a synonym for bad government, and conveys no idea of the profound problems of statecraft that had to be solved between 1865 and 1870. The essays collected in the following pages have been written with reference to this situation. If in any degree they shall have contributed, either through statement, implication, or even omission, to throw light on the actual history of the time with which they deal, the end of the collection will have been attained.
Lake Sunapee, N.H.,Sept. 9, 1897.
NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION
For the sake of greater homogeneity and with a view to completeness in the general survey of Reconstruction, the final essay in the first edition has been omitted, and for it has been substituted the essay on "The Undoing of Reconstruction," which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1901.
April 14, 1904.
