SOURCE: A preface to The Anarchiad by David Humphries and others, edited by Luther G. Riggs, 1861. Reprint by Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1967, pp. iv-viii.

In the following excerpt from his preface to his 1861 edition of The Anarchiad, Riggs comments on its historical context and significance.

In presenting The Anarchiad to the public, now for the first time in book form, the editor feels that he is in the performance of a duty—that he becomes, as it were, an instrument of justice—a justice delayed for more than half a century, to the genius and loyalty of its authors, who were among the noblest and most talented sons of the American Revolution.

Why a work possessing the merits of The Anarchiad has not, ere this, been called up from its oblivious sleep to take its appropriate place among the honored volumes in the homes of the people—by what...