Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/911

Rh, and a similar difficulty, possibly almost unavoidable, weakens the narrative of the attempts to secure the Oregon country by colonization.

Five chapters describe the plucky struggle of Van Buren and his advisers against abounding adversity. First comes the panic of 1837 and a long analysis of the opinions of party leaders and journalists concerning its cause and cure. Another chapter ranges over the boundary disputes from Maine to Oregon and to Texas, and shows how the administration braved unpopularity in trying to preserve a correct attitude toward the Canadian rebels on the one hand and the British government on the other. Chapter portrays the slave power striking down Elijah Lovejoy at Alton and closing the door of the House of Representatives to anti-slavery petitions. A continuation of the same subjects in the following chapter incidentally gives an excellent account of the "Buckshot war" in Pennsylvania, the "Broad Seal war" in New Jersey and the "Aroostook war" in Maine, three controversies of illustrative character which are usually described only in obscure allusions. In chapter is retold the always interesting story of the fantastic presidential campaign of 1840. Although the author usually contrives to avoid the temptation to employ his gift of humor, we do catch glimpses here of the frenzied battalion of Greeley's "scrambling mob of coon-minstrels and cider-suckers".

The last chapter although entitled "The Quarrel with Tyler", deals more at length with such affairs as the Amistad case, the trial of Alexander McLeod, and the chaos of currency in the West and South than with the avowed subject.

The volume before us presents a coherent, comprehensive, and illuminating narrative. It is not a series of monographs, but gives the impression of the progressive development of national powers in relation to one another. The most striking feature of Professor McMaster's work in this, as in other volumes, is the prominence given to careful abstracts of congressional speeches and important public documents, and also of editorial articles in influential journals. This patient dissection of actual arguments on both sides of every controversy becomes at once an excellence and a danger. It must undoubtedly win the appreciation of the student, if not of the general reader; but there is danger that what is gained in minuteness or subtlety of appreciation may sometimes be lost in sustained interest and dramatic force.

Despite the prominence given to speeches, however, the reader obtains few clear impressions of the speechmakers. Attention is steadily directed to the incidents of the play rather than to the actors. In the work of Schouler, thus far our author's principal competitor, rather the reverse is true. When one remembers what masterful personalities spun the web of the story that Professor McMaster unfolds, it seems a little surprising, though not disappointing, that one so seldom sees the actual men moving here among the threads.