With these ideas in mind, the editor has added rather extensive historical notes, with the purpose of suggesting the use of the speeches as the basis of historical study, and of indicating other similar sources for investigation.  These notes, together with explanations of any obscurities in the text, and other suggestions for study, will serve to indicate the educational value of the volumes; and it is hoped that they may lead many teachers and students to see in these orations a text suitable as a guide to valuable studies in American political history.

The omissions of parts of the speeches, made necessary by the exigencies of space, consist chiefly of those portions which were but of temporary interest and importance, and which would not be found essential to an understanding of the subject in hand.  The omissions, however, have always been indicated so as not to mislead the reader, and in most instances the substance of the omissions has been indicated in the notes.

The general division of the work has been retained:  1.  Colonialism, to 1789.  Constitutional Government, to 1801. 3.  The Rise of Democracy, to 1815. 4.  The Rise of Nationality, to 1840. 5.  The Slavery Struggle, to 1860. 6.  Secession and Civil War, to 1865.  The extension of the studies covering these periods, by the addition of much new material has made necessary the addition of a fourth volume, which embraces the general subjects, (1) Reconstruction; (2) Free Trade and Protection; (3) Finance; (4) Civil-Service Reform.  Professor Johnston’s valuable introductions to the several sections have been substantially retained.

By the revision, the volumes will be confined entirely to political oratory.  Literature and religion have, each in its place, called forth worthy utterances in American oratory.  These, certainly, have an important place in the study of our national life.  But it has been deemed advisable to limit the scope of these volumes to that field of history which Mr. Freeman has called “past politics,”—­to the process by which Americans, past and present, have built and conducted their state.  The study of the state, its rise, its organization, and its development, is, after all, the richest field for the student and reader of history.  “History.” says Professor Seeley, “may be defined as the biography of states.  To study history thus is to study politics at the same time.  If history is not merely eloquent writing, but a serious scientific investigation, and if we are to consider that it is not mere anthropology or sociology, but a science of states, then the study of history is absolutely the study of politics.”  It is into this great field of history that these volumes would direct the reader.

No American scholar had done more, before his untimely death, than the original editor of these orations, to cultivate among Americans an intelligent study of our politics and political history.  These volumes, which he designed, are a worthy memorial of his appreciation of the value to American students of the best specimens of our political oratory.