BASIL WILLIAMS. BISCOT CAMP, LUTON, March, 1916. CONTENTS GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE CHAP. I. BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN II. THE GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN NATION 1. The Formation of a National Government 2. Territorial Expansion 3. The Growth of the Practice and Traditions of the Union Government 4. The Missouri Compromise 5. Leaders, Parties, and Tendencies in Lincoln's Youth 6. Slavery and Southern Society 7. Intellectual Development III. LINCOLN'S EARLY CAREER 1. Life at New Salem 2. In the Illinois Legislature 3. Marriage IV. LINCOLN IN CONGRESS AND IN RETIREMENT 1. The Mexican War and Lincoln's Work in Congress 2. California and the Compromise of 1850 3. Lincoln in Retirement 4. The Repeal of the Missouri Compromise V. THE RISE OF LINCOLN 1. Lincoln's Return to Public Life 2. The Principles and the Oratory of Lincoln 3. Lincoln against Douglas 4. John Brown 5. The Election of Lincoln as President VI. SECESSION 1. The Case of the South against the Union 2. The Progress of Secession 3. The Inauguration of Lincoln 4. The Outbreak of War VII. THE CONDITIONS OF THE WAR VIII. THE OPENING OF THE WAR AND LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION 1. Preliminary Stages of the War 2. Bull Run 3. Lincoln's Administration Generally 4. Foreign Policy and England 5. The Great Questions of Domestic Policy IX. THE DISASTERS OF THE NORTH 1. Military Policy of the North 2. The War in the West up to May, 1862 3. The War in the East up to May, 1863 X. EMANCIPATION XI. THE APPROACH OF VICTORY 1. The War to the End of 1863 2. Conscription and the Politics of 1863 3. The War in 1864 4. The Second Election of Lincoln: 1864 XII. THE END BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE INDEX ABRAHAM LINCOLN CHAPTER I BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN The subject of this memoir is revered by multitudes of his countrymen as the preserver of their commonwealth. This reverence has grown with the lapse of time and the accumulation of evidence. It is blended with a peculiar affection, seldom bestowed upon the memory of statesmen. It is shared to-day by many who remember with no less affection how their own fathers fought against him. He died with every circumstance of tragedy, yet it is not the accident of his death but the purpose of his life that is remembered.