United States Books

INTRODUCTION. WHAT SOME OF THE BUILDERS HAVE THOUGHT. A word oft-times is expressive of an entire policy. Such is the term Abolition. Though formerly used as a synonym of Anti-Slavery, people now clearly understand that the designs of those who have ranged themselves under the first of these systems of reform are of deeper significance and wider scope than are the objects contemplated by the latter,... more...

CHAPTER I. INDUSTRIAL AMERICA AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR A comprehensive survey of the United States, at the end of the Civil War, would reveal a state of society which bears little resemblance to that of today. Almost all those commonplace fundamentals of existence, the things that contribute to our bodily comfort while they vex us with economic and political problems, had not yet made their... more...

Rutherford B. Hayes Rutherford B. Hayes was born in Delaware: Ohio, October 4, 1822. His father had died in July, 1822, leaving his mother in modest circumstances. He attended the common schools, and began early the study of Latin and Greek with Judge Sherman Finch, of Delaware. Prepared for college at an academy at Norwalk, Ohio, and at a school in Middletown, Conn. In the autumn of 1838 entered... more...

SPEECH. Mr. Cushing said: I hold in my hand several Petitions on the subject of the slave interest in the District of Columbia. One of them, I now present to the House. Upon it, I make the preliminary motion, understood to be necessary in such cases, that it be received; and, in reference to this question, I have some few remarks to submit to the consideration of the House. This Petition prays for the... more...

William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison, third and youngest son of Benjamin Harrison, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was born at Berkeley, Charles City County, Va., February 9, 1773. Was educated at Hampden Sidney College, Virginia, and began the study of medicine, but before he had finished it accounts of Indian outrages on the western frontier led him to enter the Army,... more...

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Va., on April 2 (old style), 1743. He was the oldest son of Peter Jefferson, who died in 1757. After attending private schools, he entered William and Mary College in 1760. In 1767 began the practice of the law. In 1769 was chosen to represent his county in the Virginia house of burgesses, a station he continued to fill up to the... more...

Abraham Lincoln ABRAHAM LINCOLN was born in Hardin County, Ky., February 12, 1809. His earliest ancestor in America was Samuel Lincoln, of Norwich, England, who settled in Hingham, Mass., where he died, leaving a son, Mordecai, whose son of the same name removed to Monmouth, N.J., and thence to Berks County, Pa., where he died in 1735. One of his sons, John, removed to Buckingham County, Va., and died... more...

The Plains Country. Seventy years ago, when some of the events here recounted took place, Indians were Indians, and the plains were the plains indeed. Those plains stretched out in limitless rolling swells of prairie until they met the blue sky that on every hand bent down to touch them. In spring brightly green, and spangled with wild flowers, by midsummer this prairie had grown sere and yellow.... more...

CHAPTER I. REVOLUTIONARY TRADITIONS. Middle Georgia—Colonel David Love—His Widow—Governor Dunmore— Colonel Tarleton—Bill Cunningham—Colonel Fannin—My Grandmother's Bible—Solomon's Maxim Applied—Robertus Love—The Indian Warrior— Dragon Canoe—A Buxom Lass—General Gates—Marion—Mason L. Weems— Washington—"Billy Crafford." My earliest memories are... more...

A DECLARATION. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel... more...