A History of American Literature/Chapter 5
V.
THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
1765–1812 From the Stamp Act Congress to the Second War with England.
Colonial Union. — We have already seen that during the preceding period a new idea had been steadily growing throughout the plantations of America, — an idea undreamed of in earlier days. The Colonies had been settled at different times and for widely different reasons. The primary motive of many of them had been to seek isolation, to found a new order of things in a corner of the earth. The mere suggestion of a union with the Colony of Pennsylvania, or indeed with any other plantation, would have made a Massachusetts Puritan open wide his eyes in amazement.
But the thirteen Colonies represented England's share of the great Continent of North America, and, as viewed from across a thousand leagues of ocean, they appeared rather as one vast possession settled in thirteen places, than as thirteen units with little connection. British policy was ever in advance of Colonial thought. England had recognized her American possessions as a unit almost from the beginning, passing the first of the Navigation Acts as early as 1651. From this time onward, all of that series of selfish commercial laws, familiar to the student of our early history, were passed by the British Ministry to affect the Colonics as a whole. To protest successfully against such laws required cooperation. A common grievance furnished a bond of sympathy. After all, the Colonists were brothers, and blood. told. It is not hard to see that all through the Colonial age almost every circumstance seemed destined to draw the Colonies nearer together, and that the necessity for union came ever from English interference.
The Growth of New Ideas. — Under the press of new problems the first motives that had led pilgrims to the New World were beginning to be forgotten. Early prejudices were growing dim. The tyranny of royal governors had forced upon the Colonists many a lesson in politics. The French wars, besides bringing the different sections into contact, had shown the people their strength and their weakness. The oppression of England's commercial policy had created a bond of sympathy between Colonies that previously had been strangers to each other. Other agencies were at work which need not be enumerated, and altogether it is not strange that the idea of a permanent union should have entered into the minds of some. William Penn had suggested such an idea in 1697; Daniel Cox of New Jersey had discussed its advantages in 1722; Franklin, in the Albany Convention of 1754, held at the opening of the French and Indian War, where most of the New England and Middle Colonics were represented, had proposed "a plan for the union of all the Colonies under one government." But this plan had been rejected both by the English and the Americans, cach regarding it as giving the other too much power.
Suggested Reading. — Franklin's Plan of Union. Old South Leaflets.
The Year 1765. — Union was finally forced upon the Colonies. In 1765 came the obnoxious Stamp Act, at which the indignation at British injustice that had been increasing for half a century burst into flame from New Hampshire to Georgia. The New York Convention of 1765 where representatives from nine different Colonies1763. The Treaty of Paris ending the French and Indian War.
1765. The Stamp Act.
The Albany Convention.
Patrick Henry's speech in Virginia.
1768. Troops sent to Massachusetts.
1770. Boston Massacre.
1773. Boston Tea Party.
1774. Boston Port Bill.
Continential Congress.
1775. April 19. Battles of Lexington and Concord. met in assembly was the result. It is significant that many of the leading men of America, men who were to stand shoulder to shoulder in the great contest for liberty which was soon to come, here met each other as strangers. This was the first American Congress. It came to an end with the Stamp Act, which gave it birth. Nine years later, after the Boston Port Bill and the act subverting the charter of Massachusetts, the famous Continental Congress met in Philadelphia. All prejudices were forgotten. A common danger made Puritan and Quaker meet as brothers. Virginia ordered that the day on which the Boston Port Bill went into effect should be kept as a day of fasting and prayer.
The Continental Congress was designed to meet only the crisis at hand. Had the grievances been withdrawn, it would have shared the fate of the Stamp Act Congress, and no permanent union would have been consummated.
The Spirit of the Age. — The story of the Revolution need not be told, for every American is familiar with this important and desperate struggle. It was our Heroic Age. Compelled by force of circumstance, the Colonists turned the old Puritan earnestness from religion to war and politics. The magnificent training, the self-control, the hardy endurance, and the self-reliance, that a century and a half of frontier life, with its struggle with rocky fields and savage men and beasts, had developed, stood them in good stead now. They put all of their mighty energy and unconquerable will into the contest, but it was a task to discourage the stoutest heart.
"These are the times that try men's souls," wrote Thomas Paine in 1776. "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
Out of this furnace came the pure gold of our national character. It made our government and our literature possible. When the struggle was over, the discordant voices of Colonial days, and local prejudices, and ideals, were all blended into one great, homogeneous whole.
The Literature of the Age. – The spirit of the age had a powerful influence upon its literary product. Polemics gave place to politics. Dry theological1709–1784. Samuel Johnson
1716–1771. Thomas Gray. arguments and pamphlet sermons, gave way to burning oratory and the docu1729–1787. Edmund Burke.
1728–1774. Oliver Goldsmith.
1731–1800. William Cowper.
1759–1796. Robert Burns.
1759-1806. William Pitt, son of "the Great Commoner."
ments and arguments of statesmen. As in the last period, the literature, since it was written for purely practical ends, is valuable now only so far as it gives us a knowledge of the stirring days in which it was produced. American literature written for its own sake was almost unknown, It was not until the Nineteenth Century had fairly begun that Irving, the first American man of letters, appeared, and the dawn of American literature began to brighten.
Three Periods. — (An excellent bibliography of the authorities on the American Revolution is contained in Winsor's Handbook of the American Revolution. The same author's History of America contains an exhaustive descriptive bibliography of manuscript sources and printed authorities on United States history. The best single history of the period is undoubtedly Fiske's American Revolution. Among other authorities may be mentioned Green's Historical View of the American Revolution; Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution; Frank Moore's Diary of the American Revolution, a collection of sources of history; Frothingham's Rise of the Republic, and the biographies and writings of Washington and all other participators in the war. The most valuable and interesting book for young people is, without question, Fiske's War of Independence.) The Revolutionary Age may be subdivided into three distinct periods: The Period of Remonstrance, 1765–1775; the Period of Resistance, 1775–1783;) and the Period of Reconstruction, 1783–1812. The last date, however, is a purely arbitrary one.
I. PERIOD OF REMONSTRANCE.
1765–1775.
The year 1765, that witnessed the Stamp Act Congress, the first organized attempt of any magnitude to protest against the measures of Great Britain, marks the opening of a new era. Viewed from a literary standpoint, the period is unimportant, although it is marked by the appearance of several orators of great brilliancy. That orators always precede revolution has been shown in every great uprising of the American people. The pre-Revolutionary orators rely for their fame chiefly upon tradition. Their work to a large degree has been lost. There were no reporters at those early gatherings of the patriots to catch the words that fell burning from the speakers' lips, and the orators of those stirring times had other things to do than record their own words for the use of posterity. Nevertheless, from the fragments that have come down to us and from the testimony of contemporaries, we know that the orations of those mon must have been full of intensity and fire, and that many of them deserve a place among the masterpieces of the world.
1. SAMUEL ADAMS (1722–1803).
"He, better than any one else, may be taken as a representative of the people of New England and of the spirit with which they engaged in the Revolutionary struggle." — Hawthorne.
Life (by W. V. Wells, 1865; by J. K. Hosmer, 1885. Both of these books are of great value, giving vivid and authentic pictures of all the men and events of the times of which they treat. For a scholarly study of Samuel Adams and his work, see Johns Hopkins University Studies, II., 207. See also Hezekiah Butterworth's Patriot Schoolmaster, 1894, a book of interest to the young). So zealous a fighter for Colonial rights was this stout-hearted old patriot in the stormy days preceding the Revolution, that he gained the distinction, at the time of the Amnesty of 1774, of being the only man, Hancock excepted, that England could not pardon. A native of Boston, a member of the Harvard class of 1740, a prominent figure in the Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and for two years governor of Massachusetts, — such are the main facts in the life of Samuel Adams. It is as an orator that be deserves mention in a history of American literature, though only fragments of his fiery oratory have come down to us. Tradition, however, mentions him as a speaker to be compared with Otis and Quincy. The writings of Samuel Adams have never been collected.
Required Reading. — Grandfather's Chair, iii. 6.
2. JAMES OTIS (1725–1783).
The Patrick Henry of New England."
In 1761, after the act of Parliament restricting all manufacturing in the Colonies and all trade with other nations and even with the plantations, a question arose in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts as to the legal right of Parliament to bind the Colonies to such an extent. The investigation of this case, which involved the very questions that were afterwardsVindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives. 1762.
Rights of the British Colonies asserted. 1764.
Considerations on Behalf of the Colonies. 1765 to be settled by arms, was conducted for the Crown by the King's Attorney General, and for the Colonies by James Otis, a young Massachusetts lawyer. Adams, who was a witness of the trial, has given us this picture of the oratory on Behalf of of Otis on this occasion:
"Otis was a flame of fire! With a promptitude of classical allusion, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of eyes into futurity, a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him. American independence was then and there born. Every man of an unusually crowded audience appeared to me to go away ready to take up arms againsts Writs of Assistance.... James Otis then and there breathed into this nation the breath of life."
Life (by William Tudor, 1823). Otis was born in West Barnstable, Massachusetts, in 1725, and was graduated at Harvard in 1743. His oratory, which was even more impetuous and fiery than that of Adams, easily obtained for him the leadership of the patriot party in Massachusetts.
In 1767, at the very height of his usefulness and at the very crisis of affairs in America, the mind of the young leader failed him. For fourteen years he lingered on, a pitiful ruin, dying in the very year that brought freedom and peace to his country. It is well known that the stirring speech of the reading books, so long a favorite with schoolboys, was written by Mrs. Child as a part of her novel, The Rebels.
3. Josiah Quincy (1744–1775).
Josiah Quincy completes the remarkable trio of orators that Massachusetts furnished for the patriot cause.Observations on the Boston Port Bill (1774) Like Adams and Otis, he graduated at Harvard, to become soon after prominent as a lawyer in Boston. In spite of a slight frame and feeble health, he had a voice of great compass and beauty. His oratory, while not so impetuous as that of Otis, is described as being very pleasing and persuasive. His industry was wonderful. He successfully defended the soldiers implicated in the Boston Massacre, made numerous speeches in town meetings and public assemblies, and wrote many stirring articles for the periodicals of his time. In 1774 he was sent on a private mission to England, where he accomplished much as a zealous advocate of Colonial rights. He died on the return voyage, in his thirty-first year, just at the opening of the great struggle. It was hard indeed for the Colonies at such a time to lose young men of the stamp of Otis, and Warren, and Quincy. The writings of Quincy, as preserved in the biography written by his son, are full of force and fire and a lofty patriotism.
Josiah Quincy, 2d. (1772–1864). — The family of the Quincys, like that of the Adamses, with which it is allied, has been in many ways a remarkable one. During three generations each has been prominent in politics and literature. Josiah Quincy, son of the above, was for many years a leading figure in Congress. He strongly opposed the second war with England, and the extension of United States territory by the admission of Louisiana. He was president of Harvard College from 1829 to 1845. His principal works are his Memoir of Josiah Quincy, 1825; The History of Harvard University, 1840; Municipal History of Boston, 1852, and Life of John Quincy Adams, 1858.
(See Life by his son Edmund, the author of Wensley, a Tale of New England; also Lowell's My Study Windows, pp. 83-114.)
4. PATRICK HENRY (1736–1799).
"The most wonderful of orators." – Jefferson.
"Full of the fire and splendor of the South."
Again, after a century and a half, the attention of the student of American literature is turned toward Virginia. The almost feudal system of society, which prevailed in this State, had been especially favorable to the development of leaders. While New England was busying herself with religious cavils, Virginia was training men who were to become skilled in statescraft, in oratory, in worldly wisdom. This not only gave her the generalship of the War of Independence, but when peace came it enabled her to furnish the young republic with some of the most wonderful statesmen of any century.
Life of Patrick Henry (by William Wirt, 1817, — very luxuriant in its style, looked upon with suspicion by many on account of its manifest hero worship; by Alexander Everett in Sparks' Library of American Biography by Moses Coit Tyler in American Statesmen Series. See, also, McMaster's History of the United States, Vol. I.). The first voice to call attention back to Virginia was that of Patrick Henry. His fervid speech before the Virginia Assembly of 1765, met to discuss the passage of the Stamp Act, brought him at once into prominence as a wonderful orator. In the torrent of his eloquence he had swept all before him. "Cæsar had his Brutus," he cried; "Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third—" Loud cries of "Treason! treason!" interrupted him. Pausing till they had subsided, he added "may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."
But Henry's greatest effort was delivered in March, 1775, in the Virginia Convention, met to discuss the question whether that Colony should be immediately put into a state of defence. Of this speech we have no verbatim copy. The draft given by his biographer, William Wirt, contains only the substance of Henry's oration, the actual wording without doubt being from Wirt's pen. But we know that the effect of the oration was electrical. In a rapid stream of eloquence he swept down all opposition. Every one is familiar with the wonderful words given by Wirt.
"It is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission or slavery. Our chains are forged; their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevi- table and let it come: I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry Peace! Peace!' but there is no peace. The war has actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our cars the crash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field, why stand we here idle?"
The orator had spoken with the voice of a prophet. The news of Lexington and Concord was already in the air.
The career of Patrick Henry centres about these two great efforts. He had been admitted to the bar after studying law six weeks, but he had been a "briefless barrister" until 1765, when he at once became the hero of Virginia. Every honor was held out to him, but after serving twice as governor of the State, he left public life, even refusing several important Federal offices which came to him in his last years.
His oratory appeals strongly to the emotions. In his legal practice he depended more on the spell which his eloquence threw over the jury, than on a mastery of the legal intricacies of the case. Ile was fervid rather than weighty; superficial and hasty rather than deep. His oratory abounds in figurative language; it is sometimes overwrought, even turgid, full of exaggerations and extravagant rhapsodies, yet when joined with the fire, the energy, the flashing eye, the impassioned voice of the man who originated it, it was irresistible.
Required Reading. — Henry's speech before the Virginia Convention.
II. THE PERIOD OF RESISTANCE.
1775–1783.
This period of American history, so full of romance. and heroism, growing more and more dim and vague with every year, has furnished historians, poets, novelists, and painters with a wonderful background for romantic songs and tales and pictures. Longfellow has told the stirring tale of "Paul Revere's Ride" on the night before Lexington; Emerson in his "Concord Hymn" has sung how
Holmes has given us "Grandmother's Story of the Bunker Hill Battle," and Cooper, who with a master hand has pictured in Lionel Lincoln the same desperate struggle, knew well the romantic possibilities of the field, as many of his other novels show. Bryant sang of "Seventy-six," and the "Song of Marion's Men"; Simms, in The Partisan, told in prose the thrilling story of the Robin Hood of the South Carolina Swamps; John P. Kennedy, in Horse-shoe Robinson, told the story of King's Mountain; Mrs. Child wrote The Rebels, a Tale of the Revolution; Thompson, in The Green Mountain Boys, caught the romance of Ticonderoga; Hawthorne threw his mystic charm over the period in Septimius Felton, and Theodore Winthrop, with his bright, breezy style, found life in it for his Edwin Brothertoft.
But while the period has furnished a fruitful field for later writers, it produced no immediate literary results. With every energy bent on the work of war, there was no time for literary production. Only one writer need be mentioned.
1. Thomas Paine (1737–1809).
"The impartial historian must declare that liberty owes nearly as much to the courageous advocacy of Paine, as to the military services of Washington." — Underwood.
Life (by George Chalmers, 1791; by William Cobbett, 1796; by James Cheatham, 1809; by Gilbert Vale, 1891, and by several others. TheCommon Sense. 1776.
The Crisis. 1776.
The Rights of Man. 1791.
The Age of Reasonmost valuable complete edition of his writings is that edited by Moncure D. Conway, 1895). It is a noteworthy fact that of the most powerful champion of Colonial freedom during the American Revolution, was a man who, until 1774, had been a loyal subject of England. and even an officer under the British government. Paine was born in England of Quaker parentage, 1737. After a varied carcer as staymaker, privateer, dissenting preacher; and grocer, he at length found his way into the British revenue service, from which, however, he was soon dismissed under a false charge of smuggling. At this critical time in his career he came in contact with Benjamin Franklin, who was then in England, who strongly advised him to cast in his fortunes with the American Colonies. Never did Franklin render his country a greater service. Immediately upon Paine's arrival in America he became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. Two years later he scattered broadcast a powerful political pamphlet advocating, in no uncertain voice, the complete independence of the Colonies. The effect was electrical. The pamphlet struck the keynote of popular feeling, expressing clearly and courageously what every one had scarcely allowed himself to think. Honors were showered upon the bold author. The legislature gave him £500. In December of the same year, he published a little periodical called The Crisis, devoted to the furtherance of the cause of liberty. Its opening words, "These are the times that try men's souls," have become famous. Though it appeared only at irregular intervals, and soon suspended entirely, it accomplished much good. The first number, by order of Washington, was road entire before every American regiment.
After the Revolution Paine's career was a varied one. In 1787, while in France, he published, in reply to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, The Rights of Man, a book which so delighted the French people that he was at once granted citizenship and given a seat in the National Convention. Afterwards, aftor narrowly escaping the guillotine, he was thrown into prison by Robespierre. It was while in confinemont here that he wrote The Age of Reason, a bitter attack on the Bible from the deistic standpoint. This book, which was published against the carnestly expressed wishes of Franklin, made its author a host of enemies. With such horror was its author looked upon by a majority of the American people, that his early services to the cause of liberty were almost forgotten. The Age of Reason is unfair in its treatment of the Bible and has been many times answered and confuted.
Paine died in New York in 1809.
III. THE PERIOD OF RECONSTRUCTION.
1783-1809.
The Critical Period. — (See The Critical Period of American History, John Fiske.) On the 19th of1783. Trial of Warren Hastings.
1789. French Revolution.
Washington inaugurated President.
1793. Louis XVI. beheaded.
Reign of Terror in France.
1796. Napoleon's first campaign.
1800. Capital of the United States located at Washington.
1802. Photography invented.
1804. Napoleon emperor of France.
1805. Trafalgar.
Death of Nelson.
1807. Fulton's steamboat on the Hudson.
1783–1850. Bolivar liberates the South American Colonies. April, just eight years to a day after the battle of Lexington, the surrender at Yorktown put an end to armed hostilities. In September of the same year the Treaty of Paris left the thirteen Colonies independent of Great Britain. The Americans had won, the ringing of bells and the roaring of cannon voiced their joy, but American independence was not yet assured. Difficulties almost insuperable yet remained. John Fiske has called the six years between the Peace of Paris and the adoption of the Constitution, "the critical period of American history." The problems of war are simple compared with those that follow it. Mere conquest and destruction may be effected by savages, but reconstruction is a work for demigods.
Union — No sooner had peace been declared, than the union of the Colonies, which had been their strength during the war, was forgotten. It had been at best only a temporary joining of strength to ward off a common danger. Even after independence had been won, Union, in the sense in which we now conceive of it, was undreamed of even by the most advanced thinkers. When, in November, 1783, the Continental Army was disbanded, each soldier retired to his home and spoke of himself, not as a citizen of the Independent Colonies of America, but as a citizen of Massachusetts or of Virginia, as the case might be.
The Continental Congress had been a war body simply. It had conducted the war and had contracted enormous debts, but it was powerless to tax the people. The Articles of Confederation were so loose in their binding power that they were practically useless. Each State had its own commercial regulations. Discord arose which threatened to result in thirteen independent nations along the Atlantic coast.
The Constitution. — (See 1. P. Ford's Bibliography and Reference List of the Constitution. The best monographs that have yet appeared on the Framing and Framers of the Constitution are by MacMaster, Century Magazine, Vol. 12, p. 746, and by John Fiske, Atlantic Monthly, February, 1887. See MacMaster's History of the United States and Fiske's Critical Period.) By 1787, Colonial affairs had drifted into such a chaos of difficulties, that the demand for a definite policy and for immediate action became imperative. Accordingly, in May, delegates to the number of fifty-five, from all the Colonies, met at Philadelphia to discuss the situation and to form, if possible, the plan for "a more perfect union."
The Convention was a remarkable one. Washington was its president, and Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison were prominent members. "It was an assembly of demigods," declared Jefferson. For nearly four months, with closed doors, it wrestled with problems worthy of demigods, until on Sept. 17, 1787, thirty-nine of the members signed what was to be the Constitution. of the United States of America, "the1762. Webster.
1783. Irving.
1789. Cooper.
1794. Bryant.
1796. Prescott.
1800. Bancroft.
1803. Emerson.
1804. Hawthorne.
1807. Longfellow.
1807. Whittier.
1809. Poe.
1809. Holmes. most wonderful work," says Gladstone, "ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." Almost every article of this document had been the result of compromise either between radicals and conservatives, between North and South, or large States and small ones. Hardly one of the signers could personally endorse every part of the instrument. It divided the people immediately into two factions, from which grew the political parties that have played so conspicuous a part in American politics. The Federalists endorsed the now Constitution, while the Anti-Federalists opposed it vigorously, even endeavoring to prevent its acceptance by the necessary number of States.
On June 21, 1788, the ninth State ratified the Constitution, and the United States of America became an accomplished fact.
Required Reading. — Franklin's Address on the last day of the Constitutional Convention. See also Old South Leaflets for text of the Constitution, with short bibliography.
The New Nation. — The Revolutionary Age of our literature does not end with the birth of the new nation. The echoes of the great struggle lingered well into the first decade of the Nineteenth Century. It is the work of time to revolutionize the ideas of a people. The form of government that was offered to the Colonies for their approval was a thing "new under the sun." The Constitution had been forced upon many of the Americans against their better judgment, and deep wounds rankled in many hearts. It was a time of suspicion, "of test cases," of doubt and hesitancy. The new instrument, upon which was to hang the liberties and happiness of the people, had not been tested, and confidence in the central government grew slowly. It was not until after the second war with England that suspicion and doubt began to die away, and that patriotism and love for the united fatherland took root in all hearts.
Literary Conditions. — That an independent literature can exist only among nations that are free is an axiom as old as the history of letters. Art cannot flourish without patriotism and without a free fatherland. Athens had been free for a century before she became a literary centre; England was free centuries in producing a Chaucer. There could be no independent literature in America until her sons had learned to trust her implicitly and love her devotedly. Although was written in America in Colonial and Revolutionary times, it was not in reality American literature, since it was but an echo of the literature of England.
The writers of the period of reconstruction fall into two groups: "The Nation Builders" and the little band of pioneers that gave the first feeble lispings of American song and romance.
1. George Washington (1732–1799).
Life (by Washington Irving; by Chief Justice Marshall; and by many others. The best life of Washington for young people is H. E. Scudder's). Although Washington was only incidentally a man of letters, his "literary remains," as collected by Jared Sparks, fill twelve large volumes. While these are largely composed of collections of state papers, despatches, messages, and business letters, they contain, nevertheless, many things possessing rare literary value. As a letter writer Washington had few superiors; his journals, notably the account of his famous journey to the Ohio, first published in 1754, are written in clear, concise English; and his farewell addresses are full of a wisdom and a stateliness worthy in every way of the great man who produced them.
Required Reading. — Washington's "Rules of Conduct," "Journal," "Letters," and "Farewell Addresses." Riverside Literature Series, No. 24.
2. John Adams (1735–1826).
"His letters... are among the best in our literature." — Underwood.
Life (by Charles Francis Adams, with works in ten volumes, 1850; by J. Q. and C. F. Adams, 1871). The second President of the United States is known in literature chiefly from the charming correspondence that passed between him and his wife during the most stirring period of our history. These letters, which have been given to the world by Charles Francis Adams, are singularly frank and lender. Besides revealing two rare personalities, and an almost ideal domestic life, they possess a literary merit of very high rank.
Adams, aside from the inevitable public documents and messages incident to his position, produced several powerful pamphlets of contemporary interest, and kept a journal which is now of great value to the student of our early national life.
Suggested Reading. — Letters of John and Abigail Adams, school edition, Taintor Bros.; also Old South Leaflets.
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), the sixth President of the United States, was far more learned and accomplished than his father, though greatly inferior to him in native ability. Though a constant writer, publishing during his life works on rhetoric, European travel, Shakespearean criticism and biography, besides a book of poems and many political articles, he deserves mention rather as a statesman than an author. Like his father, he kept a full diary, and like him maintained a voluminous and charming correspondence. His life has been written by W. H. Seward, by Josiah Quincy, and by John T. Morse, Jr.
3. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826).
"The most acute philosophic intellect of the time." — Lawrence.
Life (by his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph; by George Tucker; by Henry S. Randall; by James Parton; by John T. Morse, Jr., and byNotes on Virginia.
The Declaration of Independence.
Rights of British America.
Letters.
Autobiography. others. See Cooke's Stories of the Old Dominion).
In scholarship and breadth of view Jefferson surpassed all of his contemporaries; in the theory and practice of statescraft he has, perhaps, never had a superior in America. In an oratorical age he never made a set speech in his life; he had only moderate administrative ability, and he cared nothing for the pomp and display that appeal so strongly to most men, but he could pen words that were magnetic. Throughout his career as a statesman, he depended largely on his vigorous prose style for his influence on men and events. As a result, his state papers, his messages and official letters, possess a literary merit rarely to be found in such documents. Jefferson's monument is the Declaration of Independence, which is, without doubt, the most literary, as it is the best known, state paper in America.
In 1784 Jefferson published, at the request of the French government, Notes on Virginia, a little book that at once gained a deserved popularity. Besides containing much practical wisdom, it contained many fine studies of natural scenery. At times the author approaches sublimity in his descriptions, as in the following:
"The passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge is, perhaps, one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature. You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes np the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain an hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Potomac, in quest of a passage also. In the moment of their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder, and pass off to the sea. The first glance of this scene hurries our senses into the opinion that this earth has been created in time, that the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began to flow afterward, that in this place, particularly, they have been dammed up by the Blue Ridge of mountains, and have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley that continuing to rise, they have at length broken over this spot, and have torn the mountain down from its summit to its base."
The impress of Jefferson's powerful mind upon his times is everywhere clearly to be seen. He was in every sense a leader. Opposing the new Constitution, since to his mind it gave too much power to the central government, he immediately became the recognized leader of the Anti-Federalist party. Later, when the Constitution had been adopted by the people, he headed the strict constructionist faction from which has descended the Democratic party of to-day. A suggestive coincidence, one that has been immortalized by the eloquence of Webster and other contemporary orators, is the fact that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826. "The two founders of freedom seemed to rise together to the stars."
Suggested Reading. — Webster's Discourse on the Lives and Services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, 1826; see also Old South Leaflets for text of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson's works have been published in nine volumes.
4. James Madison (1751–1836).
"The Father of the Constitution."
Life (by William C. Rives, 1866; by John Quincy Adams, 1854; by Sidney H. Gay, 1889). James Madison, the fourth President, completes the remarkable trio of Virginians, who added lustre to our early history. All of the best of MadiTwenty-nine Federalist Papers.
Reports of the Debates in the Federal Convention.
Madison Papers, 3 vols., 1840.son's literary work is connected with the Constitution. He made the first draught of this instrument to be presented to the Convention he was prominent in all the debates that followed; he wrote twenty-nine of the eighty-five Federalist Papers, defending and explaining it; and his journal of the debates of the Convention is the most complete and authentic record of that important assembly.
Required Reading. — "The Last Day of the Convention," from Madison's Journal. Old South Leaflets.
5. Alexander Hamilton (1757–1804).
"Hamilton was the greatest man the country has ever seen, always excepting Washington." — Chief Justice Marshall.
"Orator, writer, soldier, jurist, financier." — From Hamilton's monument.
Life (by his son John C. Hamilton, 1884–1840, with works in several volumes; by George Shed; by John T.The Federalist Papers Morse, Jr., and by others. Morse's work is probably regarded as the standard Life of Hamilton, though that by H. C. Lodge, in the American Statesman Series, is by all means the best for school use. See also Lodge's Studies in History, p. 132).
The brief line, given above, from the monument of Alexander Hamilton, reduces to its lowest terms the career of a remarkably versatile man. First a student in Columbia College; then called from his studies to a brilliant career as a soldier in the patriot army; aide-de-camp to Washington; then jurist winning the praises of such lawyers as Jay and Marshall; member from New York of the Continental Congress and the Federal Convention; author of the greater number of the Federalist Papers; then orator for the new Constitution, turning almost single-handed the tide of public sentiment in the crucial State of New York; and finally the first Secretary of the Treasury, creating a financial policy that saved the nation from bankruptcy, — such, in brief, are the main facts in an unusually eventful life.
The public career of Hamilton naturally divides itself in two periods: the first characterized by his efforts to bring about the adoption of the Constitution; the second marked by his magnificent statesmanship in the service of the new government. It is difficult to determine in which capacity he did the nation the greatest service. His financial policy is summed up in the well-known words of Webster: "He smote the rock of national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of public credit, and it sprang upon its feet." But it is in connection with his efforts to introduce to the people the new Constitution that Hamilton's fame as a writer depends.
The Federalist Papers. — The first number of the Federalist Papers appeared in the New York Independent Gazette of Oct. 27, 1787, and they continued to appear at semi-weekly intervals for nearly a year. The papers were published under the signature of "Publius," and as a result their authorship has been questioned. It is known, however, that Hamilton originated the idea of the series, and that he contributed the most powerful numbers. The most unprejudiced estimate ascribes fifty-one papers to Hamilton, twenty-nine to Madison, and five to Jay. Although addressed to the people of New York, and written with the primary idea of explaining to them the new Constitution, these essays had a far wider audience. They were copied in all the Colonial papers, exerting an influence for good that cannot be estimated.
The great value of the Federalist Papers as treatises on the Constitution and our federal government has been commented upon. John Fiske declares them "undoubtedly the most profound and suggestive treatise on government that has ever been written."
H. C. Lodge writes:
"The great legal minds have set the seal of their approbation upon them; and in modern times, in the formation of a great empire, statesmen have turned to them and to their principal author as the pre-eminent authority on the subject of federation. The effect of these remarkable essays in converting and forming public opinion can hardly be overestimated."
Required Reading. — Old South Leaflets, Nos. 1 and 2. See also The Federalist, H. C. Lodge, editor, New York, 1888.
Other Writers. — The list of remarkable men who laid the foundations of our government and incidentally produced literature, is a long one, yet only a few names need be mentioned here. John Jay (1745–1829), first Chief Justice of the United States, wrote clearly and well on political and legal topics; Gouverneur Morris (1752–1816) was a powerful orator; Fisher Ames (1758–1808), a passionate political speaker and newspaper writer, was the ever-ready champion of the New England Federalists; and James Monroe (1758–1831), the seventh President of the United States, wrote several scholarly political works, as The People the Sovereigns, etc.
The First Truly American Literature. — None of this remarkable group of men aspired to literary distinction; none of them can strictly be called a literary man; nevertheless it was from their pens that the first true American literature came. The creators of the Constitution followed no models. The mark of their individuality is upon everything that they did and wrote. It was in her political literature that America first broke away from the intellectual chain that bound her to England.