ful party and the confiscation of property, are the themes of the major portion of the book. The remainder deals with the life of the Loyalists in exile during the war, their treatment by the British and their final expatriation and emigration to the British possessions in America and the islands of the Atlantic. The work is based mainly on original sources, including the laws, journals and other published documents relating to the period, the printed journals and papers of various prominent Loyalists and contemporary newspapers, especially the great source of Tory hopes and fears, Rivington's Gazette. In appendixes are given summaries of the laws passed by the colonies seeking to limit and destroy the power of the Tories, including test laws, laws against freedom of speech and action, laws suppressing, quarantining, banishing and exiling Loyalists, laws providing for fines, confiscation, &c. The work is scholarly and is carefully indexed, but the fact remains that it is based too much on the New England idea that that section did all that is worth recording for American independence. LITERATURE OF AMERICAN HISTORY. Supplement for 1900 and 1901 [to the Literature of American History, a Bibliographical Guide, edited by J. N. Larned, Boston, 1902]. Edited by Philip P. Wells. Boston: Published for the American Library Association, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1902. Royal O., pp. 21+37, cloth, $1.00. The present work, as its title indicates, is a supplement to Larned's Guide and in typographical makeup and general appearance follows the lead of that work of which a review appeared in these Publications for November last (vi., 517). But unfortunately the similarity hardly extends beyond the outward form. Larned's work is filled with critical notes which represent the trained judgment of forty specialists in as many fields of American history. These notes were written for the volume in which they appear and represent the matured judgment and critical opinion of men on books in fields with which they are thoroughly familiar. Even then a note of weakness is found occasionally when men undertook work beyond their recognized field and made their notices descriptive rather than critical. Such is the fatal weakness in the present Supplement. Practically all of its illuminating notes are taken from reviews in The Nation and in the American Historical Review. It may be granted that the book reviews of these journals are the best that appear in the United States. Yet it will not take a second reading of the estimates printed after Bassett's Byrd, Coues' Garces, Graham, Hollander, Keifer, James, Lowndes, Lubbock, Palmer and Ranck, to prove to the student that the writers of these reviews did not have sufficient first hand knowledge of the fields in question to write such criticisms of the books as were worth while. They have written descriptive notes; while this side of a book review is necessary it is not of the most importance either to the student or the general reader, both of whom want impartial and scholarly criticism of the way the author has succeeded in accomplishing what he set out to do. The present work includes 188 titles, is arranged alphabetically under authors with cross reference to subjects, although this cross indexing is by no means as analytical as that found in the parent volume. There are a few titles on Canada, three or four on South America and three on the Boxer uprising in China. THE RISE OF Religious LibERTY IN AMERICA. By Sanford H. Cobb. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1902. O., pp. xx+[11]+541. Cloth, $4.00, net. This work is not a history of the churches in America. It follows the plan of work outlined by the late Professor H. B. Adams and developed by his students in special studies on Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and New England. It undertakes a systematic narrative which has hitherto not been undertaken for the United States as a whole "of that historical development through which the civil law in America came at last after much struggle to the decree of entire liberty of conscience and of worship." It is therefore purely historical; it deals with the political rather than the religious side of American colonial life and only with those incidents of our early history which are closely connected with its special theme. The work opens with a definition of the American principle of entire separation of church and state and by way of contrast compares with this the idea of union and subjection which at that time obtained in all European countries and which even today in most of them marks the relations between church and state. The American colonies are divided according to their religious tendencies into Church of England establishments, represented by Virginia and the Carolinas; Puritan establishments, represented by the New England colonies; and changing establishments as seen in New York, Maryland, New Jersey and Georgia. Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Delaware are called free colonies because in them a greater degree of religious liberty obtained than in the others, although the author ignores the persecution, not legal, it is true, but nevertheless real, of Quakers in Rhode Island, while emphasizing the disadvantages under which Catholics labored in Pennsylvania and apologizing for Puritan bigotry in Massachusetts. There is a chapter on the discussion over an American episcopate since at the time "it was impossible to conceive of the creation of an episcopate without governmental action, or of its existence without more or less dependence on the civil power." There is a chapter on the period of the Revolution and one on the final settlements fol lowing that event; there is a four-page list of books consulted and a thirteen-page index. Much the greater part of the book is devoted to the Puritan and changing establishments. The author has produced an interesting work, but one wanting in accuracy and intimate knowledge; in the Southern field he shows an amazing ignorance of the literature of his subject, is lacking in his knowledge of local topography, still clings to the refugee theory with reference to North Carolina and fails to understand that the Carolinas were practically separate and distinct colonies from the beginning. His list of authorities cannot be dignified by the name of bibliography for primary sources and secondary works are jumbled and used in the text, with no discrimination and with equal authority; titles are given in the briefest possible form, so brief in some cases that it is impossible to tell what book is intended, no editions are given, monographs in series are all lumped under the serial title and the whole conveys the impression of immense weariness of the task undertaken, while in the foot notes inexcusable carelessness changes the titles of books and the names of authors. THE LIFE OF CHARLES ROBINSON, THE FIRST STATE GOVErnor of KanSAS. By Frank W. Blackmar. Topeka, Kansas: Crane & Co. 1902. Pp. 438. Cloth. The complete history of the struggle for Kansas has not yet appeared, nor is the time ripe for such a work. The biographies of the prominent characters in that conflict, which are appearing from time to time, are valuable additions to the mass of materials which the unprejudiced historian must use in compiling a true relation of the happenings which ushered in the war between the States. Kansans have been prolific, even if antagonistic and contradictory, in their accounts of the men and events of the war period, yet if the whole truth is to be known, the Mis souri side must also be heard. Already there are signs that the time is fast approaching when the descendants of those who contended for the possession of Kansas will recognize that not all the right nor yet all the wrong was with either party to that momentous struggle. It is no easy task to write the life of such a character as Charles Robinson, pioneer and agitator, occasionally an opposer of the civil authorities and at all times an advocate of the "higher law." Yet, all things considered, the work has been well done, for Professor Blackmar has proved himself a skilful navigator by so steering between Scylla and Charybdis as to deserve the respectful attention of both the friends and the enemies of the much discussed first State Governor of Kansas. Since pioneer Kansans are not agreed as to Governor Robinson's place in history, it is not surprising that the much abused Missourians are not willing to concede that his greatness is without serious blemish and his loyalty to the Union as established by the Fathers as unquestionable as his desire to make Kansas a free State. Although it cannot be said that Professor Blackmar is wholly without partisan bias, yet in portraying the life of his hero, he has so told the story of a tragic period as to give the reader a vivid conception of the bellicose dispositions of both the free soil and the pro-slavery partisans. Certain it is that in raids and massacres, each side has enough to be ashamed of. In about a year after going to Kansas as the agent of the Emigrant Aid Company, Robinson wrote Eli Thayer, of Worcester, Mass., as follows: "It looks very much like war, and I am ready for it and so are our people. If they give us occasion to settle the question of slavery in this country with the bayonet, let us improve it. What way can bring the slaves redemption more speedily? Wouldn't it be rich to march an army through the slaveholding States and roll up a black cloud that should spread dismay and terror to the ranks of the oppressors? * * * * |