BANCROFT, GEORGE (1800–1891)

A liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, Bancroft served as james polk's secretary of the navy and acting secretary of war, as andrew johnson's adviser, and as minister to Great Britain and to Germany. He was also the most popular, influential, and respected American historian of the nineteenth century. His twelve-volume epic on American liberty, the History of the United States from the Discovery of the Continent, written over half a century, contains 1,700,000 words. The last two volumes, a History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States (1882), covered 1782–1789. The work benefited from Bancroft's notes of his interview with james madison in 1836; Madison also opened his private archives to him. Bancroft was an indefatigable researcher. His chronological narrative of the origins, framing, and ratification of the constitution was based on manuscript letters as well as public records. He included over 300 pages of letters, many printed for the first time.

Bancroft wrote in a grand style that is today considered florid. His essentially political interpretation remained the standard work of its kind until superseded in 1928 by charles warren'sThe Making of the Constitution, although andrew c. mclaughlin'sConfederation and Constitution (1908) exceeded both in judicious analysis. Bancroft's work is remarkably fair, although Madisonian in approach. He viewed the Constitution as a bundle of compromises between nationalists and states' rightists, North and South, large states and small ones. The epigraph to his work was William Gladstone's judgment that "the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." charles beard made Bancroft one of his prime targets because of Bancroft's belief that the Framers were principled patriots who gave their loyalty to a concept of national interest that transcended purse and status without compromising republican ideals.

Leonard W. Levy
(1986)

Bibliography

Nye, Russell 1964 George Bancroft. New York: Washington Square Press.