INTRODUCTION THE material in this volume was intended, by the Author, to be embodied in a greater work, A History of the American People. Many of these chapters were given by him as lectures in every part of our broad country, always enlarging and strengthening the bond of friendship with his people-who freely gave him such personal opinions, letters, and private documents as aided him in perfecting his historical work. Some of these letters, of especial significance, I have here included as notes. Through the courtesy of D. Appleton & Company, I am enabled to reproduce in the essays- Charles Lee, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, and Daniel Webster - biographical passages written by the Author for the Encyclopædia of American Biography. WESTGATE, September 26, 1902. ABBY MORGAN FISKE. I THOMAS HUTCHINSON LAST ROYAL GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS ONE of the most encouraging features of the age in which we live is the rapidity with which the bitter feelings attendant upon a terrible civil war have faded away and given place to mutual friendliness and esteem between gallant men who, less than thirty years ago, withstood one another in deadly strife. Among our public men who hunger for the highest offices, a few Rip van Winkles are still to be found who, without sense enough to realize the folly and wickedness of their behaviour, try now and then to fan into fresh life. the dying embers of sectional prejudice and distrust; but their speech has lost its charm, and those that bow the ear to it are few. The time is at hand when we may study the great Civil War of the nineteenth century as dispassionately as we study that of the seventeenth; and the warmest admirer of Cromwell and Lincoln may rejoice in belonging to a race of men that has produced such noble Christian heroes as Lucius, Viscount Falkland, and General Robert Lee. Such a time seems certainly not far off when we see how pleasantly the generals of opposing armies can now sit down and tell their reminiscences, and discuss each other's opinions and conduct in the pages of a popular magazine. |
