The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.
XVII. Writers on American History, 1783–1850.
§ 11. Tucker.
| Over against these books from the North we must place a Southern history, the existence of which was due to the belief that the South had not received fair consideration at the hands of men who knew little about its life and natural environment. Such a book was George Tucker’s (1775–1861) History of the United States (4 vols., 1856–58), which carried the story of the national development to the year 1841. The author was a lawyer in Virginia, a well-known and voluminous writer on political subjects. His History was not an extreme Republican book, as some have thought. It represented the ideas which one would expect from a conservative Virginian of the old school; it was well written, but not brilliant. Had it been offered to a section more accustomed to reading history, it would have been recognized as a standard book of its kind; as it is, it is known chiefly for the impression it made on those who held views it was intended to counteract. Tucker 6 wrote also a Life of Thomas Jefferson (2 vols., 1837), probably the best of the early lives of this statesman. |
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