From The Files: 2 July 1776 ..The 4th of 70 Items To Be Shared in the Future

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[1860] George Bancroft, U.S. diplomat & historian (1800-1891)

Although his famous History is little read today, it was an important landmark in American historiography, and it remains valuable for its extensive use of source materials. The History is violently anti-British and intensely patriotic and leaves no doubt that the author was passionately sincere in his devotion to democracy. Acknowledged partisan that he was, Bancroft, the first American trained in the so-called scientific school of German historical scholarship, nevertheless insisted that his was an objective interpretation; the high praise his work won from the great Leopold von Ranke as the best history ever written from the democratic point of view annoyed as well as gratified him.

 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, Vol. II (02)(1860; 475 pp) of IV (04) volumes, as Vols. VII-X (07-10) in HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. VIII (08) of X (10) volumes (Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1834-74):

"American independence was not an act of sudden passion, nor the work of one man or one assembly. It had been discussed in every part of the country by farmers and merchants, by mechanics and planters, by the fishermen along the coast and by the backwoodsmen of the West; in town meetings and from the pulpit; at social gatherings and around the camp fires; in newspapers and in pamphlets; in county conventions and in conferences of committees; in colonial congresses and assemblies. The decision on Independency was put off only to hear the voice of the people." (p.432)

"The second day of July's resolution of Congress changed the old thirteen British colonies into free and independent states. It remained to set forth the reason for this act, and the principle which the new people would own as their guides" (p.462)

"The Declaration of Independence, this immortal state paper, which for its composer, Thomas Jefferson, was the aurora of enduring fame, was 'the genuine effusion of the soul of the country at that time.' THE BILL OF RIGHTS WHICH IT PROMULGATES, is of rights that are older than human institutions, and spring from the THE ETERNAL JUSTICE THAT IS ANTERIOR TO THE STATE." (p. 472)

"With Independence the war was no longer a Civil War; Britain was become to the United States a foreign country. Every former subject of the British King in the thirteen colonies now owed primary allegiance to the dynasty of the people, and became citizens of the new republic; except in this, everything remained as before; every man retained his rights; the colonies did not dissolve into a state of nature; nor did the new people undertake a social revolution. The affairs of internal police and government were carefully retained by each separate state, which could, each for itself, enter upon the career of domestic reforms. But the states which were henceforth independent of Britain were not independent of one another; the United States of America assumed powers over war, peace, foreign alliances, and commerce." (p. 474)

"The Declaration of Independence was not signed by the members of congress on the day on which it was agreed to, but it was duly authenticated by the president and secretary, and published to the world. The nation, when it made the choice of a day for its great anniversary, selected not the day of the resolution of independence, when it closed the past, but that of the declaration of the principles on which it opened its new career." (p.475)

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