New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-09-24
AMERICAN HISTORY.
GOODWIN SMITHS NEW OUTLINE.
THE UNITED STATES. An outline OF pohticai
History. 1f92-is7i. I,y Goodwin Smith eVo' PIP.
3i2 Macmillan Co.


Tho motive Of this work i, clearly defined i'll
the preface. II j. an outline Of American po,l'-
ical history for English readers, and especially
for travellers visiting the United States. 1t con-
tains five cs,lys on the colonial pcrOG. the Rrvo-
linton the early DAYS Of the Republic from WASH
ingtonS term 10 MonroeG the antl->aVcrS
struggle and the Civil War and reconstruction
1t is condensation in 300 pages Of 400 years
of American history. For English reaiers the
work will have high value, for II Is phiiosophlcal
IN mcthod comprehensive in treatment ana
luminous in style For American readers, who
know the history Of their country in detail its
interest lies in the authors Individuality ana
method Of condcn saton. No well Informed American
can learn from these pages anything winch he docs
not already know: but so strong is tho impression
which Goodwin Smith has made upon public opin-
ion in the United States that there will. be keen
curiosity to ascertain how he goes about the
work Of providing Enelishmen with elementary
ideas Of American history.
Tho author hardly needs to ask from Amrrl-
can readers indulgence and liberation for an
Enelshman who desires - do Justice - the
mother country while he frankly regards the
American commonwealth ~ the great achieve
mcnt of his race and looks forward T. the volun-
tary reunion of its branches on thi, continent.
Since the publication OF Professor Brycco MAJ
terly work ON the Commonwealth Americans
have not found it difficult to believe that Al
Enelishman can understand their institutions ana
write intelliscnty and sympatheticaily, albeit
critically about them Goodwin Smith is an
Enclishman with tho same inherent love of JUS
tice and fair play. He believes TOO firmly ana
broadly in the future Of the English-speal>ing
race on this continent 10 make any serious mis-
takes in comprehensive view Of its progress
"a n American
will see very little in these pages to crticsn
and will ~, surprised TO find historian Of
English birth writing so dispassionatelv and tenn
perately on Great Britain's treatment of the
States after the separation and its attitude toward
the South during the Civil War
While the author can be just to Americans he
cannot overcome his English prejudice against the
Irish or all the consequences Of the American
Revolution lie considers that the worst to Great
Britain was that the oligarchy which ruled in
Ireland was enabled by taking advantage of her
peril to cast of imperial control and to set up
an independence which ended in the catastrophe
Of rs After the War OF 1872 American hatred
of England, he declares, might have subsidized had
not Irish immigrants brought with them their
inveterate feud and imposed their sentiment on
the politicians and press of the United States
OF the influx of Irish immigrants after the famine
he writes In this acrid way These people'of
hapless land and sad history, ignorant. super
stitious, pricst-rdden, nurtured in squalid pow
erty. unframed in constitutional government,
trained only in conspiracy and instruction, were
a useful addition to the labor of their adopted
country; of its politics they could only be the
bone Being clannsh still IN their instincts, hcfdins
clannishly together in the great cities and bhndly
following leaders whom they accepted as chiefs,
and in chousing whom they were led more by
blatant energy than by merit. they were soon
trained to the pursuit of political spols and filled
elections with turbulence, fraud and corruption
Through the copnivance of a judiciary elected
largely by their own votes they were permitted
TO set the naturalization law at defiance and fresh
from the seat of their native wrctchedness to as
sumo and misuse the powers of American citizens
Their numbers and cohesion soon enabled them to
influence the balance Of politics. But as body
they went into the Democratic party, and there
remained, attracted at first, PERHAPS by ITS name
and confirmed in their adherence TO 1t as the party
~ slavery. which it ultimately became, by their
antipathy TO the negro. who might compete with
them in the labor market, and whose degradation
alone saved them from being at the bottom OF the
social scale. Their influence could not fail thence
forth to intensity the anti-Britisl sentiment III
American politics, and to envenom all disputes be-
tween America and the mother county With
enual intensity of feeling the author describes the
riots in New-York, where the Irish rose against
the draft and the negro, maltreatcd anu murdercu
negroes with their usual fury, wrecked property
and filed the city, then destitute of defenders,
with riot and panic till the arrival OF troops
when the instruction was at once quenchcd in the
blood of a thousand of the insurgents" These
strongly colored passages prove that the author
Las not ceased TO be an EnGlishman ana 'eha-
cious partisan.
The authors Characteristic bias is shown in
his reference 10 Canada and also 10 the pro-
tective system. lie laments the lack OF maShah-
unity on the part Of the victors In the American
Revolution in prescribing and exiting Loyalsts
instead of granting TO them ''nconditonai am
nesty. These exes "peopled Nova Scotia,
New-Brunswick and upper Canada with enemies
Of the new Republic, and if d power hostile to
tho Republic should ever be formed under Euro
pean influence in the north Of the continent, the
Americans will owe it TO their ancestors who
refused amnesty to the vanquisled in civil war
One Of the most unfortunate consequences OF
the Revolution, in his Judgment, was the sew
GRANGE of Canada from the United states, ana
a schism Of the English-speaking race on the
North American continent, opening the way,
which unity would have closed, for the introduce
ton of international enmitics, Of balance OF
power. and of war. Craftsmanship is now labor
ing against an accumulation Of difficulties to
undo the evil work done century ago by denial
of amnesty TO the vanquished in civil strife"
Intelligent Americans will not be inclined to
dissent from that judgment, hut they will hardly
Ne prepared TO accept his sweeping vndication
of the condnct Of the Canadian Government
during the second civil war, as not Offering the
slightest ground for the imputatlon that 1t los
tered or failed to rcpress the machinations OF
Southerners who had gathered on it, territory,
and could not, without breach of law and hos
pitality, be expelled In like manner the
authors declaration that the constitutional pro-
bibition of import or transit duties between the
I.racticallI the lIeafest