History & Theory Books

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: It is a circumstance of sincere gratification to me that on meeting the great council of our nation I am able to announce to them on grounds of reasonable certainty that the wars and troubles which have for so many years afflicted our sister nations have at length come to an end, and that the communications of peace and commerce are once more... more...

CHAPTER I GENERAL INTRODUCTION The revolution which broke out in China on the 10th October, 1911, and which was completed with the abdication of the Manchu Dynasty on the 12th February, 1912, though acclaimed as highly successful, was in its practical aspects something very different. With the proclamation of the Republic, the fiction of autocratic rule had truly enough vanished; yet the tradition... more...

INTRODUCTION The British Influence Our business here is to give some plain account of the movement towards democracy in England, only touching incidentally on the progress of that movement in other parts of the world. Mainly through British influences the movement has become world wide; and the desire for national self-government, and the adoption of the political instruments of democracy—popular... more...

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and of the House of Representatives: It affords me pleasure to tender my friendly greetings to you on the occasion of your assembling at the seat of Government to enter upon the important duties to which you have been called by the voice of our country-men. The task devolves on me, under a provision of the Constitution, to present to you, as the Federal Legislature of 24... more...

Who should Count them,What should be Counted, andThe Remedy for a Wrong Count. The electoral votes of 1876 have been cast. The certificates are now in Washington, or on their way thither, to be kept by the President of the Senate until their seals are broken in February. The certificates and the votes of thirty-four of the States are undisputed. The remaining four are debatable, and questions... more...

To the Senate and House of Representatives: The Congress assembles this year under the shadow of a great calamity. On the sixth of September, President McKinley was shot by an anarchist while attending the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, and died in that city on the fourteenth of that month. Of the last seven elected Presidents, he is the third who has been murdered, and the bare recital of this... more...

I RISE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY: GROWTH OF THE TRAFFIC The history of the nineteenth century holds some ten wars that disturbed the nations of the earth, but perhaps our Civil War alone can be fully justified at the bar of intellect and conscience. That war was fought, not in the interest of territory or of national honour,—it was fought by the white race for the enfranchisement of the black race, and to... more...

LETTER I.—TO LEVI LINCOLN, August 30, 1803TO LEVI LINCOLN.Monticello, August 30, 1803. Deak. Sir, The enclosed letter came to hand by yesterday's post. You will be sensible of the circumstances which make it improper that I should hazard a formal answer, as well as of the desire its friendly aspect naturally excites, that those concerned in it should understand that the spirit they express is... more...

INTRODUCTION The most incisive comment on politics to-day is indifference. When men and women begin to feel that elections and legislatures do not matter very much, that politics is a rather distant and unimportant exercise, the reformer might as well put to himself a few searching doubts. Indifference is a criticism that cuts beneath oppositions and wranglings by calling the political method itself... more...

I There is one great basic fact which underlies all the questions that are discussed on the political platform at the present moment. That singular fact is that nothing is done in this country as it was done twenty years ago. We are in the presence of a new organization of society. Our life has broken away from the past. The life of America is not the life that it was twenty years ago; it is not the... more...