HANDBOOKS for Students and General Readers. HISTORY OF AMERICAN POLITICS BY ALEXANDER JOHNSTON, LL.D. LATE PROFESSOR IN PRINCETON COLLEGE. THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED BY WILLIAM M. SLOANE, Ph.D., L.H.D. PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE IN PRINCETON COLLEGE. NEW YORK 07-4-91 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. THIS edition of what is now a standard text-book in academies and colleges throughout the land appears ten years after the first. These ten years had elevated the author from obscurity to a position of the highest authority as a historian when he died in July of last year. This book, which not only created but sustained the ever-increasing reputation of Professor Johnston, should therefore stand as the writer left it. Accordingly, in bringing it up to date, the editor has treated the text with reverence, and has sought in the few additions made to preserve the spirit and plan of the original volume. PRINCETON, May 1, 1890. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. THIS book was first published in March, 1879. Since that time corrections have been made for each of the eight times that the book has been put to press, but these have been comparatively so unimportant that it has not at any time seemed fitting to call the result a new edition. It would hardly be proper, however, to allow this issue to go out except as a new edition. In it the whole book has been carefully revised and brought down to date; detached portions have been rewritten; the whole outline history from 1868 until 1881 has been given very much more fully than was possible while events were still uncertain; and a new appendix, called for by many correspondents, has been added in the form of a list of the cabinets of the successive administrations, with the dates of appointment. For the guidance of readers who desire to study more fully the history of which this is an outline, a classified list of authorities is given below. The scope of the book will be sufficiently indicated by repeating the last paragraph of the preface to the first edition : "The design of the book is not to present the politics of the States, or to criticise party management, but to make our national political history easily available to young men. It is of interest to the whole republic that young citizens should be able to learn that true national party differences have a history and a recognized basis of existence, and should be prevented from following factitious party differences, contrived for personal objects by selfish men. If, for this purpose, this book shall be considered worthy to serve as an introduction to the larger works already in existence, its object will be accomplished." NORWALK, CONN., January 2, 1882. |