History Books

CHAPTER I. AMERICAN SLAVERY. If they had not triumphed, do you know who would have gained the victory? Slavery is only a word—a vile word, doubtless, but to which we in time become habituated. To what do we not become habituated? We have stores of indulgence and indifference for the social iniquities which have found their way into the current of cotemporary civilization, and which can invoke... more...

At the beginning of the national era the internal commerce of the United States gave small promise of the tremendous development it was to undergo during the ensuing century. There was as yet too little differentiation of occupation to give rise to a large interstate trade in native products, and the proximity of the greater part of the population to the seacoast made it cheaper and more convenient to... more...

CHARGÉ D'AFFAIRES FROM THE UNITED STATES TOTHE COURT OF SPAIN. William Carmichael was a native of Maryland. At the beginning of the revolution he was in Europe. From London he went over to Paris in the spring of the year 1776, and was there when Silas Deane arrived as a commercial and political agent from the United States. He lived with Mr Deane for some time in Paris, and aided him in his... more...

Philadelphia, September 10th, 1781. Sir, The undersigned, Minister Plenipotentiary of France, has the honor of communicating to Congress the commission of M. Holker, as Consul General of France, in the States of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. He requests Congress to pass an act, or four different acts, in order to procure for this Consul the exequatur in each of the States, to which... more...

Resolution of Congress of March 27th, 1818. Resolution directing the Publication and Distribution of the Journal and Proceedings of the Convention, which formed the present Constitution of the United States. Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the Journal of the Convention, which formed the present Constitution of the United... more...

Philadelphia, December 13th, 1781. Dear Sir, My last letter of the 28th of November, sent by the Marquis de Lafayette, must for the most part have been unintelligible to you, owing to an unfortunate mistake of Mr Thompson, who delivered me a cypher sent by Mr Palfrey, which you never received, instead of that sent by Major Franks. The duplicate enclosed is in the last, so that you will no longer be at... more...

INTRODUCTION In the year 1864 Mr. Henry C. Murphy, then corresponding secretary of the Long Island Historical Society, had the good fortune to find in an old book-store in Amsterdam a manuscript whose bearings upon the history of the middle group of American colonies made it, when translated and made accessible as a publication in the Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society, an historical... more...

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VINELAND AND THE VIKINGS. The year 1000 A.D. was one of strange history. Its advent threw the people of Europe into a state of mortal terror. Ten centuries had passed since the birth of Christ. The world was about to come to an end. Such was the general belief. How it was to reach its end,—whether by fire, water, or some other agent of ruin,—the prophets of disaster did not say, nor did people... more...

CHAPTER I THE GREAT MIGRATION TO AMERICA The tide of migration that set in toward the shores of North America during the early years of the seventeenth century was but one phase in the restless and eternal movement of mankind upon the surface of the earth. The ancient Greeks flung out their colonies in every direction, westward as far as Gaul, across the Mediterranean, and eastward into Asia Minor,... more...