hiMlHmi 
 
JNCOLN ROOM 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 the Class of 1901 
 
 founded by 
 
 HARLAN HOYT HORNER 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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An Appreciation of the Character and Career of 
 
 LYON GARDINER TYLER 
 
 and of His Writings on Abraham Lincoln and the 
 
 War Between the States 
 
 The Sage 
 
 OF 
 
 Lions ^Den 
 
 by JOHN E HOBEIKA 
 
 Author of Lee, the Soul of Honor, etc. 
 
 The Exposition Press New York 1 
 
Copyright 1948 by the Exposition Press 
 
to 
 
 COLONEL WILLIAM CROW HEATH 
 
 who was a loyal supporter and devoted friend 
 and to his daughter 
 
 MISS LURA A. HEATH 
 
 whose loyalty and devotion equal the genius of her father 
 and to whom I chiefly owe my interest in historical studies 
 
Joreword 
 
 Great persons whose achievements are always essentially 
 for benefit to mankind, and who, by virtue of their ex- 
 emplary character and heroic deeds, inspire others to like 
 deeds, make a deep impression that endures through genera- 
 tions. 
 
 The character of great men is the basis of our admiration 
 and love for them. Their achievements and their personal- 
 ities grip our minds. In some inexplicable way, they in- 
 fluence our thoughts, form our manners, and direct our 
 lives: indeed they become part of our innermost selves. 
 
 No purer satisfaction can one experience than in paying 
 homage to a dear friend who has gone from this vale of tears 
 to the celestial realm of his Maker. The sincere and benign 
 spirit the biographer especially likes to analyze. Such a one 
 usually has produced enough fruits of his own to supply the 
 biographer with an abundance of material. 
 
 Someone has said: "No man has come to true greatness 
 who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his 
 race, and that what God gives him He gives for mankind." 
 No man of all my acquaintance has come nearer to perfect 
 exemplification of such greatness that Lyon Gardiner Tyler. 
 
 About Dr. Tyler there is a division of judgment among 
 even his own family and friends. Always, probably he will be 
 an enigma to those who can understand only mercenary 
 motives; but to idealists and lovers of truth, he will have a 
 place among those who fought on gory fields to carry the 
 
banner of truth to victory, and who emblazoned upon the 
 pages of history their sacrificial deeds for enduring good to 
 all mankind. 
 
 It may be that the present generation will not rank Dr. 
 Tyler with figures of national and international renown, 
 though his accomplishments as a whole entitle him to such 
 place. The case is so because, in part, of political bias in 
 many of his forensic antagonists. Nevertheless, his name will 
 live, and his achievements in genealogical and historical re- 
 search will yet win the recognition due them. 
 
 I do not know what verdict Time will declare concerning 
 the subject of this sketch, but I feel profoundly that posterity 
 will assign him a place of honor. In any event, among Amer- 
 ican historians there has been "no more striking figure." 
 
 In the space limits to which I must confine this treatise, 
 I can not treat fully such a character as Lyon Gardiner Tyler; 
 yet, I am irresistibly impelled to pay such tribute as I can 
 to a friend possessing such rare endowments, such noble 
 virtues, such charm of true saintliness, one whose accomplish- 
 ments were so valuable and great. 
 
THE SAGE 
 
 OF 
 
 LION'S DEN 
 
"Horatio, I am dead; 
 
 Thou liv'st: report me and my cause aright 
 
 To the unsatisfied." 
 
 — hamlet, Act V, Scene 2. 
 
 "It is a great thing to have a beautiful soul. 
 It is a far, far greater thing to leave that soul 
 as an eternal possession and example and inspiration 
 to millions of one's fellow men." 
 
 GAMALIEL BRADFORD. 
 
 "The aim of biography is the truthful transmission 
 of personality." 
 
 SIR SIDNEY LEE. 
 
1 
 
 Lyon Gardiner Tyler was born in 1853. He was the son 
 of John Tyler, tenth President of the United States, and was 
 fifth in line of descent by his father's second marriage. His 
 mother, Julia Gardiner of New York, was of equally illustri- 
 ous family. Her father was State senator of New York. On 
 her mother's side, she was third in lineal descent from Mac- 
 Lachlan, a famous Scottish chief. Dr. Tyler was connected 
 with many of the distinguished families of Virginia; and his 
 two marriages added to his connections other illustrious per- 
 sons of the Old Dominion. In 1878 he married Anne B. 
 Tucker, daughter of Lieutenant Colonel St. George Tucker 
 of Albemarle County. His second marriage, in 1923, was to 
 Sue Ruffin, daughter of John A. Ruffln of Charles City 
 County. His connections by marriage included such families 
 as the Tuckers, Gilmers, Randolphs, Blands, Ruffins, and 
 Harrisons. 
 
 I must speak of Dr. Tyler's father and mother, in order 
 better to indicate the inherent qualities that distinguished 
 him throughout his eighty-two years. 
 
 President John Tyler was noted for his high morality 
 and Christian piety, his fidelity and devotion to his con- 
 victions, his intellectual culture, and his charming conversa- 
 tion. In statesmanship he reached the pinnacle of enduring 
 fame. It was by virtue of his personal traits and his achieve- 
 ments in both the moral and the political life of his State 
 and his country that he became Chief Magistrate of the 
 
United States. Truly has it been said that he "won every 
 step of that ascent by his genius, his many virtues, and his 
 steadfast fidelity and devotion to the truth, to principle, 
 and to duty." Also he was noted for his "sagacity, eloquence, 
 and winning manners." To the end of his long and dis- 
 tinguished public career, he always was a "straight and con- 
 sistent politician, a gentleman and a patriot." For thirty 
 years he remained unstained by inconsistency, untarnished 
 by partisanship. Though bitterly assailed and continually 
 harassed, he never swerved from his convictions: like a wall 
 of granite, he was impregnable to all assaults. 
 
 Concerning President Tyler and his unflinching devotion 
 to his convictions, a contemporary of his wrote that on one 
 occasion, in a contest between the President and Congress, 
 Mr. Tyler stood "single-handed and unsustained but by an 
 honest heart and the exalted emotions of conscious recti- 
 tude: without a press, as far as he knew, which would defend 
 him, and with the certainty of converting former friends 
 into deadly foes, he dared all in his unwavering fidelity to 
 principle, and to his convictions of what was due to the wel- 
 fare of the people." This writer adds: "He pursued with in- 
 flexible determination the undeviating course which con- 
 sistency demanded, and which his judgment and his con- 
 science prompted, neither deterred by violence nor dis- 
 couraged by his temporary isolation." 
 
 Such was the character of the father, and such were the 
 characteristics developed in the son. But in Lyon's early 
 years the distinguished father died, and to the mother was 
 left the task of nurturing and training the son. 
 
 Dr. Tyler's mother was a Christian woman of high gifts 
 and queenly dignity; and her whole heart was in the right- 
 eous upbringing of her children. Patient, painstaking, un- 
 selfish, and alert, she constantly strove for the moral, in- 
 tellectual, and religious welfare and advancement of those 
 in her care. Unwavering in ceaseless labor and toil, she 
 spared nothing in those trying days to give to her children 
 
 10 
 
the best, and to keep them in the path of right. To the end, 
 she was true to her ideals, and she lived to see fulfillment 
 of those ideals in her son. 
 
 Thus, we see, our subject derived his nature from a family 
 incarnating the noblest virtues, a family distinguished for 
 simplicity, amiability, dignity, and loyalty. Consequently 
 we find in him purity and strength which were reflected in 
 his face by a spiritual light, and revealed in the uprightness 
 of his daily walk. When such personalities appear, we know 
 from their spiritual magnetism that we have found the high- 
 est in human life. 
 
 In February, 1870, Dr. Tyler entered the University of 
 Virginia, and was graduated in 1874 as a Bachelor of Arts. 
 In the next year he received the degree of Master of Arts. 
 From the first, he showed an insatiable thirst for learning. 
 Intensity of study and a retentive memory gave him a re- 
 markable keenness and freshness of mind, with unusual in- 
 tellectual power, incisiveness without vehemence, and a 
 notable versatility and dexterity. 
 
 At the university he was a member of the Kappa Sigma 
 Fraternity and the Jefferson Literary Society. In the latter 
 he was chosen twice by the electoral committee of faculty 
 members as Orator of the Society, having shown marked 
 oratorical gifts; and he obtained a scholarship as the best 
 editor of the university magazine. 
 
 Later he studied law under Professor B. Minor. For law, 
 every Tyler had a natural aptitude; and it was hardly think- 
 able that a course in law should not be included in the 
 scholastic training of a Tyler. 
 
 After leaving the university, Dr. Tyler was elected Profes- 
 sor of Belles-lettres at the College of William and Mary, 
 and for a year taught the philosophy of Sir William Hamilton 
 and lectured on general literature. He was forced to resign 
 by the inability of the college to pay even meager salaries to 
 its small staff of teachers. 
 
 For four years the young educator was principal of a 
 
 : n : 
 
private school in Memphis, Tennessee, with an interim in 
 Waco, Texas, whither he went when the Memphis school 
 was closed because of an epidemic of yellow fever. 
 
 In 1882 he returned to Virginia and located in Richmond, 
 where he practiced law until 1888. Meanwhile he took a 
 lively interest in the re-establishing of the old Virginia 
 Mechanics Institute, which had been closed for more than 
 twenty-three years as a result of the ravages of the War of 
 1861-1865. During this period, also, he devoted much time 
 to his favorite historical studies and pursuits, and brought 
 out his first notable literary work, The Letters and Times of 
 the Tylers. This was done through his mother's encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 In Dr. Tyler's exhaustive researches in his task of vin- 
 dicating the character and policies of his illustrious father, 
 he chanced upon many literary misrepresentations concern- 
 ing the War Between the States, discovered the systematic 
 distortion of history by lying propagandists. Thus started 
 his long-continued, tireless zeal for historical truth. Find- 
 ing that his father's principles and ideals, for which he had 
 stood and toiled throughout his long political career, includ- 
 ing his administration as President of the United States, were 
 being misrepresented, Dr. Tyler set himself to correct these 
 distortions and to defend his father's principles, especially 
 the consistency of his position regarding States' Rights. Thus 
 he came to write extensively on Confederate history and 
 political philosophy. 
 
 His first literary work became the basis for a study of the 
 true political history of Virginia from 1816 through 1862. 
 Says James Southall Wilson: "It is rich in original material, 
 and must remain one of the authoritative source books for 
 that era, as well as almost the official interpretation of the 
 life and administration of President Tyler." 
 
 : 12 : 
 
"Life is nobler for a sacrifice 
 
 And more divine. 
 Acres of bloom are crushed to make a drop 
 
 Of perfume fine." 
 
 — SELECTED 
 
 "We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; 
 In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
 We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 
 Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 
 
 — bailey-festus — Sc. Wood and Water. 
 
 "Every man's life is a fairy -tale written by God's fingers." 
 
 — hans christian andersen — Preface to Works 
 
2 
 
 In 1888 Dr. Tyler became president of William and Mary 
 College. The institution was in no better financial condi- 
 tion than when he taught there ten years before; and the task 
 before him was difficult and huge. He had assumed the 
 chief responsibility in an institution both bankrupt and 
 physically dilapidated, one which had been lying for years 
 in a deserted and dormant state with prospects bleak in- 
 deed. Nearly all that is essential to a college was lacking. 
 Before accepting the post, Dr. Tyler knew the dire financial 
 condition, and knew that, as a sectarian religious institution, 
 it had small chance of obtaining continued support from the 
 State. Any legislative appropriations would be compara- 
 tively small. Dr. Tyler knew that the College could offer 
 to him only ceaseless toil and strain. Indeed, the task was 
 enough to test every mental and moral fiber of the most skill- 
 ful financier and the ablest and most experienced executive. 
 In accepting the post, the new president was impelled by a 
 sense of obligation to perpetuate the glorious traditions of 
 the College, and by a strong desire to serve the youth of his 
 beloved Virginia. In his decision he had no regard for self 
 aggrandizement. In this he reminds one of General Lee when 
 he assumed the presidency of Washington College, now 
 Washington and Lee University. 
 
 What Dr. Tyler accomplished in his thirty-one years as 
 president of William and Mary College deserves a brief 
 review. 
 
 14 
 
For seven years the College had been virtually closed, with 
 but one student in attendance to keep the old charter alive. It 
 had an endowment of only $30,000, a sadly neglected campus 
 that had nearly lost its boundary lines, and only five build- 
 ings, all badly damaged and requiring repairs to render them 
 decent enough for use. Besides all this, the local citizens 
 were backward, and the social condition was one of stagna- 
 tion and depression because of the war and its fearful after- 
 math. Through Dr. Tyler's influence and efforts, an ap- 
 propriation of $10,000 a year was obtained from the State 
 legislature; but this allowed employment of only five profes- 
 sors, and Dr. Tyler was compelled to assume, in addition to 
 his executive duties, teaching duties, having charge of a 
 department. 
 
 The condition of the house provided for the new presi- 
 dent can be best indicated in his own words: "When he took 
 possession of the President's House and spent the night 
 there alone, it was necessary to undress on the bed because of 
 the multitude of fleas on the floor, and he would be startled 
 from sleep to hear the tread of burglars coming up the 
 stairs, which proved, upon investigation, to be rats bring- 
 ing potatoes up, step by step." In the same memoir he adds: 
 "On his first day in the President's Office, he had papers and 
 debris cleared away and the old stove polished. The next 
 day, Colonel Ewell enquired how he had found money to 
 buy a new stove." 
 
 At the end of Dr. Tyler's administration, he left the Col- 
 lege with an endowment of $154,000, had spent $50,000 for 
 new buildings, and increased the total material resources to 
 more than a million dollars. The annuity from the legisla- 
 ture had been raised to $54,000. A faculty of five professors 
 had grown to twenty, so that the incoming president was free 
 from classroom work. Also, there were cement walks, electric 
 lights, and steam-heating plants; old buildings had been 
 remodeled and repaired, and the five buildings increased 
 to fourteen; the library of 5,000 volumes had grown to 18,- 
 
 : 15 : 
 
000; and there was a science department, equipped to meet 
 the requirements of the times and to keep abreast of them. 
 Instead of a campus of only twenty acres, there was one of 
 fifty. The professors' salaries had been more than doubled. 
 Also, Dr. Tyler had given to the college, entirely from his 
 own resources, a magazine, The William and Mary Quarterly 
 (the Board of Trustees had refused to back him in that 
 enterprise) . 
 
 To help with the difficulty of raising money for the Col- 
 lege, Dr. Tyler prepared and proposed, with approval from 
 the board of trustees, a legislative bill to make the College 
 a State institution. With some amendments, this bill was 
 passed by the legislature. Thus the College was started upon 
 a new era. 
 
 Dr. Tyler fought the curse of licensed liquor in Williams- 
 burg, the site of the College. Against heavy odds, by deter- 
 mined persistence he won. When the Commonwealth's at- 
 torney refused to prosecute the cases, he himself undertook 
 the task, though not knowing what attitude the Board of 
 Visitors would take. 
 
 Moreover, Dr. Tyler fought successfully for admission of 
 women to the College. Thus he won for the institution the 
 distinction of being among the first to admit women students. 
 At last the devoted servant realized his long-cherished 
 dream. The institution began to flourish; and today the Col- 
 lege of William and Mary is one of the leading educational 
 institutions in the whole land. It had recovered its former 
 dignity and glory. Thus came high honor to Dr. Tyler's 
 name. But, like Lee, he had no desire for all the credit, and 
 he did not accept all the honors. With a heart full of grati- 
 tude and of concern for others, he joyfully gave credit for 
 all the cooperation rendered to him throughout his long ad- 
 ministration. Here are the closing words of his farewell 
 address: "Please do not understand that I claim that the im- 
 mense advances made by the College during that time are 
 wholly due to me. I had a faithful faculty, whose friendship 
 
 : 16 : 
 
I continued to retain, a Board of Visitors who for the most 
 part adopted my suggestions and made allowances for my 
 mistakes." 
 
 That farewell address is a literary document of the first 
 rank. Here and there are bits of simile that touch the heart. 
 The parting words were tinged with sadness, yet mingled 
 with a strange joy. The speaker said: "We look back over 
 the past nine months; and the memories of the pleasant 
 hours, the sweet companionships, the eager but friendly ri- 
 valries, and the innumerable little incidents of college life 
 make us very sad to know that today the continuity is broken, 
 the parting is here, and the end is come." 
 
 In that address as a whole, one can see how the heart of 
 this constructive genius was beginning to waver under the 
 sadness of the fast approaching severance from the years of 
 joyous though arduous labor in perpetuating the upbuilding 
 of the beloved old institution. To quote further: "I stand 
 at the end of a long period of public service, and all the 
 memories of the long past come sweeping in. ... I hear only 
 the note of sadness in the mighty waves. I am to take a long 
 farewell of you and the old College, around which cluster 
 so many memories of pleasant hours and of struggle and 
 labor gilded over with the dust of time. But I do not feel 
 like the deserter from his post. The College of William and 
 Mary is too firm upon its foundations to be disturbed by the 
 departure of any of its servants." 
 
 His goal achieved, after giving thirty-one years he was 
 willing to retire and let a younger and more vigorous man 
 carry on the work that he had begun and established. His 
 genial and generous character had gained the love of both 
 faculty and students, and their reverence for his sterling 
 worth and exemplary life. He had endeared himself to them 
 by his personal sacrifices for the common good. The Board 
 of Visitors honored him with the degree of Doctor of Laws, 
 and made him President Emeritus. Other institutions also 
 conferred on him the LL.D. degree: namely, Trinity Col- 
 
 : 17 : 
 
lege, 1895; Connecticut College, 1895; the University of 
 Pittsburgh, 1911; and Brown University, 1914. 
 
 Before drawing the curtains on Dr. Tyler's educational 
 career, I wish to make a brief observation concerning what 
 I deem to be the prime mark of a model college. This mark 
 is a worthy faculty, one of high moral and intellectual char- 
 acter, with a personal influence that inspires the hearts and 
 minds of the students; a faculty with broad general knowl- 
 edge and accurate scholastic learning, but also with spiritual 
 vision transcending the merely human and secular; a faculty 
 that will never neglect an opportunity to minister the high- 
 est good to those in their care, young and plastic students 
 in their crucial and formative years. Such was the faculty 
 gathered round the president of William and Mary College 
 in those fateful years, 1888-1919. 
 
 Dr. Tyler's retirement was felt with keen regret. Many 
 letters expressed the sentiments of his friends and associates. 
 For example, thus wrote the well-known author, President of 
 the Virginia Historical Society, William Gordon McCabe: 
 "It has been with poignant regret that I have read the recent 
 announcement, in the public prints, of your determination 
 to retire from the presidency of the ancient foundation, 
 whose destinies you have guided with consummate skill and 
 single-minded devotion. . . . This generation really knows 
 very little of the almost insuperable obstacles that con- 
 fronted you at the very threshold of your undertaking, and 
 that for a full decade after you assumed the presidency con- 
 tinued a persistent menace to your high-hearted purpose of 
 restoring to her pristine renown and usefulness the vener- 
 able institution which a vandal foe had looted and gutted 
 with fire, and left prostrate in tragic ruin and hopeless deso- 
 lation." 
 
 Also, McCabe gives us a glimpse of how hopeless a task 
 he and others thought Dr. Tyler was undertaking in his ef- 
 forts to restore the old weather-beaten and war-ravaged in- 
 stitution to its former high estate. Yet, they felt that he would 
 
 : i« 
 
succeed, if anyone could — as he did, to the amazement of 
 many. 
 
 Those years as college president were of small pecuniary 
 compensation, but they were amply rewarded by notable at- 
 tainments, especially as historian, biographer, genealogist, 
 and litterateur. It is through the experiences of those years 
 that the heart of the man who never lost the human touch 
 is revealed to us. His zeal and earnestness among his students 
 gained for him an insight into human nature. He came to 
 know men's feelings, motives, and habits of thought and 
 life. This knowledge gave us the interpretive biographer. In 
 such work, and in all his various labors, his restless mind 
 drove him forward until he had reached his goal. 
 
 In those years at the helm of the old college, Dr. Tyler 
 had, as I have indicated, the understanding and sympathy 
 of both the faculty and the Board of Trustees. Their ad- 
 miration for him was never alloyed with jealousy; and, 
 though they were not blind to his inevitable faults and mis- 
 takes, their respect for his brilliant achievements overbore 
 all. His readiness to admit his faults and errors is one of the 
 signal marks of his greatness of mind and heart. J. Gordon 
 Bohannon, one of his pupils, declared of him: "His life was 
 full, not alone with the fulness of time, but because he lived 
 in deeds, in thoughts, and in feelings, the imprints of which 
 are written deep in the minds and hearts of those whose 
 privilege it was to come within the influence of his life." 
 
 : 19 
 
"He is wise who can instruct us and assist us 
 in the business of daily virtuous living'* 
 
 carlyle — Essays, "Schiller.' 
 
r\ 
 
 3 
 
 Although Dr. Tyler's connection with William and Mary 
 College was distinguished chiefly for his magnificent achieve- 
 ments as president, his gifts and work as a teacher are worthy 
 of note. These are amply indicated by the testimony of Mr. 
 Bohannon, one of his pupils quoted in the chapter pre- 
 ceding this. He says: "I believe that Dr. Tyler found his 
 chief delight in the classroom in the teaching of American 
 History, the revelation and interpretation of its truths, and 
 the exposure of errors and falsehoods. He laid bare the facts, 
 and if in the light of truth the feet of the popular idols seemed 
 to be of clay, it was often because they were of no more sub- 
 stantial matter." 
 
 Mr. Bohannon further comments on Dr. Tyler's teaching: 
 "He taught history not as a bare recitation of facts, of battles 
 won and lost, of movements of troops, of dates and events. To 
 him history was, in the words of Carlyle, 'the essence of in- 
 numerable biographies,' and of events in the lives of men 
 who had cast their shadows across its pages; and, in his teach- 
 ing, those who had lived in history seemed to walk the earth 
 again." 
 
 Dr. Tyler not only delighted in teaching, but was the de- 
 light of his pupils. His humorous side as given to us by some 
 of his former pupils affords an insight into his nature and 
 the lovableness of his character in those commonplace things 
 of life in which such men are endeared to all. Says Bohannon 
 again: "We laughed, at times, but always with a friendly 
 
 : 21 : 
 
laugh, at his forgetfulness, or rather his abstraction, for his 
 mind was turned for a moment from the classroom: it was 
 directed to the more important affairs of the College, or to 
 the righting of a wrong done by some inaccurate statement, 
 or by some intentional injustice to those things which he 
 loved. If he forgot a lecture, that was our loss. If we cut his 
 classes, and we did, he may have been none the wiser, nor 
 were we." 
 
 The mind of our subject was so alert, swift, and ready 
 that he never failed to perceive any vital truth; and he never 
 allowed a truth to pass without first analyzing it and incor- 
 porating it into his large store. Moreover, his mind was so 
 constructed as to deal with large groups of facts. With a 
 combination of quick apprehension, incisive discrimination, 
 and keen critical faculty, he struck at the roots of every 
 subject he discussed. 
 
 Already I have drawn largely upon testimony from one 
 of Dr. Tyler's pupils, J. Gordon Bohannon; but I can not 
 omit the following delightful snapshot of the teacher: "His 
 class in psychology was scheduled for final examination, and 
 was assembled in the College chapel. Dr. Tyler had for- 
 gotten it. The faithful Billups was dispatched to remind him 
 that his students were waiting. I can see him now, striding 
 down the aisle of the chapel and up to the platform. Hands 
 behind his back, he strolled up and down, lost in thought. 
 It was a warm spring day, and amid the buttercups of the 
 campus a cow was placidly grazing. He lifted his head, and 
 through the open window spied the cow. He walked to the 
 blackboard and wrote this one sentence: 'I see a cow/ and 
 then he continued his walk, while his class gazed in wonder. 
 And then, as if inspired, he wrote an examination, the first 
 section of which dealt with the relation between the physical 
 and mental aspects of perception. And the cow, wholly un- 
 conscious of the fact that she had been the subject of a 
 psychological test, continued her placid grazing amid the 
 buttercups/' 
 
 : 22 : 
 
Mary College in 1834, when he was Professor of Law there, 
 Judge Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, writing of William and 
 is thus memorably quoted by Mr. Bohannon: "It has been 
 the study of its professors to cultivate at the same time the 
 intellect, the principles, and the deportment of the students, 
 laboring with equal diligence to infuse the spirit of the 
 scholar and the spirit of the gentleman. He comes to us as 
 a gentleman. As such we receive and treat him, and re- 
 solutely refuse to know him in any other character. He is 
 not harassed with petty regulations; he is not insulted and 
 annoyed by impertinent surveillance. Spies and informers 
 have no countenance among us. We receive no accusation 
 but from the conscience of the accused. His honor is the only 
 witness to which we appeal." 
 
 Judge Tucker's notable declaration is remarkably ap- 
 propriate to the spirit and course of Dr. Tyler throughout 
 his long term as executive and teacher at William and Mary. 
 Himself a shining example of the highest type of Virginia 
 gentleman, he treated every student as a gentleman, with 
 all consideration, respect, and trust, until the student proved 
 himself unworthy of such treatment. His manifest honesty, 
 his courageous fidelity to the highest principles, his keen 
 sense of justice, as quick to praise where praise was due as 
 to reprove or condemn a serious fault or vice, and his never- 
 failing solicitude for the well-being and comfort of the 
 students — all these traits won for him general affection as 
 well as respect. Verily, the memory of Lyon Gardiner Tyler 
 as a teacher and friend will abide in affectionate honor as 
 long as one of his pupils survives. 
 
 23 
 
"A workman that needeth not to be ashamed/' 
 
 st. paul — II Tim. 11:15 
 
 Genuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, 
 that is eternal, as the Almighty Founder and 
 World-Builder himself/' 
 
 carlyle — Past and Present. Bk. II Ch. XVII 
 
^ 
 
 4 
 
 A brief review of Dr. Tyler's literary accomplishments 
 during his years as administrator and teacher at William 
 and Mary, despite overwhelming responsibilities and arduous 
 tasks, is in order here. 
 
 I have spoken of The William and Mary College Historical 
 Magazine, which was called at first The William and Mary 
 College Quarterly Historical Papers. It was established by Dr. 
 Tyler in 1892, and was owned and edited by him till his re- 
 tirement in 1919. When he withdrew from the College, he 
 took this periodical with him and changed its name to Tyler's 
 Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine. He con- 
 tinued to edit it till his death in 1935. Since that time, it has 
 been edited and published by Mrs. Tyler, with notable devo- 
 tion to the work and the values which it represents. In this ar- 
 duous effort, amid the duties and cares of motherhood, she 
 has been sustained by the influence of the founder's spirit, 
 and by her desire to carry on his unfinished labors for truth 
 in history and for her beloved South. 
 
 The chief works of our author in his years at William and 
 Mary are the following: 
 
 Parties and Patronage in the United States (1891) . 
 
 The Cradle of the Republic (1900; Revised Edition, 1906.) 
 
 England in America (1904) . This is considered one of his 
 best. It is included in Professor Albert Bushnell Hart's series, 
 The American Nation. 
 
 Williamsburg, the Old Colonial Capital (1907) . 
 
 25 : 
 
Narratives of Early Virginia (1907) . 
 
 Men of Mark in Virginia (1906-1909) . 
 
 History of Virginia from 1763 to 1861. The first volume 
 was written by Philip Alexander Bruce and published in 
 1924. 
 
 From Dr. Tyler's prolific pen came also numerous pamph- 
 lets and booklets, including a small volume of poems, Rip- 
 ples of Rhyme, which reveals the author's versatility and 
 poetic sensitiveness to beauty. His Confederate Catechism 
 ought to be read by every American. 
 
 For fifty-two years, Dr. Tyler was a member of the Vir- 
 ginia Historical Society. For forty-seven of these years he was 
 a member of its Executive Committee, and for thirty-two 
 years Vice-President. Also, he was a member of the Mas- 
 sachusetts Historical Society, its oldest member when he 
 died. 
 
 In 1915 Dr. Tyler was elected by the State Board of Educa- 
 tion to membership on the State Library Board. During this 
 connection he took an active interest in historical matters, 
 especially those pertaining to Virginia. 
 
 In our author's literary labors, from the very start, Vir- 
 ginia was foremost in his mind. Her influence had been 
 potent in the history of the whole country, and Dr. Tyler 
 felt a profound pride in her glorious past, her matchless 
 contribution of geniuses to all fields of human endeavor, 
 her leadership in advancement of human good. He wished 
 to herald these things to the whole world. With recourse 
 only to truth, he threw himself into this task without con- 
 sideration for self. Of such endeavor I shall speak more 
 fully in dealing with him as a historian. 
 
 26 : 
 
"A man of mark." 
 
 Longfellow — Tales of Wayside Inn. Pt. I 
 "The Musician's Tale." "Saga of King Olaf." 
 Pt. IX. St. 2 
 
 "Great men stand like solitary towers in the City of God." 
 longfellow — Kavanagh. Ch. I 
 
 "That man is great, and he alone, 
 Who serves a greatness not his own, 
 For neither praise nor pelf: 
 Content to know and be unknown: 
 Whole in himself." 
 
 owen Meredith {Lord Lytton) — "A Great Man" 
 
5 
 
 Let us consider now the full-rounded man, the historian 
 and author in his maturer years, emerging from his retire- 
 ment in the quiet seclusion of his simple, unpretentious 
 home, uniquely situated on a high and serene bluff of the 
 James River, and known as Lion's Den, where abode the scion 
 of one of the most gifted and distinguished families of our 
 land. 
 
 There on the river bank, amid the quavering interludes 
 of the water, the deep voice of the forest, the rhythmic music 
 of the birds singing to the winds; there, where wild life 
 evokes from one's innermost being a quiet reverence for the 
 Maker of all, one's spirit soars aloft. There one feels the 
 subtlety, the elusive enchantment, of things intangible and 
 invisible. Though far from the constant tramp of mortal 
 feet, there one finds himself not alone, but, in serene har- 
 mony and soothing peace, with God! 
 
 In that lovely place, one feels something mystical in the 
 entire atmosphere, something that speaks of a sacred past. 
 Through it all seems to expand and breathe the spirit of its 
 human owner, a passionate lover of the glories of the past, 
 but also wise in the modernity that couples the present to 
 what is best in the past. 
 
 In the drive through Charles City County, one discovers 
 that alluring lane that leads to the Tyler house. It is several 
 miles long, with a gate to be opened here and there. Sheep 
 and cattle are scattered along the way. Colorful and frag- 
 
 : 28 
 
rant hedges line the length of the final, quiet avenue lead- 
 ing to the sage's home, which, to me at least, is a shrine of 
 cherished memories. The whole atmosphere is wholesome 
 and refreshing. A dignified simplicity is the rule throughout 
 the small dwelling, in which reigns a Spirit not of earth. 
 
 In the surrounding country the history of the Republic 
 has left imperishable marks. The visitor is lured to venture 
 along numerous routes that abound in historic memories 
 and hold one in a spell of wonderment and charm. The 
 adjoining plantation is Sherwood Forest, the home of Presi- 
 dent John Tyler and the birthplace of our distinguished sub- 
 ject. Here from of old flourished the Tyler family, which, 
 like the Adamses, the Washingtons, and the Lees, played 
 an illustrious role in the building of our national greatness. 
 Near by is Berkeley, home of William Henry Harrison, which 
 knew the tramp of the soldiery of both sides in the War Be- 
 tween the States. It was from here that McClellan made his 
 escape to Fortress Monroe. Farther up the river is Shirley, 
 home of the Carters: here Robert E. Lee's mother was wooed 
 by Light Horse Harry Lee, and here Robert played in his 
 teens. Just below Shirley is Westover, ancestral home of the 
 Byrds, where Admiral Byrd's family gave birth to distin- 
 guished sons. In various homes of this region, great states- 
 men of the early days of the Republic first saw the light. As 
 one lingers amid the beatific beauty of this land, with the 
 noonday sun kindling the softly moving waters of the his- 
 toric stream, before one rise those notable figures who lin- 
 gered along those banks in meditation upon great issues and 
 affairs, those tireless and dauntless men who built much of 
 the framework of our national political history. 
 
 To our sage, Lion's Den was as a part of himself. Never 
 were the old surroundings desecrated by modern change: to 
 him they had a peculiar, inviolable sacredness, and to him 
 they so remained to the end. During his last years he lived 
 here as a country gentleman, but not in leisure and idleness: 
 the magical beauty of the place only inspired him in cease- 
 
 : 29 : 
 
less toil. From the beginning of his life as a student, his 
 talents and tastes urged him to historical research; and, ex- 
 cept for a few excursions, all his latter years were given to 
 study and writing on historical themes. The muse of History 
 had smiled on him: she knew that, by his sterling honesty, 
 his dauntless courage, and his unswerving faith, he would 
 add lustre to her already jeweled crown. 
 
 Someone has said: "He will always be richer in goodness 
 who has been a faithful worker." I am reminded of this as 
 I think upon the literary labors of the subject of this sketch. 
 His labors were not only arduous but also various. He did 
 not confine himself to Confederate history; but during the 
 latter part of his life he devoted himself largely to that phase 
 of American history, and generally to the South. 
 
 Deserving special attention are Dr. Tyler's accomplish- 
 ments in Confederate history because of the value of his 
 researches and his revelation of previously hidden facts. His 
 sound interpretation of those facts, and his sedulous care 
 and thoroughness, give an indisputable authority and 
 unique value to his works. He made every possible sacrifice 
 for truth, and was rewarded with a rare wealth of historical 
 lore. Historical records yielded to him a great treasure of 
 facts, and these he marshalled so skilfully and with so simple 
 and clear a style as to give us their substance and meaning 
 without possible confusion. He had a keen sense of the 
 relative value of different data. A historian by instinct, he 
 wrote everything with "infinite suppleness and facility." 
 Everything he did was marked by delicate care. 
 
 Dr. Tyler's writings show that he cared nothing for mere 
 speculative deductions, especially in matters of history and 
 government. He wished things reasoned out with rigid ad- 
 herence to facts, and along straight lines. He was not satis- 
 fied with superficial facts, but strove for the essence of things. 
 He insisted on dealing with facts with robust logic, safely 
 removed from the quagmire of literary fancy. What he said, 
 
 : 30 : 
 
he put in plain, clear, uncompromising language, with no 
 fear of consequences. 
 
 When our historian undertook to uncover the truths that 
 long had been hidden by false propaganda seemingly agreed 
 upon by most of the historians and biographers of the North 
 from 1861 till his time, he was fully aware of the difficulty and 
 immensity of the task, and of the terrific fight ahead in ex- 
 posing the misrepresentations accumulated through many 
 years. He knew that the most important facts concerning 
 the War of 1^61-1865, including its causes and conduct, had 
 been gross 1 ' distorted and misapplied, except when it suited 
 the aims of the false propagandists to tell the truth. He 
 knew that the true light had been extinguished by a mass 
 of fable agreed upon; that irresponsible writers had sacri- 
 ficed truth on the altars of their selfish and mischievous 
 aims, using all their resources to give the real issues false 
 fronts, and to foist their perversions upon the people every- 
 where. He expected his efforts to rouse disputes and bring 
 upon him malicious attacks. He knew that the Cause he had 
 set out to champion would require that he renounce all 
 hope of personal gain and popular applause, and that he 
 must fight against as heavy odds as Lee and Jackson faced 
 on the battlefields of the War. Also, he knew that he would 
 have to search far and wide for additional facts to make 
 his case convincing, and spend thousands of dollars for re- 
 liable source material. Yet, he knew that his work would be 
 recognized in later years by honest and competent historians 
 and other scholars. So, despite all the forbidding aspects of 
 the case, he determinedly forged ahead. 
 
 Many Northern writers had tortured facts in order to jus- 
 tify the North in its war upon the South. Their falsifications 
 were plausible enough to escape ordinary analysis and be- 
 wilder many thinkers who, in other matters, were astute. 
 They had taken advantage of the complexity of the general 
 case between the North and the South, and had left the blind 
 to lead the blind. This confusion and misunderstanding per- 
 
 : 31 : 
 
vaded the South as well as the North, because most of the 
 Northern writers had drawn false pictures and presented 
 their distortions in the guise of truth. Moreover, the North 
 controlled selection of textbooks on history, in the South 
 as well as in the North. Only after a long time was the tragic 
 state of things remedied by emergence of a class of clear- 
 thinking and honest writers, by easier access to historical 
 sources and a wider dissemination of knowledge, and by the 
 increased curiosity of serious students. 
 
 Against these malevolent and treacherous writings, Dr. 
 Tyler began his war. Their decoying of the people into false 
 and hurtful assumptions — this he could not endure. All 
 about him he saw plain evidence of the practiced deception 
 and hypocrisy. In the writings of other countries he had not 
 found such duplicity and intrigue as he found in the works 
 on United States history after the War of 1861-1865. Not 
 content with distortions and mutilations of the true case, 
 the propagandists slandered Southern men, including South- 
 ern statesmen of the highest integrity, and strove to win an 
 exclusive currency for their fabrications. 
 
 Dr. Tyler's apostleship for the truth, although he cham- 
 pioned the rights of both sections, led to his denunciation. 
 Though he was respected as an educator, his broad outlook 
 upon the field of history was misunderstood, even by some 
 Southerners. He was even assailed with hate. In the midst of 
 the general misunderstanding, he became a decided indi- 
 vidualist; for, he was ostracised for digging out and bringing 
 to light, facts that had been deliberately consigned to ob- 
 livion. Yet, this singular banishment, voluntary in part, only 
 enhanced the greatness of the man, to whom Emerson's 
 dictum: "To be great is to be misunderstood" can be aptly 
 applied. 
 
 The more keenly Dr. Tyler felt the shameful dishonesty 
 and perversity of the writers who had occupied the historical 
 field for decades before he began his crusade, the more deter- 
 mined was he to ferret out the whole truth, and to lift Amer- 
 
 : 32 : 
 
ican historical writing above the realm of fiction. His clear 
 and courageous mind dictated to him the only right tactics, 
 namely to call an ace an ace and a spade a spade, without 
 reservation or compromise, and with a scrupulous exactitude 
 that would be unassailable. 
 
 When Dr. Tyler led the fight against adoption by the Vir- 
 ginia Legislature of Muzzey's History as a school text, he was 
 censured and castigated as a "prejudiced man," etc., simply 
 because he was trying to show the lawmakers that use of 
 such a work would cast into oblivion the original funda- 
 mental principles of our government, the principles and 
 ideals for which their fathers had fought. Muzzey had so ob- 
 literated the truth that only a highly trained and acute his- 
 torian such as Macaulay or Green would ever find it. Dr. 
 Tyler feared that if Muzzey's book were adopted by Virginia, 
 other States would blindly follow her lead, so that the pernici- 
 ous process would spread and grow. 
 
 While our historian was being censured by supposedly 
 representative intellectuals of his State for his determined 
 stand, another scholar, United States Senator Albert J. Be- 
 veridge of Indiana, was probing for facts. After many years 
 of assiduous research and while engaged on his monumental 
 work, The Life of Abraham Lincoln, Beveridge began to re- 
 bel against the current and established falsifications, and he 
 emphatically so declared in his correspondence with the best 
 scholars of his day. Moreover, he took up the fight against 
 those literary atrocities that had made recorded history 
 largely a tissue of myths. To Professor S. E. Morison he 
 wrote: "Such was the kind of trash fed Northern children 
 for more than two generations." 1 
 
 The older historians were dumbfounded at Beveridge's 
 undeniable discoveries, and confessed with shame the dis- 
 graceful quality of their training, and their ignorance. They 
 also rebelled at the despicable practices of the earlier writers. 
 
 Claude G. Bowers: Beveridge and the Progressive Era, p. 577 
 : 33 : 
 
Beveridge himself, as he reflected upon the past, declared 
 that he found it "almost incredible that the intelligent per- 
 sons could for any cause get into such a state of mind" as 
 that of his parents. He said that this had continued "for 
 nearly a generation after the war was over." And he added: 
 "The atmosphere in which I was brought up was wellnigh 
 lurid; and things that all of us were told by the politicians, 
 and which all of us took for granted, formed the very tis- 
 sues of hatred." 2 
 
 Writing to Worthington C. Ford, one of the foremost 
 scholars of the day, Beveridge declared, in defence of his 
 argument against Ford's criticism: "I was taught that Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin and the speeches of Wendell Phillips, Summer, 
 and others like them, were the real truth. As a result I have 
 somewhat to this day the notion, which I find on examina- 
 tion to have been absurd and wickedly false, that Mrs. Stowe 
 drew a faithful picture of Southern society and conditions. I 
 looked at Charleston, for instance, as a mosquito-bitten, 
 filthy spot inhabited by low-browed, lustful, brutal, and 
 cruel men, and cringing women whose chief outdoor sport 
 was to flail saintly negroes to death." 3 
 
 At length sickened by such literary prostitution and men- 
 dacity, Beveridge wrote to Edward Channing: "Such a num- 
 ber of lies have been woven, and cunningly woven, with a 
 modicum of facts, that to pull out the threads of falsehood 
 destroys the whole fabric." 4 And of the abolitionists he said: 
 "Those furious maniacs did not hesitate to lie if they could 
 make their point, and their stock in trade was personal 
 abuse." 5 
 
 The foregoing testimonies further indicate why Dr. Tyler 
 made such strenuous and determined efforts in behalf of the 
 truth. He saw, as Beveridge and others saw, both the damage 
 
 C. G. Bowers: Beveridge and the Progressive Era, p. 578 
 Ibid., p. 575 
 Ibid., p. 576 
 Ibid., p. 574 
 
 : 34 : 
 
and the dangers in the prevalent prevarications; and he had 
 no alternative to challenging the general acceptance of them 
 among the intellectuals of the world. Ah, the trenchant lan- 
 guage he used in lashing his adversaries, and his power and 
 keenness in fencing with his antagonists! He was like a great 
 military strategist surveying a broad field of combat. Like 
 a general marshalling an army, he marshalled facts and ar- 
 rayed them in impregnable positions. He attacked, and he 
 won, deserving to be ranked as one of the greatest of all 
 historians. 
 
 It is amusing how incensed his forensic foes became at his 
 historical discoveries and revelations. Some of them were so 
 much incensed that they refused to treat him as a fellow 
 craftsman. One historian of international note even discon- 
 tinued his subscription to Dr. Tyler's magazine because it 
 told the truth about Abraham Lincoln. The opposition be- 
 came more and more enraged, and heaped upon Dr. Tyler 
 such epithets as "sectional" and "prejudiced." 
 
 It is said of Dean Stanley that "there was one sin only 
 which led him to speak severely of any of his contemporaries 
 — the sin of untruthfulness." The same can be said of Dr. 
 Tyler. Untruthfulness roused his indignation, and deceit 
 incensed him. Yet, like Stanley, "he did not resent the 
 violence of his adversaries." When assailed, he answered with 
 telling blows, but revealing a precocious wisdom; and with 
 his titanic force was a natural dignity and an unfeigned 
 amiability. In controversy he was at times apparently acri- 
 monious, but he showed none of the petty animosity of his 
 antagonists: he had delved deeper and risen higher than 
 they. 
 
 Even from Dr. Tyler's critics he derived valuable aid. Of- 
 ten a critic gives a helpful hint, and arouses unusual eager- 
 ness. Also, the critic stimulates curiosity in others, causing 
 them to read and study the writings criticised. Thus even Dr. 
 Tyler's critics were providentially caused to give aid toward 
 perfection and perseverance in his work. 
 
 : 35 : 
 
It was said that our historian was politically perverse. He 
 was, indeed, warmly wrapped up in politics; for, politics held 
 for him an interest that was natural to him. One has truly 
 declared: "No Tyler could divorce himself wholly from poli- 
 tics, certainly not one who had the challenging mind of Lyon 
 Tyler." But it can not be said with fairness that Dr. Tyler 
 was warped in his political views. His Letters and Times of 
 the Tylers shows plainly that he was a thorough student of 
 political science and philosophy, and gives evidence that, 
 even at the early stage of his life at which it was written, he 
 had carefully and fairly weighed every issue, without prej- 
 udice to either side, and without regard to friend or foe. 
 Says Bohannon: "His views upon the great questions of 
 history, government, and politics, as set forth in his lectures 
 and his writings, did more to mold the opinions of his 
 students with respect to these things than any other in- 
 fluence exerted upon them." 
 
 Letters and Times of the Tylers brought to light his- 
 torical facts that forced many American historians to re- 
 write some of their books. Also, that work showed the author 
 to be an able biographer. As such he possessed a distinctive 
 quality essential to the true historian. To him, biography 
 was nothing less than history in miniature. One can not deal 
 adequately with the life of an individual without taking 
 into consideration not only the time and conditions, but also 
 the events and issues of his period, particularly those in 
 which he was directly involved and by which he was in- 
 fluenced. 
 
 Truly has James C. Johnston declared: "The great historic 
 figures who have impressed their generation, and are capable 
 still of gripping our minds, were men and women not merely 
 of outstanding accomplishment but of especially imposing 
 personalities. The religions of the world are everlasting tes- 
 timony to the probable truth of this statement. It is their in- 
 dividuality and temperament — distinguished characteristics 
 — far more than their accomplishments, that make them 
 
 : 36 : 
 
eternal guests of our minds." Also, as Johnston further ob- 
 served, "the biographer who is able to look at the world 
 through the eyes of his subtle-minded subject can alone hope 
 to succeed in presenting certain lives truly to others." 
 
 The biographical ideas and processes of Dr. Tyler are 
 indicated by his exhaustive exposure of the Lincoln Myth. 
 He believed with that eminent exponent of American biog- 
 raphy, Gamaliel Bradford, who said: "Get at the man, and 
 you will have a double interest in the work. Know the man, 
 or try to know him, and the work will have new significance 
 and far more widely reaching interest. . . . Human greatness 
 is great only because it is human. The greatness which can 
 not bear to have its humanity exposed is shallow, petty, in- 
 significant, and unenduring. All men who are really great 
 can afford to be really human, and to be shown to be so." 
 In the light of this truth, it is reasonable to say that the Lin- 
 coln-worshippers can afford to have their idol's humanity 
 exposed. 
 
 The work of Dr. Tyler was interspersed with what most 
 historians envy, perhaps because they lack it: not only were 
 his historical and biographical writings scholarly and broad, 
 as in his chief works, such as his History of Virginia from 
 1763 to 1861 (Vol. II of the History of Virginia series pub- 
 lished by the American Historical Society) but also, as in 
 The English in America (published in 1905 as one of the 
 volumes in the series, The American Nation, edited by the 
 noted Harvard historian, Albert Bushnell Hart) his writing 
 was imaginatively sensitive and philosophically astute. 
 
 Dr. Tyler's historical revelations concerning Abraham 
 Lincoln deserve minute study, and a place alongside the 
 works of Senator Beveridge and Edgar Lee Masters. His 
 findings show abundant originality and careful study of 
 voluminous manuscript sources; and they are substantiated 
 by other competent scholars. If we ignore the findings of our 
 historian, we must ignore also those of such men as Beveridge, 
 Bowers, Masters, and even of Nicolay and Hay and Herndon. 
 
 : 37 : 
 
With them we see, as with Tyler, that valid biography is not 
 the art of whitewashing flaws, or of fabricating fiction by a 
 biased selective process, but scientific unfolding of the truth. 
 
 Considering Dr. Tyler a historian of broad outlook, we dis- 
 cover the qualities of historians like Herodotus and Thucyd- 
 ides, especially the imaginative (not fanciful) and critical. 
 In his works the critical predominates, and the imaginative 
 is a minor factor, perhaps held somewhat in check because of 
 his severe exactitude. Dr. Tyler seizes essential and tangible 
 facts and their relation to what is constitutional: he exploits 
 the kernel, not merely showing the shell. 
 
 Our author was artistic to a degree that he utilized small 
 things, assimilating them into the vital body of his work. His 
 imagination enabled him to visualize every event and its 
 bearing, both direct and indirect, upon his theme. When he 
 used what seemed to be speculative, he always tested it by 
 hard fact. The impeachments of his acuteness and accuracy 
 failed because his imagination was always tempered by his 
 critical sense. 
 
 Dr. Tyler could not tolerate smoke on the screen. This 
 fact is plain from his Letters and Times of the Tylers and, 
 indeed, all his subsequent works. His genius exalted the 
 history of Virginia, glorifying the political course of the Old 
 Dominion, and brought to him early in life recognition as 
 the Nestor of Virginia historians. The above-named work 
 will remain a witness and monument to his craftsmanship 
 because of its profound exploration of historical lore relative 
 to a period politically complex, its keen penetration, its 
 careful weighing of all the evidences and its skillful handling 
 of them, its patient exhaustiveness, and its vivacious style. In 
 this work we see his mental fertility, imaginative power, and 
 critical keenness; and all these are exhibited with ready sym- 
 pathy, ardent emotion, and graphic and colorful description. 
 These qualities ought to save him from hasty and harsh judg- 
 ment for some of his unusual ideas, and from impugning of 
 
 : 3 8: 
 
his motives in even his most sharp-edged presentations in his 
 later works. 
 
 What our subject accomplished may seem to many to be of 
 no real and lasting value to Virginia or to the American 
 people as a whole. Nevertheless, he wrote the history of a 
 section and a people into the body of American history with 
 such manifest integrity and precision, looking beyond the 
 dismal swamp of sectionalism, that he ought to be rated not 
 only as an eminent State historian, but also, for his compre- 
 hensive massing of multitudinous details in their most far- 
 reaching relations, as an eminent general historian. 
 
 Though our author maneuvered facts toward an apolo- 
 getic end, the victory he sought was not such as to be won by 
 confusing the opposition or subduing it with abuse: it was 
 the victory that can be won only by disclosing and establish- 
 ing truth — truth free from sectional bias and cant. Well he 
 knew that only truth can win lasting victories, that "death 
 takes toll of all but truth." One has said of John Richard 
 Green, the noted English historian: "He was so anxious to 
 get at the kernel that he could not stop to examine the nut." 
 It was not so with Dr. Tyler: avidly he sought the kernel, but 
 he was captivated also by the whole nut. 
 
 Before passing for a while from this phase of my theme, I 
 must give additional testimony to Dr. Tyler's greatness as a 
 historian of historians in the following words written to him 
 by Dr. Philip Alexander Bruce, himself a noted historian 
 and author: "There have been many times when I would 
 have been deeply depressed at the small appreciation shown 
 by our people, as a whole, for our historical labors in their 
 behalf, had I not been able to catch from you some of that 
 spirit of zeal and devotion, and independence of circum- 
 stances, which you have shown throughout your career as a 
 historical writer. I and others ploughing a lonely furrow in 
 the field of Virginia history could not long feel discouraged, 
 with the stimulus of your ever-ardent and ever-sanguine com- 
 panionship, in spirit at least, on the same scholarly ground. I 
 
 : 39 : 
 
believe that this buoyant attitude, this untiring zeal, on your 
 part, has been a distinct spur to your fellow workers — cer- 
 tainly it has been so to me — and I have many a time warmed 
 my hands, as it were, in that flame of historical enthusiasm 
 which you have kept burning so brightly." Not content with 
 that glowing tribute, Dr. Bruce added: "You were practically 
 the first writer to blaze a path through that unexplored forest 
 from which the chief original materials of our Virginia his- 
 tory were obtainable — The County Records of colonial times. 
 It was due to your example that my own attention was first 
 directed to these records of inestimable value. If there lurks 
 any merit at all in my own pages, it is traceable to my having 
 followed so closely in your track." 
 
 Such testimonies as the foregoing indicate that Virginia 
 history never was intelligently brought to light, nor accu- 
 rately and properly written, before Dr. Tyler undertook the 
 drudgery of unearthing from the dusty files of long decades 
 a multitude of significant facts. Their importance no one 
 else perceived as he did; and, before him, no one tried to use 
 them in a systematic way. 
 
 The prowess of our sage as a historian is recognized by 
 another fellow craftsman, Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman, 
 who thus inscribed to Dr. Tyler a copy of his monumental 
 work on Robert E. Lee: 
 
 "In experience the Nestor, 
 
 In achievements the Achilles, 
 
 Of Southern historians." 
 
 40 : 
 
"A man protesting against error is on the way towards 
 uniting himself with all men that believe in truth'* 
 
 carlyle — Heroes and Hero Worship. IV 
 
 "Quid verum atque decens euro et rogo, et omnis in hoc 
 
 sum." 
 
 "My cares and my inquiries are for decency and truth, 
 
 and in this I am wholly occupied." 
 
 Horace — Epistles I. 1.11 
 
 "To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of 
 human perfection in this, world, and the seed-plot of 
 all other virtues." 
 locke — "Letter to Anthony Collins, Esq." Oct. 29,1703 
 
6 
 
 Thomas Carlyle declared: "The history of mankind is the 
 history of great men: to find out these, clean the dirt from 
 them, and place them on their proper pedestals." Dr. Tyler 
 was a firm believer in that teaching; and, throughout his 
 life, he persistently sought to live up to it. Once he was con- 
 vinced of a truth, nothing could make him deviate from it. 
 It was this uncompromising consistency that often made him 
 the target of attacks. 
 
 When Dr. Tyler died, The New York Times took occasion 
 to call him a "tenacious character," because he was true to 
 his convictions when he had ferreted out the facts about the 
 character and conduct of Abraham Lincoln. Even in his 
 writings on Lincoln, I have found nothing malicious or un- 
 just, nor even acrimonious. He had in hand reliable source 
 material, as Beveridge and others had; and, seeing Lincoln 
 exalted to deity, his real character falsely delineated and his 
 conduct of the War defended and even praised, our historian 
 determined to reveal him as he really was. 
 
 The vitriolic writers of the North, of whom I have spoken, 
 left nothing undone to make history "fable agreed upon" 
 among themselves, and settled the main questions to suit 
 themselves. These men wrote, as I have said, with amazing 
 disregard of facts, and worked in wellnigh perfect accord with 
 the fable. Hardly one contradicted what had been agreed 
 upon; for, evidently they knew that any disagreement among 
 them would upset the whole fabulous structure and disclose 
 
 4 2 
 
the truth. Each seemed bent upon outdoing the others in so 
 twisting history as to show the South to be the aggressor in 
 the War of 1861-1865. Such writings remind me of the words 
 of Thomas a Kempis in his Imitation of Christ: "The deceitful 
 in flattering the deceitful, the vain man in extolling the vain, 
 the blind in commending the blind, the weak in magnifying 
 the weak, deceiveth him, and in truth doth rather put him to 
 shame while he so vainly praiseth him." To nothing is that 
 more plainly applicable than to the Abolitionists' propa- 
 ganda for the Lincoln Myth. 
 
 The Northern propagandists sought to vindicate the atroc- 
 ities of the Abolitionists by assailing the South, although 
 these latter had plunged the country into the bloody hell of 
 war. Insisting upon hasty and disorderly freeing of the slaves 
 (many prominent Southerners strongly favored gradual and 
 orderly liberation, and were practicing this) these incen- 
 diarists enslaved the masters; and, by means of the war upon 
 the South, they destroyed free government throughout the 
 land. At first, their designs were known only to the plotters 
 themselves. They deceived nearly all. Even so brilliant a 
 student and thinker as John Morley succumbed to their mis- 
 representations, and believed that the cause of secession was 
 the building of a slave empire in the South. 
 
 As I have said, The New York Times referred to Dr. Tyler 
 as "a tenacious character." That organ conceded his genuine- 
 ness, but declared that he remained "unreconstructed" to the 
 end. Why did The Times find itself at odds with him? The 
 editorial writer so deployed Dr. Tyler's contentions as to put 
 him in a false position, standing on untenable ground; and 
 it declared that he "spent years, in fact, trying to reconstruct 
 the argument for States' Rights and the implied right of seces- 
 sion." The same writer admitted that Dr. Tyler would not 
 have had the Union disrupted, but added that "he would 
 have preserved it on the impossible model of it which he 
 built up in his own mind." The same writer added: "He 
 must be set down as a perverse political thinker, though his 
 
 : 43 : 
 
tenacity in standing by his own convictions was so consistent 
 that it finally became news and even admirable." 
 
 We must admire the candor of the above-quoted writer in 
 conceding that Dr. Tyler followed his convictions with per- 
 severing consistency against all odds; but we can not admit 
 that his cause was falsely or unwisely espoused unless we 
 admit also, by the same token, that such writers as Charles 
 Francis Adams, Senator Beveridge, and Gamaliel Bradford 
 were perverse political thinkers. For, as I have said, though 
 widespread misunderstanding was caused by malevolent mu- 
 tilation of facts by chimerical writers in the North, and by 
 misstatements even by misinformed writers in the South, 
 there were not a few meticulous researchers and thorough 
 thinkers whose conscience would not let them tolerate the 
 fallacies for long. From these historians we have frank con- 
 fessions of the entire justice of the Cause of the South: the 
 Cause of Local Government, of Freedom, of States' Rights. 
 Indeed, what so fired the leaders of that Cause was its obvious 
 and essential righteousness. 
 
 The South sought to preserve, either within the original 
 Union or, if that were impossible, within a smaller and freer 
 Union, the original American principles of pure self-govern- 
 ment as set forth in the Declaration of Independence and 
 guaranteed to the States by the Constitution — in short, a 
 Confederacy built upon State sovereignty. The aim of Lin- 
 coln and his faction was to create a strongly centralized gov- 
 ernment, and force it upon the South. In their system, all 
 constitutional guarantee would be ignored; the interests of 
 the South would be subordinated to those of the dominantly 
 Republican North; and the history of the Union would be dis- 
 torted to vindicate this scheme. With Lincoln in the saddle, 
 the South was made a political and commercial vassal of the 
 Republican party and the North. So, the struggle of 1861- 
 1865 was between Democracy and Imperialism. 
 
 Defeat of the South gave the North so great an advantage 
 that even some of her wise heads failed to see that the North- 
 
 : 44 : 
 
ern victory was won at the expense of a fundamental prin- 
 ciple, that in destroying local self-government in the South 
 they had destroyed it also in the North. In fact, Appomattox 
 was far more than a Confederate disaster: it was a national 
 one. It was the crucifixion of Constitutional Government in 
 the United States. 
 
 The inevitable result of the gradual awakening to the 
 tragic fact stated above was a States' Rights Renaissance in 
 the North and West. Comments like those below, from well- 
 known New Englanders, justifies the belief that the War of 
 1861-1865, as waged by Lincoln and his diplomatic and 
 military staffs, was for destruction of one section for ag- 
 grandizement of the other. Jealousy and greed moved the 
 aggressors in that fratricidal war, but under the masked pre- 
 tense of preserving the Union! Later, when the war-makers 
 needed to bolster their hypocritical pretense, they cried, 
 "Slavery!" 
 
 Charles Francis Adams, United States Minister to England 
 for eight years, having been sent immediately upon com- 
 mencement of hostilities, found that the North was in dire 
 need of a principle for which to contend; and he thus wrote 
 to his son, Charles: "Up to now the favorable feature has 
 been Union. Maintaining that, we can bear a great deal. 
 But unless we can have a principle to contend for, the money 
 question will infallibly shake us to pieces. I am, for this 
 reason, anxious to grapple with the slavery question at 
 once." 1 So, slavery was not the cause of the War, but only 
 a pretext. 
 
 Mr. Adams's son, Henry, wrote from England to his 
 brother, complaining in virtually the same tone: "You com- 
 plain of the manner in which England has been allowed to 
 wheel around. Do you know the reason why it is so? How 
 do you suppose we can make a stand here when our own 
 friends fail to support us? Look at the Southerners here. 
 
 \ James Truslow Adams: The Adams Family, p. 267 
 
 : 45 : 
 
Every man is inspired by the idea of independence and 
 liberty, while we are in a false position. They are active, you 
 say. So they are, every man of them. There are no traitors 
 among them. They have an object, and they act together." 2 
 
 Henry Adams then spoke of the warm-hearted support the 
 South was receiving, while that on the side of the North had 
 been "lukewarm" and "desponding." He added: "Every post 
 [mail] has taken away on one hand what it brought on the 
 other. It has by regular steps sapped the foundation of all 
 confidence in us, in our institutions, our rulers, and our 
 honor. How do you suppose we can overcome the effects of the 
 New York press? How do you suppose we can conciliate men 
 whom our tariff is ruining? How do you suppose we can shut 
 people's eyes to the incompetency of Lincoln or the dis- 
 gusting behavior of many of our volunteers and officers? I 
 tell you, we are in a false position, and I am sick of it." 3 
 
 Moreover, Charles was writing to Henry and complaining 
 of the President's being "not equal to the occasion." He 
 added: "The Secretary of War is corrupt, and the Secretary 
 of the Navy is incompetent"; and he expressed doubt that 
 the war was being "prosecuted honestly and vigorously." 
 
 Gamaliel Bradford, the distinguished historian and ana- 
 lyst, wrote on August 8, 1921, to Henry S. Canby, Editor of 
 The Literary Review: "I have one little quarrel with you, 
 for saying that Lee was 'nobly wrong.' I don't think he was 
 wrong at all. He hated slavery just as much as we do. And 
 no doubt the separation he fought for would have been a 
 terrible disaster. But he was also fighting for the most funda- 
 mental principle of our government, which was hopelessly 
 undermined by his defeat. In my judgment, that undermin- 
 ing is one of the most threatening symptoms of our future." 4 
 
 To Matthew Page Andrews, on May 29, 1924, Bradford 
 
 *. Ibid., pp. 274-75 
 
 3 . James Truslow Adams: The Adams Family, p. 275 
 
 *. Van Wyck Brooks: The Letters of Gamaliel Bradford, p. 73 
 
 : 4 6: 
 
wrote: "I sympathize entirely with your desire to bring be- 
 fore the people the subtle and enormous change that is 
 coming over the spirit of our government. An interest in 
 that aspect of the matter is hereditary with me, since my 
 father spent the last twenty years of his life in a passionate 
 endeavor to assert State dignity and independence and re- 
 sist Federal encroaching, always declaring that the worst 
 result of the Civil War was to accelerate such encroachment 
 in a most disastrous fashion . . ." 5 
 
 General Morris Schaff of Boston, a Federal veteran, ex- 
 emplifies in his Life of Jefferson Davis the mind of a new 
 Englander who has given himself to diligent research and is 
 willing to admit the truth. He thus states the position of 
 General Lee and the Confederacy: "In spite of the disasters 
 and privations, the Southern people were willing to fight 
 on. That spirit in Davis was the color-bearer, and it never 
 quailed. The trumpet call for him and for Lee and the 
 self-respecting was the principle involved, a principle which, 
 we venture to prophesy, will be the rallying-ground for the 
 people of the United States when their rights under the 
 Constitution are all in the constricting folds of the Lernean 
 Hydra of complete centralization." 
 
 To the foregoing can be added the words of the New 
 England divine, Dr. Arthur W. Littlefield, in The Liber- 
 tarian for January, 1924: "The South tried to divide the 
 country; Lincoln saved it. That is the erroneous notion in 
 these parts. Still nobody up here, with very few exceptions, 
 understands that the South tried to save Federalism and 
 the Constitution of the Fathers as against Imperialism and 
 the Constitution of the Protectionists. The South, though 
 defeated, really saved to America and, as we now see, the 
 world all that was best in American nationality: the Constitu- 
 tion of the Confederacy furnishes ample proof of that. Lee's 
 shrine at Lexington, not Lincoln's tomb, will become the 
 
 6 Van Wyck Brooks: The Letters of Gamaliel Bradford, p. 186. 
 
 : 47 : 
 
shrine of American patriotism when once history is told cor- 
 rectly. Both Clay and Calhoun saw clearly that Federalism 
 would develop eventually into Imperialism, and that the cen- 
 tral government could and would coerce the States whenever 
 one section got control of the government. This, of course, 
 actually happened in the tariff legislation inaugurated and 
 controlled by the North. In order to be true to the Amer- 
 ican ideal, one must know no section nor mere habitat. I 
 am simply an American patriot trying to be true to Principles 
 and loving the South, not only for her own sake, but because 
 she was true to the Principles that their fathers thought they 
 had established and secured in the Constitution of 1787-89. 
 Personally, I don't care for any rewriting of the Constitu- 
 tion: I want a new emphasis on the Jeffersonian principles 
 and those of the Confederacy inculcated among the Amer- 
 ican people, and for that I am working mightily! The his- 
 toric fact is that the Northeastern States have nearly de- 
 stroyed not only the Constitution but also the fundamental 
 American ideals of local self-government and a Federal 
 Union built upon State sovereignty. The signs of a new 
 revolt, akin to that of the Sixties, are ominous; but with 
 bullets never again, only ballots now and evermore. Surely 
 the 'Lost Cause' is having a most glorious resurrection! I 
 wonder how many Americans, especially Southerners, realize 
 it." 
 
 So, it is clear that the everlasting bark that slavery was one 
 of the immediate causes of the fratricidal strife of 1861-1865 
 is a mere hoax. From the very outset of the War, the North 
 lacked a definite purpose that could be clearly avowed and 
 justified, though the politicians and plutocrats had a pur- 
 pose definite enough, namely to hold the South in economic 
 vassalage. 
 
 Cromwell Lewis wrote: "The Northern States have been 
 drafted, or rather plunged, into a war without having any 
 intelligible aim or policy. The South fights for Independ- 
 
 : 48: 
 
ence; but what does the North fight for, except to gratify 
 passion or pride?" 6 
 
 Again, speaking of the South's right to secede, Mr. Lewis 
 says: "It is the most singular action for the restitution of 
 conjugal rights that the world ever heard of." 7 
 
 Concerning the South, Mr. Gladstone declared: "Not a 
 few must sympathize with a resistance as heroic as ever was 
 offered in the history of the world on the part of a weaker 
 body against the overwhelming forces of the stronger." 8 
 
 Dr. Tyler forbore much and would have forborne more if 
 the writers of our history had been less biased, politically 
 and historically. But he was irresistibly impelled to strip the 
 mask from the mythical and legendary Lincoln, and expose 
 the true Lincoln during whose administration the people 
 were afraid to speak of the intolerance, the usurpation, and 
 the treason that were practiced, lest they be "dragged from 
 their homes to be devoured by the vermin of Mr. Lincoln's 
 dungeons." 9 
 
 Aye! The tyranny of Lincoln and his crew was intolerable. 
 They prosecuted the war with a spirit of vengeance as if it 
 were being waged against criminals. 10 How could a man 
 like Dr. Tyler stand aside in silence while Abraham Lincoln, 
 who flouted the Constitution, was being apotheosized as a 
 God-appointed humanitarian, largely because of that hypo- 
 critical document, the Emancipation Proclamation, which 
 was purely a war measure, its aim being to rouse insurrec- 
 tion among the slaves in the South? 
 
 If Lincoln had openly and frankly declared himself for 
 compromise, he could have stopped the war. He had the 
 power and the right to do that. Toward binding up the 
 wounds of the nation by conciliatory advances, he could 
 
 6 Letters; Life of William E. Gladstone, Vol. II, p. 84 
 
 7 Letters; Life of William E. Gladstone, p. 84 
 
 8 Ibid., pp. 85-86 
 
 9 The Old Guard, Vol. I, p. ?3 (January, 1863) 
 l0 Read The American Bastile. 
 
 49 
 
have devoted the same statecraft as that with which he 
 strove to suppress the seceding States. The man who ar- 
 rogated to himself all the powers of government could have 
 wielded this power for an amicable understanding through 
 orderly discussion between representatives of the two sec- 
 tions. He could have given fair attention to the Crittenden 
 Compromise. He used cunning and skill to provision Fort 
 Sumter while deceiving the Confederate agents in Wash- 
 ington: why could he not have used equal ingenuity to 
 avert the vast tragedy that began in 1861, a calamity that 
 was to curse even generations then unborn? 
 
 To G. F. Fox, on May 1, 1861, Lincoln wrote: "You and I 
 both anticipated that the cause of the country would be 
 advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, 
 even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to 
 feel that our anticipation is justified by the results." 11 What 
 were his anticipations? Here is the answer, given by two of 
 his admiring biographers: "That he by this time expected 
 resistance is reasonably certain. The presence of armed ships 
 with the expedition, and their instructions to fight their 
 way to the Fort in case of any opposition, show that he be- 
 lieved the arbitrament of the sword at hand." 12 
 
 On what grounds must we excuse that perfidious act? 
 Neither Lincoln nor his Cabinet, nor any in his admin- 
 istrative corps, had at heart the rights and interests of the 
 South — or they would have made every possible conciliatory 
 effort toward settling within the Union the troubles of the 
 Union, as did Webster and Clay: thus would have been pre- 
 vented the slaughter of more than a million men, the flower 
 of the manhood of the country, with destruction of billions 
 of dollars' worth of property. Also, there would not have been 
 the horrors of the so-called Reconstruction Period (it really 
 was a vast re-d<?struction) , the blackest period in American 
 
 11 Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies; Series I, 
 Vol. IV, pp. 224-51 
 
 12 Nicolay and Hay; Vol. IV, p. 44 
 
 : 50 : 
 
history, as barbarous a period as any country ever saw. 
 
 Space limitations forbid an elaborate discussion in this 
 treatise of the question: Who was directly responsible for 
 the war, and who started it? However, the case can be 
 summed up by saying this: To those who started it, and to 
 those who wrote about it in defence of Lincoln and the 
 North, the following sentence of Voltaire's is appropriate: 
 "Their language is everywhere that of men of hor»™\ but 
 their actions are those of knaves." 
 
 Concerning the Abolitionists, we find the eminent his- 
 torian and philosopher, John Fiske, referring to their ac- 
 tivities as those of "descendants of Puritan converts I have 
 learned to loathe as sheer diabolism." To this another added: 
 "The Puritans, at first appearance of persecution, proved 
 from God's own Word that revolt became a necessary remedy 
 to subjects whose consciences were forced; and then again, 
 whenever it suited their convenience, they would prove from 
 the same Word that revolt is a most damnable sin and a 
 crime." 
 
 Against such abominations as those indicated above were 
 launched the remonstrances of Dr. Tyler. He sought to show 
 how the rabid partisans, by their mad schemes, with Lin- 
 coln at the helm of State, made women widows, and chil- 
 dren fatherless; how lives and property were destroyed to 
 satisfy sectional greed and hatred and to serve partisan 
 political aims; how the Constitution was converted into an 
 instrument of Lincoln's will; how the savagery of war was 
 brought home to all; how even the pulpit became corrupted, 
 professed ministers of the gospel conspiring with such fiend 
 ish schemes, beseeching God to help them to destroy their 
 brethren; and how, by illegal and tyrannical power, the land 
 was made into one where thieves dwelt, and where human 
 vermin such as scalawags and carpet-baggers became masters, 
 with marauding and plundering as their chief support. 
 
 The Abolitionists published innumerable pamphlets that 
 roused resentment and hate. One of these was Southern Out- 
 
 : 51 : 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF HUfttfM 
 
rages, with thirty-six pages. It was written and signed by 
 several prominent men and women of Boston, and was sub- 
 mitted to the Massachusetts Legislature which approved and 
 printed it. This document vehemently attacked the South 
 and Southern institutions. Incendiary publications issued 
 by various Abolitionist organizatons engendered malice and 
 fostered war against the South. 
 
 The Emancipator for July, 1836, issued a statement con- 
 cerning Abolitionist publications, and declared that there 
 were as many as 250 of them. It gave a report of the distribu- 
 tion of the chief ones for one month, as follows: Human 
 Rights, 50,000 copies; A. S. Record, 50,000; The Emancipa- 
 tor, 50,000; The Slave's Friend, 25,000. Imagine many hun- 
 dreds of thousands of copies of such inflammatory matter 
 every year, using such epithets as "robbers," "cowards," 
 "pirates," "scullions," and "scoundrels who ought to die in 
 agonies," and distributed throughout the South as well as the 
 North! Later we shall see how thoroughly shocked was Sen- 
 ator Beveridge, for example, at such tactics. 
 
 When "The Irrepressible Conflict," the famous speech 
 of William H. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, was read 
 by Daniel Webster, he exclaimed: "If these infernal fanatics 
 and Abolitionists ever get power in their hands, they will 
 override the Constitution, set the Supreme Court at defiance, 
 change and make laws to suit themselves, lay violent hands 
 on those who differ with them in their opinion or question 
 their infallibility, and finally bankrupt the country and de- 
 luge it with blood!" 
 
 Such was the case upon entry of Lincoln into the office of 
 President; and it received his approval. Any student of 
 honest and true historical records, if possessing an inquiring 
 mind and an avidity for truth, will find that the prophecy 
 of the great Webster was fulfilled to the letter during Lin- 
 coln's administration; and he will find, also, that Dr. Tyler 
 only showed these facts in their true light. 
 
 Our historian's conclusions about Lincoln were not con- 
 
 52 
 
coctions of his: they were drawn from records now open to 
 all, and any earnest student can verify his findings. He was 
 not alone in his estimate of Lincoln. It was shared by such 
 authorities as Beveridge and Masters; and even Herndon, 
 law partner and admirer and biographer of Lincoln, made 
 frank admissions that corroborated at certain points Dr. 
 Tyler's estimate. Various competent scholars came to similar 
 views. They all found that Lincoln lacked the generosity 
 that characterizes truly great men; and that he lacked even 
 elemental honesty and its product, sincerity, together with 
 the moral ideals and social and political virtues that charac- 
 terize real men. The refinement and culture of a gentleman 
 were found to be amazingly absent. Unbiased students of 
 Lincoln found that he had a lust for power and a passion 
 for rule; that he was predominantly a politician in the lower 
 sense of the word; that his character was self-contradictory; 
 that he was shifty, vacillating, and generally untrustworthy 
 in crises; and that he habitually followed the line of least 
 resistance where his personal comfort was involved. Dr. Ty- 
 ler and other competent students of Lincoln found that he 
 had an uncanny shrewdness in political matters, and prac- 
 ticed "a reticent, secretive, scheming art of deception" in 
 order to carry out his ambitious designs; that his supposed 
 "candor and simplicity was a mask"; and that he reveled in 
 dirty jokes and ridicule. 13 
 
 On Lincoln's character as a politician, the following words 
 of Wendell Phillips, an intense anti-Southerner, ought to 
 have unusual weight: "I judge Mr. Lincoln by his words and 
 deeds and, so judging him, I am unwilling to trust him with 
 the future of this country. Mr. Lincoln is a politician: poli- 
 ticians are like the bones of a horse's foreshoulders — -not a 
 straight one in it." 
 
 When Senator Beveridge discovered certain designing his- 
 torians' mutilations of Herndon's Life of Lincoln, he de- 
 
 18 See Holland's Life of Lincoln, p. 446 
 
 : 53 : 
 
clared in disgust: "The Herndon biography has been the 
 basis of most of the Lincoln studies that have followed, with 
 the biographer accepting his credibility when the facts suited 
 his purpose, and rejecting it otherwise." And finally he wrote 
 Professor Frank H. Hadder on December 15, 1925: "Do not 
 get wrong about that old man [Herndon] . I have gone into 
 his credibility as if I were a lawyer trying a murder case. 
 There is absolutely no doubt whatever about his entire truth- 
 fulness generally. When Herndon states a fact as a fact, you 
 can depend on it." 14 
 
 Claude G. Bowers declared: "Herndon's manuscript dis- 
 turbed me, and some of the newspaper data astonished and 
 distressed me: I was facing facts that did not fit in with the 
 preconceived theories of a lifetime." 15 
 
 Writing to Worthington C. Ford, Beveridge said: "I am 
 doubtful whether the Mid-Victorian will permit any truth- 
 ful and scholarly life of Lincoln to be written." 16 
 
 To Edward Channing, Beveridge wrote: "You are dead 
 right when you say that the Lincoln of that time could not 
 by any possibility have been the father of Lincoln of 1862. 
 ... It is already fairly clear that the Lincoln of youth, early 
 and middle manhood showed few signs of the Lincoln of 
 the second inaugural." 17 
 
 Beveridge found, he declared, that the facts were "a com- 
 plete refutation" of what he always had heard and believed; 
 and that "at no time did Lincoln disclose a marked anti- 
 pathy for slavery," for he was "shifty, with no other definite 
 purpose than to pursue a safe and comfortable course." And 
 to Ford, Beveridge wrote: "I wish to the Lord he could have 
 gone straightforward about something or other. Of all un- 
 certain, halting, and hesitating conduct, his takes the prize." 18 
 
 At length Beveridge became thoroughly "horrified and 
 
 14 Claude G. Bowers: Beveridge and the Progressive Era, p. 564 
 
 15 Ibid., p. 564 
 19 Ibid., p. 565 
 17 Ibid., p. 565 
 "Ibid., p. 569 
 
 54 
 
disgusted with the flagrant misrepresentations of the poli- 
 ticians and historians." 7 And he wrote Channing: "Writers 
 of history in former and recent years are not above being 
 propagandists." 19 
 
 As for slavery, Beveridge found that, historically, the case 
 had been treated with "exaggerations and significant sup- 
 pressions." 20 He observed that "historians generally ignored 
 the Southern answers," particularly the Southern pamphlets 
 replying to Northern attacks. 
 
 Beveridge's curiosity becoming aroused, he found himself 
 in an ocean of literature filled with misrepresentations. 
 Hardly knowing which way to turn, he decided to ferret 
 out the true nature of the Abolitionists' pamphlets attack- 
 ing the South, to put their representations to a severe test. 
 Combing the libraries of 1 the country, he obtained the 
 polemic literature of both sides. He read the Abolitionists' 
 pamphlets first, and was utterly shocked at the nature of 
 some of them, and especially at the foulness of the attacks, 
 particularly those upon the virtue of Southern women as 
 well as the morals of the men. While in the midst of this 
 study, he wrote to Bowers with intense feeling: "If I had 
 lived in the South and had a wife, a mother, a sister, or a 
 sweetheart, and anyone had sent such an infamous thing 
 to her, I would have felt like taking the first train North, 
 shooting the writer, and taking the consequences." 21 Bever- 
 idge found also that "these Abolitionists' expressions were 
 interspersed with contemptuous flings at the Constitution 
 and the Union." 21 
 
 On the other hand, when Beveridge shifted to the South- 
 ern pamphlets, he noted that they "were pitched upon a 
 more argumentative and higher plane, and less abusive," 21 
 
 19 Ibid., p. 571 
 
 20 Ibid., p. 572 
 
 21 Ibid., p. 573 
 
 : 55 
 
and that their fire was concentrated upon the Abolitionists. 
 
 Bewildered in the quagmire of such complexities, Bever- 
 idge found his greatest encouragement in the words of Ed- 
 ward Channing: "Lincoln needs someone schooled in af- 
 fairs and the wiles of politicians to penetrate under his mask, 
 and under their masks, and tell the truth." 22 
 
 Disheartened over the whole miserable situation, Bever- 
 idge wrote to Ford: "How in the world I am going to be 
 able to tell the truth without raising a storm from the Mid- 
 Victorians, I do not yet know. But of course scholarship can 
 not compromise with falsehood. . . . My soul revolts against 
 the practice of suppressing vital facts or distorting them in 
 order to placate unfounded sentiments or to advance some 
 political cause." 23 Yet, for all Beveridge's sincerity, he did 
 succumb to the suppression of some facts. It seems that he was 
 prevailed upon by one of our late distinguished Supreme 
 Court judges to be a bit more moderate. He did temper his 
 statements, though he found Lincoln to have been, as he 
 said, "the citadel of deception" for his whole administration. 
 
 Amazing was a confession on the editorial page of The 
 New York Times of January 21, 1934. It declared of Lincoln 
 "that he drank whiskey, that he sold whiskey, and that he 
 was in the whiskey business." This is a charge long denied 
 by the Lincolnites. The editorial stated further that "he was 
 brought up in a drinking environment, and associated with 
 drunkards"; and that "Lincoln loafed around the crossroads 
 store, told stories, took his dram, but was a 'temperate 
 drinker.' " The writer added: "He worked in a distillery in 
 his last winter in the State. Going home when the crossroads 
 store shut up, he would join in singing the ditty men- 
 tioned by Dennis Hanks: 
 
 Hail, Columbia, happy land! 
 
 If you ain't drunk, I'll be damned." 
 
 Ibid., p. 567 
 Ibid., pp. 566-7 
 
 : 5 6: 
 
That article says, further, that Lincoln "encouraged de- 
 nunciation of 'dram-sellers and dram-drinkers' . . . ."; and 
 that, as a lawyer, "he served as counsel to saloon-keepers or 
 the raiders and Carrie Nations of the period with equal 
 zeal." Lincoln himself was moderate in his drinking, telling 
 Herndon, "It always leaves me flabby and undone." 
 
 Rupert Hughes, in his review of Beveridge's Abraham 
 Lincoln in The Chicago Daily Tribune of December 8, 1928, 
 makes the following admissions: 
 
 "The writers of headlines and the distributors of the 
 thorny laurels of front-page celebration have mysteriously 
 overlooked Beveridge's 'Lincoln, ' though it abounds in sensa- 
 tional material and deals ruthlessly with the popular myths 
 concerning one of the most beloved of Americans. 
 
 "The historians and the more earnest reviewers have 
 greeted the work with the profound homage it deserves, pay- 
 ing full tribute to the tireless research of the author among 
 the original documents. Historians of the new school, which 
 honors truth first, last, and all the time, have been grateful 
 to Beveridge's unwearied pursuit of it, and his unexcited 
 presentation of it. . . . This Beveridge does with amazing suc- 
 cess, marching through the records and knocking over many 
 even of the homeliest legends. 
 
 "Such manifest truth is in everything he compiles that he 
 has silenced even those peculiar people who believe in tell- 
 ing lies about our statesmen in order to build up ideals for 
 the young. 
 
 "As Beveridge points out, Lincoln was 'never the apostle 
 of a cause,' but a 'perfect interpreter of thought and feeling, 
 and so the instrument of events.' Circumstances made a gi- 
 gantic hero and a martyr out of a bewildered politician strug- 
 gling up from the most sordid poverty." 
 
 With historians of the new school, resolutely and boldly 
 declaring the truth, belonged Lyon Gardiner Tyler. His 
 historical deductions were not drawn from any selfish pur- 
 pose of his own, but were derived from those closely se- 
 
 : 57 : 
 
creted records that were purposely kept from public view 
 by the writers whose works were shadowy, elusive, and de- 
 liberately designed to mislead. Dr. Tyler explored secret 
 archives which the hero-and-party-worshippers had kept to> 
 themselves. The jurist and analyst, Edgar Lee Masters, whose 
 monumental work on Lincoln is second only to that of Be- 
 veridge, showed that American political history for the most 
 part had been written by men "who were unfriendly to the 
 theory of a confederate republic, or who did not understand 
 it"; and he declared: "It has been written by the devotees 
 of the protective principle, by centralists, and to a large 
 degree of New England." 24 
 
 The character of Lincoln was that of a "wrestler whose 
 tactics were cunning enough to make it difficult for an ad- 
 versary to know where he stood, and where he was to be 
 found and grappled." 25 This so-called cautious elusiveness 
 of the man is what probably has made him enigmatic to 
 honest and truthful biographers. Says Masters: "He was not 
 the brave, truthful, earnest, spiritual, highly moral colossus 
 that now belongs to poetry and myth. He was the cautious, 
 astute, special pleader educated in the cunning of Chitty 
 on pleadings." 26 
 
 This Lincoln is the man who said to Congress on one oc- 
 casion: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having 
 the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the exist- 
 ing government, and form a new one that suits them better. 
 This is a most valuable, a sacred, right." 27 And yet, this same 
 man ignored later those sacred rights, and strove to coerce 
 the Southern States. Therefore, every honest and informed 
 student of the case will accept Mr. Masters' conclusion: "The 
 Lincoln attitude . . . toward the South, and the political- 
 religious sentiments with which he invested it, were of hid- 
 
 24 E. L. Masters: Lincoln the Man, p. 197 
 
 25 Ibid., p. 42 
 
 26 Ibid., p. 86 
 
 27 Ibid., p. 319 
 
 : 58 : 
 
den and deep malignancy. It had poisoned fibers and ten- 
 tacles which had the tendency to become fissiparous, and 
 to create a pathology of national hypocrisy." 28 
 
 The frankness of Dr. Tyler in giving the facts about Lin- 
 coln and the War of 1861-1865 brought numerous asper- 
 sions upon him, as I have indicated. On one occasion, that 
 of his reply in The Richmond Times-Dispatch (April 8, 
 1928) to a Mr. Dombroski's caustic enquiry as to what kind 
 of war Dr. Tyler would have had the War Between the 
 States to be, we get an insight into his idea of the necessary 
 principles of war, and we see his warm admiration for that 
 noble Federal leader, General George B. McClellan. Says 
 Dr. Tyler: "I hate wars of all kinds, but, if I had to make a 
 choice, I prefer the war whose rules for civilized nations 
 are laid down by de Vattei, and the other great writers on 
 international law — the war which is directed to the destruc- 
 tion of the armies of the enemy, with as little injury to 
 property, non-combatants, and women and children as pos- 
 sible — the kind of a war that noble Union soldier, George 
 B. McClellan, described in his famous letter to Lincoln, 
 and which he waged to the honor of the Union name 
 till he was displaced by men more in harmony with the 
 wishes of the administration, who put a premium on sabo- 
 tage and involved the whole society of the South in a merci- 
 less welter of suffering." 
 
 We view with growing amazement the glory attributed 
 to Lincoln. How can it be that historical writers have vir- 
 tually canonized him, even deified him, making of him the 
 greatest martyr of all time; and that millions of Americans 
 have been completely taken in by the Lincoln Myth? The 
 gross distortions regarding the so-called Great Emancipator 
 remind me of the expression, "the grimaces of a fool in the 
 eyes of eternal wisdom!" 
 
 What people other than those of the South have allowed 
 
 36 Ibid., p. 450 
 
 : 59 : 
 
their history to be written by their enemies? This question 
 often has troubled me; and, as I search the files of Southern 
 literature, I wonder at the sort of tolerance shown by South- 
 erners in allowing their illustrious history to be so mutilated. 
 What wonder that Southerners like Dr. Tyler have rebelled, 
 and have striven to record history with justice and truth, to 
 vindicate from the calumnies of Northern writers the right- 
 eous actions of the South? Dr. Tyler brought to his delicate 
 and complex task thorough training, ample scholarship, in- 
 corruptible personal character, and a noble aim. His pur- 
 pose and his manner and method made his work, in large 
 measure, unique. 
 
 Throughout our subject's life, especially his private years 
 (he retired from the presidency of William and Mary Col- 
 lege in 1919, but lived till February 12, 1935) , he toiled 
 ceaselessly, often into the small hours of night. With un- 
 swerving conviction, resolute purpose, and dauntless cour- 
 age, he fought for truth. Oh, that this gifted and fertile 
 mind so nobly fitted by inheritance, environment, education, 
 and training as to make of him one of the keenest of all 
 forensic tacticians, had lived in this world until historical 
 literature had been thoroughly imbued with his honest and 
 intrepid spirit! 
 
 : 6o : 
 
''Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. 
 Knight without fear and without reproach." 
 
 Applied tO CHEVALIER BAYARD. 
 
 "Zealous, yet modest; innocent, though free; 
 Patient of toil; serene amidst alarms; 
 Inflexible in faith; invincible in arms." 
 
 — beattie — The Minstrel. Bk. I St. 11 
 
7 
 
 Before I close this treatise, I must quote a tribute which 
 a high authority paid to Dr. Tyler's scholarship. That writer 
 spoke of him as one "whose conception of scholarship was 
 so elevated that nothing short of perfection satisfied him, 
 whose love for Virginia and things Virginian reached the 
 level of his passionate devotion to the memory of his father, 
 and whose contribution to American historical literature 
 was so notable as to be outstanding." 1 
 
 Our subject's life was full of events which showed him to 
 be a tranquil thinker, not easily excited even when struck to 
 the heart. With seemingly premeditated strategy, he so de- 
 ployed his propositions and marshalled his arguments as to 
 make it dangerous for his antagonists to contradict him, and 
 impossible for them to outwit him. By such strategy he 
 amazed his critics and caused them to believe that he was a 
 dangerous fGe; and for this reason, very likely, some accused 
 him of being "a partisan controversialist." Yet, as James 
 Southall Wilson asserts, "he was never unfair nor ill-natured 
 in his arguments, but fearless, unrelenting, and boldly based 
 his contentions upon records and evidence the refutation 
 of which he challenged." 
 
 Dr. Tyler neither incited nor encouraged sectional hatred. 
 
 *. Editor of The Americana, a quarterly magazine of History, Gene- 
 alogy, Heraldry, and Character Literature, published by the American 
 Historical Society. 
 
 : 62 : 
 
Such a course was foreign to his nature and his cultivated 
 mind. Because of his conscientiousness and directness in 
 contending for justice and truth, to the prejudiced he ap- 
 peared to be sectional-minded but to the broad-minded 
 and competent seeker after truth, he was quite the opposite. 
 "Searching, sensible, judicious, without a shadow of charla- 
 tanism," after sedulous research and scientific study of all 
 points in the questions he argued, and with careful regard 
 for the status of the whole case, economic, political, legal, 
 moral, he faithfully wove his materials together according to 
 his mature convictions, and, without fear, uttered them to the 
 world. 
 
 The chief greatness of Lyon Gardiner Tyler was not that 
 of a scholar, a historian, a polemicist, a man of letters, but 
 the spiritual greatness of an unselfish Christian gentlemen, 
 one who was always gentle, always courteous, always kind. 
 From direct observation of him in his home, I learned that 
 he was held in reverence, not only by his wife, but also by 
 his children. He was a companion to his two young chil- 
 dren, played with them, humored them, understood their 
 childish problems as if he were again a child himself. He 
 was a warmly human being as well as a great student and 
 thinker. 
 
 Lyon Gardiner Tyler was, in the highest sense, a friend to 
 man. His generous hand was ever ready to lend help to 
 all who sought it. Never did he waver or slacken in his 
 warmth toward those who showed a desire to learn the 
 truth. The opinions of others he strove to estimate aright, 
 conscientiously seeking merit wherever he thought it might 
 be found. 
 
 If a complete biography of our subject shall ever be 
 written, and if the writer shall be a person of the highest 
 caliber, and will allow himself to dwell in the richness of 
 character and the life and labors of this sage and crusader, 
 he will find, though in a different field of action and en- 
 deavor, another Lee. Richly rewarded will be the writer who 
 
 : 63 : 
 
shall capably interpret the character, life, and achiev nents 
 of one of the most lovable scholars and men of letters our 
 country ever has known, one who renounced personal fame 
 and gain for the Cause of Truth. 
 
 A biographer of Thomas Carlyle wrote of him: "No monu- 
 ment is needed for one who has made an eternal memorial 
 for himself in the hearts of all to whom the truth is the 
 dearest possession." Likewise I will say of Lyon Gardiner 
 Tyler: The South need not erect a monument to him, to 
 perpetuate his memory and to inscribe upon marble his vir- 
 tues, his achievements, and his noble deeds. Like all great 
 and ennobling spirits sent forth from God to spend their 
 earthly lives for humanity, understanding its weakness, feel- 
 ing the failures, bearing its burdens, realizing its tragedy, 
 and sacrificing themselves for its enlightenment and general 
 amelioration, the Sage of Lion's Den sought to — 
 
 "Ring in the nobler modes of life, 
 With sweeter manners, purer laws; 
 
 Ring in the love for truth and right, 
 Ring in the common love of good; 
 
 Ring in the valiant man and free, 
 The larger heart, the kindlier hand; 
 Ring out the darkness of the land, 
 Ring in the Christ that is to be!" 
 
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