It is hardly necessary to add that every effort has been made by the
editor to bring into these volumes whatever material may there properly
belong, material much of which is widely scattered in public libraries
and in private collections. He has been fortunate in securing certain
interesting correspondence and papers which had not before come into
print in book form. Information concerning some of these papers had
reached him too late to enable the papers to find place in their proper
chronological order in the set. Rather, however, than not to present
these papers to the readers they have been included in the seventh volume
of the set, which concludes the "Writings."

October, 1905,
A. B. L.




ABRAHAM LINCOLN:

AN ESSAY BY CARL SHURZ

No American can study the character and career of Abraham Lincoln without
being carried away by sentimental emotions. We are always inclined to
idealize that which we love,--a state of mind very unfavorable to the
exercise of sober critical judgment. It is therefore not surprising that
most of those who have written or spoken on that extraordinary man, even
while conscientiously endeavoring to draw a lifelike portraiture of his
being, and to form a just estimate of his public conduct, should have
drifted into more or less indiscriminating eulogy, painting his great
features in the most glowing colors, and covering with tender shadings