Produced by Robert Nield, Tom Allen, David Moynihan, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
A generation born since Abraham Lincoln died has already reachedmanhood and womanhood. Yet there are millions still living whosympathized with him in his noble aspirations, who labored with him inhis toilsome life, and whose hearts were saddened by his tragic death.It is the almost unbroken testimony of his contemporaries that byvirtue of certain high traits of character, in certain momentous linesof purpose and achievement, he was incomparably the greatest man ofhis time. The deliberate judgment of those who knew him has hardenedinto tradition; for although but twenty-five years have passed sincehe fell by the bullet of the assassin, the tradition is alreadycomplete. The voice of hostile faction is silent, or unheeded; evencriticism is gentle and timid. If history had said its last word, ifno more were to be known of him than is already written, his fame,however lacking in definite outline, however distorted by fable, wouldsurvive undiminished to the latest generations. The blessings of anenfranchised race would forever hail him as their liberator; thenation would acknowledge him as the mighty counselor whose patientcourage and wisdom saved the life of the republic in its darkest hour;and illuminating his proud eminence as orator, statesman, and ruler,there would forever shine around his memory the halo of that tenderhumanity and Christian charity in which he walked among his fellow-countrymen as their familiar companion and friend.
It is not, therefore, with any thought of adding materially to hisalready accomplished renown that we have written the work which we nowoffer to our fellow-citizens. But each age owes to its successors thetruth in regard to its own annals. The young men who have been bornsince Sumter was fired on have a right to all their elders know of theimportant events they came too late to share in. The life and fame ofLincoln will not have their legitimate effect of instruction andexample unless the circumstances among which he lived and found hisopportunities are placed in their true light before the men who neversaw him.
To write the life of this great American in such a way as to show hisrelations to the times in which he moved, the stupendous issues hecontrolled, the remarkable men by whom he was surrounded, has been thepurpose which the authors have diligently pursued for many years. Wecan say nothing of the result of our labor; only those who have beensimilarly employed can appreciate the sense of inadequate performancewith which we regard what we have accomplished. We claim for our workthat we have devoted to it twenty years of almost unremittingassiduity; that we have neglected no means in our power to ascertainthe truth; that we have rejected no authentic facts essential to acandid story; that we have had no theory to establish, no personalgrudge to gratify, no unavowed objects to subserve. We have aimed towrite a sufficiently full and absolutely honest history of a great manand a great time; and although we take it for granted that we havemade mistakes, that we have fallen into such errors and inaccuraciesas are unavoidable in so large a work, we claim there is not a line inall these volumes dictated by malice or unfairness.
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