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Browsing named entities in a specific section of Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History (ed. Benson Lossing). Search the whole document.

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Rider Haggard (search for this): entry 1598
f escape, explains the great historian: Stay still; don't move; do what you have been accustomed to do; and consult your grandmother on everything. Almost equally incredible to us is the ardor of revolution that filled the world in those first days of our national life—the fact that one of the rulers of the world's mind in that generation was Rousseau, the apostle of all that is fanciful, unreal, and misleading in politics. To be ruled by him was like taking an account of life from Mr. Rider Haggard. And yet there is still much sympathy in this timid world for the dull people who felt safe in the hands of Mr. Perceval, and, happily, much sympathy also, though little justification, for such as caught a generous elevation of spirit from the speculative enthusiasm of Rousseau. For us who stand in the dusty matterof-fact world of to-day, there is a touch of pathos in recollections of the ardor for democratic liberty that filled the air of Europe and America a century ago with suc
Benjamin Harrison (search for this): entry 1598
d ourselves rank democrats, whereas we were in fact only progressive Englishmen. Turn the leaves of that sage manual of constitutional interpretation and advocacy, the Federalist, and note the perverse tendency of its writers to refer to Greece and Rome for precedents—that Greece and Rome which haunted all our earlier and even some of our more mature years. Recall, too, that familiar story of Daniel Webster which tells of his coming home exhausted from an interview with the first President-elect Harrison, whose Secretary of State he was to be, and explaining that he had been obliged in the course of the conference, which concerned the inaugural address about to be delivered, to kill nine Roman consuls whom it had been the intention of the good conqueror of Tippecanoe publicly to take into office with him. The truth is that we long imagined ourselves related in some unexplained way to all ancient republicans. Strangely enough, too, we at the same time accepted the quite incompatib
Andrew Jackson (search for this): entry 1598
shington would be as useless to a usurper as to hold Duluth. Self-government cannot be usurped. A French writer has said that the autocratic ascendency of Andrew Jackson illustrated anew the long-credited tendency of democracies to give themselves over to one hero. The country is older now than it was when Andrew Jackson deliAndrew Jackson delighted in his power, and few can believe that it would again approve or applaud childish arrogance and ignorant arbitrariness like his; but even in his case, striking and ominous as it was, it must not be overlooked that he was suffered only to strain the Constitution, not to break it. He held his office by orderly election; he exenroe. A nation that can quietly reabsorb a vast victorious army is no more safely free and healthy than is a nation that could reabsorb such a President as Andrew Jackson, sending him into seclusion at the Hermitage to live without power, and die almost forgotten. A huge, stalwart body politic like ours, with quick life in e
James Monroe (search for this): entry 1598
and few can believe that it would again approve or applaud childish arrogance and ignorant arbitrariness like his; but even in his case, striking and ominous as it was, it must not be overlooked that he was suffered only to strain the Constitution, not to break it. He held his office by orderly election; he exercised its functions within the letter of the law; he could silence not one word of hostile criticism; and, his second term expired, he passed into private life as harmlessly as did James Monroe. A nation that can quietly reabsorb a vast victorious army is no more safely free and healthy than is a nation that could reabsorb such a President as Andrew Jackson, sending him into seclusion at the Hermitage to live without power, and die almost forgotten. A huge, stalwart body politic like ours, with quick life in every individual town and county, is apt, too, to have the strength of variety of judgment. Thoughts which in one quarter kindle enthusiasm may in another meet coolne
Perceval (search for this): entry 1598
ion of what we do. We have had abundant experience of our own by which to reckon. Hardly any fact in history, says Mr. Bagehot, writing about the middle of the century, is so incredible as that forty and a few years ago England was ruled by Mr. Perceval. It seems almost the same as being ruled by the Record newspaper. （Mr. Bagehot would now probably say the Standard newspaper.) He had the same poorness of thought, the same petty conservatism, the same dark and narrow superstition. The merell that is fanciful, unreal, and misleading in politics. To be ruled by him was like taking an account of life from Mr. Rider Haggard. And yet there is still much sympathy in this timid world for the dull people who felt safe in the hands of Mr. Perceval, and, happily, much sympathy also, though little justification, for such as caught a generous elevation of spirit from the speculative enthusiasm of Rousseau. For us who stand in the dusty matterof-fact world of to-day, there is a touch of
Pericles (search for this): entry 1598
th them face to face. Here certainly the ancient pocket republics had much the advantage of us: in them citizens and leaders were always neighbors; they stood constantly in each other's presence. Every Athenian knew Themistocles's manner, and gait, and address, and felt directly the just influence of Aristides. No Athenian of a later period needed to be told of the vanities and fopperies of Alcibiades, any more than the elder generation needed to have described to them the personality of Pericles. Our separation from our leaders is the greater peril, because democratic government more than any other needs organization in order to escape disintegration; and it can have organization only by full knowledge of its leaders and full confidence in them. Just because it is a vast body to be persuaded, it must know its persuaders; in order to be effective, it must always have choice of men who are impersonated policies. Just because none but the finest mental batteries, with pure metal
Lovell H. Rousseau (search for this): entry 1598
the ardor of revolution that filled the world in those first days of our national life—the fact that one of the rulers of the world's mind in that generation was Rousseau, the apostle of all that is fanciful, unreal, and misleading in politics. To be ruled by him was like taking an account of life from Mr. Rider Haggard. And yetr. Perceval, and, happily, much sympathy also, though little justification, for such as caught a generous elevation of spirit from the speculative enthusiasm of Rousseau. For us who stand in the dusty matterof-fact world of to-day, there is a touch of pathos in recollections of the ardor for democratic liberty that filled the er of our politics. If we are suffering disappointment, it is the disappointment of an awakening: we were dreaming. For we never had any business hearkening to Rousseau or consorting with Europe in revolutionary sentiment. The government which we founded one hundred years ago was no type of an experiment in advanced democracy,
Saxon (search for this): entry 1598
t have at first with her heated and mistaken ambitions, with her radical, speculative habit in politics, with her readiness to experiment in forms of government, we may possibly have to enter into now that we are receiving her populations. Not only printing and steam and electricity have gotten hold of us to expand our English civilization, but also those general, and yet to us alien, forces of democracy of which mention has already been made; and these are apt to tell disastrously upon our Saxon habits in government. IV It is thus that we are brought to our fourth and last point. We have noted (1) the general forces of democracy which have been sapping old forms of government in all parts of the world; (2) the error of supposing ourselves indebted to those forces for the creation of our government, or in any way connected with them in our origins; and (3) the effect they have nevertheless had upon us as parts of the general influences of the age, as well as by reason of our
Charles Scribner (search for this): entry 1598
Democracy in the United States, character of. by courtesy of Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons. Prof. Woodrow Wilson of Princeton University (Professor of Jurisprudence and Politics), the wellknown author, critic, and lecturer, writes as follows: Everything apprises us of the fact that we are not the same nation now that we were when the government was formed. In looking back to that time, the impression is inevitable that we started with sundry wrong ideas about ourselves. We deemed ourselves rank democrats, whereas we were in fact only progressive Englishmen. Turn the leaves of that sage manual of constitutional interpretation and advocacy, the Federalist, and note the perverse tendency of its writers to refer to Greece and Rome for precedents—that Greece and Rome which haunted all our earlier and even some of our more mature years. Recall, too, that familiar story of Daniel Webster which tells of his coming home exhausted from an interview with the first President-e
Goldwin Smith (search for this): entry 1598
uring the past few years so suddenly grown to large proportions among publicists abroad is almost all of it directed to the restraints we have effected upon the action of government. Sir Henry Maine thought our federal Constitution an admirable reservoir, in which the mighty waters of democracy are held at rest, kept back from free destructive course. Lord Rosebery has wondering praise for the security of our Senate against usurpation of its functions by the House of Representatives. Mr. Goldwin Smith supposes the saving act of organization for a democracy to be the drafting and adoption of a written constitution. Thus it is always the static, never the dynamic, forces of our government which are praised. The greater part of our foreign admirers find our success to consist in the achievement of stable safeguards against hasty or retrogressive action; we are asked to believe that we have succeeded because we have taken Sir Archibald Alison's advice, and have resisted the infection
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