[Illustration: THE WARRIOR'S LAST RIDE (See the Battle of Deerfield, Vol. 1., p. 205) Painted by Frederic Remington]
THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1492 TO 1910
By JULIAN HAWTHORNE
VOLUME I
From Discovery Of America October 12, 1492
To
Battle Of Lexington April 19, 1775
CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE
INTRODUCTION BEFORE DAWN
I. COLUMBUS, RALEIGH, AND SMITH
II. THE FREIGHT OF THE "MAYFLOWER"
III. THE SPIRIT OF THE PURITANS
IV. FROM HUDSON TO STUYVESANT
V. LIBERTY, SLAVERY, AND TYRANNY
VI. CATHOLIC, PHILOSOPHER, AND REBEL
VII. QUAKER, YANKEE, AND KING
VIII. THE STUARTS AND THE CHARTER
IX. THE NEW LEAF, AND THE BLOT ON IT
X. FIFTY YEARS OF FOOLS AND HEROES
XI. QUEM JUPITER VULT PERDERE
XII. THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM AND THE STAMP ACT
XIII. THE PASSING OF THE RUBICON
XIV. THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD
INTRODUCTION
When we speak of History, we may mean either one of several things. A savage will make picture-marks on a stone or a bone or a bit of wood; they serve to recall to him and his companions certain events which appeared remarkable or important for one or another reason; there was an earthquake, or a battle, or a famine, or an invasion: the chronicler himself, or some fellow-tribesman of his, may have performed some notable exploit. The impulse to make a record of it was natural: posterity might thereby be informed, after the chronicler himself had passed away, concerning the perils, the valor, the strange experiences of their ancestors. Such records were uniformly brief, and no attempt was made to connect one with another, or to interpret them. We find such fragmentary histories among the remains of our own aborigines; and the inscriptions of Egypt and Mesopotamia are the same in character and intention, though more elaborate. Warlike kings thus endeavored, from motives of pride, to perpetuate the memory of their achievements. At the time when they were inscribed upon the rock, or the walls of the tombs, or the pedestals of the statues, they had no further value than this. But after the lapse of many ages, they acquire a new value, far greater than the original one, and not contemplated by the scribes. They assume their proper place in the long story of mankind, and indicate, each in its degree, the manner and direction of the processes by which man has become what he is, from what he was. Thereby there is breathed into the dead fact the breath of life; it rises from its tomb of centuries, and does its appointed work in the mighty organism of humanity.
In a more complex state of society, a class of persons comes into being who are neither protagonists, nor slaves, but observers; and they meditate on events, and seek to fathom their meaning. If the observer be imaginative, the picturesque side of things appeals to him; he dissolves the facts, and recreates them to suit his conceptions of beauty and harmony; and we have poetry and legend. Another type of mind will give us real histories, like those of Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus and Livy, which are still a model in their kind. These great writers took a broad point of view; they saw the end from the beginning of their narrative; they assigned to their facts their relative place and importance, and merged them in a pervading atmosphere of opinion, based upon the organic relation of cause and effect. Studying their works, we are enabled to discern the tendencies and developments of a 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 which alone was conversant with letters--the priestly class; and the annals they have left to us have none of the value which belongs to the productions of classical antiquity. They were again mere records; or they were mystical or fanciful tales of saints and heroes, composed or distorted for the glorification of the church, and the strengthening of the influence of the priests over the people. But these also, in after times, took on a value which they had not originally possessed, and become to the later student a precious chapter of the history of mankind.
Meanwhile, emerging august from the shadows of antiquity, we have that great body of literature of which our own Bible is the highest type, which purports to present the story of the dealings of the Creator with His creatures. These wonderful books 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 material veil, or symbol, concealing a spiritual body of truth, which is neither trivial nor disconnected, but an organized, orderly and catholic revelation of the nature of man, of the processes of his spiritual regeneration, of his final reconciliation with the Divine. The time will perhaps come when some inspired man or men will be enabled to handle our modern history with the same esoteric insight which informed the Hebrew scribes, when they used the annals of the obscure tribe to which they belonged as a cover under which to present the relations of God with all the human race, past and to come.
* * * * *
Modern history tends more and more to become philosophic: to be an argument and an interpretation, rather than a bald statement of facts. The facts contained in our best histories bear much the same relation to the history itself, that the flesh and 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 only excuse for their existence is, that the person may have being, or that the history may trace a spiritual growth or decadence.
There was perhaps a time when the historian found a difficulty in collecting facts enough to serve as a firm foundation for his edifice of comment and deduction; but nowadays, his embarrassment is rather in the line of making a judicious selection from the enormous mass of facts which research and the facilities of civilization have placed at his disposal.
Not only is every contemporary event recorded instantly in the newspapers and elsewhere; but new light is being constantly thrown upon the past, even upon the remotest confines thereof. Some of the facts thus brought 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
.... "Rafters of immortal pine, Cedar incorruptible, worthy her design."
Or he may be sure that the historian who comes after him will sift the wheat from his chaff, and leave him no better reputation than that of the quarry from which the marble of the statue comes. He must tell a consecutive story, but must eschew all redundancy, furnish no more supports for his bridge than its stability requires, prune his tree so severely that it shall bear none but good fruit, forbear to freight the memory of his reader with a cargo so unwieldy as to sink it. On the other hand, of course, he must beware of being too terse; man cannot live by bread alone, and the reader of histories needs to be told the Why as well as the What. But the historical field is so wide that one man, in his one lifetime, can hardly hope by independent and original investigation both to collect all the data from which to build his structure, and so to select his timbers that only the indispensable ones shall be employed. In reality, we find one historian of a given subject or period succeeding another, and refining upon his methods and treatment. With each successive attempt the outlook becomes clearer and more comprehensive, and the meaning of the whole more pronounced. The spirit, for the sake of which the body exists, more and more dominates its material basis, until at last the latter practically vanishes "in the lig
ht of its meaning sublime." This is the apotheosis of history, which of course has not yet been attained, and probably can never be more than approximated.
* * * * *
The present work is a very modest contribution toward the desired result.
It makes few or no pretensions to original research. There are many histories of the United States and the fundamental facts thereof are known. But it remains for the student to endeavor to solve and declare the meaning of the familiar events; to state his view of their source and their ultimate issue. In these volumes, I have taken the view that the American nation is the embodiment and vehicle of a Divine purpose to emancipate and enlighten the human race. Man is entering upon a new career of spiritual freedom: he is to enjoy a hitherto unprecedented condition of political, social and moral liberty--as distinguished from license, which in truth is slavery. The stage for this grand evolution was fixed in the Western Continent, and the pioneers who went thither were inspired with the desire to escape from the thralldom of the past, and to nourish their souls with that pure and exquisite freedom which can afford to ignore the ease of the body, and all temporal luxuries, for the sake of that elixir of immortality. This, according to my thinking, is the innermost core of the American Idea; if you go deep enough into surface manifestations, you will find it. It is what differentiates Americans from all other peoples; it is what makes Americans out of emigrants; it is what draws the masses of Europe hither, and makes their rulers fear and hate us. It may often, and uniformly, happen that any given individual is unconscious of the Spirit that moves within him; for it is the way of that Spirit to subordinate its manifestations to its ends, knowing the frailty of humanity. But it is there, and its gradual and cumulative results are seen in the retrospect, and it may perhaps be divined as to the outline of some of its future developments.
Some sort of recognition of the American Idea, and of the American destiny, affords the only proper ground for American patriotism. We talk of the size of our country, of its wealth and prosperity, of its physical power, of its enlightenment; but if these things be all that we have to be proud of, we have little. They are in truth but outward signs of a far more precious possession within. We are the pioneers of the new Day, or we are nothing worth talking about. We are at the threshold of our career.
Our record thus far is full of faults, and presents not a few deformities, due to our human frailties and limitations; but our general direction has been onward and upward. At the moment when this book is finished, we seem to be entering upon a fresh phase of our journey, and a vast horizon opens around us. It was inevitable that America should not be confined to any special area on the map of the world; it is of little importance that we fill our own continent with men and riches. We are to teach men in all parts of the world what freedom is, and thereby institute other Americas in the very strongholds of oppression. In order to accomplish this, Americans will be drawn forth and will obtain foothold in remote regions, there to disseminate their genius and inculcate their aims. In Europe and Asia are wars and rumors of wars; but there seems no reason why the true revolution, which Americanism involves, should not be a peaceful and quiet one. Our real enemies may be set in high places, but they are very few, and their power depends wholly on those myriads who are at heart our allies. If we can assure the latter of our good faith and disinterestedness, the battle is won without fighting. Indeed, the day for Mohammedan conquests is gone by, and any such conquest would be far worse than futile.
These are theories and speculations, and so far as they enter into my book, they do so as atmosphere and aim only; they are not permitted to mold the character of the narrative, so that it may illustrate a foregone conclusion. I have related the historical story as simply and directly as I could, making use of the best established authorities. Here and there I have called attention to what seemed to me the significance of events; but any one is at liberty to interpret them otherwise if he will. After all the best use of a history is probably to stimulate readers to think for themselves about the events portrayed; and if I have succeeded in doing that, I shall be satisfied. The history of the United States does mean something: what is it? Are we a decadent fruit that is rotten before it is ripe? or are we the bud of the mightiest tree of time? The materials for forming your judgment are here; form it according as your faith and hope may dictate.
JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
BEFORE DAWN
When, four centuries ago, adventurers from the Old World first landed on the southern shores of the Western Continent, and pushed their way into the depths of the primeval forest, they found growing in its shadowy fastnesses a mighty plant, with vast leaves radiating upward from the mould, and tipped with formidable thorns. Its aspect was unfriendly; it added nothing to the beauty of the wilderness, and it made advance more difficult. But from the midst of some of them uprose a tall stem, rivaling in height the trees themselves, and crowned with a glorious canopy of golden blossoms. The flower of the forbidding plant was the splendor of the forest.
It was the Agave, or American Aloe, sometimes called the Century Plant, because it blooms but once in a lifetime. It is of the family of the lilies; but no other lily rivals its lofty magnificence. From the gloom of the untrodden places it sends its shaft skyward into the sunshine; it is an elemental growth: its simplicity equals its beauty. But until the flower blooms, after its ages of preparation, the plant seems to have no meaning, proportion, or comeliness; only when those golden petals have unfolded upon the summit of their stately eminence do we comprehend the symmetry and significance that had so long waited to avouch themselves.
This Lily of the Ages, native to American soil, may fittingly stand as the symbol of the great Western Republic which, after so many thousand years of spiritual vicissitude and political experiment, rises heavenward out of the wilderness of time, and reveals its golden promise to those who have lost their way in the dark forest of error and oppression. It was long withheld, but it came at last, and about it center the best hopes of mankind. These United States--this America of ours, as we love to call it --is unlike any other nation that has preceded or is contemporary with it.
It is the conscious incarnation of a sublime idea--the conception of civil and religious liberty. It is a spirit first, and a body afterward; thus following the true law of immortal growth. It is the visible consummation of human history, and commands the fealty of all noble minds in every corner of the earth, as well as within its own boundaries. There are Americans in all countries; but America is their home.
The seed is hidden in the soil; the germ is shut within the darkness of the womb; the preparation for all birth is obscure. For more than a century after the discovery of Columbus, no one divined the true significance and destiny of the nation-that-was-to-be. Years passed before it was understood even that the coast of the New World was anything more than the western boundaries of the Asiatic continent; Columbus never wavered from this conviction; the Cabots fancied that our Atlantic shores were those of China; and though Balboa, in 1513, waded waist-deep into the Pacific off Darien, and claimed it for Spain, yet the massive immensity of America was not suspected. There was not space for it on the globe as then plotted by geographers; it must be a string of islands, or at best but an attenuated outlying bulwark of the East. News spread slowly in those days; Vasco da Gama had reached India round the Cape of Good Hope before Balboa's exploit; Columbus, on his third voyage, had touched the mainland of South America, and young Sebastian Cabot, sailing from Bristol under the English flag, had driven his prow against Labrador ice in his effort to force a northwest passage; and still the truth was not fully realized.
And when, a century later, the English colonies were assigned their boundaries, these were defined north, south and east, but to the west they extended without limit. Panama was but thirty miles across, and no one imagined that three thousand miles of solid land stretched between the Chesapeake and the Bay of San Francisco. Then, as now, orthodoxy fought against the heresy that there could
be anything that was not as narrow as itself.
And this physical denial or belittlement of the American continent had its mental complement in the failure to comprehend the destiny of the people which was to inhabit it. Spain thought only of material and theological aggrandizements: of getting gold, and converting heathen, to her own temporal and spiritual glory; and she was as ready to shed innocent blood in the latter cause as in the former. England, without her rival's religious bigotry, was as intent upon winning wealth through territorial and commercial usurpations. Though not a few of the actual discoverers and explorers were generous, magnanimous and kindly men, having in view an honorable renown, based on opening new fields of life and prosperity to future ages, yet the monarchs and the trading Companies that stood behind them exhibited an unvarying selfishness and greed. The new world was to them a field for plunder only. Each aimed to own it all, and to monopolize its produce. The priestly missionaries of the Roman Catholic faith did indeed pursue their ends with a self-sacrifice and courage which deserve all praise; they devoted themselves at the risk and often at the cost of their lives to the enterprise of winning souls, as they believed, to Christ. But the Church dignitaries who sent forth these soldiers of religion sought through them only to increase the credit of their organization; they contemplated but the enlargement of their power.
The thought of establishing in the wilderness a place where men might rule themselves in freedom entered not into their calculations. The spirit of the old order survived the birth of the spirit of the new.
But the conflict thus provoked was necessary to the evolution which Providence was preparing. The soul grows strong through hardship; truth conquers by struggling against opposition. It is by resistance, at first instinctive, against restraint that the infant attains self-consciousness.
The first settlers who came across the ocean were animated solely by the desire to escape from oppression in their native land; they had as yet no purpose to set up an independent empire. But, as the breath of the forest and the prairie entered into their lungs, and the untrammeled spaciousness of the virgin continent unshackled their minds, they began to resent, though at first timidly, the arrogant pretension to rule them across the waves. Their environment gave them courage, made them hardy and self-dependent, enlightened their intelligence, weaned them from vain traditions, revealed to them the truth that man's birthright is liberty.
The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910 Page 1