The Portland daily press., 1892-11-26

pose ito write the history of the United
States from the introduction of the COM
promise measures of 1850 down to the
Inauguration of Grover Cleveland, thir-
ty-fiye wears later" AS earnest he offers
two stout octave volumes, which com
plete his task to the Presidential cleo
ton of 1850, the immediate forerunner of
the Rebellion.
Unless man be by nature so strong
partisanathat his judgment of those who
differ in opinion is worthless, OF SO en-
vironed as to be shut out from wide
knowledge of men and events, there is no
good reason-other things being equal
why he should not write better history
of his own times, in many and very sub
stantial respects, than the author who,
long years AFTER depends upon records,
fallacious perhaps, of half-forgotten or
Misunderstood facts. He has access to
all, or nearly all, the really useful mate
rial that comes into the hands of his sue
course of years the tooth of time will de-
face beyond recognition. He is near
enough to men and events to see them
clearly, once the smoke of conflict and
the dust of many trampling feet have
drifted away. A palace or other impor
tant structure may look finer, more fin
ished, more impressive, at distance;
but it is idle to say that we understand
I 10, ++nr fro
affair. The muoh-vaunted historical per-
spective,' with all it's advantages from
the standpoint of the picturesque, is
frequently Inadequate, and not unseldom
conveys wrong impression.
There is no substantial reason, we re-
peat, why judicially minded historian
may not write intelligently and candidly
of his own times. The judges on the
bench, the jurymen in their box are
called every day to pass upon disputes
between neighbors; and in the main
bench and panel give intelligent judg-
ment. Why should not the scholar in his
study be as competent to pass upon the
disputes of masses of men, even though
the men be his contemporaries or imme-
diate predecessors? If it be so very diff
cult a matter, as Plutarch asserts it is, to
trace and find out the truth of anything
by history, that difficulty must grow
with the years; and the nearer the chron-
| icler to the events chronicled the better
the opportunity to ascertain truth.
Mr.. Rhodes seems to us the judicially
minded historian indicated. His knowl
edge is. wide and exact, his constructive
ability considerable. his style clear and
animated, though occasionally raw. The
methods he puTsues are those of the
trained student, the conclusions he
reaches those of a sagacious judge who
has carefully sifted the evidence.
Though fair-minded, and patient in CIV
ing ear to conflicting testimony, his con-
victions are decided, as all well-founded
convictions should be. Skill in selection
and exclusion, and clearness in tracing
the relations of cause and effect, COM
bined with great facility in narrative, en-
able him to draw in compact sketch
of hundred pages the outlines OF our
national history down to the Inaugural
ton of Zachary Taylor, to trace the ORR
| gin of those compromises in the Consti-
| tuition which were, in the vivid phrase
of John Quincy Adams, swrung from
| the grinding necessities of reluctant
nation" A second chapter of the same
length carries us to the compromise act
of 1850, to the fugitive slave law and the
administration of Fillmore. Thence
| forward the progress of the work is
more leisurely; the first volume closing
with the surrender of Anthony Burns,
| the last fugitive slave ever seized on the
| soil of Massachusetts. This closing
| chapter embraces the history of the ia
nous Kansas Nebraska bill from it's in
ception to its enactment; land perhaps
no better idea can be given of Mr..
Rhodes's method and literary form and
political sympathies than by quotation
| of the words in which he concludes the
recital:
SIT is safe to say that, in the scope
| ana consequences Oh tuo hduSds-NoU do
ka act, it was the most momentous meas
ure that passed Congress from the day
| that the senators and representatives
| first met to the outbreak of the civil
war. 1t sealed the doom of the Wing
party; it caused the formation of the
Republican party on the principle of no
extension of slavery: it reused Lincoln
and gave bent to his great political
ambition 1t made the Fugitive Slave
law dead letter at the North; it caused
| the Germans to become Republicans; it
lost the Democrats their hold on New
England; it made the Northwest Repub-
lican; it led to the downfall of the Dem
ocratic party"
The author af the bill, man so hated
| in the North at the time of it's passage
that, to use his own words, he could
travel from Boston to Chicago by the
light of his own effigies, has for Mr..
Rhodes an awful fascination. Condemn
ing Douglass course at the time, as he
does, with relentless severity, deprecat-
ing his unbridled ambition and his I'M