Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/691

Rhodes: History of the United States 68 1 The new (or, rather, completed) title under which the two volumes appear would seem to indicate that the entire work is completed; and in a preface to volume VI. Mr. Rhodes explains that, after reflection, the year 1877, marking the end of "carpet-bag" rule in the South, has seemed to him a more natural stopping-place than the year 1885, which, as witnessing the inauguration of the first Democratic President since the war, he had originally chosen for his bourne. But the language of the preface implies that he may, after still more reflection, and after some special preparation, decide to address himself to the new themes which, from 1877 on, overshadow the sectional controversy. With that, in one form or another, he has been dealing ever since he began to write — now nineteen years ago. In a foot-note to volume VII., p. 17 — possibly left there by an inadvertence — he in fact definitely promises to treat a certain topic more fully " in a future volume ". It is charac- teristic of Mr. Rhodes that the special preparation which he thinks he needs for going on should be nothing less than " a systematic study of the history of Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries " (VI. vi). He fears that his long absorption in a particular period of our history, which takes its quality from a single movement, may have narrowed the range of his vision ; and he wishes to have, in his study of more recent years, during which we have dealt with a different set of problems, whatever enlightenment one may get from the experience of European countries. Be that as it may, whether it shall prove that the laying aside of his pen is final or only for a breathing-spell, he has chosen a good time to pause from his labors. For in 1877, with the withdrawal of the Federal troops from the South, there does come a break, a turning of the current of affairs into a new channel, as clearly marked as any to be found in our history since the Revolution ; it is doubtful if we ought to except even that other break with the past to which Mr. Rhodes had already come when he chronicled Lee's surrender. That marked only the downfall of the Confederacy and the end of slavery. In 1877 we reached the end of the entire period during which American politi- cal history was mainly an affair of North and South. These two new volumes might, in fact, if they only included chapter 30, stand alone as an account of a period which is itself fairly well defined; well enough, at any rate, to have a clumsy name of its own — " the Re- construction period ". I am tempted to characterize Mr. Rhodes's treat- ment of it by paraphrasing a remark which, two years ago, in this Review, I was moved to make concerning his treatment of what came before. As in volume V. he finished what is on the whole our best history of the Civil War, so in volume VII. he has finished the best history yet written of Reconstruction. Unfortunately, however, the superlative does not in this second instance convey nearly so high praise as in the first. There exist several reasonably good histories of the war, but until these two volumes appeared there was no work covering