dependence. During the War of the Revolution he was minister plenipotentiary at the court of France, where he won fame as a diplomatist. His country revered him, and in his old age he won fresh laurels as a statesman of wonderful sagacity. He was made governor of Pennsylvania in 1785, and represented his State in the Federal Convention of 1787. In 1790, at the age of eighty-four, then being the special object of his country's veneration, he died. He left an autobiography full of interest, which has been edited by John Bigelow (1868).

Striking points of contrast appear between Edwards and Franklin, the two strong thinkers of our colonial period. The son of an eminent divine, thoroughly trained in all the learning of his day, called to active work in his profession while yet in his teens, applauded by admiring colleagues, Edwards had every help in the cultivation of his great natural gifts; while Franklin, among the youngest of a family of seventeen children, reared in poverty, self-taught, exiled from his home, had a dreary way to travel, alone, unguided, and beset by many hindrances. In their later years, Edwards, having left the most conspicuous pulpit in New England, dwelt in the solitude of the wilderness; while Franklin, emerging from the obscurity of the printer's shop, became the most conspicuous social figure of England and America. Their mental characters are as dissimilar as their careers. Edwards, eager to serve mankind, spent all his energy in the work of a metaphysician; equally devoted to the service of his fellow-men, Franklin developed his versatile genius as a moralist, a philosopher, a diplomat, a statesman, a philanthropist. Edwards wrought to establish the old faiths; Franklin developed new ideas; the theologian was the strictest of his sect; the philosopher was latitudinarian.

Both were men of measureless power, of tireless industry, of unswerving integrity; and both were animated by a sacred purpose to do good in the world.

Franklin's writings, edited by Dr. Jared Sparks in ten volumes, are classified as follows: 1. Autobiography. 2. Essays on Religious and Moral Subjects and the Economy of Life. 3. Essays on General Politics, Commerce, and Political Economy. 4. Essays and Tracts, Historical and Political, before the American Revolution. 5. Political Papers during and after the American Revolution. 6. Letters and Papers on Electricity. 7. Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects. 8. Correspondence.

The clearness, force, humor, and naturalness of his style give charms to every page. "At all times, and in everything he undertook, the vigor of an understanding at once original and practical was distinctly perceivable. But it must not be supposed that his writings are devoid of ornament or amusement. The latter especially abounds, in almost all he ever composed, only nothing is sacrificed to them. On the contrary, they come most naturally into their places, and they uniformly help on the purpose in hand. Thus his style has all the vigor, and even conciseness, of Swift, without any of his harshness."*

In this chapter we have considered

The colonial period of American literature.

1. Thomas Hooker, Thomas Shepard, John Cotton, Roger Williams.

2. Anne Dudley Bradstreet. 3. The Mathers. 4. Jonathan Edwards. 5. Benjamin

Franklin.

* Lord Jeffrey.

CHAPTER II.

THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.

From the Declaration of Independence to the Adoption of the Constitution.

A

THE literature of our revolutionary period is vigorous and profound in its discussion of the political rights of man. There had been preparation for such writing. century and a half of fighting against the savages and of resistance to the oppressive legislation of England, had made the colonists forgetful of their mutual jealousies. They were ready to unite in asking their king for redress of grievances. Their petitions were ignored, and they made their Declaration of Independence, appealing to the King of kings for their rights. The sacred right to rebel against tyranny had never been fully broached till then; but our fathers declared it with all the emphasis of strong convictions. They drew their swords for a political principle. "The Parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it was precisely on this question that they made the Revolution turn. The amount of taxation was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistent with liberty, and that was in their eyes enough. It was against the recital of an act of Parliament, rather than against any suffering under its enactments, that they took up arms. They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration. They poured out their treas

ures and their blood like water, in a contest in opposition to an assertion which those less sagacious and not so well schooled in the principles of civil liberty would have regarded as barren phraseology or mere parade of words."* Men who had the heroism to take such a position were capable of producing noble political literature. Orators clothed the thoughts of the people in eloquent words, and writers produced many vigorous pamphlets. Already for half a century the weekly newspapers, small folios of four pages, had been publishing and discussing political news in the colonies, and three or four monthly magazines had been sustained for a decade by American authors and readers. The way had been prepared for the reception of new political writing by the educated men who had been trained in the early American colleges.

The presidents of these colleges were eminent among religious and political thinkers, and one of them wielded great political influence. John Witherspoon, D.D., LL.D. (1722–1794), president of the College of New Jersey, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a member of the General Congress during the Revolutionary War, and one of its most active workers. A brilliant debater, a ready, humorous, and argumentative writer, his voice and pen were helpful in securing the independence of America. Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D. (1727-1795), of whom Channing said in 1835, "This country has not, perhaps, produced a more learned man," was president of Yale College for nearly a quarter of a century. His writings were usually scholastic or theological, but a few of them gave inspiration to the patriotism of his times.

The earliest of the great orators who led the way to freedom was James Otis (1725-1783), of Massachusetts. He was a scholarly lawyer, who wrote treatises on Latin and Greek prosody at the time when he was winning renown in his profession. In 1761 he made his powerful argument against "writs of assistance," and committed himself as an uncompromising foe to arbitrary British rule in America. His eloquence was a "flame of fire." Among his political writings are

*Daniel Webster.

A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay, The Rights of the British Colonists Asserted and Proved, and A Vindication of the British Colonists.

Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) was a native of the West Indies. At sixteen years of age he entered King's College, at New York. A year later, at a mass meeting in the city, he displayed astounding precocity as an orator, and at once was recognized as a leader of the revolutionists. In his nineteenth year he was placed in command of the company of artillery which had been raised by the Provincial Committee of New York. Washington quickly recognized his gifts, and summoned him to the staff of the commander-in-chief. As Washington's "most confidential aide," he wrote many valuable military papers. At the close of the war he practiced law in New York, and was leader of its bar. In securing the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, besides making the most brilliant forensic arguments, he wrote many papers of masterly power. He was the author of fifty-one numbers of the Federalist, and his share in that work was so much esteemed that it was promptly translated into French and was widely read in Europe. De Tocqueville said of it that "it ought to be familiar to the statesmen of every nation." As Secretary of the Treasury under Washington, Hamilton was author of the most famous state papers which have been written in our country. At the same time his brilliant pen wrote the letters of "Camillus," a series of papers on profound questions of international law.

In serving his country, Hamilton had thwarted the devouring ambition of Aaron Burr. Burr's antipathy forced a duel between them, and Hamilton fell. Grief and horror at his untimely death convulsed the nation; and disuse of the infamous "code of honor," to which he had been sacrificed, was hastened by trenchant lessons deduced from the tragedy by pulpit and platform. Fisher Ames, Hamilton's rival as an