Book Description

Excerpt from A Historical Review This force, which J efierson set in motion, sometimest'ook a direc tion which he did not contemplate, and of which he would not have approved. The real inspiration of the young statesmen who forced the war of 1812 was less the local cry of free trade and sailors' rights than an aspiration towards nationality, caught not from Jefferson, indeed, for the father of State-rights was not a nationalist, - but for which they were indebted, nevertheless, to J efferson's idealism: an aspiration to which Webster gave utter ance at Bunker Hill in words never forgotten, Our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country; and again, even more effectively, in the Senate Chamber, in those other words, the Union, one and inseparable, taken up by the people and realized after four years of civil war. The advent of such a force into the life of a people is rare, and when apprehended in its full significance it is one of the most im pressive events in their history; and its recognition is a test of his toric insight. It is America's contribution to political philosophy and if it be thought to belong to politics rather than to history, it is, nevertheless, an event inseparably connected with the history of the people of the United States, and is fast becoming a part of the history of the human race. As the race moves down through the ages, it has a life and progress which includes the life and prog ress of every nationality. Into this mighty stream come affluents which bear on their surface traces of the soil and vegetation of their sources, and these mark the difierences between nations. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.