The Life of Nathaniel Macon. E-book. Formato PDF William E. Dodd   -  Forgotten Books, 2017  - 

The raison d'être of a biography of Nathaniel Macon is to be found in the unique and also important role he played in our national life and in the great sectional contest which filled the first half of the nineteenth century. No comprehensive life of Macon has ever been attempted. A half dozen news paper articles, and of recent years a few semi-scientific sketches of his career, have been published; and some letters of Macon with introductions and notes have appeared since the writer began his searches for materials. But none of these have given more than a glimpse of the able leader and astute politician who so long held the first place in the political affairs of North Carolina.In the midst of the duties of a teacher of history, the author has tried to get together the scanty materials bearing on Macon's life, and to draw from these a picture of his rise to prominence in North Carolina during and just after the Revolution, of his activity as an ardent Jefferson republican, which brought him to the Speakership of Congress, of his long and determined opposition to Clay's American system, and finally of his share in the Jackson campaigns. How well this self-imposed task has been done, how accurately the picture of the real Macon has been drawn, is for the reader to determine. But one thing at least may be said of the work: it has been attempted, and with the attempt some of the materials of North Carolina's history have been collected and put within the reach of the public.

Woodrow Wilson and His Work: By Willilam E. Dodd. E-book. Formato PDF William Edward Dodd   -  Forgotten Books, 2017  - 

The career of President Wilson and his services to his country and to mankind in general are so well defined and fairly rounded out that historians may not long postpone their estimates of both the man and his work. The fears of some that early appraisals may not accord with the final verdict of history are not well. Grounded. The final verdict has not yet been pronounced upon Julius Caesar, and each generation of American scholars forms anew its opinion of outstanding figures like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Jefferson, whom half of articulate America jeered at during his last year in the presidency, was a political saint to Abraham Lincoln; and Lincoln, whom nearly all the leaders of both great political parties of July and August, 1864, urged to retire in humiliation from his second candidacy for the presidency, was and is a political saint to Woodrow Wilson. Violent attack and virulent abuse are not the criteria of his tory. They but call attention sharply to the one attacked or abused, and create the presumption that something real is being done or attempted.