Parliament, that we must chiefly turn, presenting the single speeches of American orators and the even more argumentative protests of the colonial assemblies as a supplement to the arguments of the British contenders for American rights. Volume I is therefore a record of public controversies, as well as of debates proper, and as such is more historical in character than the remaining volumes.

Since the most vital questions, when our new Government was struggling to establish its place among the nations of the earth, were those dealing with Foreign Relations, Volumes II and III contain the great debates upon this subject from Washington's Administration to the war with Spain and the diplomatic questions connected with the Panama Canal. Various debates on Foreign Affairs are inserted in other volumes because of their intimate connection with the subjects of these. Thus the Koszta affair appears in the first volume on Civil Rights.

Because our domestic history for the first threequarters of our Constitutional history largely centered around slavery, this subject is taken up in Volume IV. The volume closes with the debate on the Dred Scott decision, and Volume V, reverting to the early debates on State's Rights Not Connected with Slavery (such as the Webster-Hayne debate), comes quickly down to the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the result of which precipitated upon the country the question of secession, in connection with slavery. The volume continues the debates on Secession and Slavery down to, and including, the debate on the Conciliation bill in the closing months of Buchanan's Administration.

Volume VI contains the debates of Lincoln's Administration, or the Civil War period, with the exceptions of debates on Reconstruction, which will be found in the succeeding volume on Civil Rights, and of debates on Revenue and Finance, which will be found in Volumes XII and XIII, bearing these titles.

Volumes VII and VIII are on Civil Rights. The first reverts to the early discussions on Naturalization, continues with the famous debates on the Alien and

Sedition Laws, and the related question of State Rights, and, touching upon the question of Nativism (the "Know-Nothing" movement), comes down to the Reconstruction period, and, taking up the question of Negro Rights where Volume VI left it, presents the debates on the Fourteenth Amendment. Volume VIII contains the debates on Negro Suffrage, ending with the Fifteenth Amendment, and then, the discussion of the negro being closed, takes up the debates on Indian Rights. The question of Woman's Rights is then presented, and the volume closes with debates on Polygamy, which, in its constitutional aspect, is a question of Civil Rights.

Volume IX contains debates on the powers and functions of the Departments of Government, Executive (President, Army, Navy), Legislative (Senate, House) and Judicial (Supreme Court), as well as debates on the related question of Civil Service Reform, and on the governmental powers and functions of the sovereign behind all the Departments-the People. Subjects treated in the last connection are Popular Election of President and Senators, Direct Legislation, and Recall of Judges and Judicial Decisions.

Volumes X and XI are on Economic and Social problems. In the first are debates on the Land Question (including the Homestead and Conservation laws and the Single Tax theory), and on the Railroad Question (centering around the power of the Federal Government over Interstate Commerce). The second volume contains debates on the Federal control of Trusts, on Labor legislation, on Socialism, Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic, National Regulation of Foods, etc.

Volume XII contains debates on Revenue, the chief subject being the Tariff, all the tariff acts from the revenue measures of the First Congress to the PayneAldrich Act being presented in chronological order, each clearly delimited from the rest by its specific issue. In close connection with the particular tariff or revenue bills which presented them, the subjects of Internal Revenue, Income, Inheritance and Corporation Taxes, and of Reciprocity with Canada are treated.

Volumes XIII and XIV contain debates on Finance. The main subjects of the first volume are Public Credit [questions of Repudiation, etc.], National Banks, "Greenback" or Specie Currency. The last volume deals exclusively with the Silver Question.

Volume XIV also contains the General Index of the Series. This is divided into two parts: an Index of Proper Names (persons and places), and an Index of Subjects.

These indexes are synoptical in character, enabling the reader to prepare from them his own debates, biographical sketches of debaters, etc.

INTRODUCTIONS

Never before, it is believed, has a work of this nature possessed as its editorial contributors persons of the eminence and authority which distinguish the authors of the introductions of the volumes of the present series. Here they are: the President of the United States; the two living ex-Presidents; the Secretary of State; two Senators, one a noted historian, and the other an eminent financial expert; three university presidents and one professor of economics, each an authority in the subject which he discusses; the dean of American journalists, and a woman whose rank both as a journalist and economic historian is exceeded by no other writer in America; and two representative men of letters, the one the chief living member of the most distinguished family of New England, the other the scion of an old Virginia house noted for service to nation and Statehe himself being the American Ambassador to the Court of St. James.

Some of the introductions were written after the author had carefully read the proof sheets of the volume in which the introduction was to appear; others were composed upon a general knowledge of the contents of the volume, and the rest were adapted by the authors from former addresses or articles on subjects appropriate to the volume. Thanks for permission to use the adapted articles are herewith extended to the publishers as well as to the authors,

ILLUSTRATIONS

The volumes are illustrated with scenes of great debates and portraits of leading debaters, and with contemporary political cartoons relating to the subjects of the debate and the personality of the debaters. Indeed, the term "illustrated" is too weak a term to state the connection of the pictures with the text, for an apt cartoon is in itself the most effective of arguments, often exceeding in results the longest and most learned demonstration of an orator. Thomas Nast's cartoons of the Reconstruction period appealed on behalf of the Negro more movingly even than the pathetic periods of Charles Sumner, and Homer Davenport's symbolization of the Trust as a brutal giant was more convincing than the diatribes of any of the Populist orators against the "soulless corporations."

In this connection acknowledgment is made of the courtesy extended by the New York Public Library and the New York Historical Society in permitting the reproductions of many of the cartoons in their collections. To W. F. Brainard, of New York City, well known as an expert in "book-building," I would also extend thanks, for sifting the large number of editorially appropriate cartoons through the meshes of artistic and mechanical availability.

In conclusion I would express my appreciation of the services of my editorial assistant, Wilbert W. Blakeman. In such portions of the work as the early debates on the Tariff he has shown ability unusual in a young editor by selecting those points of the subject which are vital to-day, and reducing to the essential minimum those points which tempt the editor by their historical significance to expatiate upon them. By such procedure he has saved much needed space for the more important tariff debates of recent times.

M. M. Milled