and women could be obtained, who should conduct and manage them. If the only hope for the unemployed lies in transcending and leaving the profit-making system, then only those who are

animated by other motives themselves can make the substitute go; it must be a new humanity, a new ethics, a new religion, that will make the vital soul of the reform.

I

III.

T is difficult to make any general statement concerning the relation which great national crises bear to the development of literature as a whole, or of historical literature in particular. Sometimes after a nation has passed through a period of struggle, the same mental energy which has carried it through the conflict bursts forth into great literary activity. Sometimes such a period is followed by a time of silence, as if the national forces had been exhausted in military and political effort. In the case of wars for freedom, liberty, and independence, however, it is generally the former which happens; for, whatever the losses of war, the gain of liberty and of opportunity for free expansion is felt to be far more than a compensation, and the sense of freedom gives a freshness and spontaneity that urge toward literary expression. Thus the French Revolution, unfettering all the forces of the national life, brought on a period of activity in historical production more remarkable than any since the sixteenth century, and one noteworthy in general literary activity. The same is in a very high degree true of the heroic and successful struggle of the Netherlanders for freedom. No period in the history of Dutch literature is more brilliant than that which followed the virtual securing of freedom by the Twelve Years' Truce, -a period made brilliant not only by the work of the best poets of the nation, but also by that of some of its best scholars and historians.

In the United States, no movement so noteworthy resulted from the successful accomplishment of the war for independence. Not much literature of considerable value, historical or other, appeared during or immediately after the Revolution. One reason, no doubt, was that crudity of life and thought which is inevitable to the colonial state; the country was too young and too immature to make it reasonable to expect a great literature. And yet it is to be remembered that, in the period just preceding, so very creditable a piece of work as Hutchinson's "History of Massachusetts Bay" had appeared, giving promise of good things in literature and history. Nor is it an adequate explanation, to adduce the undoubtedly great losses which Tory emigration had brought to the classes most likely to be interested in literary development and to further it.

The truth seems to be that, by great and perhaps premature efforts to secure independence, the states had become exhausted to such a degree that the eventual acquisition of freedom, though hailed with loud rejoicings, could not have upon a people wearied, discordant, and drained of their resources — the vivifying effect which such achievements are wont to have. If one keeps in mind only the year 1776, he will think of the revolutionary era as a period of national glory; but if he takes into consideration the year 1786 and such incidents as Shays's Rebellion, he will see that at its close the condition of the thirteen bodies politic was far from sound, even though

independence had at length been secured. Even the union of 1789 did not at once bring on a healthier state. It was entered into with reluctance, and it was followed by discord. Alexander Hamilton, the young Federalist Rehoboam, laid upon the necks of an unwilling people the yoke of a national consolidation which their fathers had never borne. Availing himself of the general uneasiness, like the wily Jeroboam the son of Nebat, his astute opponent, Jefferson, summoning discontented Israel to its tents, erected at ancient Beersheba and newly-settled Dan, the golden calves of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and through their worship prolonged the congenial separatism which had descended to this generation from its predecessors. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in Europe delayed still longer the advent of internal tranquillity.

Nevertheless, the years that intervened between the first and the second wars with Great Britain were not wholly barren. Something of literature began to grow up, though the flowers that blossomed in the firm and formal enclosures of the "Monthly Anthology" and the " and the "Portfolio" seem to our eyes but a pale and sickly product. Even for history, something was being done. The events of the Revolution, still fresh in remembrance, were commemorated in several histories, of which one at least, that written by the Reverend William Gordon, was of great excellence. Biographies of those who had taken a leading part in its events, such as Chief Justice Marshall's celebrated "Life of Washington," were in several instances written with so much care and information that they are among the most important historical authorities for the story of the war for independence. Often, indeed, those earlier lives have for the student of to-day much more of the attraction of freshness and originality than the biographies written in our own time; the writers of these latter have frequently so full a sense of the American political history of which their subject forms a part, that the individuality of the portrait is impaired by the attention paid to the background.

There was also a third class of his

torical works to which, in the first years of the Republic, important contributions were made. To our minds, the great glory of that period seems manifestly to be the attainment of national independence and national union. To the man of that day, inhabitant of a particular state, and little accustomed to "think continentally," as the phrase was, the thought that his colony had become an independent and sovereign state was often quite as prominent, and was a source of pride and inspiration to a degree difficult for us to conceive. So it was that, all at once, in several of the newly-fledged states, zealous and sometimes able hands undertook the task of writing their histories. Several such works, of various degrees of merit, appeared during the interval between the two wars. Within two or three years after the conclusion of peace, David Ramsay, a doctor in Charleston, and member of the Continental Congress, published a history of South Carolina during the revolutionary war, followed later by a history of the colony and state from the beginning, which has enjoyed and deserved a good reputation. Another member of Congress, Hugh Williamson, published in 1812 a good history of North Carolina. In 1804 came a history of Virginia by an Irish journalist in that state, John Daly Burk. It cannot be highly praised. But the success of a book so extensive (four volumes) shows that in that commonwealth, and elsewhere, interest in history had advanced greatly since the time when poor Stith cut short the superabundant product of his pen because of inadequate support from "Persons of high Fortune and Distinction." A few years earlier came Robert Proud's valued "History of Pennsylvania," and Benjamin Trumbull's " History of Connecticut"; while in Massachusetts, George Minot wrote a continuation of Hutchinson's history; and in Georgia, Edward Langworthy prepared a history of that state, since lost. But the best of them all was the Reverend Jeremy Belknap's "History of New Hampshire," which, though published more than a hundred years ago, has never yet been superseded. Beside his industry and fidelity as an investigator, Belknap had a singularly good

style. He also edited and published two volumes of American biography, by various hands, which were of real service to American history.

Belknap's writings, however, are not his only, perhaps not his chief title to recognition by one generation. One principal debt to him is for his influence, which seems without doubt to have been the dominant influence, in founding the first of the local historical associations of America, the Massachusetts Historical Society, in January, 1791. This was, in some degree, the beginning of a new phase in the development of American. history, though by means of the same local channels through which, as has been said, the current of American historical work mostly ran during the generation succeeding the Revolution. It was the beginning of organized effort. The local historical societies of the present time in the United States are in many cases far from being what we could wish them to be. Some are lifeless, or, like Pope and Pagan in Bunyan's allegory, are toothlessly mumbling over and over again the same innutritious materials; some that seem full of activity direct that activity toward any but the most scientific ends. But in their day they have certainly been of great use, and that in two ways: First, they have heightened and fostered by association the growing interest in American history, so long as that interest was mostly for colonial and local history, and until a wider interest should prevail. The local historical society has been, in Paul's phrase, one schoolmaster to lead us to the general study of American history, the study of that national life which in Belknap's time had hardly begun, and which long remained latent or unattractive to the eye of local patriotism.

In the second place, the historical societies have done good service as collectors and publishers of historical materials. The sets of publications of the Massachusetts Historical Society, dating from 1792, and those of the New York Historical Society, dating from 1811, are invaluable and indispensable. We smile a little over some of the contents of their early volumes, the remarkable articles and bits of information which our naïf

great-grandfathers thought worth preserving, but which are to us as the poke bonnets and spinning-wheels of old garrets. But side by side with the topographical descriptions of towns, the copies of epitaphs, the accounts of the northern lights, and the letters from a gentleman recently returned from Niagara, there is a part-and really much the larger part-of the early work of these societies which is still valuable. Not only was it of a more scientific character than most of what had preceded it, but it was of peculiar value as establishing a certain tendency in our historical work; a tendency, namely, to make the publication of materials as much an object of the historical scholar's care, as the publication of results. The idea has, to be sure, been slow in taking root. Even at the present day it is but a very small part of the population of the United States that can be induced to believe the publication of dry records and documents, well edited, to be not only as useful as the publication of interesting books of history, but, as a general rule, considerably more useful. But in so far as the salutary notion has permeated the public mind, that happy result has been largely due to the wise efforts of those who, eighty or a hundred years ago, were establishing the first local historical societies. A zeal for the collection and preservation of such materials at once arose, one of the last fruits of which was the "Annals of America," which Dr. Abiel Holmes, father of Dr. Oliver Holmes, published in 1805.

It creates some surprise to observe how little was done in the domain of American historical literature in the period between the end of the first administration of Jefferson, that golden age of the young republic and of the Democratic-Republican party, and the times of the rule of Jackson and the new democracy. Especially singular, at first sight, is the absence of activity during the period immediately succeeding the war of 1812; for, as has already been observed, such activity commonly ensues upon wars which have had an inspiring effect upon the national consciousness. The war of 1812 of 1812 was anything but

glorious, so far as military events were concerned. But, for all that, the popular consciousness was not mistaken in obtaining from it a powerful stimulus to national feeling. Its great result, unmentioned though it was in the treaty of Ghent, was the immediate emancipation of the United States from colonial dependence on Europe and from the colonial ideas which still lingered in their politics, and the securing to them of opportunity for unlimited development on their own lines, of freedom to live their own life.

How profoundly the national consciousness was affected by the opportunity and the responsibility of working out its own salvation, may be seen even in the boastful confidence, the crude elation, the vociferous patriotism, and the national arrogance, which were so painfully dominant in the America of fifty or sixty years ago, and to which we are wont to give colloquially the name of "Fourth of July." Undoubtedly, America was inspired by the rapidly opening prospect of a boundless career. If the characteristic historical fruits of such inspiration were absent, or at any rate not present in any abundance, we must look for the explanation in that rapid expansion of the nation's material life which went on between 1815 and 1830, and of which the immense westward emigration of those years is but a single, though a most conspicuous, sign.

When historical literature did start into new life in the United States, such of it as was concerned with American history showed the influence of this popular impulse; but for a while the time of flowering seemed to have been delayed. Usually, periods in which party politics have become quiescent are favorable to the growth of historical literature; and the age of Monroe, an era of good feeling among the people, though one of extremely bad feeling among the politicians, was such a period. But it should be remembered that the impulse of the new era was more likely to be felt by those who were boys at the time of the war of 1812 than by their elders, and therefore would show its effects in literature at a somewhat later date.

As we approach the consideration of the classical period of American historical literature, we find ourselves confronted with a striking fact of geographical distribution. If we tried to name the ten principal historical writers of that period, we should find that seven or eight of them were Massachusetts men, of old New England families, born in or near Boston, and graduated at Harvard College. How are we to account for this extraordinary localization of our science? Of course there are those general causes which produced the remarkable fertility of New England in good literature at that time, and made Boston for so long a period our literary centre the greater prevalence of urban life in New England, the indelible intensities of Puritan blood, the inherited traditions of a capital city continuously literary from its origin, and of our oldest college, the stimulating influence of the recent Unitarian revolt and the resulting controversies, that leaven of buoyant energy in political and literary thought which infused the world in or about the revolutionary year 1830, and other such general causes. But more special explanations are required, for in the case of other sciences and branches of learning we do not find such a proportion obtaining. The other muses were not thus partial to that one city and region; for instance, if political economy has a muse, she was not. Doubtless something was due to the presence of libraries. History is perhaps more dependent upon these than any other of the departments of literature or science then studied. Large libraries could be found only in those parts of the country where there were cities, and Boston and Cambridge, side by side, with the libraries of the Boston Athenæum and of Harvard College, and later the Boston Public Library, were of all our cities the best provided in this respect. Here, therefore, it might have been expected that historians would congregate, and it has been so. There is one spot of a few acres in Cambridge upon which three of the most eminent historical scholars of the last generation dwelt, and on which have dwelt three of the most prominent historical writers of our own time.

But there was still another reason why history should spring up and flourish in New England, and that is a political one. Throughout our political history we have had two parties which, under various names, have preserved an essential identity. They are usually described as the party of loose construction and the party of strict construction. This is describing them with reference to their attitude towards the Constitution only. A more penetrating analysis will discover in them the party of political measures and the party of political principles, -a party with a programme, and a party with a creed. The Democratic party, during its long history, has been mainly marked by its adherence to a certain definite set of political principles. The average American citizen, in quiet times, has had no other political platform than those principles, and has therefore remained a member of the Democratic party. But from time to time there has arisen out of this mass of Americans unanimous in adhesion to American political principles, a body of men eventually constituting a great party, united in devotion to some great political measure or set of measures, in effort, that is, to alter or add to our political fabric. The Federalist party arose, with a strong sense of work to be done, made its contribution by cementing the union more firmly, and subsided into the mass of Democracy. With other purposes, but still with purposes of contribution and of alteration, the Whig party arose, did its work, and dissolved. Still a third time, the desire for measures restricting slavery and consolidating still more firmly the national union drew together a great party which has left its impress indelibly upon our national institutions. Parties marked by this devotion to given political measures will infallibly be loose-constructionist in their view of the fundamental document, as will any body of men acting under a given instrument, whose main desire is to get certain specific things done; the party of political principles meanwhile adheres to a strict construction.

Now there must of necessity be a radical difference between these two, and between any two bodies of population in

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which they are respectively dominant, in regard to their attitude toward history. The abstract principles of political philosophy may be supposed to remain ever the same. To the purely legal view of the strict constructionist, based on these principles, the fundamental relations of politics remain unchanged. That which was the Constitution in 1789 is the Constitution in 1861, and what it is, is to be found by logical reasoning from political principles. The advocate of a programme of measures, of political change, on the other hand, will be constantly recurring to notions of development. To the practical aims which are foremost in his mind, the study of human experience will be of the most direct service, and he and his will incline to historical ways of thinking, and to historical studies. It is not an accident that the founder of the Democratic party, with all his interest in science, in philosophy, and in the theory of politics, was but little addicted to the study of history; while his rival, the first Federalist president was, of all the statesmen of his time and country, the most learned in that department.

To come, then, to the application. One explanation of the concentration of historical science in the northeastern corner of our country is, in addition to the general reasons for its literary fertility, that the political predilections of the region were such as made the study of human history natural and congenial there. As New England was the chief seat of the Federalist, the Whig and the Republican parties, the chosen abode of loose construction, it was natural that it should also be the chosen abode of historical science; for no man can escape sharing the interests which political or economical conditions have made most vivid in those around him. We may be confirmed in our view by observing that in respect to writings of a purely political or economical character the superiority of the South in both quantity and quality was no less incontestable. As for Massachusetts in especial, it may be observed that in a state where public spirit has always been so strong, in other words, in a state where the interests and life of the community have been so highly regarded by in