.... "Rafters of immortal pine,
Cedar incorruptible, worthy her design."

Or he may be sure that the historian who comes after him will sift the
wheat from his chaff, and leave him no better reputation than that of the
quarry from which the marble of the statue comes. He must tell a
consecutive story, but must eschew all redundancy, furnish no more
supports for his bridge than its stability requires, prune his tree so
severely that it shall bear none but good fruit, forbear to freight the
memory of his reader with a cargo so unwieldy as to sink it. On the other
hand, of course, he must beware of being too terse; man cannot live by
bread alone, and the reader of histories needs to be told the Why as well
as the What. But the historical field is so wide that one man, in his one
lifetime, can hardly hope by independent and original investigation both
to collect all the data from which to build his structure, and so to
select his timbers that only the indispensable ones shall be employed. In
reality, we find one historian of a given subject or period succeeding
another, and refining upon his methods and treatment. With each successive
attempt the outlook becomes clearer and more comprehensive, and the
meaning of the whole more pronounced. The spirit, for the sake of which
the body exists, more and more dominates its material basis, until at last
the latter practically vanishes "in the light of its meaning sublime."
This is the apotheosis of history, which of course has not yet been
attained, and probably can never be more than approximated.

* * * * *

The present work is a very modest contribution toward the desired result.
It makes few or no pretensions to original research. There are many
histories of the United States and the fundamental facts thereof are