History of the United States

“ With a credit that surpasses that of the United States, with a history that is surpassed by no State in the Union, with wealth that is almost fabulous in proportion to its population, with a prosperity almost unknown in the history of the world, that State stands before us to-day in all her dignity, strength, wealth, intelligence, and virtue. And if we, by adopting similar principles in other States, can secure such results, we certainly have an inducement to consider well how far this condition is to be attributed to her diffused education, and to the provisions of her constitution. ”

“ Men who made the nation. $1. Macmillan.
The history of the United States from 1760 to 1865 is given biographically in an account of the lives and labors of Benjamin Franklin, Samuel and John Adams, Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Jefferson, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and finally Abraham Lincoln.
“On the whole, thanks to the author’s lively style, we get, in a very small compass, a better history than many a historian with a more ambitious method might have produced.” ”

“ The wisdom and justice of the American governments, and the virtue of the inhabitants, may, if they are not deficient in the improvement of their own advantages, render the United States of America an enviable example to all the world of peace, liberty, righteousness, and truth. ”

“ Three hundred years is a brief interval in the long epoch of human history, yet within that short period the United States has developed from a handful of hardy men and women, thinly scattered along our Atlantic coast, into a vast and mighty country, peopled by not less than seventy-five millions of human beings, the freest, richest, most industrious, and most enterprising of any people upon the face of the earth. ”

“ In short, without a careful review of the origin and constitutional and juridical history of all the colonies, of the principles common to all, and of the diversities, which were no less remarkable in all, it would be impossible fully to understand the nature and objects of the Constitution; the reasons on which several of its most important provisions are founded; and the necessity of those concessions and compromises, which a desire to form a solid and perpetual Union has incorporated into its leading features. ”

“ We are now approaching the period when the American people began to perceive that something more was necessary to their safety and happiness than the formation of State governments;—when they found, or were about to find, that some digested system of national government was essential to the great objects for which they were contending; and that, for the formation of such a government, other arrangements than the varying instructions of different [115] colonies or states to a body of delegates were indispensable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ American life might at the close of the eighteenth century seem dull and narrow to travelers from Europe, but we know that a happy, brave, free, religious people inhabited a land that yielded abundant returns to their labors, and we may readily believe that their lives were fully as useful as ours are to-day. Nor should it ever be forgotten that amid these provincial surroundings arose the greatest figure that modern history can show, and that the American people were wise enough to choose electors who would make him President. ”

“ A cycle of American development has been completed. Up to the close of the War of 1812, this country was involved in the fortunes of the European state system. The first quarter of a century of our national existence was almost a continual struggle to prevent ourselves being drawn into the European wars. At the close of that era of conflict, the United States set its face toward the West. It began the settlement and improvement of the vast interior of the country. Here was the field of our colonization, here the field of our political activity. ”

“ We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America. ”

“ From the beginning to the end of this long and ardent debate not one member from any quarter of the Union ventured to say—what every man in the United States would have said ten years later—that after the formal and fixed decisions of France and England war existed in fact and should be declared in form. ”

“ It is worth while, in passing, to allude to the undeniable fact that 'The People' referred to are not the people of the Territories or of the outlying possessions of the United States, but the people of the several States, who ordained and established for themselves and their posterity the Federal Constitution. ”

“ Not satisfied with mere independence, they formed a Union destined to become strong and great. This is the Period of Revolution and Confederation.
6. Then the United States of America entered upon its career as a nation. Emigrants flocked to the Land of the Free. New States were formed and added to the Union in rapid succession. To protect itself from jealous neighbors, the nation pushed her boundaries across the continent. This Period may be called the Growth of the Union.
7. But the nation was not truly free. Human slavery existed in the South. ”

“ The basic state of our Union today is sound, and full of promise.
We enter 1973 economically strong, militarily secure and, most important of all, at peace after a long and trying war.
America continues to provide a better and more abundant life for more of its people than any other nation in the world. We have passed through one of the most difficult periods in our history without surrendering to despair and without dishonoring our ideals as a people. ”

“ No foreigner, not even Gallatin, could master the theory of Virginia and New England, or distinguish between the nation of States in union which granted certain powers, and the creature at Washington to which these powers were granted, and which might be strengthened, weakened, or abolished without necessarily affecting the nation. ”

“ The strength--the secret of our strength, the miracle of America, is that our greatness lies not in our government, but in the spirit and determination of our people. (Applause.) When the Federal Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787, our nation was bound by the Articles of Confederation, which began with the words, "We the undersigned delegates." When Gouverneur Morris was asked to draft a preamble to our new Constitution, he offered an important revision and opened with words that changed the course of our nation and the history of the world: "We the people." ”

“ I have been pleasing my imagination with looking forward to the distant spectacle of all the northern continent of America covered with friendly though not subject States, consuming our manufactures, speaking our language, proud of their parent State, attached to her prosperity. ”

“ 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 farmer must remember that his prosperity is inseparable from that of the merchant; and that there is little affinity between his condition and habits and those of a Southern planter. The interests of New England must be defined, understood, and firmly represented. A perfect intelligence must be cultivated among those States, and a united effort must be made and continued to acquire their just influence in the national government. ”

“ The zeal and ardor of the people during the Revolutionary war, supplying the place of government, commanded a degree of order sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared from the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only examples which remain with any detail and precision in history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered. ”

“ With the peace of 1815, however, the era of industrial development commences, and this has been treated with great—though it is believed not too great—fullness of detail; for, beyond all question, the event of the world's history during the nineteenth century is the growth of the United States. ”

“ Where no government is wanted, save that of the parish constable, as in America with its boundless soil, every man being able to find work and recompense for himself, democracy may subsist; not elsewhere." Amid the grave misgivings of the first generation of statesmen, America was committed to the great adventure, in the populous towns of the East as well as in the forests and fields of the West. ”

“ The Growth of Public Sentiment in Favor of Independence.—Events were bearing the Americans away from their old position under the British constitution toward a final separation. Slowly and against their desires, prudent and honorable men, who cherished the ties that united them to the old order and dreaded with genuine horror all thought of revolution, were drawn into the path that led to the great decision. ”

“ The thirteen original States, sparsely peopled, poor and struggling for existence, have expanded into a great galaxy of States, rich, powerful, and prosperous, with grand cities, flourishing rural communities, measureless resources, and an enterprise which no difficulty can baffle and no hardship can check. ”

“ The oldest of the public men of America, his political life had embraced a period of more than half a century, extending back to a time when independence had not entered into the dreams of the boldest among the inhabitants of the English Colonies. ”

“ But the great man, whose mature and energetic youth, trained in the school of Washington, had been devoted to the formation and establishment of the Union, knew too well, that, if its golden cord were once broken, no human agency could restore it to life. ”

“ The annals of the world contain no more impressive example of the birth and growth of a nation than may be seen in the case of that which has been aptly termed the Greater Republic, whose story from its feeble childhood to its grand maturity it is the purpose of this work to set forth. ”

“ In the reign of James the First, there were such severe laws against those who did not conform to the church of England, that hundreds of people emigrated to America, and settled themselves in colonies in a wild country, where at first they suffered many hardships and privations; but these colonies, and others, afterwards formed, gradually improved, till they became large flourishing states, now called the United States of America. ”

“ We’ve persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people -- a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page. ”

“ Intellect of the Middle States Between New England and the Middle States was a gap like that between Scotland and England. The conceptions of life were different. In New England society was organized on a system,—a clergy in alliance with a magistracy; universities supporting each, and supported in turn,—a social hierarchy, in which respectability, education, property, and re­ligion united to defeat and crush the unwise and vicious. ”

“ I should hope, my Lord, that by having some share in the delivery of this Island of New Orleans to the United States, which it will be impossible to keep from them whenever they choose to employ force, his Majesty’s [350] government may hereafter attach still more this country to our interests, and derive all the advantage possible from the intercourse with that important part of the world. A very great change has gradually taken place in the opinions of all ranks in this government in favor of Great Britain, which has struck observers more likely to be impartial than myself. ”

“ The progress of opinion and feeling in this country, on the subject of its government, from the peace of 1783 to the year 1787, may properly be introduced by a brief statement of the political tendencies of two principal classes of men. ”

“ The following pages contain a complete, accurate, and graphic history of our country from the first visit of the Northmen, a thousand years ago, to the opening of its new destiny, through the late struggle, resulting in the freeing of Cuba, the wresting of the Philippines, Porto Rico, and the Ladrones from the tyranny of the most cruel of modern nations, and the addition of Hawaii to our domain. The Greater United States, at one bound, assumes its place in the van of nations, and becomes the foremost agent in civilizing and christianizing the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Interest in Europe languished after Napoleon’s overthrow. France ceased to affect American opinion. England became an object of less alarm. Peace produced in the United States a social and economical revolution which greatly curtailed the influence of New England, and with it the social authority of Great Britain. The invention of the steamboat counterbalanced ocean commerce. The South and West gave to society a character more aggressively American than had been known before. ”