American history

“ But the great event in the history of the continent, which we are now met here to commemorate, that prodigy of modern times, at once the wonder and the blessing of the world, is the American Revolution. In a day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honor, distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our love of country, by our admiration of exalted character, by our gratitude for signal services and patriotic devotion. ”

“ POLITICAL HISTORY. To study the history of America after 1840 is to have our attention drawn as by a powerful lodestone to the Civil War. It looms there in the middle of the nineteenth century, a stupendous thing, dominating and dwarfing all others. To it converge many ways that then seemed aimless or wandering, the unanswered questions of the Constitution, the compromises of statesmen, the intrigues of politicians, the clamor of impatient reformers, the silent degradation of the slave. ”

“ Hang the walls of the school-room with pictures of great Americans. Let incidents from their lives be used as illustrations of moral lessons. Explain the principles and form of our government. Dwell upon the extent of its domain and its vast resources. Define simply the privileges conferred, and the duties imposed, upon the citizens of our government. Four things should be taught them: the three Rs and American history. What is needed among all our citizens, is a great lifting up where a broad view of our great land can be had. ”

“ We will now leave this extraordinary nation, which has furnished materials for history of the most interesting nature, as it regards the character of man; their civil, political, and religious institutions, and the moral and social ties that connect society. ”

“ It was comparatively late in life that our philosopher turned historian, and his first work in this field, American Political Ideals Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History, announced that here at last was a writer with broad horizons, who saw America not as an isolated nation making a strange experiment but as adding a vital chapter to the great world's history. ”

“ This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character. ”

“ Enough has been said, it may be assumed, to make clear the point which I am trying to elucidate, namely that a comprehension of the United States of to-day, an understanding of the rise and progress of the forces which have made it what it is, demands that we should rework our history from the new points of view afforded by the present. ”

“ If this ugly chapter in recent American history was the work of men of property and of public officers, there were numerous other Americans, less powerful but of greater probity, who cherished the fundamental freedoms of our Founding Fathers. ”

“ As an account of the planting of a civilization in the wilderness, of the growth of free government, of a power to discuss great political questions with force, the sources of American history are a contribution to the world's literature. ”

“ If patiently and properly studied, the history of the United States is, perhaps, fraught with as many valuable lessons for the warning and instruction of mankind, as that of any other age or nation since the fall of Rome, since the Flood, or since the fall of man. ”

“ The American Republic is but a little over a hundred years old. We reckon in years, they reckon by centuries. The founding of this nation was one of the happiest accidents in the history of the world. ”

“ Perhaps at no period of her existence was America viewed with an eye of higher veneration than at the present, both by statesmen and princes. At the same time, the philosopher in his retirement contemplates, and the lovers of mankind of every description behold, the shackles of ancestral pride annihilated, in a respectable portion of the globe. ”

“ The point of view of The American Nation is that the purpose of the historian is to tell what has been done, and, quite as much, what has been purposed, by the thinking, working, and producing people who make public opinion. Hence the work is intended to select and characterize the personalities who have stood forth as leaders and as seers; not simply the founders of commonwealths or the statesmen of the republic, but also the great divines, the inspiring writers, and the captains of industry. ”

“ The history of that memorable struggle is familiar to every American. Content with the knowledge that his country triumphed, he is willing to let the glorious result take its proper place in the pages of history. ”

“ Let us then select as expressing that incident the most forceful [130] and animated action that would be appropriate to dramatic representation.
The periods of American history are the traditionary, that of discovery and exploration, that of colonization. These three are preparatory, and “American” only in a geographical sense. Then come the period of revolution, that of nationality and rebellion and finally the present—which may be called the period of expansion, since it marks for good or for evil the birth of the nation as a world power. ”

“ When we duly realize this, and further come to see how the two great branches of the English race have the common mission of establishing throughout the larger part of the earth a higher civilization and more permanent political order than any that has gone before, we shall the better understand the true significance of the history which English-speaking men have so magnificently wrought out upon American soil. ”

“ Whatever shall be the outcome of the rush of this huge industrial modern United States to its place among the nations of the earth, the formation of its Western democracy will always remain one of the wonderful chapters in the history of the human race. ”

“ The inhabitants of the United States had much to experiment in the new rank they had taken, and the untrodden ground which they were now to explore, replete with difficulties not yet digested or apprehended by the most sagacious statesmen. They had obtained their independence by a long and perilous struggle against a powerful nation. ”

“ The happy termination of the melancholy events which had for a series of years pervaded America, soon after the present period raised the United States to the zenith of their respectability. The world now viewed with humane satisfaction, millions of people, by unexampled sufferings and steady perseverance, emancipated from a foreign yoke. ”

“ To write the intellectual history of America from the modern æsthetic standpoint is to miss precisely what makes it significant among modern literatures, namely, that for two centuries the main energy of Americans went into exploration, settlement, labour for subsistence, religion, and statecraft. ”

“ American local history should be studied as a contribution to national history. This country will yet be viewed and reviewed as an organism of historic growth, developing from minute germs, from the very protoplasm of state life. ”

“ He must see in American society with its vast spaces, its sections equal to European nations, its geographic influences, its brief period of development, its variety of nationalities and races, its extraordinary industrial growth under the conditions of freedom, its institutions, culture, ideals, social psychology, and even its religions forming and changing almost under his eyes, one of the richest fields ever offered for the preliminary recognition and study of the forces that operate and interplay in the making of society. ”

“ The experience of the past six years should have impressed on the mind of the American nation this most salutary lesson,—a lesson sooner or later learnt by every nation in the development of its own history,—that civil war is the 329sum and consummation of all human woe. ”

“ We have already seen that after the peace, the infant confederated states exhibited scenes and disclosed projects that open too wide a field for discussion to bring down a regular historical work, farther than the moment when winds up the drama of the military, political, and civil administration of a man, whose name will have a conspicuous place in all future historical records. ”

“ No one can read the history of the United States since the drafting of the Declaration of Independence without being struck by the complete transformation in the forms of American life. The Industrial Revolution which had gripped England for half a century, made itself felt in the United States after 1815. ”

“ Two events of extraordinary significance in human history rise before us in the final quarter of the eighteenth century, the French Revolution and the American Declaration of Independence and its results. ”

“ With respect to aristocracy, we should further consider, that before the establishment of the American States, nothing was known to history but the man of the old world, crowded within limits either small or overcharged, and steeped in the vices which that situation generates. ”

“ Recent events have demonstrated that our teaching of history should emphasize more than ever before the peculiar and characteristic genius of American institutions, and the permanent and outstanding assets of American democracy. ”

“ In our opinion the “best patriotism of American tradition,” [Pg 308] when conveyed by history textbooks should directly aid in establishing certain principles and ideals in the pupil’s mind. The more important of these we will list as follows:
(1) Pride in America and a Sense of Nationality.
A belief that America has developed a high type of political and social organization. But recognition that these are not now and never have been perfect and that they are a result of growth, largely anticipated by the framers of our government, to meet changing conditions. ”

“ The United States form a young republic, a confederacy which ought ever to be cemented by a union of interests and affection, under the influence of those principles which obtained their independence. ”

“ The progress of the American Revolution has been so rapid and such the alteration of manners, the blending of characters, and the new train of ideas that almost universally prevail, that the principles which animated to the noblest exertions have been nearly annihilated. ”

“ This opened objects of magnitude indeed to a young republic which had rapidly passed through the grades of youth and puberty, and was fast arriving to the age of maturity -- republic consisting of a number of confederated states, which by this time had received many as inhabitants, who were not originally from the stock of England. ”

“ By the Declaration of Independence, dreaded by the foes an for a time doubtfully viewed by many of the friends of America, everything stood on a new and more respectable footing, both with regard to the operations of war or negotiations with foreign powers. ”

“ The love of domination and an uncontrolled lust of arbitrary power have prevailed among all nations and perhaps in proportion to the degrees of civilization. ”

“ The British were indeed very far superior to the Americans in every respect necessary to military operations, except the revivified courage and resolution, the result of sudden success after despair. ”

“ Some day somebody will delineate the spiritual history of America since the Civil War—the compound of tradition, discontent, aspiration, idealism, materialism, selfishness, and hope that mark the floundering progress of these United States through the last half century. ”

“ It tells the true story of the beginnings, rise, and development of the republic of the United States, without the dreary array of dates or the dull succession of events that so often make up history for the young. ”

“ The eight years in America from 1860 to 1868 uprooted institutions that were centuries old, changed the politics of a people, transformed the social life of half the country, and wrought so profoundly upon the entire national character that the influence cannot be measured short of two or three generations. ”

“ The bulk of mankind have indeed, in all countries in their turn, been made the prey of ambition. ”

“ Who and what has given rise to the assuming pride of the people, as it is called in Europe, in every part of which they have been so thoroughly abased? The American revolution. The precepts, the reasonings, and example of the United States of America, disseminated by the press through every part of the world, have convinced the understanding, and have touched the heart. ”

“ And I have found--as I am sure you have, in your travels--that people everywhere, in spite of occasional disappointments, look to us--not to our wealth or power, but to the splendor of our ideals. For our Nation is commissioned by history to be either an observer of freedom's failure or the cause of its success. ”

“ From this mythical world of the past, which must necessarily retire before the bright day in the progress of civilization, they passed again to the study of the first founding of the great American Republic. ”

“ Blooms the old town of Boston in red and white and blue.
Along the whole awakening North are those bright emblems spread;
A summer noon of patriotism is burning overhead:
No party badges flaunting now, no word of clique or clan;
But "Up for God and Union!" is the shout of every man.
Oh, peace is dear to Northern hearts; our hard-earned homes more dear;
But Freedom is beyond the price of any earthly cheer;
And Freedom's flag is sacred; he who would work it harm,
Let him, although a brother, beware our strong right arm! ”

“ But we must get nearer still to the heart of the question raised as to the character and worth of American civilization. I have said how much the word civilization really means — the humanization of man in society; his making progress there towards his true and full humanity. Partial and material achievement is always being put forward as civilization. We hear a nation called highly civilized by reason of its industry, commerce, and wealth, or by reason of its liberty or equality, or by reason of its numerous churches, schools, libraries, and newspapers. ”