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Note on the Texts

The editor has sought to make only a bare minimum of changes to the texts included in this volume, so as to convey the flavor as well as content of the writings. Changes are limited to the following: The use of asterisks to mark deleted text has been replaced with the use of ellipses. Asterisks inserted without clear meaning or intent have been deleted, as have marginalia, extraneous quotation marks, and page numbers from previous editions that had been inserted in various texts. The letters “f” and “s” have been properly distinguished. Some of the longer titles have been shortened in accordance with modern usage. Headings in which the original text used anachronistic fonts or, for example, all capital letters, have been modernized and standardized.

The work of preceding editors in modernizing punctuation and spelling has not been tampered with. The editors of these previous volumes all expressed a desire to maintain strict fidelity to the original text and thereby incorporated only such minor modernizations in spelling, grammar, and punctuation as were absolutely necessary to promote readability and consistency. Those readers seeking specifics on such issues may find them in the relevant source volumes in the bibliography.

The principal issue of concern to the lay reader will be the inclusion of material in brackets. Such brackets denote material filled in by the editor, material questionable as to its true authorship, or in some instances text missing from the original.

Only those footnotes deemed necessary for understanding of the text have been reproduced here. However, in some instances (e.g., selections from Dickinson, Boucher, Noah Webster, and Story) footnotes are integral to the text, and in others explanatory notes are necessary. Footnotes of earlier editors are marked “Ed.” and those few footnotes added by the current editor are marked “B. F.”

In reproducing the fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate it was necessary to standardize fonts and to eliminate headings and subheadings inserted by the previous editors.