seem to have been used judiciously and to good advantage. In scope the book is more than a mere chronicle of events in Macon's life; it embraces as a background for its peculiar subject not a little of national history from the Revolution to the accession of Jackson, and more especially of North Carolina history as related to national affairs and to Macon's career. The author's attitude is temperate and scholarly, but sympathetic. He emphasizes, as cardinal points in Macon's political character, his integrity, his insistence upon economy, his ardent local patriotism, and his belief in democracy. He finds Macon's best expression of political faith in his declaration that "In proportion as men live easily and comfortably, in proportion as they are free from the burdens of taxation, they will be attached to the government in which they live" (p. 288). Macon's speech on the repeal of the Judiciary Act, printed in an appendix, is pronounced "the longest and most characteristic speech of his congressional career" (p. 404). Professor Dodd's general estimate of Macon is indicated by the following sentences from his concluding pages: "His place in history must be determined by his relations to the South as a distinct section of the nation. He believed... that next to the State the South had the first demands on his service. Macon must be regarded as Randolph's counterpart in founding the creed of the secessionists; he was a stronger and more influential man than his brilliant but flighty friend of Roanoke' He was a Southern statesman in the sectional sense believed in democracy" (pp. 400-401). He actually "an In conclusion some matters of detail call for a word of comment. For instance, the Missouri Compromise line is given as "36 degrees 40 seconds" (p. 318). We read that "Importation of foreign slaves into the United States had been prohibited by the Constitution after January 1, 1808" (p. 212). We may question whether Monroe was exceedingly wise and able President" (p. 299) and Van Buren "the ablest of our public men of the second order" (p. 391). Still more may we dissent from the opinion that the slavery struggle culminating in the Civil War was merely a matter of dollars and to be explained on economic grounds alone (pp. 103, 213). Certainly it is a little surprising that Macon's speech upon the proposed government for newly-purchased Louisiana is not mentioned, while his opinions and utterances upon matters of much less present-day or permanent interest are given due attention. PAUL S. Peirce. The Lower South in American History. By WILLIAM GARROTT BROWN. (New York: The Macmillian Company. 1902. Pp. xi, 271.) THIS Volume is made up of eight papers. The substance of the first three was given as "public lectures at Harvard University and at various Southern colleges". The next three were published originally in The Atlantic Monthly, and only the last two appear for the first time. The first three papers give title to the volume. Here the author concisely analyzes the conditions that he conceives made it possible for the lower South to exercise a controlling influence in national affairs from "the admission of Missouri in 1820 to the secession of South Carolina". He contrasts Alabama as typical of the lower south, with Virginia as representing the upper, and succinctly points out the social, religious, and industrial differences between them. There were few if any racial differences, as the immigrants to the newer country came mainly from "the older seaboard Southern states". More than half of the population was made up of planters and farmers. Their industrial life differed from that in Virginia "chiefly in the concentration of land and slaves in fewer hands, in the greater immediate profitableness of agriculture, and in the greater rapidity with which lands were exhausted". Three-fourths of the 335,000 slaves in the state were owned by less than ten thousand men". In "manufactures, banking, commerce, and all other industries" not more than 100,000 persons were engaged. 66 There was an intense religious life. The "richer planters and their associates" accepted the Episcopalian form of worship. The Baptists and Methodists were strong everywhere. In 1850 there were nearly fifteen hundred houses of worship. Popular education however languished. There was no organized public-school system until late in the fifties, and the percentage of illiterates was large. The best intellect of the state went into medicine or the ministry, "but oftener into the law, and through the law into politics". When Monroe retired from the Presidency in 1825, and the ascendency of Virginia in national affairs came to an end, the influence Virginia had wielded was taken up and continued by the "Black Belt". The author's analysis is interesting, but he probably claims too much for the lower South in controlling national action on the questions of tariff, internal improvements, and finance. And on the question of the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War his position is not wholly tenable. He says: Slavery had to do with the seizure of Texas and the attempts upon Cuba. But we may not attribute to that alone this single act in the long drama which began before the first slave landed in Virginia and ended in 1898. The true cause of it was that old land hunger which half the world has not satisfied. . . When the last act came on, and Mexico had to be conquered, it was mainly volunteers from the Cotton states, joined by a few of their Northern friends, like Franklin Pierce, who swelled our little army to the strength the enterprise demanded. (pp. 77-78). No doubt both causes played a part. It hardly can be gainsaid, however, that the interests of slavery were the immediate and dominant motives. Slavery explains the land-hunger of that time. The acquisition. of new territory for the erection of new slave states to maintain the South's equality in the Senate to bolster up slavery was the controlling motive. AM. HIST. REV., VOL. X.-13. Of the remaining papers, one is on William Lowndes Yancey, "the orator of secession". Another is on the resources of the Confederacy. This is based on Professor John C. Schwab's excellent work on the financial and industrial history of the south during the Civil War. The third is a concise account of the origin and organization of the Kuklux movement in the first years following the war. The fourth, "A New Hero of an Old Type", is a rhetorical eulogy on Lieutenant Richard Hobson. The fifth and last is entitled "Shifting the White Man's Burden”. In this paper the author considers the disfranchise movement in the south, but finds no solution of the problem. Mr. Brown has written an interesting and suggestive book. His treatment is fair; his statement is clear though at times he is somewhat too rhetorical. The book is not a history, but is an excellent beginning toward one. It makes little if any contribution of fact, and its chief value is in its suggestiveness. JOHN WILLIAM PERRIN. BY FRANCIS The Republican Party: A History of its Fifty Years' Existence and a 1904. Two The author, THESE Volumes are written by a candid party advocate. obviously, has believed in the Republican party in the past, believes in it to-day, and bids fair to continue to believe in it in time to come. The volumes contain a "Foreword" by President Roosevelt and "Introductions" by Hon. William P. Frye, President pro tempore of the Senate, and Hon. J. G. Cannon, Speaker of the House of Representatives. The work may be regarded, therefore, as a party history officially recognized. Though not impartial, the work may be said to be useful and fair, as it accomplishes very well its aim of setting forth fully and clearly, though without attempt at philosophical exposition, what the Republican party has accomplished during the fifty years of its history. The author does this with a good sense of proportion and selection. Whatever one may think of Republican policies, the life of one of our great parties will be recognized as a theme worthy of the party historian; and as a record of party creed and achievement Mr. Curtis's work is worthy of commendation and appreciation. The author opens his work with the birth of the Republican party under the oaks at Jackson, the fiftieth anniversary of which event has recently been fittingly celebrated; yet half his first volume is taken up with a preliminary review of the great slavery controversy that brought the Republican party into being. The author goes at considerable length into the formative and heroic period of the Republican party, when it contended against the extension of slavery, when it required nerve, the severance of party ties, and the sacrifice of personal reputations and interests to stand for the cause; and he very properly gives large space to the complex party situation of 1854 and 1856. Scant attention is given to the Liberty party in 1844, but partial recognition is made (due to Senator Hoar's example and mugwumpery of that day) of the Freesoil platform of 1848 as the forerunner of the Republican position of 1856. The Know-nothing movement is fully treated, and the beginnings of the Republican party in 1854, by spontaneous movements and meetings in various states in the north in opposition to the KansasNebraska bill, are traced in considerable detail. To the special student of party history in America the material brought together from articles, letters, speeches, and reminiscences in this part of Mr. Curtis's work relating to the credit due for the origins of his party are of much interest and value. Mr. Curtis denies the right of the present Democratic party to claim its ancestry in Jefferson. The founder of the Democratic party is referred to as an ardent protectionist ", and no distinction is made between the Anti-Federal party that opposed the adoption of the Constitution and the Democratic-Republican party of Jefferson that had its birth in a conflict over questions of Constitutional construction. The hyphenated word "Democratic-Republican" Mr. Curtis discards altogether, holding that the party of Jefferson was merely "Republican ", as by that name alone Jefferson always sought to call his party. Jefferson's desire no doubt prevailed after his party came into unquestioned power and reputation, and it might be just as well to do as Mr. Curtis does, apply the single name "Republican" to the old party of Jefferson, if it were possible to change historical terminology. But the effort must be regarded as quite vain wherein the author seeks to make the Republican party of Jefferson the forebears, not of the modern Democratic party, but of the Whigs, and, therefore, by implication, of the modern Republicans. "The old Republican party, as such," he says, "was merged almost wholly into the Whig party"; "the campaign of 1828 can well be said to be a conflict between Republicans and Democrats"; "The name National Republican was retained until the campaign of 1832, when the party became known as the Anti-Mason party, afterwards the Whigs." Subsequently in speaking of the Antimasonic party the author says, with an apparent inconsistency, "The old Federalists were very glad of the opportunity to get together in a new organization, and eagerly welcomed the advent of the anti-Masonic party" (I, 80). The modern Democratic party, he thinks, finds its origin under Jackson in 1828, "now, for the first time, triumphant", and it was composed "largely of the inhabitants of the slaveholding States". All this is confusing, if not misleading, and it throws no light on the conflicting claims of the Jacksonian Democrats and the Clay Whigs to be the linear descendants of the Jeffersonian Republicans. A historical argument may be made for either view, but the burden of the argument is in favor of the Democrats, though evidently Mr. Curtis does not consider it his office to vindicate the claim of the opposing client. The bulk of Mr. Curtis's volumes is very properly occupied with giving, in historical order, the record of the issues, platforms, and con tests with which the country has had to do since 1856. Here may be found, in large measure, the political history of the last fifty years. Special interest attaches to the conventions and campaigns of 1860, 1864, 1880, and 1884. Light notice is taken, very naturally, of the shortcomings of the party, either of the last generation or of this. But in the record of the party conventions many interesting nominating speeches and party discussions are given, and the proceedings and decisions are set forth by which the evolution of the unwritten party law is revealed. Some readers will be disappointed and surprised that more attention is not given to the development of party machinery and to the importance. of party organization, practice, and usage in popular government; for on this line we find one of the most striking characteristics of our party life during the lifetime of the Republican party. The most recent events and issues in our party history are discussed from the Republican point of view, and the volumes may be regarded as a good and useful summary of Republican principles and policies, with the party defenses well and ably guarded. In his closing chapter, on "Defections from the Party", which is largely a discussion of party ethics, Mr. Curtis makes a plea at length in favor of party fealty and against the spirit of the mugwump. Of the four historic Republican defections, the first, that of 1864, says Mr. Curtis, was "only a flash in the pan"; the second, that of 1872, was a failure that brought only ridicule to its cause and death to its candidate; the third, that of 1884, was based on a false charge, and he condemns its leader, Mr. George William Curtis, as "bound in honor to support the ticket and platform" (II, 472) which he helped to make; the fourth defection, that of the Silver Republicans in 1896, strengthened the party rather than weakened it. The mugwumps, the author declares, have in no way influenced party nominations or the course of party history; to the credit of electing Cleveland, if credit it be and if such credit can be claimed, the author allows the mugwumps to be entirely welcome. Considerable attention is given to Mr. George William Curtis and Mr. Carl Schurz as leaders of mugwump opinion, and severe criticism is meted out to the Springfield Republican as a typical mugwump journal, which is characterized as making "untruthful and unjust attacks . . . upon the nation's trusted officers" (II, 481). The appendix of the work contains a good deal of good party material. Students and readers who are interested in American politics and party history will find cause of gratitude to Mr. Curtis for the result of his labor. JAMES A. WOODBURN. The History of Twenty-five Years. By Sir SPENCER WALPOLE, K.C.B. Volume I, 1856-1865; Volume II, 1865-1870. (London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Company. 1904. Two vols., pp. xviii, 529; xiv, 525.) Ir is twenty years since Sir Spencer Walpole completed his six |