The work is divided into four chapters; the first on “The Making of Colonial America,” occupies 165 pages; the second, “Revolution and Independence, 1764-1786,” fills 100 pages; the third, “The Making of a Democratic Nation,” 131 pages; and the fourth, “Slavery and the Sectional Struggle, 1841-1877,” 86 pages. Or, to put it in other words, the period before 1789 is allotted 284 pages, while that under the constitution to 1877 is given 200 pages. Each chapter is subdivided into sections, and these into smaller groups of sources. Taking for granted that the plan of the editors is a practical one, the test as to whether they have done it well is to be found in the proportions assigned to the several topics, and in the character of the extracts given or excluded. The first thought which comes to mind is that too much space has been given to the colonial and revolutionary periods, and too little to the constitutional period. An inspection of the several sections shows that the colonial period lends itself best to the form of treatment adopted by the authors, and naturally they have emphasized that period. The documents upon recent history, particularly the civil war and reconstruction, have not fitted so readily into the narrative. Yet it must be admitted that the editors have resolutely carried on their method to the close; they give extracts from Lincoln’s public papers and letters respecting slavery and reconstruction, and arrange them in the same analytical form adopted for the extracts bearing upon the Stamp Act or on Bacon’s Rebellion. One cannot but wish, however, that the editors had been as generous in their excerpts for the later period as they were for the earlier; perhaps five pages of quotations is not too much for the “Effects of the English Revolution of 1688” upon America, but surely two pages is too short for Lincoln’s attitude toward slavery; we welcome the ten pages of extracts from Washington’s letters bearing upon the Revolutionary War, but we wish for more than two very short quotations treating of the Civil War.