do we owe the gradual assimilation of the various State constitutions to each other, -the disappearance, one by one, of the tests by which at first they tried to screen Jews or Gentiles or Unitarians or Catholics out of their body politic. While the elective franchise in each State was regulated by its own decisions, all the "free inhabitants" of the United States were subjects or citizens of the nation. Mr. Bancroft well remarks, that, notwithstanding the anxiety with which the term "people of the United States" is avoided in the Articles of Confederation, the nation, as a unit, was really recognized, not to say organized, when the fealty or allegiance to it of each white inhabitant was thus proclaimed. Mr. Tayler Lewis has well shown that this nationality existed already, before the colonies had confederated, - in the common relation of English subjects, in whatever colony, to the English crown. As Mr. Bancroft puts it, "America, though the best representative of the social and political genius of the eighteenth century, was not the parent of the idea in modern civilization, that man is a constituent member of the state of his birth, irrespective of his ancestry. It has become the public law of Christendom. Had America done less, she would have been, not the leader of nations, but a laggard." America did her utmost, in this matter, by proclaiming that the "state" of a man's birth was the whole continent in which he was born. No accident could limit his nationality to "the Hampshire Grants," or to one of the "Counties on the Delaware." The The indi Lastly, the Confederation attempted the largest liberty to individual man. In the Greek republics, "the state existed before the individual, and absorbed the individual. Greek citizen never spoke of the rights of man. vidual was merged in the body politic." But, in the Articles of Confederation, the freedom of the individual could be recognized, because conscience had asserted its rights; and, in the assertion, the unity of despotic power was broken. These four principles, now like household words with us, the indefinite territorial extent of a republic, the relation of the United States to the natural rights of its inhabitants, the VOL. LXXXII. -NEW SERIES, VOL. III. NO. I. 7 identity of privilege of each citizen in whatever State, and the freedom of the individual everywhere, - were completely asserted for us, so as never to be lost again in the muchabused Articles of Confederation. Our limits do not permit us to go at present further into an abridgment even of the more remarkable results of this remarkable volume. The eight volumes published successively in thirty-two years, almost a generation of men-have led up to the period of romance, of excitement, and of critical interest, which we wisely call "The Revolution," as if there were no other. Of "the Revolution," the critical years pass under review in this volume, and in the volume which is to follow. Mr. Bancroft is grateful, doubtless, that the concentrated white light of another revolution is brought to bear on the examination, so that no detail may be thought insignificant, and no secret of the circulation lost in some provoking shadow. He seems to us to rise worthily to his theme. We have been particularly pleased with the simplicity and consequent clearness of his descriptions of battles. Without a diagram on the page, he fixes for us the position of regiments, squadrons, and batteries, so that each reader can prepare his own diagram. Again, he does not come to an event till he has fairly shown its cause. If we are surprised, it is because history itself is surprised. And, indeed, often we find, that, a hundred years after the fact, we understand it better than those who were standing by. Once more, the narrative is relieved by the philosophy which inquires into principles and into consequences, but never so overwhelmed by a cloud of speculation, that we forget the substratum that is below. The narrative is always brilliant, and the reader follows from page to page with interest, and wishes there was more. On the whole, there is little to be asked for, in the way of improvement of Mr. Bancroft's historical style. It seems to us sometimes marked by the defect of a supposition that the reader is already well acquainted with the history, even in details, as if that this new volume were rather a discussion of facts which are widely known, than an original statement of them. Now, the truth is, that four readers out of five, who take this volume in hand, will have read no other full history of the war; and for such readers in truth, as for all readers of history in theory, the narrative should be written for the first time. For instance, the following sentence, loosely constructed as some of Mr. Bancroft's sentences are, does not tell the new-born reader, who here first drinks in his American history, any thing that he needs to know: "The unfitness of the highest officer in the naval service, as displayed in his management of a squadron which had gone to sea in the spring, had just been exposed by an inquiry; and, in spite of the support of the Eastern States, he had been censured by a vote of Congress: yet from tenderness to his brother, who was a member of Congress, a motion for his dismissal was obstructed, and a majority ordered the aged and incompetent man to resume the command which he was sure to disgrace." There is nothing in this sentence to show that the aged and incompetent man was Hopkins; and, on the other hand, all that has been said before leads the reader to suppose that it was Nicholas Biddle. It is only afterwards that an allusion made to Hopkins leads to a guess that it is he. The boys who write most of the literary criticisms, so called, for the newspapers, are in the habit of complaining that Mr. Bancroft uses archaisms of language. Indeed, we remember one constitutionally ill-tempered person, who said of the eighth volume, that one needed an archæological dictionary to understand it. In regard to this volume, this charge is founded on three expressions: "Dearly did the Cherokees aby their rising." All that is to be said of these three words is, that, if people do not know what the words mean, it is time they did. They are words used by the best English writers of the best period of English literature. The fault which we should find with Mr. Bancroft's style is, not that he indulges too much in the use of words carefully chosen for precision of meaning, but that, in the occasional pursuit of those phantoms which lead men into the bogs and jungles of "fine writing," he sometimes uses words for their sound, without caring much for their meaning. Take the following sentence: "The uneven upland is bounded, for more than two miles, by walls of primitive rock, or declivities steep as an escarpment." Now, in truth, there are no walls there: whether the rock is primitive or fossiliferous is a geological matter of no interest to the reader, and to say "steep as an escarpment" is as if one said "steep as a garden bank," or "steep as an inclined plane." The fact to be communicated is, that, on the Haerlem-River side, the shore is bold, so as to be easily held against invading troops. "Walls of primitive rock" and "declivities steep as an escarpment" come into the statement of the fact, not because they illustrate it, but because they sound well. Such details, however, are of little or no importance. We have been betrayed into them because other people have been. What is important is, that the style of the book is attractive and intelligible, and floats the reader easily and quickly on from the beginning to the end. The "largest generalization of all" is that which closes the volume. "We are arrived at the largest generalization thus far in the history of America. "The spirit of free inquiry penetrated the Catholic world as it penetrated the Protestant world. Each of their methods of reform recognized that every man shares in the eternal reason, and in each the renovation proceeded from within the soul. Luther opened a new world, in which every man was his own priest, his own intercessor: Descartes opened a new world, in which every man was his own philosopher, his own judge of truth. "A practical difference marked the kindred systems: the one was the method of continuity and gradual reform; the other, of an instantaneous, complete, and thoroughly radical revolution. The principle of Luther waked up a superstitious world, asleep in lap of legends old,' but did not renounce all external authority. It used drags and anchors to check too rapid a progress, and to secure its moorings. So it escaped premature conflicts. By the principle of Descartes, the individual man at once and altogether stood aloof from king, church, universities, public opinion, traditional science, all external authority and all other beings, and, turning every intruder out of the inner temple of the mind, kept guard at its portal to bar the entry to every belief that had not first obtained a passport from himself. No one ever applied the theory of Descartes with rigid inflexibility; a man can as little move without the weight of the superincumbent atmosphere, as escape altogether the opinions of the age in which he sees the light but the theory was there, and it rescued. philosophy from bondage to monkish theology, forbade to the Church all inquisition into private opinion, and gave to reason, and not to civil magistrates, the maintenance of truth. The nations that learned their lessons of liberty from Luther and Calvin went forward in their natural development, and suffered their institutions to grow, and to shape themselves according to the increasing public intelligence. The nations that learned their lessons of liberty from Descartes were led to question every thing, and by creative power renew society through the destruction of the past. The spirit of liberty in all Protestant countries was marked by moderation. The German Lessing, the antitype of Luther, said to his countrymen, 'Don't put out the candles till day breaks.' Out of Calvinistic Protestantism rose in that day four teachers of four great nationalities, - America, Great Britain, Germany, and France. Edwards, Reid, Kant, and Rousseau were all imbued with religiosity; and all except the last, who spoiled his doctrine by dreamy indolence, were expositors of the active powers of man. All these in political science, Kant most exactly of all, were the counterpart of America, which was conducting a revolution on the highest principles of freedom with such circumspection that it seemed to be only a war against innovation. On the other hand, free thought in France, as pure in its source as free thought in America, became speculative and sceptical and impassioned. This modern Prometheus, as it broke its chains, started up with a sentiment of revenge against the ecclesiastical terrorism which for centuries had sequestered the rights of mind. Inquiry took up with zeal every question in science, politics, and morals." |