GEORGE BANCROFT.
“THE MOST FAMOUS AMERICAN HISTORIAN.”
HE chief historians who have added lustre to American literature during the nineteenth century are Bancroft, Prescott, Motley, Parkman, McMaster and John Fiske; and, when we add to these James Parton, the American biographer, we present an array of talent and scholarship on which any nation might look with patriotic pride. They have been excelled by the historians of no other nation of our time, if, indeed—taken from a national standpoint—they have not produced the best historical literature of the present century.
Though Prescott is the oldest, George Bancroft, in the estimation of the great majority, stands first, perhaps, among all the American historians. This eminent writer was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, in October, 1800, the same month and year in which [♦]Macaulay, the great English historian, first saw the light, and,—after living one of the most laborious public and literary lives in the history of the world,—died at the ripe old age of ninety-one years (1891). His father, the Reverend Aaron Bancroft, was a minister of the Congregational Church in Worcester for more than a half century and had the highest reputation as a theologian of learning and piety.
[♦] ‘Macauley’ replaced with ‘Macaulay’
At the early age of thirteen, George Bancroft entered Harvard College from which he graduated at the age of seventeen with the highest honors of his class. His first inclinations were to study theology; but in 1818, he went to Germany where he spent two years in the study of history and philology, and it was there that he obtained his degree of Doctor of Philosophy. During the next two years, he visited in succession, Berlin, Heidelberg, Rome, Paris, and London, returning home in 1822, the most accomplished scholar for his age which our country, at that time, had produced.
Soon after his return to the United States, Mr. Bancroft was appointed to the chair of Greek in Harvard College and those who had the benefit of his instruction spoke of his zeal, faithfulness and varied learning as a teacher. He afterward established, in conjunction with Joseph G. Cogswell, a school of high classical character at [♦]Northampton, Massachusetts. While engaged here, he prepared a number of Latin text books for schools, which were far in advance of anything then used in the country. In the meantime, he had given some attention to politics and had been engaged for several years, incidentally, upon his “History of the United States.”
[♦] ‘Northhampton’ replaced with ‘Northampton’
In 1828 Mr. Bancroft joined the Democratic Party, having formerly been a Whig, and began to take an active interest in politics, where his great historic learning and broad statesmanship placed him quickly on the high road to political preferment. He was elected to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1830, but declined, as he was then so much engaged upon his “History of the United States” that he was unwilling to turn aside, at least until the first volume was issued, which appeared in 1834. The first and second and third volumes of this work, comprising the Colonial history of the country, were received with great satisfaction by the public on both sides of the Atlantic, being in brilliancy of style, picturesque sketches of character and incidents, compass of learning and generally fair reasoning far in advance of anything that had been written on the subject.
“Bancroft, the Historian,” was now the recognition he was accorded, and his fame began to spread. He was made Collector of the Port of Boston in 1838 by President Van Buren, which position he held until 1841. In 1844 he ran as Democratic candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, but was defeated. During 1845 and 1846 he served his country as Secretary of the Navy under President Polk, and while in this office he planned and established the Naval Academy at Annapolis and issued the orders by which California was annexed to the United States. In 1846 President Polk further honored the historian by appointing him Minister-Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, where he represented the United States until 1849. The first three volumes of Mr. Bancroft’s histories had preceded him to England. “The London Monthly Review” spoke in the highest terms of his quality as a historian, praising the sustained accuracy and dignity of his style, referring to him as a philosopher, a legislator, and a historian. He was also honored with the degree of D. C. L., by Oxford University in 1849, and was enrolled as a member of many learned societies.
Thus laden with honors, he returned this same year to his country, made New York his place of residence, and resumed, with renewed energy, the prosecution of his historical labors. The fourth volume of his “History of the United States” appeared in 1852, and the next year the fifth volume was published, which was succeeded by the sixth and seventh, the latter appearing in 1858, bringing the history of our country down into the stirring scenes of the Revolution.
President Andrew Johnson made Mr. Bancroft United States Minister to Russia in 1867, and he was our national representative at the North German Confederation in 1868. General Grant appointed him as our Minister to the German Empire from 1871 to 1874, during which time he enjoyed the closest friendship of Prince Bismarck. Bismarck declares that Bancroft was the foremost representative of American grit that he had ever met. “Think,” said he to Minister Phelps many years afterwards, “of a Secretary of the Navy, a literary man by profession, taking it upon himself to issue orders for the occupation of a vast foreign territory as Bancroft did in the case of California. Again he caused the earliest seizure of Texas by the United States troops, while temporarily holding the portfolio of Minister of War. Only a really great man would undertake such responsibilities.”
Bancroft’s “History of the United States” was completed in 1874; but the last and final revised edition of it was published in 1885, fifty-one years after the first volume had been issued. This great work comprises ten volumes and comes down only to the close of the Revolution. It is a monumental work within itself—a fit monument to the greatest of American historians. The patriotism and eloquence of its author are manifest in nearly every page, and the work has been criticised as a Fourth-of-July oration in ten volumes. It is generally regarded as a standard history of America up to the time of the Constitution.
Other works of Mr. Bancroft are “The Necessity, the Reality, and the Promises of the Human Race” (1854); “Literary and Historical Miscellanies” (1855), and “A Plea for the Constitution of the United States of America, Wounded in the House of its Guardians” (1886), written when the author was eighty-six years of age.
Mr. Bancroft was an orator as well as a historian and politician, one of the best-known of his addresses being the famous oration on Lincoln, delivered before Congress in 1866. During the latter part of his life he had a winter home in Washington, where the national archives and the Library of Congress were always at his hand, and a summer home at Newport, where he had a wonderful garden of roses, which was a great attraction. Rose-growing and horseback riding were his recreations, and the erect and striking form of the historian, with his long gray beard, mounted on a fine horse, was for years a familiar figure at Newport and on the streets of Washington.
It is beautiful to contemplate so long and useful a life as that of George Bancroft. When the old historian was nearly ninety years of age, he journeyed all the way from his northern home to Nashville, Tennessee, to make certain investigations, for historical data, among the private papers of President Polk. The writer of this sketch had the pleasure of witnessing the meeting between him and the venerable wife of James K. Polk at the old mansion which stands near the Capitol. It was a beautiful and impressive sight to see this grand old woman, who had been the first lady of the land forty-five years before, conducting this venerable historian, who had been her husband’s Secretary of War, about the premises. President Polk’s library with all the papers piled upon the table had remained just as he had left it, and into its sacred precincts Mr. Bancroft was admitted, with perfect liberty to select and take away whatever would be of service in his historical labors. What he did with these papers is unknown to the writer. Perhaps his death occurred too soon after to render them of practical service; but that the old historian died in the harness may well be supposed from the following extract taken from a letter written when he was more than eighty years of age: “I was trained to look upon life here as a season for labor. Being more than fourscore years old, I know the time for my release will soon come. Conscious of being near the shore of eternity, I wait without impatience and without dread the beckoning of the hand which will summon me to rest.”
The beckoning hand appeared several years later—in 1891—and he passed quietly “over the river,” only nine years in advance of the death of the century with which he was born, having spent altogether one of the busiest, one of the most honorable, one of the most useful and the very longest life of all the celebrities in American literature. His fame is secure. His works will live after him—a proud and lasting monument.
CHARACTER OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
HILE the State was thus connecting by the closest bonds the energy of its faith with its form of government, there appeared in its midst one of those clear minds which sometimes bless the world by their power of receiving moral truth in its purest light, and of reducing the just conclusions of their principles to a happy and consistent practice. In February of the first year of the colony, but a few months after the arrival of Winthrop, and before either Cotton or Hooker had embarked for New England, there arrived at Nantasket, after a stormy passage of sixty-six days, “a young minister, godly and zealous, having precious” gifts. It was Roger Williams. He was then but a little more than thirty years of age; but his mind had already matured a doctrine which secures him an immortality of fame, as its application has given religious peace to the American world. He was a Puritan, and a fugitive from English persecution; but his wrongs had not clouded his accurate understanding; in the capacious recesses of his mind he had revolved the nature of intolerance, and he, and he alone, had arrived at the great principle which is its sole effectual remedy. He announced his discovery under the simple proposition of the sanctity of conscience. The civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control opinion; should punish guilt, but never violate the freedom of the soul. The doctrine contained within itself an entire reformation of theological jurisprudence; it would blot from the statute-book the felony of non-conformity; would quench the fires that persecution had so long kept burning; would repeal every law compelling attendance on public worship; would abolish tithes and all forced contributions to the maintenance of religion; would give an equal protection to every form of religious faith; and never suffer the authority of the civil government to be enlisted against the mosque of the Mussulman or the altar of the fire-worshipper, against the Jewish synagogue or the Roman cathedral. It is wonderful with what distinctness Roger Williams deduced these inferences from his great principle; the consistency with which, like Pascal and Edwards,—those bold and profound reasoners on other subjects,—he accepted every fair inference from his doctrines; and the circumspection with which he repelled every unjust imputation. In the unwavering assertion of his views he never changed his position; the sanctity of conscience was the great tenet which, with all its consequences, he defended, as he first trod the shores of New England; and in his extreme old age it was the last pulsation of his heart. But it placed the young emigrant in direct opposition to the whole system on which Massachusetts was founded; and, gentle and forgiving as was his temper, prompt as he was to concede everything which honesty permitted, he always asserted his belief with temperate firmness and unbending benevolence.
DESTRUCTION OF THE TEA IN BOSTON HARBOR.
On the 28th day of November, 1773, the ship Dartmouth appeared in Boston Harbor, with one hundred and fourteen chests of tea. The ship was owned by Mr. Rotch, a Quaker merchant. In a few days after, two more tea-ships arrived. They were all put under strict guard by the citizens, acting under the lead of a committee of correspondence, of which Samuel Adams was the controlling spirit. The people of the neighboring towns were organized in a similar manner, and sustained the spirit of Boston. The purpose of the citizens was to have the tea sent back without being landed; but the collector and comptroller refused to give the ships a clearance unless the teas were landed, and Governor Hutchinson also refused his permit, without which they could not pass the “Castle,” as the fort at the entrance of Boston Harbor was called. The ships were also liable to seizure if the teas were not landed on the twentieth day after their arrival, and the 16th day of December was the eighteenth day after.
HE morning of Thursday, the 16th of December, 1773, dawned upon Boston,—a day by far the most momentous in its annals. Beware, little town; count the cost, and know well if you dare defy the wrath of Great Britain, and if you love exile, and poverty, and death, rather than submission. At ten o’clock, the people of Boston, with at least two thousand men from the country, assembled in the Old South. A report was made that Rotch had been refused a clearance from the collector. “Then,” said they to him, “protest immediately against the custom-house, and apply to the Governor for his pass, so that your vessel may this very day proceed on her voyage to London.”
The Governor had stolen away to his country-house at Milton. Bidding Rotch make all haste, the meeting adjourned to three in the afternoon. At that hour Rotch had not returned. It was incidentally voted, as other towns had done, to abstain wholly from the use of tea; and every town was advised to appoint its committee of inspection, to prevent the detested tea from coming within any of them. Then, since the governor might refuse his pass, the momentous question recurred, whether it be the sense and determination of this body to abide by their former resolutions with respect to not suffering the tea to be landed. On this question, Samuel Adams and Young[¹] addressed the meeting, which was become far the most numerous ever held in Boston, embracing seven thousand men. There was among them a patriot of fervent feeling; passionately devoted to the liberty of his country; still young, his eye bright, his cheek glowing with hectic fever. He knew that his strength was ebbing. The work of vindicating American freedom must be done soon, or he will be no party to the great achievement. He rises, but it is to restrain; and, being truly brave and truly resolved, he speaks the language of moderation: “Shouts and hosannas will not terminate the trials of this day, nor popular resolves, harangues, and acclamations vanquish our foes. We must be grossly ignorant of the value of the prize for which we contend, of the power combined against us, of the inveterate malice and insatiable revenge which actuate our enemies, public and private, abroad and in our bosom, if we hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest conflicts. Let us consider the issue before we advance to those measures which must bring on the most trying and terrible struggle this country ever saw.” Thus spoke the younger Quincy. “Now that the hand is to the plough,” said others, “there must be no looking back;” and the whole assembly of seven thousand voted unanimously that the tea should not be landed.
[¹] Dr. Thomas Young, a physician, and afterwards an army-surgeon, was a zealous patriot, and a leading speaker and writer of the time.
It had been dark for more than an hour. The church in which they met was dimly lighted; when, at a quarter before six, Rotch appeared, and satisfied the people by relating that the governor had refused him a pass, because his ship was not properly cleared. As soon as he had finished his report, Samuel Adams rose and gave the word: “This meeting can do nothing more to save the country.” On the instant, a shout was heard at the porch; the war-whoop resounded; a body of men, forty or fifty in number, disguised as Indians, passed by the door, and, encouraged by Samuel Adams, Hancock, and others, repaired to Griffin’s Wharf, posted guards to prevent the intrusion of spies, took possession of the three tea-ships, and in about three hours, three hundred and forty chests of tea—being the whole quantity that had been imported—were emptied into the bay, without the least injury to other property. “All things were conducted with great order, decency, and perfect submission to government.” The people around, as they looked on, were so still that the noise of breaking open the tea-chests was distinctly heard. A delay of a few hours would have placed the tea under the protection of the admiral at the Castle. After the work was done, the town became as still and calm as if it had been holy time. The men from the country that very night carried back the great news to their villages.
CHIVALRY AND PURITANISM.
ISTORIANS have loved to eulogize the manners and virtues, the glory and the benefits, of chivalry. Puritanism accomplished for mankind far more. If it had the sectarian crime of intolerance, chivalry had the vices of dissoluteness. The knights were brave from gallantry of spirit; the Puritans, from the fear of God. The knights were proud of loyalty; the Puritans, of liberty. The knights did homage to monarchs, in whose smile they beheld honor, whose rebuke was the wound of disgrace; the Puritans, disdaining ceremony, would not bow at the name of Jesus, nor bend the knee to the King of kings. Chivalry delighted in outward show, favored pleasure, multiplied amusement, and degraded the human race by an exclusive respect for the privileged classes; Puritanism bridled the passions, commanded the virtues of self-denial, and rescued the name of man from dishonor. The former valued courtesy; the latter, justice. The former adorned society by graceful refinements; the latter founded national grandeur on universal education. The institutions of chivalry were subverted by the gradually increasing weight, and knowledge, and opulence of the industrious classes; the Puritans, rallying upon those classes, planted in their hearts the undying principles of democratic liberty.
THE POSITION OF THE PURITANS.
O the colonists the maintenance of their unity seemed essential to their cordial resistance to English attempts at oppression. And why, said they, should we not insist upon this union? We have come to the outside of the world for the privilege of living by ourselves: why should we open our asylum to those in whom we can repose no confidence? The world cannot call this persecution. We have been banished to the wilderness: is it an injustice to exclude our oppressors, and those whom we dread as their allies, from the place which is to shelter us from their intolerance? Is it a great cruelty to expel from our abode the enemies of our peace, or even the doubtful friend? Will any man complain at being driven from among banished men, with whom he has no fellowship? of being refused admittance to a gloomy place of exile? The wide continent of America invited colonization; they claimed their own narrow domains for “the brethren.” Their religion was their life: they welcomed none but its adherents; they could not tolerate the scoffer, the infidel, or the dissenter; and the presence of the whole people was required in their congregation. Such was the system inflexibly established and regarded as the only adequate guarantee of the rising liberties of Massachusetts.
