t, as far as they do
see it, oppose it. Hence his work at the best is often incomplete and
he has to be satisfied with a rough average rather than with his ideal.

Lincoln, one of the few supreme statesmen of the last three centuries,
was no exception to this rule. He was misunderstood and underrated in
his lifetime, and even yet has hardly come to his own. For his place
is among the great men of the earth. To them he belongs by right of
his immense power of hard work, his unfaltering pursuit of what seemed
to him right, and above all by that childlike directness and simplicity
of vision which none but the greatest carry beyond their earliest
years. It is fit that the first considered attempt by an Englishman to
give a picture of Lincoln, the great hero of America's struggle for the
noblest cause, should come at a time when we in England are passing
through as fiery a trial for a cause we feel to be as noble. It is a
time when we may learn much from Lincoln's failures and success, from
his patience, his modesty, his serene optimism and his eloquence, so
simple and so magnificent.

BASIL WILLIAMS.

BISCOT CAMP,

LUTON,

March, 1916.

CONTENTS

GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE

CHAP.

I. BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN

II. THE GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN NATION
1. The Formation of a National Government
2. Territorial Expansion
3. The Growth of the Practice and Traditions of the Union Government
4. The Missouri Compromise
5. Leaders, Parties, and Tendencies in Lincoln's Youth
6. Slavery and Southern Society
7. Intellectual Development

III. LINCOLN'S EARLY CAREER
1. Life at New Salem
2. In the Illinois Legislature
3. Marriage

IV. LINCOLN IN CONGRESS AND IN RETIREMENT
1. The Mexican War and Lincoln's Work in Congress
2. California and the Compromise of 1850
3. Lincoln in Retirement
4. The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise

V. THE RISE OF LINCOLN
1. Lincoln's Return to Public Life
2. The Principles and the Oratory of Lincoln
3. Lincoln against Douglas
4. John Brown
5. The Election of Lincoln as President

VI. SECESSION
1. The Case of the South against the Union
2. The Progress of Secession
3. The Inauguration of Lincoln
4. The Outbreak of War

VII. THE CONDITIONS OF THE WAR

VIII. THE OPENING OF THE WAR AND LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION
1. P