Excerpt from Ben Hardin: His Times and Contemporaries, With Selections From His Speeches The present work will prove a marked contrast in this respect. The purpose has not been to write the life of a saint, or an impossible or improbable ideal, but rather faithfully to depict the manhood and character of one, who, with a full average of human infirmities, pos sessed great talents, which he faithfully devoted to his State and gen eration. To do this adequately, a sketch of his contemporaries and the events in which he and they bore part. Was deemed necessary. To Mr. Hardin has been assigned the principal place in this portrayal, yet the noted men with whom he came in contact have had such brief justice done them as the exigency of the narrative would allow. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.