PART THREE: HISTORICAL, CRITICAL AND STATISTICAL NOTES SUPPLEMENTING THE ANTHOLOGY FOREWORD While the following notes have been brought together partly to support the statements made in the Introduction, a large portion of them give facts, express opinions or make criticisms which have a very distinct bearing on the history and the traditions of America. The formal plan of the book limited the excerpts to direct expression of opinion by men who have occupied high place in the councils of the nation. Nothing by outside observers has been included. Nor have detailed criticisms by statesmen, historians or present-day philosophers or scientists been given. This material, nevertheless, has great value. The compiler ventures to believe that the notes here gathered together not only form an integral part of the book but constitute one of the most important portions of it. HISTORICAL, CRITICAL AND STATISTICAL NOTES SUPPLEMENTING THE ANTHOLOGY (1) Professor Frederick J. Turner's brilliant paper, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, has greatly influenced American historical writing. (2) The College of Ephors in Sparta was originally an attempt to preserve some of the liberties of the individual. Solon in Athens made a conscious attempt to protect some of the liberties of the individual. The "Twelve Tables" produced by the first Roman Decemvirate about 449 B.C. made another such attempt. (3) "From the fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution-a space of thirteen centuries-the only real republican governments were mountain peoples and independent trading cities in which the voting class was in small proportion. The only factors that ardently strove for liberty were the knights and noblemen, who did their best to weaken the power of the kings so that they might have the more authority over their vassals. The Middle Ages and even the period of the Reformation, with its appeal to the right to choose one's own religion and to achieve one's own salvation, did little to relieve the serf, the peasant and the poor workman." -A. B. Hart, "The Cradle of Liberty." Copyright, Mentor Magazine, July 1, 1918. (4) "The next day the wind being fair they went aboard, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting; To see what sighs and prayers did sound amongst them, what tears did rush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each heart; that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the quay as spectators, could not refrain from tears. Yet comfortable and sweet it was to see such lively and true expressions of dear and unfained love. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling away that were loath to depart, their reverend pastor falling down on his knees (and they all with them,) with watery cheeks commended them with most fervent prayers to the Lord and his blessing. And then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another which proved to be the last leave to many of them." -Wm. Bradford, "History of Plimouth Plantations." (5) James O'Neal's "The Workers in American History" is an interesting example. (6) "There having been, as it is thought, not fewer than ten thousand souls transported thither, there are not, thro' the aforementioned abuses and neglects, above two thousand of them to be found alive at this present . . . many of them also in a sickly and desperate state." Capt. Nathaniel Butler writing in 1622 of the colony in Virginia. -Virginia Hist. Soc. Collections, VIII, II, 171-173. "Only this I can say, that there is not often unseasoned hands (as we term them) die now, whereas heretofore not one of five escaped the first year." Governor Berkeley of Virginia writing in 1670. -W. W. Hening, "Statutes at Large." New York, 1823, II, 514. (7) "Their actions are regulated by the wildness of the neighbourhood. The deer often come to eat their grain, the wolves to destroy their sheep, the bears to kill their hogs, the foxes to catch their poultry. This surrounding hostility immediately puts the gun into their hands . . . and thus by defending their property, they soon become professed hunters, . . . once hunters, farewell to the plough. The chase renders them ferocious, gloomy and unsociable; a hunter wants no neighbors, he rather hates them. You cannot imagine what an effect on manners the great distance they live from each other has.' -de Crevecouer, Writings, IX, 259. (8) Class barriers, for example, could not long survive when master and servant had, perforce, to perform arduous tasks together and to share common dangers; when men of inferior class by European standards were very obviously often better fitted for leadership in emergencies than were their employers or theoretical superiors. Only hardihood, moreover, was required for any man to free himself from servitude. The English class system was the product of restricted territory. It could not survive in a vast new country. (9) The attitude of the individual colonist was much that of the colonies as a whole to England. "A feeling common to mankind held especially strong among the American colonists. They were separated by six weeks of travel from the seat of authority; punishment was likely to fail from the vicissitudes of communication." -E. E. Sparks, "The Men Who Made the Nation," p. 20. Copyright, 1922, by The Macmillan Company. |