He knew the whole history of his
country from the time of her independence, partly from the
lips of those who had shaped it, partly because of the large
share he had in it himself. When he was born Washington had
been dead but ten years. He was sixteen years old when Jefferson
and Adams died. He was twenty-two years old when Charles
Carroll died. He was born at the beginning of the second
year of Madison's Presidency, and was a man of twenty-six
when Madison died. In his youth and early manhood the manners
of Ethan Allen's time still prevailed in Vermont, and Allen's
companions and comrades could be found in every village.
He was old enough to feel in his boyish soul something of
the thrill of our great naval victories, and of the victory at
New Orleans in our last war with England, and, perhaps, to
understand something of the significance of the treaty of
peace of 1815. He knew many of the fathers of the country
as we knew him. In his lifetime the country grew from seventeen
hundred thousand to thirty-six hundred thousand square miles,
from seventeen States to forty-five States, from four million
people to seventy-five million.
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