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George Bancroft: Master Historian

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George Bancroft: Master Historian George Bancroft: Master Historian GEORGE ATHAN BILLIAS 'M HAPPY that Ellen Dunlap, John Hench, and Jim Moran invited me to speak here because it gives me an opportunity I to repay in a small way the great debt I owe the Society. My indebtedness is profound both personally and professionally. Speaking personally, I first saw Margaret, who is now my wife, in this great hall. We were married in the Eirst Baptist Church across the street, and through Marcus McCorison's good graces held our wedding reception in the Goddard-Daniels House. Here I have also made many good friends: Joanne Chaison, Nancy Bur- kett, Gigi Barnhill, Stan Shapiro, Marie Lamoureux, Tom Knoles, and others who helped me over the years. Professionally, I wrote my Elbridge Gerry biography back in the stacks—that is, when a reader could go into the stacks. At my retirement in 1989, a symposium was held in my honor under what Esther Eorbes called this 'generous dome.' My debt to the Society is enormous, and my effort tonight constitutes only a modest repajmient. Two hundred and eighty paces from where we are sitting, there stands a tiny tablet on Salisbury Street. It marks the birthplace of George Bancroft, whose two hundredth anniversary we cele- brated last year. Symbolically, the plaque is too small to reflect his 'George Bancroft, Master Historian' was presented as a public lecture in Antiquarian Hall on May 15, 2001. In preparing this essay, I have had help from several people I wish to thank: three Clark colleagues, Paul Lucas, Daniel Borg, and William Koelsch; two family members who are fellow scholars, my wife, Margaret, and daughter, Nancy Mardas; Robert Skotheim, president of the Huntington Library; Thomas Knoles, curator of man- uscripts at the American Antiquarian Society; and Albert Southwick, our local historian. GEORGE ATHAN BILLIAS, professor emeritus of history at Clark University, is a member of the American Andquarian Society. Copyright © 2004 by American Andquarian Society 507 5o8 American Antiquarian Society stature as the greatest scholar of United States history of his day. Bancroft Tower on nearby Bancroft Hill would be more fitting. He 'towered' above his fellow scholars and remained the master his- torian of America's past during the last five decades of the i8oos.' Bancroft went through several successful careers in his lifetime of ninety-one years. He became an important Democratic politi- cian, rising rapidly fi-om the Massachusetts state level to national prominence. While serving as secretary of the Navy, his greatest achievement was to found the Naval Academy. He represented the United States on two separate diplomatic missions, to Ger- many and Britain. Peers recognized his remarkable talents as a historian: they elected him to membership in the American Anti- quarian Society in 1838 and to the presidency of the American Historical Association in 1885. The assignment given me, how- ever, is not to cover his many different careers, but to concentrate on one—his work as a historian. First, let me say a word about his Worcester background. His father, Aaron, a Harvard graduate and holder of an honorary doc- torate of divinity, was an important intellectual in his own right. He arrived in Worcester in 1783 as a substitute to assist the ailing minister, Thaddeus Maccarty, of the First Parish Church. When Maccarty died the following year, the church—contrary to cus- tom—refused to give Aaron the position. He promptly led an exo- dus of members and founded the Second Congregational Society. More was involved in the church controversy, however, than a pulpit post. Aaron's faith was identified with Arminianism, whose doctrine taught that man could play an important role in his own salvation. Orthodox Calvinists, however, insisted that many were predestined for either salvation or damnation. Aaron rebelled against the Calvinist orthodoxy of his day and became one of America's first Unitarians.^ Although he served later as president 1. In a major oversight, Bancroft was not even listed among America's greatest histori- ans in Marcus Cunliffe and Robin Winks, eds., Pastmasters (New York: Harper and Row, 1969). 2. See Conrad Wright, The Beginning of Unitarianism (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1955), 83-89, 112-13. George Bancroft: Master Historian 509 of tbe American Unitarian Society, bis tbeological radicalism was quite tempered.3 A born leader, Aaron was active in commimity affairs. In 1812, along witb Isaiab Tbomas, be petitioned tbe legislature to incor- porate tbe American Antiquarian Society. He later served as vice president of tbis institution dedicated to gatbering useful knowl- edge about America's past. Aaron anticipated bis son's career in otber ways: collecting bistorical materials, writing a solid biogra- pby of George Wasbington, and incorporating a deeply religious point of view in bis writings. Unlike bis fatber, bowever, George Bancroft became an avowed Trinitarian and empbasized God's guiding Providence.4 Bancroft's ancestry on bis maternal side was likewise conflicted, but in a different way. His motber, Lucretia, was tbe daugbter of Judge Jobn Cbandler, popularly known in Worcester as 'Tory Jobn.' Before tbe Revolution, tbe Cbandlers were rieb: tbey bad servants, including one black girl; beld Crown offices; and stauncbly supported Britain.5 During tbe war, bowever, Cban- dler's property was confiscated, bis wealtb wiped out, and be was forced to flee to England. He never returned. But bis daugbter joined tbe Second Parisb Cburcb and married its minister, Aaron Bancroft, in 1786. Witbout a dowry, Lucretia was forced to run a frugal bousebold wbile raising a large family on an impecunious preacber's salary. Tbeir son, George, was born in 1800, tbe eigbtb of tbirteen cbildren. At tbe tender age of eleven be was packed off to Pbillips Exeter Academy. Because part of bis tuition was paid by tbe Acad- emy, fellow students mocked yoimg George as a cbarity case. Tbis 3. Louis Kern, 'Aaron Bancroft: An Intellectual Biography,' M. A. thesis, Clark Univer- sity, 1967. Bancroft's manuscript sermons may he found in the American Antiquarian Soci- ety and the New York Puhlic Lihrary. 4. These ideas were expressed in an oration that was delivered hefore the New-York Historical Society on Novemher, 20, 1854, and puhlished the following year. George Ban- croft, 'The Necessity, the Reality, and the Promise of Progress of the Human Race,' Liter- ary and Historical Miscellanies (New Yorh. Harper & Bros., 1855), 504. 5. Andrew McFarland Davis, The Confiscation of John Chandler's Estate (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903), io-i I. 51 o American Antiquarian Society experience, Lilian Handlin suggests in her superb biography, may have left psychological scars. It helped form the rather con- tentious personality Bancroft developed later in life.*^ George entered Harvard at thirteen—a not unusual age for freshmen at the time. The Harvard he went to, however, differed from the college his father had attended. President John Thorn- ton Kirkland had raised standards, restructured the curriculum, and expanded both the faculty and the library. Bancroft received a sound education—reading the classics in Greek and Latin, learning rhetoric and logic, and studying a smattering of sciences. Moral philosophy, however, was the core of the curriculum, con- sisting of a mix of Lockean rationalism and Scottish common sense philosophy.7 A serious student, Bancroft refused to indulge in college high jinks. In this respect, he was unlike his Worcester classmate and lifelong friend, Stephen Salisbury II, whose son Stephen built the Bancroft Tower. George studied so hard, in fact, his fellow stu- dents nicknamed him 'Doctor.' That title was actually conferred on him when he received a Doctor of Philosophy ftom the Uni- versity of Götüngen in Germany in 1820. Bancroft joined the small pioneering band of New Englanders who travelled abroad to expose themselves to the rigors of Ger- man scholarship. German universities, using the demanding sem- inar method instead of rote student recitations, ranked among the best in the world. Comparing his European training with that in the United States, Joseph Cogswell, a fellow Götüngen graduate, observed: 'p[]t appalls me when I think of the difference between an education here and in America.'^ Upon returning to Cambridge, young Bancroft shocked his old teachers with his newfound European mannerisms. Sporting a 6. Lilian Handlin, George Bancroft: The Intellectual as Democrat (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 23. This superb study is notable for its intellectual and psychological inter- pretation as well as its mastery of Bancroft's life and times. 7. Handlin, George Bancroft, 28-30. 8. T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, 'Götüngen and Harvard Eighty Years Ago,' Har- vard Graduates Magazine 6 (1897-98): 10. George Bancroft: Master Historian 511 black beard and spouting German and French phrases, he planted a moist kiss, continental-style, on both cheeks of his startled pro- fessors. One was so shocked that he swore never to support Ban- crofr for a Harvard teaching post.9 Relying on outward appearances, the professor failed to notice significant inner changes that had taken place. Germany gave Bancrofr the transforming intellectual experience of his life. His mental landscape had changed: he was less provincial and more cosmopolitan. His courses in biblical criticism, philology, Ger- man, and French, along with Oriental languages and modern his- tory, expanded his intellectual outlook. Most importantly, his German training deepened his grasp of history. Bancrofr's education continued outside the walls of the three universities he attended: Göttingen, Berlin, and Heidelberg. During his subsequent two-year grand tour of Europe, he met some of the greatest men of his day: Goethe, Hegel, Guizot, Lafayette, Macaulay, and Byron. Bright, enterprising, and armed with letters of introduction, he exchanged ideas with Europe's leading intellectuals.
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