Union has a chance of reaching the most exalted office in the gift of his country.
It is fitting at the beginning of the new century to take stock of the one that has just passed away, and there is no better way in which a country can sum up its achievements than by closely following the lives of its kings, or emperors, or presidents.
In this volume the incidents of the private lives of the Presidents of the United States and their public acts have been mainly dealt with. There has been no attempt at an exhaustive discussion of any of the great questions that mark the progress of the United States in the century,—that work will be found ably done in another volume of this series. Again, only the points in the great Civil war and the Spanish-American war absolutely necessary for bringing out the character of the president concerned are dealt with. The task of describing these momentous struggles has been left to the brilliant pen of Mr. Oscar Browning, Professor of History in Cambridge University, who has contributed Wars in the Nineteenth Century to this series.
T. G. MARQUIS.