HIS LIFE AND WORK 



Bunker Hill. They were not amateurs in the 

 work of revolution. They were veterans. And 

 so, because they were pioneers and patriots by 

 nature and inheritance, the Scotch-Irish be- 

 came, in the words of John Fiske, "the main 

 strength of our American democracy/' 



Naturally, they were pathfinders in industry 

 as well as in the matter of self-government, as 

 many of them had been manufacturers in Ire- 

 land. "Thousands of the best manufacturers 

 and weavers in Ulster went to seek their bread 

 in America," writes Froude, "and they carried 

 their art and their tools with them." In one 

 instance, by the failure of the woollen trade, 

 20,000 of them were driven to the United States. 

 As might have been expected, these Scotch- 

 Irish Americans have produced not only five 

 of our Presidents, but also such merchants as 

 A. T. Stewart; such publishers as Harper, Bon- 

 ner, Scribner, and McClurg ; and such inventors 

 as Joseph Henry, Morse, Fulton, and McCor- 

 mick. They were possibly the first large body 

 of people who had ever been driven from manu- 

 facturing into farming; and it was not at all 



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