The annals of the world contain no more impressive example of the birth and growth of a nation than may be seen in the case of that which has been aptly termed the Greater Republic, whose story from its feeble childhood to its grand maturity it is the purpose of this work to set forth. Three hundred years is a brief interval in the long epoch of human history, yet within that short period the United States has developed from a handful of hardy men and women, thinly scattered along our Atlantic coast, into a vast and mighty country, peopled by not less than seventy-five millions of human beings, the freest, richest, most industrious, and most enterprising of any people upon the face of the earth. It began as a dwarf; it has grown into a giant. It was despised by the proud nations of Europe; it has become feared and respected by the proudest of these nations. For a long time they have claimed the right to settle among themselves the affairs of the world; they have now to deal with the United States in this self-imposed duty. And it is significant of the high moral attitude occupied by this country, that one of the first enterprises in which it is asked to join these ancient nations has for its end to do away with the horrors of war, and substitute for the drawn sword in the settlement of national disputes a great Supreme Court of arbitration. This is but one of the lessons to be drawn from the history of the great republic of the West. It has long been claimed that this history lacks interest, that it is devoid of the romance which we find in that of the Eastern world, has nothing in it of the striking and dramatic, and is too young and new to be worth men's attention when compared with that of the ancient nations, which has come down from the mists of prehistoric time. Yet we think that those who read the following pages will not be ready to admit this claim. They will find in the history of the United States an abundance of the elements of romance. It has, besides, the merit of being a complete and fully rounded history. We can trace it from its birth, and put upon record the entire story of the evolution of a nation, a fact which it would be difficult to affirm of any of the older nations of the world.