Abraham Lincoln, Volume I

The fifth and final group of biographies in the American Statesmen series deals with the Period of the Civil War. The statesmen whose lives are included in this group are Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Charles Francis Adams, Charles Sumner, and Thaddeus Stevens.
The years of the civil war constitute an episode rather than an independent period in our national history. They were interposed between two eras; and if they are to be integrally connected with either of these, it is with the era which preceded them rather than with that which followed them. They were the result, the closing act, of the quarter-century of the anti-slavery crusade. When the war came to an end the country made a new start under new conditions. Yet it is proper to treat the years of the war by themselves, not only because they were filled by the clearly defined and abnormal condition of warfare, but because a distinct group of statesmen is peculiarly associated with them. The men whose lives are found in
this group had been struggling for recognition during the years which preceded the war, but they only arrived at the control of affairs after that event became assured. Soon after its close their work was substantially done.