In his later years, Cooper presented the singular spectacle of a popular novelist who was the most cordially hated man of his time. The fact is significant and helps to account for the failure of many of Cooper’s later stories. An ardent lover of his country and its republican institutions, he boldly rebuked the ignorance and supercilious condescension of European critics; he wrote “The Bravo” (1831), “The Heidenmauer” (1832), and “The Headsman” (1833), for the avowed purpose of assailing monarchical and praising democratic institutions, and kept this purpose in mind much too constantly to produce artistic work. On his return to America, contrasting the restless exertion and bustle, the material progress which obscured higher ideals than money-making, with the leisure and dignified culture of European lands, he did not hesitate to speak plainly of the defects in the American character. This naturally brought him much abuse from the press; and an unfortunate dispute with the citizens of Cooperstown over the ownership of Three-Mile Point on Otsego Lake, though the right was wholly on his side, only made him more intensely disliked. In the early ’40’s, certain issues arose in New York State between the tenants of the old Patroons who held their large estates under original grants, and their landlords, the tenants attempting to secure under State legislation a title in fee to their rented lands. Cooper, whose family interests were themselves likely to be affected by these claims, threw himself with full force and bitterness into the contest. In addition to a number of magazine articles and speeches, he devoted three volumes to the presentation of the claims of the landlords, volumes which are now read but little, excepting by special students of the subject. They are entitled respectively: “Satanstoe, or The Littlepage Manuscripts,” 1845; “The Chainbearer,” 1846; and “The Redskins, or Indian and Injin,” 1846. “The Ways of the Hour” (1850) was also a novel with a purpose, which overweighted its interest as a story; the purpose was the reform of court procedure in the State of New York. In “Homeward Bound” and its sequel, “Home as Found” (1838), the latter being one of his worst stories, Cooper lashed the petty vices of his countrymen and sought to show them what ought to be. As he might have expected, he only confirmed the public in its hatred of him, while he materially impaired his reputation as a story-teller. Had he been more tactful, philosophical, and far-seeing, he would have saved himself years of stormy conflict.