PREFACE. "THE proper study of mankind," says the poet, "is man"-an adage which has many applications in history and science, but which may be taken as a peculiar compliment to the more personal narratives of biography. The great events of the world move by us in stately procession, and it is right that they should be regarded as the aggregate work of the race; but they are not to be fully understood or appreciated till we penetrate to the motives and opportunities of the individuals who have lived and died for the grand result. Then our hearts are warmed, our resolves strengthened, and our hopes encouraged to increase and magnify our own parts in the ever-acting drama. Biography may be said to be the key to history. It admits us into the privacies and behind the scenes, and makes us acquainted with the separate parts of the great whole. In some respects the sight may be calculated to diminish our admiration; but this is only at a casual view, and to an inferior order of observers. There will always be found great actors as the supporters of great events. "Nothing," as Lear says, "can come of nothing." Where there is substantial triumph, there must have been honest effort. This is true of all illustrious achievements. The reader of the following pages will, we trust, find it hold good of our own American history. During the struggle of our Revolution, our fathers, in the midst of their trials and sufferings, consoled themselves with the thought that they were toiling for great national benefits which their posterity would enjoy; and surely as they built upon this sure word of hope, we, in looking for the sources of our present prosperity, may infer their virtues. This book will fall far short of its aim if it does not, in some degree at least, exhibit this great truth, and, in some measure discharge this debt of gratitude. The lives of the men of America are the proper studies for the youth of America. It is particularly so with the men of the Revolutionary era. A general character marks their career. The great actors in that scene were not always brilliant, though many of them possessed rare talents, but they were almost without exception honest and truthful, and ardently devoted to their country. The world has never witnessed a more sincere body of patriots of equal singleness of purpose, and simplicity of means and ends. There is little mystery about any of them. The children of honest parents, they grew up, mostly in rural occupations, good youths, hardy, clear sighted, capable of endurance, and with the good will to endure in defence of their rights and independence. Their plain, good sense, their frugality and homely virtues, their unrewarded valor, as they left their religious firesides to go forth to the camp and upon the ocean, to senates and battlefields, to national councils, and to foreign courts, to plead with eloquence, to fight with endurance, to persevere calmly and resolutely to the end, in a painful and protracted struggle which had no reward but liberty-who does not recognize these as the characteristic virtues of our Revolutionary sires? There is one illustrious exemplar among them who takes precedence of all others, more single, if possible, in his aims, more inflexible in his love of justice, purer in his morals and manners, more self-sacrificing-for he had more to sacrifice— the calmest, steadiest, most persistent of all-GEORGE WASHINGTON. But, as he was a man of the times, as well as for the times, others shared these excellences, though their characters and fortunes may not have been so well commingled. As they were his friends and he was a man of many friends-they, of necessity, partook his virtues, for that confidence was never reposed in the unworthy. What was true of that elder era has been a general characteristic of American greatness since. In the multiplication of publie men with the growth of the country, and the creation of new spheres of employment involving vast responsi bilities, it is not to be expected that opportunities for censure should not sometimes arise; prosperity may prove a severer test of character than adversity; it may well be more difficult to preserve a government than to found it; there may be occasional lapses from integrity; but, after all allowances are made, it still holds good that the Representative Men of America are of a high standard of moral excellence. The constant supervision and sifting of our political system renders it almost impossible, while the heart of the nation is sound, that its higher officers, its Presidents, and Governors of States, its Judges of the Supreme Court, its members of the Cabinet, its leading representatives abroad, its great authors, its eminent clergy, should not be of moral excellence as well as distinguished ability. When this ceases to be the case, they will no longer afford topics for popular biography; the story of their lives can give no pleasure to ingenuous readers; it cannot delight the youth of the nation. In the present work we shall endeavor to present a narrative of the lives of those who have more than others helped to make America what it is to-day. Commencing with the era of the Revolution, which gave the first great impulse to originality of thought and action on this continent, we shall trace the career of the men who were its leading actors in the Senate and in the field, from Franklin and Washington to Jefferson and Madison, who continued their labors in the succeeding period. We shall see a great struggle carried triumphantly to an honorable conclusion, lifting a few previously neglected provinces to rank among the nations of the earth. We shall see that national existence confirmed in the establishment of a Constitution and system of government which, yet in their infancy, have been illustrated and strengthened for three quarters of a century, by an uninterrupted series of brilliant achievements under their fostering care. New successes in arms, important inventions of the arts of world-wide use, productions of poets and historians, known and read wherever the English language is spoken, grace this period, and these patriots, authors, statesmen, naval and military heroes, are the subjects of our story. NEW YORK, |