Adams gives further incidental proof of the Presi- 106 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. dent's good faith. He says tliat, while candid and good-humored as to all that he, the Secretary of State, had suggested in Jackson's favor, Monroe was firm on the main conclusion. And once more, in November, 1818, Adams records in his Diary that when revising the draft of the official despatch, in which, as it is well known, the Secretary of State made, for European impression as against Spain, a most brilliant and successful defence of the adminis- tration policy, Monroe altered the document, sa;)T.ng: " You have gone too far in justifying Jackson's acts in Florida." "I am decidedly of opinion," was his recorded substance of the President's comment, " that these proceedings have been attended with good results and are in the main justifiable ; but that cer- tainly they were not contemplated in any of the instructions issued to Jackson. I think the public will not entirely justify the general; and the true course for ourselves is to shield and support him as much as possible, but not commit the administration on points where the public will be against us." Adams, who felt the force of the criticism, observes in his Diary that this view of the case is wise, just, and generous. 1 Monroe's whole course toward Jackson, indeed, corresponded with this same ^vise and generous view of his public duty. Had he made Jackson's rule of conduct his own in this instance, there might have been war with the allied powers of Europe, and, what was worse, American diplomacy must have been stigmatized as perfidious. But, making all allow- ance for Jackson's idiosyncrasies, Monroe candidly acknowledged the positive service Jackson rendered, as events turned out; and positive proofs of a con- ^ See 4 John Quincy Adams's Diary (1818). MONROE AND THE RHEA LETTER. 107 tinned confidence were given soon after, as when, for instance, he commissioned Jackson to receive the cession of the Floridas from the Spanish authorities after the treaty with Spain had been ratified. In his message, on the reassembhng of Congress, Monroe states the official facts clearly, but consider- ately.^ ]\lonroe's most confidential correspondence of this date with his own friends is consistent with the same theory. To Madison (whom he constantly consulted on all the great points of his administra- tion), he wrote, February 7, 1819, while the Seminole debates were progressing in the House, that every- thing not already communicated to him was before the country; and, reciting the policy pursued on the receipt of Jackson's Pensacola despatches, and the justice done to Spain by restoring the posts, he pro- ceeds to blame the Spanish authorities themselves for conniving at or permitting the Seminole hostilities, and to defend himself in not punishing Jackson " for his mistake." 2 Monroe wrote, March 17, 1819, to Minister Rush in a similar strain after the Florida treaty had been concluded at Washington.^ But how was the delicate affair managed with 1 In this message the President observes that only by returning these posts were amicable relations preserved with Spain, and that for dianging those relations Congress and not the Executive has the power, — Annual Message, November 17, 1818. 2 Madison's Writings (1819); Monroe MSS. 3 " The right to make war," says Monroe, " was not only not assumed by the Executive, but explicitly disclaimed. The General transcended his orders, but that was no breach of the Constitution ; he chastised all those as well in secret as open hostility to the United States. But as soon as the orders of the Government reached him and those under him, a prompt obedience followed." And Monroe further observes (once more defending himself for not censuring Jackson), that had he censured our commander and exculpated the Spanish authorities in Florida, the cession just made would not have been procured. — Monroe MSS. 108 HISTORICAL BRIEFS. Jackson himself, so as to soothe an insubordinate commander while reversing his acts ? Most skilf ullj^, as the correspondence to be found in Parton's Life will show, and with an obvious endeavor on Monroe's part to assure the general of his personal sympathy and at the same time point out his breach of official orders. This correspondence, which was carried on after Jackson's return from Florida to Nashville, and extended from July to December, 1818, shows that Jaclison merely claimed to construe his orders differ- ently from the War Department, arguing that they gave him a broad discretion. And Parton, who relies upon the hypothesis (whose origin will be noticed at length hereafter) that Monroe had actually sent Jackson some secret sanction through Rhea, in response to Jackson's January letter, confesses his own surprise that these epistles should have contained no allusion to that subject. ^ There is, however, not only an allusion here, but a full explanation as to the receipt of the January letter, wliich Parton has either overlooked or intentionally perverts: namely, in the last of the series, Monroe's response of December 21, 1818, to Jackson's of November. Monroe says at the close of that response : " On one circumstance it seems proper that I should now give you an explana- tion. Your letter of January 6 was received when I was seriously indisposed. Observing that it was from you, I handed it to Mr. Calhoun to read, after reading one or two lines only myself. The order to you to take command in that quarter had before then been issued. He remarked, after perusing the letter, that it was a confidential one, relating to Florida, which I must answer. I asked him if he had forwarded to you the orders of General Gaines on that subject. 1 Tarton's Life of Jackson, 518-528. MONROE AND THE RHEA LETTER. 109 He replied that he had. Your letter to me, with many others from friends, was put aside in conse- quence of my indisposition and the great pressure on me at the time, and never recurred to until after my return from Loudoun, on receipt of yours by Mr. Hambly, and then on the suggestion of Mr. Calhoun."'! Here, then, is a complete explanation on Monroe's part, contemporaneous with the events, as to the effect of Jackson's January letter, and, so far as history is aware, it satisfied Jackson, for he made no rejoinder nor ceased to cultivate Monroe's friendship. But why did Monroe volunteer this explanation, considering that Jackson's letter of November, to which it responded, made no direct allusion to the subject? Possibly there was the barest hint in that direction in the November letter, though Parton him- self fails to discover it. A chance passage in John Quincy Adams's Diary will, I think, if taken in con- nection with Crawford's later assertions, supply the reason. "At the President's [notes Adams, of date December 17, 1818] I met Secretary Crawford, who was reading to him a violent attack upon himself in a letter from Nashville, published in the 'Aurora ' of the day before yesterday. "2 Crawford, recalling the 1 For this letter of December 21, 1818, in full, and those preceding, see Monroe MSS. ; also " Correspondence relating to the Seminole War," prepared by Calhoun, and printed at Wasliington in 1831, where the date is incorrectly given as "1830," instead of "1818," — an obvious misprint, as the context alone might show. This letter is strangely garbled and misplaced in Parton's Life of Jackson, Vol. II., pp. 434, 5:27. "Loudoun " refers to Monroe's Virginia home, and, as John Quincy Adams after\var