SPEECHES & LETTERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1832-1865 Edited by MERWIN ROE London: Published by J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd and in New York by E.P. Dutton & Co First issue of this Edition 1907; Reprinted 1909, 1910, 1912 Mr. Bryce's Introduction to 'Lincoln's Speeches' is printed from plates made and type set by the University Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. Taken by permission from 'The Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln,' Century Company, 1894 [Illustration: WHEN HE SENT HIS GREAT VOICE FORTH OUT OF HIS BREAST, & HIS WORDS FELL LIKE THE WINTER SNOWS, NOR THEN WOULD ANY MORTAL CONTEND WITH ULYSSES--HOMER. ILIAD.] INTRODUCTION No man since Washington has become to Americans so familiar or so beloved a figure as Abraham Lincoln. He is to them the representative and typical American, the man who best embodies the political ideals of the nation. He is typical in the fact that he sprang from the masses of the people, that he remained through his whole career a man of the people, that his chief desire was to be in accord with the beliefs and wishes of the people, that he never failed to trust in the people and to rely on their support. Every native American knows his life and his speeches. His anecdotes and witticisms have passed into the thought and the conversation of the whole nation as those of no other statesman have done. He belongs, however, not only to the United States, but to the whole of civilized mankind. It is no exaggeration to say that he has, within the last thirty years, grown to be a conspicuous figure in the history of the modern world. Without him, the course of events not only in the Western hemisphere but in Europe also would have been different, for he was called to guide at the greatest crisis of its fate a State already mighty, and now far more mighty than in his days, and the guidance he gave has affected the march of events ever since. A life and a character such as his ought to be known to and comprehended by Europeans as well as by Americans. Among Europeans, it is especially Englishmen who ought to appreciate him and understand the significance of his life, for he came of an English stock, he spoke the English tongue, his action told upon the progress of events and the shaping of opinion in all British communities everywhere more than it has done upon any other nation outside America itself.