PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY 191 



ture of the people, and, as yet, has been only imperfectly examined. 

 We need to investigate the forces by which the composite nationality 

 of the United States has been created, the process by which these 

 different sections have been welded into such a degree of likeness 

 that the United States now constitutes a measurably homogeneous 

 people in certain important respects. We need to study the rise and 

 growth of the intellectual character of the people, as shown in their 

 literature and art, in connection with the social and economic con- 

 ditions of the various periods of our history. In short, we need a 

 natural history of the American spirit. 



To take another topic, we need a political history of the United 

 States which shall penetrate beneath the surface of the proceedings 

 of national conventions to the study of the evolution of the organs of 

 party action and of those underlying social and economic influences 

 in the states and sections which explain party action. This matter has 

 been indicated in connection with the importance of studying our 

 history from the point of view of rival sections, but it is of sufficient 

 importance to warrant separate consideration. We need to give a 

 social and economic interpretation to the history of political parties 

 in this country. In illustration, I may say that maps giving the 

 location of Democratic counties and Republican counties in the 

 states of the Old Northwest, through several decades of our history, 

 show an astonishing coherence and persistence in area of these rival 

 parties. Transition areas show close votes as a rule. This indicates 

 that party grouping depends upon such social factors as nativity, 

 persistence of traditions, economic conditions, etc., even more than 

 upon leadership and reasoning. When such a study of our party 

 development shall have been made, we shall be in a better position 

 to comprehend the laws that determine party action in general, and 

 an important contribution will have been made to the understanding 

 of the development of society. 



Another topic very inadequately treated is the agrarian history of 

 the United States. To take one phase of it, we lack an extended 

 history of the public domain in its economic and political influence. 

 Fragments of these topics have been dealt with by able scholars, 

 but we have no complete treatise on the subject. If, as I believe, 

 the free lands of the United States have been the most important 

 single factor in explaining our development, there should be increased 

 attention to the land system. The history of land tenure and land 

 values, the effects of the cheaper lands of the newly occupied regions 

 upon the older settled country, the relation of cheap lands to wages 

 and to society in general, need to be considered. 



The subject of immigration has been hardly more than touched 

 by the American historian. In spite of the fact that so vast a body 

 of our population has been drawn since the later colonial days 



