four great subjects of discussion in our history,--the Civil War and
Reconstruction, Free Trade and Protection, Finance, and Civil Service
Reform. In the division on the Civil War there has been substituted in
the new edition, for Mr. Schurz's speech on the Democratic War
Policy the spirited discussion between Breckenridge and Baker on the
suppression of insurrection. The scene in which these two speeches were
delivered in the United States Senate at the opening of the Civil war
is full of historic and dramatic interest, while the speeches themselves
are examples of superior oratory. Mr. Schurz appears to advantage in
another part of the volume in his address on Civil Service Reform.

The speeches of Thaddeus Stevens and Henry J. Raymond, delivered at the
opening of the Reconstruction struggle under President Johnson, are
also new material in this edition. They are fairly representative of two
distinct views in that period of the controversy. These two speeches are
substituted for the Garfield-Blackburn discussion over a "rider" to
an appropriation bill designed to forbid federal control of elections
within the States. This discussion was only incidental to the problem
of reconstruction, and may be said to have occurred at a time (1879)
subsequent to the close of the Reconstruction period proper.

The material on Free Trade and Protection has been left unchanged
for the reason that it appears to the present editor quite useless to
attempt to secure better material on the tariff discussion. There might
be added valuable similar material from later speeches on the tariff,
but the two speeches of Clay and Hurd may be said to contain the
essential merits of the long-standing tariff debate.

The section of the volume devoted to Finance and Civil Service Reform
is entirely new. The two speeches of Curtis and Schurz are deemed