PREFACE
Many of the brief biographies of the twenty-seven presidents of the United States contained in these four volumes were written by distinguished scholars and statesmen who were peculiarly fitted by their training or contact with our chief magistrates to render ample justice to their subjects, and also to treat them with what Edmund Burke describes as “the cold neutrality of an impartial judge.” A number of the sketches, particularly of the presidents in our own time, were especially prepared for this work; others were originally written for “Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography.” In some instances they have been revised and enlarged for the present volumes. These seven-and-twenty articles contain a complete record of the most important events in the nation's history from the inauguration of our first president to the close of 1913, a period of more than one hundred and twenty-four years, and including thirty-two administrations. The well-known writers of these model biographies of our chief magistrates are not responsible for the brief notices of the ladies of the White House, for the
