HISTORY

OF THE

UNITED STATES,

OR,

REPUBLIC OF AMERICA.

BY EMMA WILLARD.

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES, AND CO.

21 MINOR-STREET.

PREFACE.

AT a time when the accumulated mass of knowledge is great, beyond the human capacity, service is done to science, by clear arrangement and devices addressed to the eye. If the faculties are enabled to seize and hold fast the frame-work of an important subject, future facts will naturally find and keep their own place in the mind, and the whole subject rest there in philosophical order. Not only is this important, as respects the particular study thus acquired; but as regards intellectual habits and general improvement. .

To accomplish these ends, with regard to the history of the United States, is one of the main objects of the present work. Its plan is chronographically exhibited in front of the title page. The maps, included between the periods of the work, coincide in time with the branches of the subject; and the sketches on the maps picture the events there expressed in words.

But most minds find it difficult to remember dates, though ever so well arranged; and hence experienced educationists recommend that the memory should not in this respect be overtaxed; but that dates should rather be kept at hand in books, to be consulted as occasion requires. Hence, the importance of arrangements in printed works, by which dates may stand prominent, and be easily found. A cursory glance at the chronological table, and along the margin of this work, may satisfy the observer that this task has been executed with faithfulness.

Every student or reader of history should begin with that of his own country; and the history of the United States is on some accounts, a more safe and profitable study than that of any other nation.

When the course of events is studied, for the purpose of gaining

general information, the natural order of the thoughts must be regard ed, if we expect that memory will treasure up the objects of attention Each individual is to himself the centre of his own world; and the more intimately he connects his knowledge with himself, the better will it be remembered, and the more effectually can it be rendered, in after-life, subservient to his purposes. Hence, in geography, he should begin with his own town, and pass from thence to his country, and the world at large; in history, with the year in which he was born, and the record of the family Bible. With its dates the mother might easily connect and teach to her child some of the epochas of his country. Your grandfather or your father, she might say, was born so much before or after the declaration of independence-your own birth was during the administration of such a president. This would constitute the foundation of his knowledge of history and chronology; and, if well laid, it would be as enduring as the mind. Something of this kind is incidentally, if not systematically, done in every family. At the period of receiving school education, the pupil having learned the epochas of his family, wants those of his country; and these should in like manner, be connected with the leading events in the history of cotemporary nations.

History and geography mutually aid each other; and the student will naturally be earlier acquainted with the localities of his own country, than with those of any other; and the history of our Republic, pursued, as here laid down, will give a knowledge of our geography in its various stages of progression.

An attention to the events of American history, in connection with geography, not only makes each better understood, and by association better remembered; but the tendency will be to produce an improvement in our national literature, and thus aid the growth of wholesome national feeling. From foreign novels and poems, the American too often locates the imaged excellence, which warms his heart, in the old world. But if our youth learn to connect the mental sublime of the character of their fathers, with the natural grandeur of American scenery, some among them, will, in future life, be moved to supply the deficiencies of our literature, by filling up the chasms of truth with new discoveries, or with the glowing tracery of imagination.

PREFACE.

History, it is said, is the school of politics. It is not, however, the mere knowledge of events, in which the student sees little connection, which lays a foundation for his political knowledge. It is only when he is led to perceive how one state of things, operating on human passions, leads to another, that he is prepared, when he comes into life, to look over the moving scene of the world-predict the changes which are to succeed—and should his be the hand of power, to reach it forth to accelerate or stop the springs of change, as he finds their tendency to be good or evil. There is no history like that of America for producing this effect; and the young politician of other countries, might begin with this, as the most easily comprehensible subject in the whole field, and that, in which effects, may with most certainty, be traced to their proper causes.

The most important advantage of the study of history, is improvement in individual and national virtue. In this respect, we come boldly forward to advocate a preference for the history of the American Republic. Here are no tales of hereditary power and splendor to inflame the imaginations of youth with desires for adventitious distinction. Here are no examples of profligate females, where the trappings of royalty or nobility give to vice an elegant costume; or, as with the Queen of Scots, where beauty and misfortune make sin commiserated, till it is half loved. Here are no demoralizing examples of bold and criminal ambition, which have "waded through blood to empire." The only desire of greatness, which our children can draw from the history of their ancestors, is to be greatly good.

It is not in the formal lesson of virtue, that her principles are most deeply imbibed. It is in moments when her approach is not suspected, that she is fixing her healing empire in the heart of youth. When his indignation rises against the oppressor-when his heart glows with the admiration of suffering virtue-it is then that he resolves never to be an oppressor himself; and he half wishes to suffer, that he too may be virtuous. No country, ancient or modern, affords examples more fitted to raise these ennobling emotions, than America in her early settlement, and at the period of her revolution.

And may not these generous feelings of virtue arise, as well respecting nations as individuals; and the resolution which the youth