Excerpt from Discovery and Conquests of the North-West: With the History of Chicago While these conditions have grown upon us in our progress down the highways of time, we have laid upon ourselves heavy burdens by premature legislation, not unlike those of the erratic sallies of childhood. Wiser counsels must come to our rescue to make amends for these, just as the well-digested thoughts of maturity recast the images of youth. Breathing time has now come to view the ground over which we have traveled, doubly endeared to us, because we ourselves were the first to take possession of it, and because we fashioned its institutions after our own model. That our history rises in importance as we assume larger proportions in the body politic, is manifested by the eagerness with which every thing pertain ing to the early records of the West is sought after, and by the increasing number of Historical Societies springing up through out the country, for the preservation of these precious relics. The rival interests of nations, complicated with religious and social conditions, produce war, and the province of the historian is not circumscribed to the details of the battle-field. These are but the means by which the passions and sympathies of nations achieve their ends. Hence, history, without reference to issues and contingencies, is only a bundle of facts, packed into the leaves of a book too tightly for the wedge of inquiry to let light shine between them. If the historian has failed to introduce to his readers the motive power that lets loose the dogs of war, his book will be like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. That history has taken the first place in literature, is due to the exhaustless character of its subjects, among which may be found truths which foreshadow the future from the past, and leave a more abiding impression than the teachings of fiction. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.