Gasparin, in his preface, "I believed in the uprising of a great people;
now I am sure of it." Let not the issue shame us by disappointing his
trust!

MARY L. BOOTH.

NEW YORK, _February_, 1862.



* * * * *



PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION.


I have nothing to change in these pages. When I wrote them before the
breaking out of the American crisis, I foreboded, which was not
difficult, that the crisis would be long and grievous, that there would
be mistakes and reverses; but I foreboded, also, that through these
mistakes and reverses, an immense progress was about to come to light.
Some have undertaken to doubt it: at the sight of civil war, and the
evils which it necessarily entails, at the recital of one or two
defeats, they have hastened to raise their hands to Heaven, and to
proclaim in every key the ruin of the United States.

This is not the place to discuss judgments, sometimes superficial,