Project Gutenberg's The Critical Period of American History, by John Fiske

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Title: The Critical Period of American History

Author: John Fiske

Release Date: December 7, 2008 [EBook #27430]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note

The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully
preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

THE CRITICAL PERIOD OF

AMERICAN HISTORY

1783-1789

BY

JOHN FISKE

"I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war."
JAY TO WASHINGTON, _June_ 27, 1786.

[Illustration]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge

Copyright, 1888,

BY JOHN FISKE.

_All rights reserved._

_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A._ Electrotyped and Printed
by H.O. Houghton & Co.

To

MY DEAR CLASSMATES,

FRANCIS LEE HIGGINSON

AND

CHARLES CABOT JACKSON,

_I DEDICATE THIS BOOK._

PREFACE.

This book contains the substance of the course of lectures given in the
Old South Meeting-House in Boston in December, 1884, at the Washington
University in St. Louis in May, 1885, and in the theatre of the
University Club in New York in March, 1886. In its present shape it may
serve as a sketch of the political history of the United States from the
end of the Revolutionary War to the adoption of the Federal
Constitution. It makes no pretensions to completeness, either as a
summary of the events of that period or as a discussion of the political
questions involved in them. I have aimed especially at grouping facts in
such a way as to bring out and emphasize their causal sequence, and it
is accordingly hoped that the book may prove useful to the student of
American history.

My title was suggested by the fact of Thomas Paine's stopping the
publication of the "Crisis," on hearing the news of the treaty of 1783,
with the remark,