The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-04-28
A Notable Book--Rhodes
 History of the United States

Some nineteen years ago MT. James Ford Rhodes of Boston began ms History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the beginning of Grover Cleveland's Administration
 In Volume V, published in 1904. he completed the history of the Civil War and took up the period of Heconstruc- tion. /Till that time the author dces not seem to have departed from ms idea that the distinctive era he nad chosen for his theme had Its proper close with the first defeat. in a Presi- dential election, of the Republican par ey. Exhaustive study of Congressional reconstruction, however, brought him to the logical conclusion that the era had in hand ended in 1877, with what he aptly calls the restoration of home rule in the South" and so, in Vol VII, issued a few months since, he brings his history to a close with the with drawal of United States troops from South Carolina and Louisiana, and the resumption of self-government by the people of those two States, which were the last to escape from the clutches of the negro and the carpet-bagger.
 To write the history of ones own times requires peculiar qualifications. For Great Britain, MT. Justin Mccarthy seems to have accomplished this task acceptably. Of the measure of MT. McCarthy's success, however. the pres ent writer cannot judge as fully as could a well-informed Englishman; put of Mr. Rhodes's work, we who have lived during the times of which he writes can speak with confidence. This authors breadth of mind, his largeness of heart the depth of his sympathy for every noble aspiration. the industry with which he has sought the truth ana the courage with which he sets 1t forth all these are apparent from the be- ginning to the end of this great work. Naturally, we cannot be expected 10 endorse every conclusion MT. Rhodes has reached. and especially would we dissent from some of the opinions he has expressed in regard to the anti slavery crusade that eliminated Tn tho Civil War. Throughout the three vol unes treating of this subject. 1t Is ap- parent that the author is a Republican in politics and this he makes no enort to disguise. Southerners who were upon the scene in the days of which MT. Rhodes here writes (1S50 to 1s6o) will now and then find occasion to dis sent from his reasoning. But even where he utters opinions to which we cannot give our sanction. we will nev- ertheless all the time feel. as we follow his pages, that the author is stating the facts on which he reasons with ab- soIute fairness, whether they make TOT him or against him; and than this there could be no higher praise for the hfs- torian who is human enough to belong to a political party and to start out upon his task with the preconceived opinion that his party has in the main been in the right. What more could we ask or expect? How can one wrtte of fierce party struggles In which ne has himself participated without some tinge at least of feeling, and would not entire obscuration of predilections de-
 70 hn flavor which Is the chief charm of con- temporaneous writings7 We should answer this question unhesitatingly in the affirmative, and. having said this much, we may add that no author, North or South, has written, nor Is any American now living likely to treat of the era MT. Rhodes writes of more dispassionately than ne mas oone LII these volumes.
 The style of the authors English has been sometimes severely criticised. It is quite true that he has made no effort to initiate the rotund periods of Gibbon, or the fiashy rhetoric Of Macaulay. nor do we always ind the iimpid sentences of Froude; but if his manner is less ornate and less preten- tious 1t is at the same time more direct and strafghtforward. Even the com monnlace and sometimes inelegant ex- pressions which he occasionally uses, do not, in our opinion, anywhere de- tract from the forcefulness of his mar rative.
 MT. Rhodes has, too, in q remarkable degree the faculty that distinguishes the great historian, the power of dis criminating. He is never confused by the abundance of material before him, but seizes upon pivotal events and linking them skilfully together, not only as cause and effect, but as ulte- rior cause and ultertor effect, his story becomes everywhere as interesting as a novel. And what adds greatly to the charm of the book is that MT. Rhodes has not become infected with the new tangled idea indulged by some, that history has nothing to do with mems motives. The aspirations. good or bad, of the great actors in the drama or history are as essential to the story told as Is the motif of play on the stage. Stripped of these. history would he hut a bIoodless fieshless skeleton, Interesting only to the professional student and even to him wanting in instruction.
 When MT. Rhodes leaves the field of acrimonious political discussions and legislation (1S50-1S60) which occupied most of his three first volumes and en- ters upon the Civil War, he plays with even more signal success we think than previously the role of the abso- lutely impartial historian. He does moi oyer-praise Grant, Thomas, Sheri- dant or sherman, nor does he under value Lee, Joe Johnston or StonewaH