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and political cleavage between the eastern and western counties; a less extensive development of slavery than in the far South, and indeed an attitude in the western counties of protest against domination by the interest of slavery; and finally, a political opinion in regard to federal relations strongly affected by the Whig control, which had lasted from 1836 to 1850. From 1850 to 1860 the main struggle was between those who wished to co-operate with the far South in demanding opportunity for slavery in the territories, and the Whigs and conservative Democrats who opposed that propaganda. The speaker reviewed the other issues of the time, political and personal, and the action of the North Carolina delegates to the National Democratic Convention of 1860. An analysis of the votes of that year seemed to him to show that the small majority of Breckinridge was really a rebuke to the radical democracy, an attitude evidenced again in February, 1861, and maintained until Lincoln's call for troops.

The paper of Professor William E. Dodd of the University of Chicago on the Fight for the Northwest in 1860 we shall have the pleasure of presenting to our readers in a subsequent number. That of Mr. Armand J. Gerson of the University of Pennsylvania. on the Inception of the Montgomery Convention began with a consideration of the work of those commissioners whom the seceding states appointed to confer with each other and with other slave states in December, 1860, and January, 1861. The adoption of February 4 as the date of the proposed convention was due to a proposal to that effect agreed upon by the South Carolina commissioners before they departed to their respective destinations. The adoption of Montgomery as the place was due to a suggestion let fall by the South Carolina commissioner to Alabama in an address before the Alabama Convention, upon which ensued an invitation from that state. Many writers have attributed one or both of these decisions to the action of Mississippi, but this Mr. Gerson showed to be

erroneous.

The final session of the Association, held on Friday evening (the annual business meeting having already taken place in the afternoon), was devoted to the reading of a single paper, of much brilliancy of style and importance of content, and its discussion from various points of view. The paper, by Professor James H. Robinson of Columbia University, was on The Relation of History to the Newer Sciences of Man. Mr. Robinson pointed out that history had since the middle of the nineteenth century been mainly engaged in making itself scientifically presentable by a scrupulous criticism of its sources, a detailed study of past events and condi

tions, and the elimination of the older supernatural, metaphysical, and anthropocentric interpretations. This arduous process has proved so absorbing that historical students have not as yet taken full account of either the discovery of man's descent from the lower animals or of the vast period during which he now appears to have been living on the globe. The organic sciences as well as those dealing with man specifically have been revolutionized by the interpretations and explanations suggested by the evolutionary theory. In the work of the historian, strangely enough, the genetic element is as yet far less common than would seem natural and essential. History, in one sense, is as yet less historical in its mode than comparative anatomy. Moreover, during the past forty or fifty years a number of new social sciences have been developing, the results of which ought to have an important influence in modifying our notions of man and his development. Among these newer ways of studying man are anthropology, the study of comparative religions, palethnology, social psychology and its essential basis, animal psychology. Our conceptions of race, of culture, its origin and transmission, of progress and decline, of "human nature", and of all religious phenomena have been profoundly modified by anthropological and psychological investigations. As yet historical students continue to use the terms in senses which have been outlawed and thus run grave danger of misunderstanding and misinterpreting many vital phe

nomena.

Professor George L. Burr said that while, like Mr. Robinson, he held that all the sciences are sisters and should be fellow-workers, and while with him he deprecated a history that is merely antiquarian and a Historismus that has lost its touch with life, he could see no reason for including under the name of history the sciences which are only her neighbors. The scholars now held up to our admiration by Mr. Robinson are far from doing this. Propositions learned by rote, however true, do not make up a science. A science is our science only in so far as we can use its processes and test its results. When biology and anthropology have explained for us all they can, when the social sciences shall have accounted for every survival, every instinct, every imitation, there will still remain for history a field broad enough and noble enough for any study; and woe betide the social sciences themselves if we forget it.

Further comments were made by Professor George W. Knight of the Ohio State University. Since primarily history deals with mankind in past action, it is its business to accept and to use whatever solid results of other sciences make possible a better understanding of mankind. But similarly, the other sciences of man

rely and must rely upon history to furnish them data which they accept as of assistance in their primary fields. There is a never ceasing mutuality of interest and interchange of results between them all. Without differing from Professor Robinson as to the influence which the newer sciences ought to have on the historian, he held that that influence had already been working, in a degree greater than the latter had seemed to recognize. He drew particular attention to the duty of the instructor in history to make sure that his students became acquainted with the important verities of the other sciences of mankind.

Professor George H. Mead of the University of Chicago held that the matter of history, man, has in fact become different because of the scientific advances upon which Professor Robinson dwelt. The older histories had been political because society's conscious efforts had taken the form of endeavors to solve political problems. More recently we have become more occupied with social problems and history would probably respond to this change by a difference of treatment and a different relation to the sciences.

The transactions of the annual business meeting remain to be reported. It will without doubt be agreed that they show a substantial year's progress on the part of the Association and its various standing committees and commissions. The report of the secretary, Mr. Waldo G. Leland, showed a total membership of 2925. That of the treasurer, Dr. Clarence W. Bowen, showed net receipts of $10,078, net expenditures of $9,318, an increase of $615 during the year in the funds of the Association, and total assets of $27,518.

The Historical Manuscripts Commission reported concerning the completion of the Diplomatic Correspondence of the Republic of Texas and the preparation for publication of a body of correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb. The Public Archives Commission reported its expectation of printing in the next annual volume reports on the archives of Indiana, Kentucky, and Nebraska, and its intention to prepare for publication a list of commissions and instructions issued to colonial governors and of all representations and reports of the Board of Trade. The committee on the Justin Winsor Prize reported the award of the prize to Dr. Edward R. Turner of Bryn Mawr College for an essay entitled "The Negro of Pennsylvania-Slavery, Servitude and Freedom, 1699-1861". Upon joint representations from this committee and from the committee on the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize it was voted by the Association that the regulations of the competition should be so amended that after 1911 the essays shall

be submitted on or before July 1 of the given year, instead of October I.

Brief reports were also made on behalf of the Pacific Coast Branch (represented on the present occasion by Professor H. Morse Stephens), the Board of Editors of this journal, the Committee on Publication, the Committee on Bibliography, the General Committee, the general editor of the Original Narratives of Early American History, and the Committee on a Bibliography of Modern English History. The report of the Committee of Five on History in Secondary Schools was understood to be already in the press, to be published by the Macmillan Company within the ensuing three months. The bibliography of modern English history is being prepared by the joint efforts of an American and an English committee, the former dealing with the Tudor period, the latter with that of the Stuarts.

Upon recommendation of the Executive Council a resolution was passed for petitioning Congress to erect in Washington a National Archives Building in which the records of the government may be concentrated, properly cared for, and preserved; and the prosecution of the matter was entrusted to a committee of the Council already having efforts of a similar purpose in charge.

8

Upon invitations from Buffalo and Ithaca it was voted that the next annual meeting should be held at Buffalo in the last days of December, 1911, with a final day's excursion to Ithaca. The Council announced the membership of the Committee on Programme for that meeting and of the Local Committee of Arrangements, and the membership for the ensuing year of the various permanent committees and commissions. A list of these follows.

Professor Andrew C. McLaughlin, whose term as a member of the Board of Editors of this journal expired December 31, 1910, was re-elected by the Council for a further period of six years.

The committee on nominations, Professors Frank H. Hodder, Frank M. Anderson, and John M. Vincent, proposed a list of officers, all of whom were chosen by the Association. Professor William M. Sloane was elected president for the ensuing year, Theodore Roosevelt and Professor William A. Dunning vice-presidents, Mr. Waldo G. Leland was re-elected secretary, Professor Charles H. Haskins secretary of the Council, Dr. Clarence W. Bowen treasurer, and Mr. A. Howard Clark curator. In the place of Professors Farrand and Hodder, who had served three terms on the

8 A memorial prepared by the committee was presented in the Senate in February by Senator Lodge and in the House of Representatives by Mr. George P. Lawrence, and is printed as 61 Cong., 3 sess., Sen. Doc. No. 838.

Executive Council, Professors James A. Woodburn and Fred M. Fling were chosen.

OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

President,

Professor William M. Sloane, New
York.

First Vice-President, Theodore Roosevelt, Esq., New York.
Second Vice-President, Professor William A. Dunning, New

Secretary,

York.

Waldo G. Leland, Carnegie Institution,
Washington.

Secretary to the Council, Professor Charles H. Haskins, 15 Pres

Treasurer,

Curator,

cott Hall, Cambridge.

Clarence W. Bowen, Esq., 130 Fulton

Street, New York.

A. Howard Clark, Esq., Smithsonian Institution, Washington.

Executive Council (in addition to the above-named officers):

1

Hon. Andrew D. White,1
President James B. Angell,1
Henry Adams, Esq.,1
James Schouler, Esq.,1
James Ford Rhodes, Esq.,1
Charles Francis Adams, Esq.,1
Rear-Admiral Alfred T. Mahan,1
Professor John B. McMaster,1
Hon. Simeon E. Baldwin,1
J. Franklin Jameson, Esq.,1
Committees:

Professor George B. Adams,1

Professor Albert Bushnell Hart,1

Professor Frederick J. Turner,1

Professor Evarts B. Greene,
Professor Charles H. Hull,
Professor Franklin L. Riley,
Professor Edwin Erle Sparks,
Professor James A. Woodburn,
Professor Fred M. Fling.

Committee on Programme for the Twenty-seventh Annual Meeting: Professor Charles H. Hull, Ithaca, N. Y., chairman; William E. Dodd, William S. Ferguson, Jesse S. Reeves, Ferdinand Schevill, George M. Wrong.

Local Committee of Arrangements for that Meeting:

chairman; Frank H. Severance, secretary;

Charles H. Hull.

Editors of the American Historical Review: Professor George B. Adams, Yale University, chairman; George L. Burr, J. Franklin Jameson, Andrew C. McLaughlin, William M. Sloane, Frederick J. Turner.

1 Ex-presidents.

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