of the South made expedient suppression of some features, for the South had become sensitive to the growing antagonism to slavery and the increase in material power at the North. Even the foreign relations of the United States remained in good part unknown; the executive could give out what it pleased and withhold information on the plea of prejudice to public interests. The Department of State harbors an unmeasured mass of historical material, and has used only what has seemed good to more or less well-informed officials in the past when weighing it in the scale of occasion. Diplomacy, even the open diplomacy of the United States, has had its high victims, and both secretaries of state and agents stand as sacrifices offered to smooth over blunders or to quiet public clamor. What a field for judicious editing!
It may thus be said that the editor has been coming into his own, not rising in importance, but better recognized as a useful albeit somewhat erratic adjunct to the writing of history. The quality of product has improved, and the shadows of family or political doubt are less frequently encountered. Public archives have been made accessible, a generous freedom of use accorded by private owners of papers; and pride of ancestry has contributed its share to the ever increasing quantity of product. If only certain possessors of material could appreciate how far they are like the ostrich, and what damage their aloofness is working on their pet admirations! Imagine trying to prove anything against public morals on John Jay! Yet he has been fastened in a niche of the 1833 model, when reserve darkened reputations. I could name a number of such distorted models, still cramped under a silence that almost confesses guilt. Where papers have been destroyed in the hope that criticism would be ended, the ghosts of old controversies arise and the worst or opposition phases of character are remembered. Descendants who have nestled in self-confidence and wrapped themselves in forgetfulness are pained and shocked to have the old gossip and tradition of their ancestors served up highly spiced in modern journalese. They have only themselves to blame.
For nearly a century after the Declaration of Independence both biography and editing of original materials had not attained success. They lisped, fearful of speaking aloud, and they avoided crucial matters of controversy. Was it this example which led to a series of political autobiographies in the last two generations? From Benjamin F. Butler to George F. Hoar and beyond—the mere writing of the names suggests startling comparisons of product. Was it a suspicion that they could not entrust their reputa-
