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Much of the material included in this volume was collected several years ago while the author was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. The researches then commenced probably first suggested to him the lack in our political literature of an ample and interesting account of the return of the States. Students, librarians, and even professors of history knew no adequate treatise on the era of reconstruction, and their testimony was confirmed by the authority of Mr. Bryce, who happily describes the succession of events in those crowded times as forming one of the most intricate chapters of American history. No apology is offered, therefore, for considering in this essay so important and so long-neglected a theme as the rise of the political revolution that occurred before reunion was finally accomplished.

On the general subject several excellent monographs have recently appeared; these, however, are nearly all employed in discussing the second stage in the process of restoration, and, except incidentally, anticipate scarcely anything of value in the present work, which, so far at least as concerns any logical exposition, conducts the reader over untraveled ground. As the introduction indicates with sufficient accuracy both the scope and method of this study, nothing is required here beyond a concise statement of the author’s obligations.

Like many other students of American institutions, the writer cheerfully acknowledges his indebtedness to the works of Brownson, Hurd and Jameson, and, by transferring some of their opinions to his book, has shown a practical appreciation of their researches. In addition to these obligations, in which the author is not singular, he profited for four years by the lectures of Dr. Francis N. Thorpe, his professor in constitutional history. Except in a very few instances, where the name of an author was forgotten, credit for both suggestions and material is uniformly given in the references and footnotes.

For the selection, arrangement, and treatment of topics the author alone is responsible; he desires, however, to take this opportunity of acknowledging generous assistance received from three intimate friends: his colleague, Dr. Charles P. Henry, found time in the midst of arduous literary engagements to read the whole of the manuscript and to make many valuable suggestions, especially in matters of style and diction; the book is not less fortunate in having been critically read by Thomas J. Meagher, Esq., whose extensive and accurate knowledge of public as well as private law contributed to a more clear and scientific statement of many of the constitutional questions discussed; the technical skill and the superior intelligence of Mr. George M. Schell were of considerable assistance to the author in correcting the proofs of the entire book. Nor must he omit to record his appreciation of the courtesy of Mr. L. E. Hewitt, the efficient librarian of the Philadelphia Law Association. Finally the writer gratefully acknowledges his chief obligation to the scholarship of his former teacher, Dr. John Bach McMaster, who kindly interrupted the progress of his great historical work long enough to read a considerable portion of this essay. Indeed, it was the encouragement of that eminent author which first suggested the publication of these pages.

Before concluding his remarks the writer wishes to disclaim any sympathy with the progressive school of historical criticism, which derides the Constitution as a thing of the past and learnedly characterizes all veneration for its authority as the worship of a fetich. This book will have attained one of its principal purposes if, in the language of a distinguished surviving statesman of the war period, it will teach “the constant and ever-important lesson that the Constitution is always a more reliable guide for the legislator than those fierce passions which war never fails to excite.”

Philadelphia, September 14, 1901.