An obvious advantage of interest in our ancestors is that it ought to make history a more vital thing to us; for to them, history was merely current events in which they took part, or which, at least, they watched.  This linking up of our personal ancestral lines with past events is done too seldom.  Societies like the New England Society are doing it, and it is for this reason that I have chosen to bring the subject briefly before you.

It has been noted that our historical notions of the Civil War are now, and are going to be in the future, more just and less partisan than those of the Revolution.  This is not because we are nearer the Civil War; for nearness often tends to confuse historical ideas rather than to clear them up.  It is because the descendants of those who fought on both sides are here with us, citizens of our common country, intermarrying and coming into contact in a thousand ways.  We are not likely to ignore the Southern standpoint regarding the rights of secession and the events of the struggle so long as the sons and daughters of Confederate soldiers live among us.  Nor shall we ever forget the Northern point of view while the descendants of those who fought with Grant and Sherman are our friends and neighbors.

It is otherwise with the Revolution.  We are the descendants only of those who fought on one side.  Of the others, part went back to their homes in England, the rest, our old neighbors and friends, we despoiled of their lands and drove across our northern border with execrations, to make new homes in a new land and view us with a hatred that has not yet passed away.  If you doubt it, discuss the American Revolution for fifteen minutes with one of the United Empire Loyalists of Toronto.  It will surprise you to know that your patriot ancestors were thieves, blacklegs and scoundrels.  I do not believe that they were; but possibly they were not the impossible archangels of the school histories.

Of one thing I am sure; that if the descendants of those who fought against us in ’76 had been left to mingle with our own people, the historical recollections of the struggle would have been surer and truer on both sides than they are today.  Here is a case where ancestry has perverted history, but simply because there has been an unnatural segregation of descendants.  Let me note another where we have absolutely forgotten our ancestral predilections and have gone over to the other side, simply because the other side made the records.  When we read a Roman account of encounters between the legions and the northern tribes, where do we place ourselves in imagination, as readers?  Always with the Roman legions.  But our place is not there; it is with our hardy and brave forefathers, fighting to defend their country and their firesides against the southern intruders.  How many teachers of history try to utilize race-consciousness in their pupils to make them attain a clearer knowledge of what it all meant?  Should we not be proud that we are of the blood of men who withstood the self-styled rulers of the world and won their freedom and their right to shape their own personal and civic development?