Excerpt from The United States, Vol. 23: Volume One IN the preparation of this work, written expressly for the his tory OF nations, it has been the purpose of the authors to write for the general reader a simple narrative of the rise and growth of the United States from the discovery to the present time. In doing so, they have striven to avoid unnecessary and uninterest ing details and have endeavored to give prominence only to those characters who have been conspicuous in determining our national destiny and to those measures and events which may be said to con stitute the landmarks of our progress from insignificant colonies to our present position as one of the great powers of the world. In the limited compass of the work, it is Obviously difficult to describe thoroughly all the forces and movements which have en tered into our unparalleled growth, and, hence, much has meces sarily been omitted which would have a proper place in a more elaborate historical treatise. What is here Offered has been written with an honest effort at judicial fairness and historical accuracy. No pretense is made that this work is based on investigation of primary sources; on the contrary, it rests mainly on the standard and authoritative treatises of others who have made extended stud ies of special fields. Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to Professors Her man V. Ames, University of Pennsylvania; Charles H. Mccarthy, Catholic University of America; Walter L. Fleming, University of West Virginia; David Y. Thomas, University of Florida, and Mr. O. M. Dickerson for important services rendered in the preparation of this work. 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.