History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 From Discovery of America October 12, 1492 to Battle of Lexington April 19, 1775

Julian Hawthorne

Description

From Discovery Of America October 12, 1492

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• History of the Americas
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819909163
• Langue: English

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VOLUME I
From Discovery Of America October 12, 1492
To
Battle Of Lexington April 19, 1775
INTRODUCTION
When we speak of History, we may mean either one ofseveral things. A savage will make picture-marks on a stone or abone or a bit of wood; they serve to recall to him and hiscompanions certain events which appeared remarkable or importantfor one or another reason; there was an earthquake, or a battle, ora famine, or an invasion: the chronicler himself, or somefellow-tribesman of his, may have performed some notable exploit.The impulse to make a record of it was natural: posterity mightthereby be informed, after the chronicler himself had passed away,concerning the perils, the valor, the strange experiences of theirancestors. Such records were uniformly brief, and no attempt wasmade to connect one with another, or to interpret them. We findsuch fragmentary histories among the remains of our own aborigines;and the inscriptions of Egypt and Mesopotamia are the same incharacter and intention, though more elaborate. Warlike kings thusendeavored, from motives of pride, to perpetuate the memory oftheir achievements. At the time when they were inscribed upon therock, or the walls of the tombs, or the pedestals of the statues,they had no further value than this. But after the lapse of manyages, they acquire a new value, far greater than the original one,and not contemplated by the scribes. They assume their proper placein the long story of mankind, and indicate, each in its degree, themanner and direction of the processes by which man has become whathe is, from what he was. Thereby there is breathed into the deadfact the breath of life; it rises from its tomb of centuries, anddoes its appointed work in the mighty organism of humanity.
In a more complex state of society, a class ofpersons comes into being who are neither protagonists, nor slaves,but observers; and they meditate on events, and seek to fathomtheir meaning. If the observer be imaginative, the picturesque sideof things appeals to him; he dissolves the facts, and recreatesthem to suit his conceptions of beauty and harmony; and we havepoetry and legend. Another type of mind will give us realhistories, like those of Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus and Livy,which are still a model in their kind. These great writers took abroad point of view; they saw the end from the beginning of theirnarrative; they assigned to their facts their relative place andimportance, and merged them in a pervading atmosphere of opinion,based upon the organic relation of cause and effect. Studying theirworks, we are enabled to discern the tendencies and developments ofa race, and to note the effects of civilization, character, vice,virtue, and of that sum of them all which we term fate.
During what are called the Dark Ages of Europe,history fell into the hands of that part of the population whichalone was conversant with letters – the priestly class; and theannals they have left to us have none of the value which belongs tothe productions of classical antiquity. They were again mererecords; or they were mystical or fanciful tales of saints andheroes, composed or distorted for the glorification of the church,and the strengthening of the influence of the priests over thepeople. But these also, in after times, took on a value which theyhad not originally possessed, and become to the later student aprecious chapter of the history of mankind.
Meanwhile, emerging august from the shadows ofantiquity, we have that great body of literature of which our ownBible is the highest type, which purports to present the story ofthe dealings of the Creator with His creatures. These wonderfulbooks appear to have been composed in a style, and on a principle,the secret of which has been lost. The facts which they relate,often seemingly trivial and disconnected, are really but a materialveil, or symbol, concealing a spiritual body of truth, which isneither trivial nor disconnected, but an organized, orderly andcatholic revelation of the nature of man, of the processes of hisspiritual regeneration, of his final reconciliation with theDivine. The time will perhaps come when some inspired man or menwill be enabled to handle our modern history with the same esotericinsight which informed the Hebrew scribes, when they used theannals of the obscure tribe to which they belonged as a cover underwhich to present the relations of God with all the human race, pastand to come. * * * * *
Modern history tends more and more to becomephilosophic: to be an argument and an interpretation, rather than abald statement of facts. The facts contained in our best historiesbear much the same relation to the history itself, that the fleshand bones of the body bear to the person who lives in and by them.The flesh and bones, or the facts, have to exist; but the onlyexcuse for their existence is, that the person may have being, orthat the history may trace a spiritual growth or decadence. Therewas perhaps a time when the historian found a difficulty incollecting facts enough to serve as a firm foundation for hisedifice of comment and deduction; but nowadays, his embarrassmentis rather in the line of making a judicious selection from theenormous mass of facts which research and the facilities ofcivilization have placed at his disposal. Not only is everycontemporary event recorded instantly in the newspapers andelsewhere; but new light is being constantly thrown upon the past,even upon the remotest confines thereof. Some of the facts thusbrought before us are original and vital; others are mere echoes,repetitions, and unimportant variations.
But the historian, if he wishes his work to last,must build as does the Muse in Emerson's verse, with .... "Raftersof immortal pine, Cedar incorruptible, worthy her design."
Or he may be sure that the historian who comes afterhim will sift the wheat from his chaff, and leave him no betterreputation than that of the quarry from which the marble of thestatue comes. He must tell a consecutive story, but must eschew allredundancy, furnish no more supports for his bridge than itsstability requires, prune his tree so severely that it shall bearnone but good fruit, forbear to freight the memory of his readerwith a cargo so unwieldy as to sink it. On the other hand, ofcourse, he must beware of being too terse; man cannot live by breadalone, and the reader of histories needs to be told the Why as wellas the What. But the historical field is so wide that one man, inhis one lifetime, can hardly hope by independent and originalinvestigation both to collect all the data from which to build hisstructure, and so to select his timbers that only the indispensableones shall be employed. In reality, we find one historian of agiven subject or period succeeding another, and refining upon hismethods and treatment. With each successive attempt the outlookbecomes clearer and more comprehensive, and the meaning of thewhole more pronounced. The spirit, for the sake of which the bodyexists, more and more dominates its material basis, until at lastthe latter practically vanishes "in the light of its meaningsublime." This is the apotheosis of history, which of course hasnot yet been attained, and probably can never be more thanapproximated. * * * * *
The present work is a very modest contributiontoward the desired result. It makes few or no pretensions tooriginal research. There are many histories of the United Statesand the fundamental facts thereof are known. But it remains for thestudent to endeavor to solve and declare the meaning of thefamiliar events; to state his view of their source and theirultimate issue. In these volumes, I have taken the view that theAmerican nation is the embodiment and vehicle of a Divine purposeto emancipate and enlighten the human race. Man is entering upon anew career of spiritual freedom: he is to enjoy a hithertounprecedented condition of political, social and moral liberty – asdistinguished from license, which in truth is slavery. The stagefor this grand evolution was fixed in the Western Continent, andthe pioneers who went thither were inspired with the desire toescape from the thralldom of the past, and to nourish their soulswith that pure and exquisite freedom which can afford to ignore theease of the body, and all temporal luxuries, for the sake of thatelixir of immortality. This, according to my thinking, is theinnermost core of the American Idea; if you go deep enough intosurface manifestations, you will find it. It is what differentiatesAmericans from all other peoples; it is what makes Americans out ofemigrants; it is what draws the masses of Europe hither, and makestheir rulers fear and hate us. It may often, and uniformly, happenthat any given individual is unconscious of the Spirit that moveswithin him; for it is the way of that Spirit to subordinate itsmanifestations to its ends, knowing the frailty of humanity. But itis there, and its gradual and cumulative results are seen in theretrospect, and it may perhaps be divined as to the outline of someof its future developments.
Some sort of recognition of the American Idea, andof the American destiny, affords the only proper ground forAmerican patriotism. We talk of the size of our country, of itswealth and prosperity, of its physical power, of its enlightenment;but if these things be all that we have to be proud of, we havelittle. They are in truth but outward signs of a far more preciouspossession within. We are the pioneers of the new Day, or we arenothing worth talking about. We are at the threshold of our career.Our record thus far is full of faults, and presents not a fewdeformities, due to our human frailties and limitations; but ourgeneral direction has been onward and upward. At the moment whenthis book is finished, we seem to be entering upon a fresh phase ofour journey, and a vast horizon opens around us. It was inevitablethat America should not be confined to any special area on the mapof the world; i