AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.

SECRETARY'S REPORT

OF THE

PROCEEDINGS AT THE THIRD ANNUAL
MEETING.

WASHINGTON, D. C., APRIL 27-29, 1886.

ON the 10th of September, 1884, a little company of historical specialists and their friends assembled in Saratoga to organize an American Historical Association. Forty members were then enrolled. At its third convention the Association numbered over four hundred members, including seventy-five life-members. This body of men and women is a select body. Every one has been chosen by vote of an executive council, and no one has joined by simple application or the mere payment of a membership fee to the treasurer. A careful inspection of the list of elected members will show that the character of the American Historical Association is worthy of its name. Neither local nor provincial, it is a truly national union of the best friends of history in America.

It is a striking evidence of the national aims of this growing Association, that it should so early have advanced upon Washington. Two annual meetings were held at Saratoga, where, in September, 1885, among other papers, were read descriptions of those local events which there determined. our national independence. On the 27th of April, 1886,

barely seven months after the Saratoga convention, this active historical society re-assembled in the nation's capital, and there discussed, among other interesting topics, the capture of Washington in 1814, and some of the campaigns of our late war, in which Washington and Richmond were the strategic centres. The campaigns of modern science are often as significant to a reflecting mind as are the events of war.

Perhaps the most remarkable achievements of the Washington meeting of the Historical Association were: (1) The friendly re-union of military historians, from the North and from the South; (2) the peaceful discussion of those historic campaigns before Washington and in the valley of Virginia; (3) the historical representation of the New South and of the great Northwest, as well as of the Northern States and Canada; (4) the treatment of almost every branch of our American history, from the era of the great discoveries down through the colonial, revolutionary, and national periods to the present reconstruction of historical science; (5) the meeting of the youngest historians with the very oldestwith George Bancroft, father of American history and President of the American Historical Association; (6) the mingling of representatives, both professors and students, from various historical schools-Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Brown, Wellesley, Princeton, Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, Bryn Mawr, together with many representatives of Southern and Western colleges; (7) the presence of congressmen and visitors from different parts of the Union. It was a veritable national convention, in the political centre of the United States, for the furtherance of American history and of history in America.

Beyond all question, the most notable individual feature of the Washington meeting was its presiding geniusGeorge Bancroft. Chosen at Saratoga to be the President of the American Historical Association, he attracted its members to Washington, which has long been his favorite residence and historical workshop. Dwelling within easy reach of our national archives, he has drawn American his

tory from its fountain-head. More than any other American, George Brancroft is the personal embodiment of the historic spirit of these United States. It was, therefore, highly appropriate that the newly formed Historical Association should make a pilgrimage to the abode of this venerable scholar, there to seek and obtain his patriarchal blessing.

MORNING SESSION.

TUESDAY, April 27, 1886.

At the opening session on Tuesday morning, April 27, Mr. Bancroft addressed the assembled audience of two hundred and fifty persons in the large lecture-hall of the Columbian University. There were, besides members, many guests from Washington and students from Baltimore, who wished to hear the Nestor of American history upon his chosen theme:

Mr. Bancroft on Self-Government: Address of Welcome to the American Historical Association.

Brothers of the American Historical Association:

I welcome you to this third anniversary of your existence. You, who, in our universities, instruct the coming generation in the history of their race; you, who break from duties in Church or in State, to show your love for your fellow-men by your zeal in the study of their progress; you, who for a moment throw aside the cares of the press, the toil of authorship, or the delights of study in retirement, in the name of the Association I bid joy to you all at your renewed presence with one another.

The object of our pursuit is one of the grandest that solicit the attention of man. The movement of states over the scene of ever-succeeding action is like the march of so many armies with their various civilizations for their banners: they themselves have faded away; their career, their enduring contributions to the sum of human knowledge, their men of transcendent genius, such as are vouchsafed to the race at great intervals of centuries, all come within the range of our pursuits. Moreover, we are nearest of kin to the students of moral philosophy.

The movements of humanity are governed by law. It is true that the sparrow, when the time comes for its fall to the ground, obeys a law that pervades the Kosmos; and it is equally true that every hair in the head of a human being is numbered. The growth and decay of empire, the morning lustre of a dynasty and its fall from the sky before noonday; the first turning of a sod for the foundation of a city to the footsteps of a traveller searching for its place which time has hidden, all proceed as it is ordered. The character of science attaches to our pursuits.

The difficulty of discerning the presence of law in the actions of rational beings grows out of the infinite variety of the movements of the human will and of the motives by which it may be swayed. In the department of history the difficulty of judgment is diminished, for history deals with the past, which is beyond the reach of change. The discerning statesman may forecast the character of coming events, and form a plan of action with a reasonable confidence in its wisdom; but the critic, who does not bring with him the spirit of candid inquiry, cannot comprehend the institutions that are forming themselves before his eyes.

In all antiquity no true democracy existed as a government; yet our national organization accepted elements from the political organizations of the Greeks; it counts Christianity among its sources; it profited by the experience of the Roman empire in establishing inter-citizenship and domestic free trade. It was essentially imbued with the spirit of the Reformation, which rose up in Germany with Luther and was developed by Calvin in France and in Switzerland. It drew from England ideas of personal liberty and elements suited to the form of government which it had to frame. In its colonial period it derived from its own experience an opulence of forms of representative government. The American people have cause to be grateful to preceding generations for their large inheritance. Here is no rule of "the many"; it is the government by the people, the government by all; were individuals or a class to set themselves apart, they would constitute only a sect. A government

that is less than government by the entire people will by its very nature incline to the benefit of classes. The government of our "new nation" is rightly described by one of its greatest exponents as "government of the people, by the people, for the people."

The singular combination of the best elements of the past in our institutions favored our increase of territory. Our fathers expressed their vast aspirations in the Articles of Confederation. We never extended our limits in the direction which they pointed out; but it was not long before we reached the Gulf of Mexico. When a foothold in the West India Islands was offered to the United States, they, after reflection, refused to plant their foot on the richest of them all, and have never departed from the decision not to enter the tropics. The completeness of the country was not established till a President of the United States succeeded by one treaty with Great Britain and another with Mexico to enter into the peaceful possession of the continent for sixteen degrees on the Pacific. It was this settlement which perfected the Union. From that moment its majesty and safety rested on the line of east and west; and as far as the human eye can see we may in consequence hold our Union in perpetuity.

In the first Congress slavery brought danger to the Union; under the Presidency of John Adams, it took steps for an early dissolution; it was quieted for a while by Jefferson and his immediate successors; but from the moment that the country advanced its western boundary to the Pacific, the dissolution of the Union became impossible. The will of the people was able to exact its preservation; but what an infinity of power was necessary to carry out that will! To express it I adopt the words of an English writer, who is a master of his own noble language, a thorough scholar, and honored as an historian in both hemispheres. "There are certain things," he says, " which only democracy can execute. No monarchy or privileged order could have dared to take the measures necessary to maintain the American Union. They would infallibly have wrecked themselves in the effort."

"Oceana," by James A. Froude, 391-2.