CHAPTER XIII

THE SECOND EPOCH IN AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT

THERE begins now the Second Epoch in American development. With the end of the Revolution and the signing of the treaty of peace, the weak bond that for more than thirty years had held the colonists to England was broken. A national political life was created. Henceforth Americans owed allegiance to themselves alone. From the English stock had sprung a new race, and the American People took their place before the world.

National independence began in war. The effect of war "is to cause men to become callous, and in proportion as giving pain to others is made a habit during war, it will remain a habit during peace; inevitably producing in the behavior of citizens to one another, antagonisms, crimes of violence, and multitudinous aggressions of minor kinds, tending towards a disorder that calls for coercive government. The civilizing discipline of social life is antagonized by the uncivilizing discipline of the life war involves."1

The effect of war on the Americans, on those Americans who had, unknown to themselves, ceased to be Englishmen, even though nominally they owed 1 Spencer: The Study of Sociology, p. 179.

allegiance to the British Crown and still called themselves Englishmen, was marked and produced lasting mental consequences. The men who fought in the ranks of the Continental Army; the leaders who captained them, with a few exceptions; the noncombatants who gave their services and money to the cause; the women who suffered uncomplainingly and encouraged men to further resistance, were animated by an ideal. The effect of war, especially the effect of victory on a people who are swayed by an ideal, is momentous. Liberty and equality, says Herodotus, "are brave spirit-stirring things," and they make men" zealous to do the work thoroughly." All history, ancient and modern, is the record of national character influenced by wars carried on in defense of an ideal; which is a very different thing from wars for conquest or revenge, or wars in which the heart of the people does not enter, but they are driven to fight at the command of their rulers. From Marathon to Yorktown, from the defeat of the Spanish Armada to the Battle of Tsushima, always the result is the same; always there follows a feeling of strength, of confidence, of belief in the protection of the gods or the special grace of God; an inspiration to go forward resolutely and to hold steadfast to the ideal.

In America the effect of victory was followed by the same phenomena that have been observed in all other countries, but victory also had other consequences. The power of America had been under

rated, that of England exaggerated; and Americans, who had humbled the strongest armed power of Europe, of whom all the world stood in fear,1 with her enormous financial resources, her great military strength, and a population more than three times as large as that of the colonies, felt a confidence in themselves that nothing else could have created. Now they had been tried and proved. They had stood the shock of battle. They had learned the military lesson of the English and improved upon it. They had created their own political system. There was born in them not only supreme confidence in themselves, their strength, and their security, but also that quality which is the American heritage: faith in the future and a profound conviction that they were destined to accomplish their mission; and this almost religious belief in their special protection was to be further strengthened by the result of the War of 1812 and the limited state of war with France. Many men had braved England with fear of the consequences, for the odds were great and the venture seemed rash, and defeat was more probable than victory. Now all doubts were swept away. No man asked if the Union were to endure

1 Webster, in a speech delivered in the Senate, May 7, 1834, voiced this feeling when he said: "They raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared; a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.” — Webster, Works, vol. IV, p. 110.

and the Nation to live. The unanswerable proof had been given in the spirit of confidence that filled the whole people and set their pulses to tingling as "Yankee Doodle" had put new life into tired bodies. "It is probable," says Lecky, "that no nation ever started on its career with a larger proportion of strong characters, or a higher level of moral conviction, than the English colonies in America."1

No one can study the early history of the American people without being tempted to believe that circumstances combined to mark out the colonies as the "predestined seat of a great free nation"; or as an acute American once remarked to me, "Everything that has happened in our history, from the landing of the Pilgrims to the episode of Mrs. O'Leary's cow and the destruction of Chicago, has been accident; which is perhaps one reason why we are such a happy-go-lucky people and believe in our luck, for every accident turns to our advantage." There is undoubtedly much philosophic insight into American character contained in this casual observation.

Nothing has so wasted the energies of man as the futile splitting of hairs over words and the foolish discussions of terminology. Whether one believes in "predestination" or in "luck," the effect is the same; for a people who believe they are predestined to accomplish great things, and that accident

1 Lecky: A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. 11, p. 2.

and opportunity have always been in their favor,1 will be sustained by the same confidence in themselves that individuals have who trust to their luck to carry them through difficulties from which the more cautious shrink. In both cases certain qualities are destroyed or subordinated and others are developed: caution, exactness, that infinite capacity for taking pains which is said to be genius, give place to audacity, unevenness, a careless disregard of details as well as precise results; a people become empiric rather than scientific. No one who has studied the American character can fail to be impressed by its tremendous buoyancy,-although at times there is reaction which manifests itself in despondency and national despair, and the American weakness for the "short cut." The fact that the American is always in a hurry has been so frequently remarked by foreign observers, and admitted by Americans themselves, that it must be accepted as a national trait, and it springs from an unconscious conviction that luck is a more vital element in the affairs of life than calm deliberation and careful preparation. It is clear enough that the American might easily become a fatalist, and it is equally clear that he never will; for he is saved from the enervating fatalism of the Oriental by a stock of physical energy of which the Oriental knows nothing, and by a healthy im

1 "Out of the accidents of the time, rather than from forecast or inventive statecraft, did the American colonies get their opportunity for expansion."Weeden: Economic and Social History of New England, vol. 11, p. 870.