IN AMERICAN HISTORY BY HUMPHREY J. DESMOND LL.D. MEMBER OF THE WISCONSIN BAR B. HERDER BOOK CO. AND 33 QUEEN SQUARE, LONDON, W. C. 1. 1924 IN the byways of old world history we are not unprepared to find many mooted questions, upon which the strife of sect and party has hinged, and not a few unsolved mysteries. But as to events in the new world, we are inclined to suppose that the times being more recent, the atmosphere of publicity clearer, the records better kept, and the popular intelligence keener, there should here be scarcely any of the puzzling doubts and picturesque problems of old world history; no fables like that of Pope Joan, no mysteries like the Man with the Iron Mask, no issues over the merits of Revolutions and Crusades, no sincere differences of opinion about the character of great personages like Mary, Queen of Scots, or Napoleon Bonaparte, etc. Yet, for one cause and another, American history is fairly endowed with its mooted questions; sometimes due to legendary accretions as in the story of Captain Kidd, sometimes to patriotic pride as in the impression that the American Revolution was the spontaneous uprising of a united people, sometimes to insufficient evidence as in the judgment passed upon Aaron Burr, sometimes to popular misinform ation as in the Whitman Myth, or again to haphazard or indolent interpretations of the facts, or the influence of party feeling, or the hue and cry of a transient public emotion. In the following pages the writer has selected for discussion a few such questions of American history, which in their time, and probably in a large degree today, deeply interest the public. His hope is that these discussions will, incidentally, inculcate a more careful and critical judgment as to public questions, present as well as past; that there may be, first and foremost, an insistence on the accuracy of the facts and findings as a basis, in all cases, for the opinion formed or the judgment entered. CONTENTS Stroke of Statesmanship which held an Empire 5. WAS THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THE WILL A Moot Question Between American and English 6. THE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AMENDMENT An After-thought of the Framers of the Consti- |