The story, therefore, has been restricted to the discoveries,
explorations, and settlements within the United States by the English,
French, Spaniards, and Dutch; to the expulsion of the French by the
English; to the planting of the thirteen colonies on the Atlantic
seaboard; to the origin and progress of the quarrel which ended with the
rise of thirteen sovereign free and independent states, and to the
growth of such political institutions as began in colonial times. This
period once passed, the long struggle for a government followed till our
present Constitution--one of the most remarkable political instruments
ever framed by man--was adopted, and a nation founded.

Scarcely was this accomplished when the French Revolution and the rise
of Napoleon involved us in a struggle, first for our neutral rights, and
then for our commercial independence, and finally in a second war with
Great Britain. During this period of nearly five and twenty years,
commerce and agriculture flourished exceedingly, but our internal
resources were little developed. With the peace of 1815, however, the
era of industrial development commences, and this has been treated with
great--though it is believed not too great--fullness of detail; for,
beyond all question, _the_ event of the world's history during the
nineteenth century is the growth of the United States. Nothing like it
has ever before taken place.

To have loaded down the book with extended bibliographies would have
been an easy matter, but quite unnecessary. The teacher will find in
Channing and Hart's _Guide to the Study of American History_ the best
digested and arranged bibliography of the subject yet published, and
cannot afford to be without it. If the student has time and disposition
to read one half of the reference books cited in the footnotes of this
history, he is most fortunate.