LIST OF COMMITTEES, 1893-'94.

1. Auditing committee: E. W. Blatchford, esq., James Phinney Baxter, esq. 2. Finance: Hon. John A. King, Robert Schell, esq., Dr. C. W. Bowen. 3. Nominations: Hon. William Wirt Henry, Dr. William F. Poole.

4. Time and place of meeting: Dr. William F. Poole, Mrs. Ellen H. Walworth.

5. Programme: Prof. Justin Winsor, Prof. A. B. Hart, Prof. F. J. Turner, Dr. J. L. M. Curry, Prof. H. B. Adams.

6. Resolutions: Prof. H. B. Adams, Reuben G. Thwaites, Dr. C. H. Haskins.

OFFICERS FOR 1893-'94.

President: Henry Adams, Washington, D. C.

Vice-presidents: Edward G. Mason, president of the Chicago Historical Society; Hon. George F. Hoar, Worcester, Mass.

Treasurer: Clarence Winthrop Bowen, PH. D., 130 Fulton street, New York City.

Secretary: Herbert B. Adams, PH. D., LL. D., professor in the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

Assistant secretary and curator: A. Howard Clark, curator of the historical collections, U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C. Executive council (in addition to the above-named officers): Hon. Andrew D. White, LL. D., Ithaca, N. Y.; Justin Winsor, LL. D., Cambridge, Mass.; Charles Kendall Adams, LL. D., president of University of Wisconsin; Hon. William Wirt Henry, Richmond, Va., William F. Poole, LL. D., librarian of the Newberry Library, Chicago; Hon. John Jay, LL. D., New York City; James B. Angell, LL. D., president of University of Michigan; G. Brown Goode, PH. D., LL. D., assistant secretary Smithsonian Institution, in charge of the National Museum; John George Bourinot, C. M. G., LL. D., D. C. L., clerk of the Canadian House of Commons; J. B. McMaster, professor of history in the University of Pennsylvania; George B. Adams, professor of history in Yale University.

II-INADEQUATE RECOGNITION OF DIPLOMATISTS BY HIS

TORIANS.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY DR. JAMES B. ANGELL,

PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.
READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING, JULY 11, 1893.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D., JULY 11, 1893.

THE INADEQUATE RECOGNITION OF DIPLOMATISTS BY HISTORIANS..

The scholars of our time have often congratulated themselves that historical writers have in these later years been giving a wider scope to their work than the older historians gave to theirs. These later writers, in describing the history of a nation, have not confined themselves to the records of battles and of court intrigues and of royal genealogies. They have deemed it proper to give us some idea of the progress of the nation in letters, in art, in science, in economic development, in religion, in all that makes up what we call civilization. They have attempted to give us a vivid and accurate conception of the forces and the processes which have made nations what they are. And they have had in mind the true ideal of the historian's task.

But in the course of my studies I have been led to the conviction that most of the general historical narratives have failed to set forth with sufficient fullness the important features of great diplomatic transactions, and have failed even more signally in specific recognition of the signal merits of many of the gifted negotiators of epoch-making treaties.

The work of international congresses, which have remade the map of Europe or the maps of other continents, which have extinguished the life of proud and ancient states or have created new states, which have given larger freedom to commerce and wider liberty in the use of the high seas, which have mitigated the cruelties of war and have swept the slave trade from the ocean; this work, so wide and far-reaching in its influence, of the diplomatic representatives of powerful states has been often passed over altogether by historians of renown or dismissed with the most succinct summary which was possible. Even where the results of negotiations are given it is rare that one finds any fairly complete account of

the processes by which these results were reached. May we not fairly ask whether to the reader of ordinary intelligence the important details of the discussions and deliberations in the congress at Münster are not of as much consequence as the details of any battle of the Thirty Years' War? Are not the particulars of the debates between Franklin and Jay and John Adams on the one side, and Oswald and Strachey and Fitzherbert on the other, in framing our treaty of independence, of as much interest and consequence as the details of battle the of Trenton?

But even when the results of negotiations are given with some fullness and estimated with justice, for the most part little or none of the credit which is due is given to the men who have brought the negotiations to a successful issue. Generally not even their names are mentioned. The consequence is that no class of public servants of equal merit is so inadequately appreciated even by those who are pretty well read in history. Our very school children are so taught that the names of great generals, Wallenstein and Tilley, Marlborough and Prince Eugene, Turenne and Condé, Washington and Greene, are familiar to them. But if you will try a simple experiment, as I have done several times, upon persons of cultivation, I venture the guess that you will find that scholars of considerable familiarity with European history can not tell and can not say that they have ever known who were the principal negotiators of the Peace of Westphalia, or of treaties of such historical importance as those of Nimeguen, Ryswick, Utrecht, or Paris of 1763, or Paris of 1856. And the reason is not far to seek. It is because most of the general histories of the periods, to which those treaties belong, have little or nothing to say of the envoys, who, with much toil and discussion, wrought them out. To learn the names of those neglected men, and especially to learn anything of their personality, one must have recourse to special diplomatic histories or personal memoirs, when such can be found.

If my impression of the treatment which important diplomatic work has received in most of our general histories is correct, I think we shall all agree that they are seriously deficient in this regard. If any events in European history for the last two centuries and a half have been of vital importance, the negotiation of some of the treaties I have named must be ranked as such. When we recall how the Peace of