The fifth and final group of biographies in the American Statesmen
series deals with the Period of the Civil War. The statesmen whose lives
are included in this group are Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward,
Salmon P. Chase, Charles Francis Adams, Charles Sumner, and Thaddeus
Stevens.


The years of the civil war constitute an episode rather than an
independent period in our national history. They were interposed between
two eras; and if they are to be integrally connected with either of
these, it is with the era which preceded them rather than with that
which followed them. They were the result, the closing act, of the
quarter-century of the anti-slavery crusade. When the war came to an end
the country made a new start under new conditions. Yet it is proper to
treat the years of the war by themselves, not only because they were
filled by the clearly defined and abnormal condition of warfare, but
because a distinct group of statesmen is peculiarly associated with
them. The men whose lives are found in this group had been struggling
for recognition during the years which preceded the war, but they only
arrived at the control of affairs after that event became assured. Soon
after its close their work was substantially done.

For a long while before hostilities actually broke out, it was evident
that a civil war would be a natural result of the antagonism between the
South and the North; it is now obvious enough that it was more than a
natural, that it was an absolutely inevitable result. Looking backward,
we can only be surprised that wise men ever fancied that a conflict
could be avoided; but, as usual, the strenuous hope became father to an