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JOHN BACH McMASTER
1897
It has long been the custom to begin the history of our country with thediscovery of the New World by Columbus. To some extent this is both wiseand necessary; but in following it in this instance the attempt has beenmade to treat the colonial period as the childhood of the United States;to have it bear the same relation to our later career that the accountof the youth of a great man should bear to that of his maturer years,and to confine it to the narration of such events as are reallynecessary to a correct understanding of what has happened since 1776.
The story, therefore, has been restricted to the discoveries,explorations, and settlements within the United States by the English,French, Spaniards, and Dutch; to the expulsion of the French by theEnglish; to the planting of the thirteen colonies on the Atlanticseaboard; to the origin and progress of the quarrel which ended with therise of thirteen sovereign free and independent states, and to thegrowth of such political institutions as began in colonial times. Thisperiod once passed, the long struggle for a government followed till ourpresent Constitution—one of the most remarkable political instrumentsever framed by man—was adopted, and a nation founded.
Scarcely was this accomplished when the French Revolution and the riseof Napoleon involved us in a struggle, first for our neutral rights, andthen for our commercial independence, and finally in a second war withGreat Britain. During this period of nearly five and twenty years,commerce and agriculture flourished exceedingly, but our internalresources were little developed. With the peace of 1815, however, theera of industrial development commences, and this has been treated withgreat—though it is believed not too great—fullness of detail; for,beyond all question, the event of the world's history during thenineteenth century is the growth of the United States. Nothing like ithas ever before taken place.
To have loaded down the book with extended bibliographies would havebeen an easy matter, but quite unnecessary. The teacher will find inChanning and Hart's Guide to the Study of American History the bestdigested and arranged bibliography of the subject yet published, andcannot afford to be without it. If the student has time and dispositionto read one half of the reference books cited in the footnotes of thishistory, he is most fortunate.
JOHN BACH McMASTER.