American Statesmen
Standard Library Edition
Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 1776
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
BY
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1899
Copyright, 1898,
By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
All rights reserved.
| EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION CONTENTS ILLUSTRATIONS INDEX |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
The editor has often been asked: "Upon what principle have youconstructed this series of lives of American statesmen?" The query hasalways been civil in form, while in substance it has often implied thatthe "principle," as to which inquiry is made, has been undiscoverable bythe interrogator. Other queries, like pendants, have also come: Why haveyou not included A, or B, or C? The inference from these is that thequerist conceives A, or B, or C to be statesmen certainly not lesseminent than E, or F, or G, whose names he sees upon the list. Now therereally has been a principle of selection; but it has not been amathematical principle, whereby the several statesmen of the countryhave been brought to the measuring-pole, like horses, and those of acertain height have been accepted, and those not seeming to reach thatheight have been rejected. The principle has been to make such a list ofmen in public life that the aggregation of all their biographies wouldgive, in this personal shape, the history and the picture of the growthand development of the United States from the beginning of thatagitation which led to the Revolution until the completion of thatsolidarity which we believe has resulted from the civil war and thesubsequent reconstruction.
In illustration, let me speak of a few volumes. Patrick Henry was hardlya great statesman; but, apart from the prestige and romance which hiseloquence has thrown about his memory, he furnished the best opportunityfor drawing a picture of the South in the period preceding theRevolution, and for showing why and how the southern colonies, amongwhom Virginia was easily the leader, became sharers in the strife.
Benton might possibly have been included upon his own merits. But ifthere were any doubt upon this point, or if including him would seem tohave rendered it proper to include others equally eminent and yetomitted, the reply is that Benton serves the important purpose of givingthe best available opportunity to sketch the character of the Southwest,and the political feeling and development in that section of thecountry.
In like manner, Cass was hardly a great statesman, although very activeand prominent for a long period. But the Northwest—or what used to bethe Northwest not so very long ago—comes out of the wilderness and intothe domain of civilization in the life of Cass.
John Ran