the hands of extremists in both sections.

On one

side, Brown was at once made a martyr and a hero; on the other, his acts were accepted as a demonstration of Northern malignity and hatred, whose fitting expression was seen in the incitement of slaves to massacre their masters.

The distinctive contribution of John Brown to American history does not consist in the things which he did but rather in that which he has been made to represent. He has been accepted as the personification of the irrepressible conflict.

Of all the men of his generation John Brown is best fitted to exemplify the most difficult lesson

which history teaches: that slavery and despotism are themselves forms of war, that the shedding of blood is likely to continue so long as the rich, the strong, the educated, or the efficient, strive to force their will upon the poor, the weak, and the ignorant. Lincoln uttered a final word on the subject when he said that no man is good enough to rule over another man; if he were good enough he would not be willing to do it.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

AMONG the many political histories which furnish a background for the study of the anti-slavery crusade, the following have special value:

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, 7 vols. (1893-1906). The first two volumes cover the decade to 1860. This is the bestbalanced account of the period, written in an admirable judicial temper. H. E. von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, 8 vols. (18771892). A vast mine of information on t slavery controversy. The work is vitiated by an a' ost virulent antipathy toward the South. Jame Schouler, History of the United States, 7 vols. (1895-1901). A sober, reliable narrative of events. Henry Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, 3 vols. (1872-1877). The fullest account of the subject, written by a contemporary. The material was thrown together by an overworked statesman and lacks proportion.

Three volumes in the American Nation Series aim to combine the treatment of special topics of commanding interest with general political history. A. B. Hart's Slavery and Abolition (1906) gives an account of the origin of the controversy and carries the history down to 1841. G. P. Garrison's Westward Extension (1906)

deals especially with the Mexican War and its results. T. C. Smith's Parties and Slavery (1906) follows the gradual disruption of parties under the pressure of the slavery controversy.

From the mass of contemporary controversial literature a few titles of more permanent interest may be selected. William Goodell's Slavery and Anti-Slavery (1852) presents the anti-slavery arguments. A. T. Bledsoe's An Essay on Liberty and Slavery (1856) and The Pro-Slavery Argument (1852), a series of essays by various writers, undertake the defense of slavery.

Only a few of the biographies which throw light on the crusade can be mentioned. William Lloyd Garrison, 4 vols. (1885-1889) is the story of the editor of the Liberator told exhaustively by his children. Less voluminous but equally important are the following: W. Birney, James G. Birney and His Times (1890); G. W. Julian, Joshua R. Giddings (1892); Catherine H. Birney, Sarah and Angelina Grimké (1885); John T. Morse, John Quincy Adams. Those who have not patience to read E. L. Pierce's ponderous Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, 4 vols. (1877-1893), would do well to read G. H. Haynes's Charles Sumner (1909).

The history of the conflict in Kansas is closely assoIciated with the lives of two rival candidates for the honor of leadership in the cause of freedom. James Redpath in his Public Life of Captain John Brown (1860), Frank B. Sanborn in his Life and Letters of John Brown (1885), and numerous other writers give to Brown the credit of leadership. The opposition view is held by F. W. Blackmar in his Life of Charles Robinson (1902), and by Robinson himself in his Kansas Conflict (2d ed., 1898). The best non-partizan biography of Brown is

O. G. Villard's John Brown, A Biography Fifty Years After (1910).

The Underground Railroad has been adequately treated in W. H. Siebert's The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (1898), but Levi Coffin's Reminiscences (1876) gives an earlier autobiographical account of the origin and management of an important line, while Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin throws the glamour of romance over the system.

For additional bibliographical information the reader is referred to the articles on Slavery, Fugitive Slave Laws, Kansas, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, James Gillespie Birney, and Frederick Douglass in The Encyclopædia Britannica (11th Edition).