The impulse of an American writer in justifying the use of newspapers as
historical materials is to adopt an apologetic tone. It is somewhat
curious that such should be the case, for newspapers satisfy so many
canons of historical evidence. They are contemporary, and, being written
without knowledge of the end, cannot bolster any cause without making a
plain showing of their intent. Their object is the relation of daily
events; and if their relation is colored by honest or dishonest
partisanship, this is easily discernible by the critic from the internal
evidence and from an easily acquired knowledge of a few external facts.
As the journals themselves say, their aim is to print the news; and much
of the news is present politics. Moreover, the newspaper itself, its
news and editorial columns, its advertisements, is a graphic picture of
society.
When Aulard, in his illuminating criticism of Taine, writes that the
journals are a very important source of the history of the French
Revolution, provided they are revised and checked by one another, the
statement seems in accordance with the canons of historical writing; and
when he blames Taine for using two journals only and neglecting ten
others which he names, the impression on the mind is the same as if
Taine were charged with the neglect of evidence of another class. One
would hardly attempt to justify Taine by declaring that all journals are
inaccurate, partisan, and dishonest, and that the omission was a merit,
not a defect. Leaving out of account the greater size and diffuseness of
the modern journal, the dictum of Aulard would seem to apply to any
period of history.
Why is it then that some American students fall consciously or
unconsciously into an apologetic tone when they attempt to justify the
use of newspapers as historical sources? I suppose it is because of the
attitude of cultivated society to the newspaper of to-day. Society calls
the ordinary newspaper sensational and unreliable; and, if neither, its
accounts are so diffuse and badly proportioned as to weary the seeker
after the facts of any given transaction. Despite the disfavor into
which the American newspaper has fallen in certain circles, I suspect
that it has only exaggerated these defects, and that the journals of
different democracies have more resemblances than diversities. The
newspaper that caters to the "masses" will never suit the "classes," and
the necessity for a large circulation induces it to furnish the sheet
which the greatest number of readers desire.
But this does not concern the historian. He does not make his materials.
He has to take them as they are. It would undoubtedly render his task
easier if all men spoke and wrote everywhere with accuracy and
sincerity; but his work would lose much of its interest. Take the
newspaper for what it is, a hasty gatherer of facts, a hurried
commentator on the same, and it may well constitute a part of historical
evidence.
When, in 1887, I began the critical study of the History of the United
States from 1850 to 1860, I was struck with the paucity of material
which would serve the purpose of an animated narrative. The main facts
were to be had in the state papers, the Statutes, the _Congressional
Globe_ and documents, the records of national conventions and platforms,
and the tabulated results of elections. But there was much less private
correspondence than is available for the early history of our country;
and, compared with the period of the Civil War and later, a scarcity of
biographies and reminiscences, containing personal letters of high
historical value. Since I wrote my first two volumes, much new matter
concerning the decade of 1850 to 1860 has been published. The work of
the American Historical Association, and of many historical societies,
the monographs of advanced university students, have thrown light upon
this, as they have upon other periods, with the result that future
delvers in this field can hardly be so much struck with the paucity of
material as I was twenty-one years ago.
Boy though I was during the decade of 1850 to 1860, I had a vivid
remembrance of the part that the newspaper played in politics, and the
thought came to me that the best way to arrive at the spirit of the
times was to steep my mind in journalistic material; that there was the
secret of living over again that decade, as the Abolitionist, the
Republican, the Whig, and the Democrat had actually lived in it. In the
critical use of such sources, I was helped by the example of von Holst,
who employed them freely in his volumes covering the same period, and by
the counsel and collaboration of my friend Edward G. Bourne, whose
training was in the modern school. For whatever training I had beyond
that of self came from the mastery, under the guidance of teachers, of
certain general historians belonging to an epoch when power of
expression was as much studied as the collecting and sifting of
evidence.
While considering my materials, I was struck with a statement cited by
Herbert Spencer as an illustration in his "Philosophy of Style": "A
modern newspaper statement, though probably true, if quoted in a book as
testimony, would be laughed at; but the letter of a court gossip, if
written some centuries ago, is thought good historical evidence." At
about the same time, I noticed that Motley used as one of his main
authorities for the battle of St. Quentin the manuscript of an anonymous
writer. From these two circumstances, it was a logical reflection that
some historians might make an exaggerated estimate of the value of
manuscript material because it reposed in dusty archives and could be
utilized only by severe labor and long patience; and that, imbued with
this idea, other historians for other periods might neglect the
newspaper because of its ready accessibility.
These several considerations justified a belief, arrived at from my
preliminary survey of the field, that the use of newspapers as sources
for the decade of 1850 to 1860 was desirable. At each step of my pretty
thorough study of them, I became more and more convinced that I was on
the right track. I found facts in them which I could have found nowhere
else. The public meeting is a great factor in the political life of this
decade, and is most fully and graphically reported in the press. The
newspaper, too, was a vehicle for personal accounts of a
quasi-confidential nature, of which I can give a significant example. In
an investigation that Edward Bourne made for me during the summer of
1889, he came across in the _Boston Courier_ an inside account of the
Whig convention of 1852, showing, more conclusively than I have seen
elsewhere, the reason of the failure to unite the conservative Whigs,
who were apparently in a majority, on Webster. From collateral evidence
we were convinced that it was written by a Massachusetts delegate; and
the _Springfield Republican_, which copied the account, furnished a
confirmation of it. It was an interesting story, and I incorporated it
in my narrative.
I am well aware that Dr. Dryasdust may ask, What of it? The report of
the convention shows that Webster received a very small vote and that
Scott was nominated. Why waste time and words over the "might have
been"? I can plead only the human interest in the great Daniel Webster
ardently desiring that nomination, Rufus Choate advocating it in sublime
oratory, the two antislavery delegates from Massachusetts refusing their
votes for Webster, thus preventing a unanimous Massachusetts, and the
delegates from Maine, among whom was Webster's godson William P.
Fessenden, coldly refusing their much-needed aid.
General Scott, having received the nomination, made a stumping tour in
the autumn through some of the Western States. No accurate account of it
is possible without the newspapers, yet it was esteemed a factor in his
overwhelming defeat, and the story of it is well worth preserving as
data for a discussion of the question, Is it wise for a presidential
candidate to make a stumping tour during his electoral campaign?
The story of the formation of the Republican party, and the rise of the
Know-nothings, may possibly be written without recourse to the
newspapers, but thorough steeping in such material cannot fail to add to
the animation and accuracy of the story. In detailed history and
biographical books, dates, through mistakes of the writer or printer,
are frequently wrong; and when the date was an affair of supreme
importance, I have sometimes found a doubt resolved by a reference to
the newspaper, which, from its strictly contemporary character, cannot
in such a matter lead one astray.
I found the newspapers of value in the correction of logical
assumptions, which frequently appear in American historical and
biographical books, especially in those written by men who bore a part
in public affairs. By a logical assumption, I mean the statement of a
seemingly necessary consequence which apparently ought to follow some
well-attested fact or condition. A striking instance of this occurred
during the political campaign of 1856, when "bleeding Kansas" was a
thrilling catchword used by the Republicans, whose candidate for
president was Fremont. In a year and a half seven free-state men had
been killed in Kansas by the border ruffians, and these outrages,
thoroughly ventilated, made excellent campaign ammunition. But the
Democrats had a _tu quoque_ argument which ought to have done much
towards eliminating this question from the canvass.
On the night of May 24, 1856, five pro-slavery men, living on the
Pottawatomie Creek, were deliberately and foully murdered by John Brown
and seven of his disciples; and, while this massacre caused profound
excitement in Kansas and Missouri, it seems to have had no influence
east of the Mississippi River, although the fact was well attested. A
Kansas journalist of 1856, writing in 1879, made this logical
assumption: "The opposition press both North and South took up the
damning tale ... of that midnight butchery on the Pottawatomie.... Whole
columns of leaders from week to week, with startling headlines,
liberally distributed capitals, and frightful exclamation points, filled
all the newspapers." And it was his opinion that, had it not been for
this massacre, Fremont would have been elected.
But I could not discover that the massacre had any influence on the
voters in the pivotal states. I examined, or had examined, the files of
the _New York Journal of Commerce_, _New York Herald_, _Philadelphia
Pennsylvanian_, _Washington Union_, and _Cleveland Plain Dealer_, all
Democratic papers except the _New York Herald_, and I was struck with
the fact that substantially no use was made of the massacre as a
campaign argument. Yet could anything have been more logical than the
assumption that the Democrats would have been equal to their opportunity
and spread far and wide such a story? The facts in the case show
therefore that cause and effect in actual American history are not
always the same as the statesman may conceive them in his cabinet or the
historian in his study.
In the newspapers of 1850 to 1860 many speeches, and many public, and
some private, letters of conspicuous public men are printed; these are
valuable material for the history of the decade, and their use is in
entire accordance with modern historical canons.
I have so far considered the press in its character of a register of
facts; but it has a further use for historical purposes, since it is
both a representative and guide of public sentiment. Kinglake shows that
the _Times_ was the potent influence which induced England to invade the
Crimea; Bismarck said in 1877 that the press "was the cause of the last
three wars"; Lord Cromer writes, "The people of England as represented
by the press insisted on sending General Gordon to the Soudan, and
accordingly to the Soudan he was sent;" and it is current talk that the
yellow journals brought on the Spanish-American War. Giving these
statements due weight, can a historian be justified in neglecting the
important influence of the press on public opinion?
As reflecting and leading popular sentiment during the decade of 1850 to
1860, the newspapers of the Northern States were potent. I own that many
times one needs no further index to public sentiment than our frequent
elections, but in 1854 conditions were peculiar. The repeal of the
Missouri Compromise had outraged the North and indicated that a new
party must be formed to resist the extension of slavery. In the
disorganization of the Democratic party, and the effacement of the Whig,
nowhere may the new movement so well be traced as in the news and
editorial columns of the newspapers, and in the speeches of the
Northern leaders, many of these indeed being printed nowhere else than
in the press. What journals and what journalists there were in those
days! Greeley and Dana of the _New York Tribune_; Bryant and Bigelow of
the _Evening Post_; Raymond of the _Times_; Webb of the _Courier_ and
_Enquirer_; Bowles of the _Springfield Republican_; Thurlow Weed of the
_Albany Journal_; Schouler of the _Cincinnati Gazette_,--all inspired by
their opposition to the spread of slavery, wrote with vigor and
enthusiasm, representing the ideas of men who had burning thoughts
without power of expression, and guiding others who needed the constant
iteration of positive opinions to determine their political action.
The main and cross currents which resulted in the formation of the
compact Republican party of 1856 have their principal record in the
press, and from it, directly or indirectly, must the story be told.
Unquestionably the newspapers had greater influence than in an ordinary
time, because the question was a moral one and could be concretely put.
Was slavery right or wrong? If wrong, should not its extension be
stopped? That was the issue, and all the arguments, constitutional and
social, turned on that point.
The greatest single journalistic influence was the _New York Weekly
Tribune_ which had in 1854 a circulation of 112,000, and many times that
number of readers. These readers were of the thorough kind, reading all
the news, all the printed speeches and addresses, and all the
editorials, and pondering as they read. The questions were discussed in
their family circles and with their neighbors, and, as differences
arose, the _Tribune_, always at hand, was consulted and re-read. There
being few popular magazines during this decade, the weekly newspaper, in
some degree, took their place; and, through this medium, Greeley and
his able coadjutors spoke to the people of New York and of the West,
where New England ideas predominated, with a power never before or since
known in this country. When Motley was studying the old letters and
documents of the sixteenth century in the archives of Brussels, he
wrote: "It is something to read the real _bona fide_ signs manual of
such fellows as William of Orange, Count Egmont, Alexander Farnese,
Philip the Second, Cardinal Granville and the rest of them. It gives a
'realizing sense,' as the Americans have it." I had somewhat of the same
feeling as I turned over the pages of the bound volumes of the _Weekly
Tribune_, reading the editorials and letters of Greeley, the articles of
Dana and Hildreth. I could recall enough of the time to feel the
influence of this political bible, as it was termed, and I can
emphatically say that if you want to penetrate into the thoughts,
feelings, and ground of decision of the 1,866,000 men who voted for
Lincoln in 1860, you should study with care the _New York Weekly
Tribune_.
One reason why the press was a better representative of opinion during
the years from 1854 to 1860 than now is that there were few, if any,
independent journals. The party man read his own newspaper and no other;
in that, he found an expression of his own views. And the party
newspaper in the main printed only the speeches and arguments of its own
side. Greeley on one occasion was asked by John Russell Young, an
associate, for permission to reprint a speech of Horatio Seymour in full
as a matter of news. "Yes," Greeley said, "I will print Seymour's speech
when the _World_ will print those of our side."
Before the war, Charleston was one of the most interesting cities of the
country. It was a small aristocratic community, with an air of
refinement and distinction. The story of Athens proclaims that a large
population is not necessary to exercise a powerful influence on the
world; and, after the election of Lincoln in 1860, the 40,000 people of
Charleston, or rather the few patricians who controlled its fate and
that of South Carolina, attracted the attention of the whole country.
The story of the secession movement of November and December, 1860,
cannot be told with correctness and life without frequent references to
the _Charleston Mercury_ and the _Charleston Courier_. The _Mercury_
especially was an index of opinion, and so vivid is its daily chronicle
of events that the historian is able to put himself in the place of
those ardent South Carolinians and understand their point of view.
For the history of the Civil War, newspapers are not so important. The
other material is superabundant, and in choosing from the mass of it,
the newspapers, so-far as affairs at the North are concerned, need only
be used in special cases, and rarely for matters of fact. The accounts
of campaigns and battles, which filled so much of their space, may be
ignored, as the best possible authorities for these are the one hundred
and twenty-eight volumes of the United States government publication,
the "Official Records of the Union and Confederate armies." The faithful
study of the correspondence and the reports in these unique volumes is
absolutely essential to a comprehension of the war; and it is a labor of
love. When one thinks of the mass of manuscripts students of certain
periods of European history have been obliged to read, the American
historian is profoundly grateful to his government, that at a cost to
itself of nearly three million dollars,[45] it has furnished him this
priceless material in neatly printed volumes with excellent indexes. The
serious student can generally procure these volumes gratis through the
favor of his congressman; or, failing in this, may purchase the set at a
moderate price, so that he is not obliged to go to a public library to
consult them.
Next to manuscript material, the physical and mental labor of turning
over and reading bound volumes of newspapers is the most severe, and I
remember my feeling of relief at being able to divert my attention from
what Edward L. Pierce called this back-breaking and eye-destroying
labor, much of it in public libraries, to these convenient books in my
own private library. A mass of other materials, notably Nicolay and
Hay's contributions, military narratives, biographies, private
correspondence, to say nothing of the Congressional publications, render
the student fairly independent of the newspapers. But I did myself make,
for certain periods, special researches among them to ascertain their
influence on public sentiment; and I also found them very useful in my
account of the New York draft riots of 1863. It is true the press did
not accurately reflect the gloom and sickness of heart at the North
after the battle of Chancellorsville, for the reason that many editors
wrote for the purpose of keeping up the hopes of their readers. In sum,
the student may congratulate himself that a continuous study of the
Northern newspapers for the period of the Civil War is unnecessary, for
their size and diffuseness are appalling.
But what I have said about the press of the North will not apply to that
of the South. Though strenuous efforts have been made, with the diligent
cooperation of Southern men, to secure the utmost possible amount of
Confederate material for the "Official Records," it actually forms only
about twenty-nine per cent of the whole matter. Other historical
material is also less copious. For example, there is no record of the
proceedings of the Confederate Congress, like the _Globe_; there are no
reports of committees, like that of the Committee on the Conduct of the
War; and even the journal of the Congress was kept on loose memoranda,
and not written up until after the close of the war. With the exception
of this journal, which has been printed by our government, and the
"Statutes at Large," our information of the work of the Confederate
Congress comes from the newspapers and some books of biography and
recollections. The case of the Southern States was peculiar, because
they were so long cut off from intercourse with the outer world, owing
to the efficient Federal blockade; and the newspaper in its local news,
editorials, and advertisements, is important material for portraying
life in the Confederacy during the Civil War. Fortunately for the
student, the Southern newspaper was not the same voluminous issue as the
Northern, and, if it had not been badly printed, its use would be
attended with little difficulty. Owing to the scarcity of paper, many of
the newspapers were gradually reduced in size, and in the end were
printed on half-sheets, occasionally one on brown paper, and another on
wall paper; even the white paper was frequently coarse, and this, with
poor type, made the news-sheet itself a daily record of the waning
fortunes of the Confederacy.
In the history of Reconstruction the historian may be to a large extent
independent of the daily newspaper. For the work of reconstruction was
done by Congress, and Congress had the full support of the Northern
people, as was shown by the continuous large Republican majority which
was maintained. The debates, the reports, and the acts of Congress are
essential, and little else is required except whatever private
correspondence may be accessible. Congress represented public sentiment
of the North, and if one desires newspaper opinion, one may find it in
many pithy expressions on the floor of the House or the Senate. For the
congressman and the senator are industrious newspaper readers. They are
apt to read some able New York journal which speaks for their party, and
the congressman will read the daily and weekly newspapers of his
district, and the senator the prominent ones of his state which belong
to his party.
For the period which covered Reconstruction, from 1865 to 1877, I used
the _Nation_ to a large extent. Its bound volumes are convenient to
handle in one's own library, and its summary of events is useful in
itself, and as giving leads to the investigation of other material.
Frequently its editorials have spoken for the sober sense of the people
with amazing success. As a constant reader of the _Nation_ since 1866, I
have felt the fascination of Godkin, and have been consciously on guard
against it. I tried not to be led away by his incisive statements and
sometimes uncharitable judgments. But whatever may be thought of his
bias, he had an honest mind, and was incapable of knowingly making a
false statement; and this, with his other qualities, makes his journal
excellent historical material. After considering with great care some
friendly criticism, I can truly say that I have no apology to make for
the extent to which I used the _Nation_.
Recurring now to the point with which I began this discussion,--that
learned prejudice against employing newspapers as historical
material,--I wish to add that, like all other evidence, they must be
used with care and skepticism, as one good authority is undoubtedly
better than a dozen poor ones. An anecdote I heard years ago has been
useful to me in weighing different historical evidence. A
Pennsylvania-Dutch justice of the peace in one of the interior townships
of Ohio had a man arraigned before him for stealing a pig. One witness
swore that he distinctly saw the theft committed; eight swore that they
never saw the accused steal a pig, and the verdict was worthy of
Dogberry. "I discharge the accused," said the justice. "The testimony of
eight men is certainly worth more than the testimony of one."
Private and confidential correspondence is highly valuable historical
material, for such utterances are less constrained and more sincere than
public declarations; but all men cannot be rated alike. Some men have
lied as freely in private letters as in public speeches; therefore the
historian must get at the character of the man who has written the
letter and the influences surrounding him; these factors must count in
any satisfactory estimate of his accuracy and truth. The newspaper must
be subjected to similar tests. For example, to test an article or public
letter written by Greeley or Godkin, the general situation, the
surrounding influences, and the individual bias must be taken into
account, and, when allowance is made for these circumstances, as well as
for the public character of the utterance, it may be used for historical
evidence. For the history of the last half of the nineteenth century
just such material--the material of the fourth estate--must be used.
Neglect of it would be like neglect of the third estate in the history
of France for the eighteenth century.
In the United States we have not, politically speaking, either the first
or second estates, but we have the third and fourth estates with an
intimate connection between the two. Lord Cromer said, when writing of
the sending of Gordon to the Soudan, "Newspaper government has certain
disadvantages;" and this he emphasized by quoting a wise remark of Sir
George Cornewall Lewis, "Anonymous authorship places the public under
the direction of guides who have no sense of personal responsibility."
Nevertheless this newspaper government must be reckoned with. The duty
of the historian is, not to decide if the newspapers are as good as they
ought to be, but to measure their influence on the present, and to
recognize their importance as an ample and contemporary record of the
past.
[45] $2,858,514, without including the pay of army officers detailed
from time to time for duty in connection with the work. Official
Records, 130, V.
SPEECH PREPARED FOR THE COMMENCEMENT
DINNER AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
June 26, 1901 (not delivered).
SPEECH PREPARED FOR THE COMMENCEMENT
DINNER AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Thanking heartily the governing boards of Harvard College for the honor
conferred upon me, I shall say, on this my first admission to the circle
of the Harvard alumni, a word on the University as it appears to one
whose work has lain outside of it. The spirit of the academy in general
and especially of this University impels men to get to the bottom of
things, to strive after exact knowledge; and this spirit permeates my
own study of history in a remarkable degree. "The first of all Gospels
is this," said Carlyle, "that a lie cannot endure forever." This is the
gospel of historical students. A part of their work has been to expose
popular fallacies, and to show up errors which have been made through
partiality and misguided patriotism or because of incomplete
investigation. Men of my age are obliged to unlearn much. The youthful
student of history has a distinct advantage over us in that he begins
with a correct knowledge of the main historical facts. He does not for
example learn what we all used to learn--that in the year 1000 the
appearance of a fiery comet caused a panic of terror to fall upon
Christendom and gave rise to the belief that the end of the world was at
hand. Nor is he taught that the followers of Peter the Hermit in the
first crusade were a number of spiritually minded men and women of
austere morality. It is to the University that we owe it that we are
seeing things as they are in history, that the fables, the fallacies,
and the exaggerations are disappearing from the books.
To regard the past with accuracy and truth is a preparation for
envisaging the present in the same way. For this attitude towards the
past and the present gained by college students of history, and for
other reasons which it is not necessary here to detail, the man of
University training has, other things being equal, this advantage over
him who lacks it, that in life in the world he will get at things more
certainly and state them more accurately.
"A university," said Lowell, "is a place where nothing useful is
taught." By utility Lowell undoubtedly meant, to use the definition
which Huxley puts into the average Englishman's mouth, "that by which we
get pudding or praise or both." A natural reply to the statement of
Lowell is that great numbers of fathers every year, at a pecuniary
sacrifice, send their sons to college with the idea of fitting them
better to earn their living, in obedience to the general sentiment of
men of this country that there is a money value to college training. But
the remark of Lowell suggests another object of the University which, to
use the words of Huxley again, is "to catch the exceptional people, the
glorious sports of nature, and turn them to account for the good of
society." This appeals to those imbued with the spirit of the academy
who frankly acknowledge, in the main, our inferiority in the
scholarship, which produces great works of literature and science, to
England, Germany, and France, and who with patriotic eagerness wish that
we may reach the height attained in the older countries. To recur to my
own study again, should we produce a historian or historical writer the
equal of Gibbon, Mommsen, Carlyle, or Macaulay there would be a feeling
of pride in our historical genius which would make itself felt at every
academical and historical gathering. We have something of that sentiment
in regard to Francis Parkman, our most original historian. But it may
be that the historical field of Parkman is too narrow to awaken a
world-wide interest and I suspect that the American who will be
recognized as the equal of Gibbon, Mommsen, Carlyle, or Macaulay must
secure that recognition by writing of some period of European history
better than the Englishman, German, or Frenchman has written of it. He
must do it not only in the way of scientific history, in which in his
field Henry Charles Lea has won so much honor for himself and his
country, but he must bring to bear on his history that quality which has
made the historical writings of Gibbon, Carlyle, and Macaulay
literature.