political history chapters from the life and work of sixteen
representative orators and statesmen of America.

In addition to the changes made in the selections, the editor has added
brief biographical sketches, references, and textual and historical
notes which, it is hoped, will add to the educational value of the
volumes, as well as to the interest and intelligence with which the
casual reader may peruse the speeches.

As a teacher of American history, I have found no more luminous texts on
our political history than the speeches of the great men who have been
able, in their discussions of public questions, to place before us a
contemporary record of the history which they themselves were helping to
make. To the careful student the secondary authorities can never supply
the place of the great productions, the messages and speeches, which
historic occasions have called forth. The earnest historical reader will
approach these orations, not with the design of regarding then merely as
specimens of eloquence or as studies in language, but as indicating the
great subjects and occasions of our political history and the spirit and
motives of the great leaders of that history. The orations lead the
student to a review of the great struggles in which the authors were
engaged, and to new interest in the science of government from the
utterances and permanent productions of master participants in great
political controversies. Certainly, there is no text-book in political
science more valuable than the best productions of great statesmen, as
reflecting the ideas of those who have done most to make political
history.

With these ideas in mind, the editor has added rather extensive
historical notes, with the purpose of suggesting the use of the speeches