Thirty Years' View (Vol. 1 of 2) / or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850

by Thomas Hart Benton

4.—THE SPIRIT OF THE WORK.

I write in the spirit of Truth, but not of unnecessary or irrelevant truth, only giving that which is essential to the object of the work, and the omission of which would be an imperfection, and a subtraction from what ought to be known. I have no animosities, and shall find far greater pleasure in bringing out the good and the great acts of those with whom I have differed, than in noting the points on which I deemed them wrong. My ambition is to make a veracious work, reliable in its statements, candid in its conclusions, just in its views, and which cotemporaries and posterity may read without fear of being misled.

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