Excerpt from The Life and Times of Samuel Bowles, Vol. 1 of 2 The sketch here given of the more prominent events of the country's political history makes no pretensions to profundity of research or originality of view. It follows the line of central interest, the slavery question, the war, reconstruction, and reform, - touching collateral issues but lightly. It deals with thoughts and motives rather than with outward action; and the scenes of its drama lie more in the minds of the common people than in battle-fields or the chambers of Congress. Its materials have been drawn partly from standard works and partly from the volumes of the Republican. The files of a newspaper must not be trusted always to give the true propor tion of the events which they narrate from day to day, and their record must be open to large correction from other sources. But, picturing the scene as it appeared to actors and contemporaries, and giving details caught by the reporter's pen before memory has had time to grow treacherous, they yield most abundant and Vivid material. 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.