Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln/Volume 1/Preface

by Abraham Lincoln, ed. Marion Mills Miller

PREFACE

No claim is made for the present edition that it is unabridged or definitive. The desire has been to make a reading and, indeed, working edition suited to the needs of the average American, to whom everything which reveals the character of the great President is of interest, and anything which does not afford such revelation, even though penned with Lincoln's hand, and signed with his name, is without real associational value.

For practical considerations the chronological sequence of the definitive editions has been subordinated to logical sequence. Speeches are arranged by themselves, state papers by themselves, etc.; the items of each class being arranged in chronological order. Letters are docketed alphabetically by the names of addressees. The edition is thus made self-indexing, a desirable characteristic of a working library.

For further explanation of the method of bookmaking employed, the reader is referred to the prefaces of each volume. Here, or in the immediate text concerned, will be found the various acknowledgments to publishers, collectors, and authors for the derivation of material.

It suffices to say in this preface that Mr. Francis D. Tandy has generously given the editor general permission to make liberal use of any material in his Gettysburg Edition to which others than himself have no prior rights. For permission to use the biography of Lincoln in the present volume thanks are due to William H. Lambert, President of the Lincoln Fellowship. He is the owner of the voluminous MS. on Lincoln left by the late Henry C. Whitney, one of Lincoln's legal associates and personal and political friends. From this the present work on "Lincoln the Citizen" has been extracted. It is confidently expected that the public will find in this character study a personal view of that most human of great men, which is second in general interest only to the life of Lincoln by his law partner, William H. Herndon, and surpasses this in many particular points of keen insight and generous appreciation. Mr. Whitney's "Life" ends at Lincoln's inauguration. After that the biography of the President merges into the history of his country, to the many works upon which the reader is referred.

Thanks are extended to The Lincoln Farm Association, and particularly to its secretary, Richard Lloyd Jones, for permission to use Miss Tarbell's article, "The Parents of Abraham Lincoln" as an introduction to "Lincoln the Citizen."

The mutual helpfulness of these Lincoln associations and publications is the best of tributes to the beneficent influence of that great man to whom "charity" in the broad sense of loving aid and consideration extended to all men was the dearest of words and things. In the hope that we, too, may share in the honor of promoting the fraternal movement which is preparing to inaugurate a new century of the higher patriotism represented by Abraham Lincoln, we present this Centenary Edition of his Life and Works.