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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by

BRADLEY & CO.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

S. A. GEORGE,

STEREOTYPER, ELECTROTYPER AND PRINTER,

124 N. SEVENTH STREET, PHILADELPHIA,

PREFACE.

"THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN!" and why, pray, add another to the many memoirs of him already published?

Because, dear reader, there was need of just one more. Listen, and we will prove it. The memoirs and biographies of our late President, which have already appeared, are, some of them, from able pens, and clearly and fairly accomplish the object for which they were written. Without exception, we believe, they belong to the class of campaign biographies; some written before his first, others during the canvass which preceded his second, election. Their principal object was, of course, political. They have not, we think, dealt in misrepresentation; there was no need of that. But they have presented him as a fit and proper candidate for the office of President of the United States, and for this purpose they have dwelt largely upon his previous political career in Congress; in the Senatorial canvass; in the closing portion of Mr. Buchanan's presidency; and some of them on the stupendous events of the four years of his first administration, and the policy he pursued during that long period of darkness and gloom. This is all right and admirable in its way, and were there any question of a campaign life of the Good President, were he still with us, and still a candidate for the highest honors a grateful people could bestow, we should say at once, "that which is written is sufficient; we can add nothing to a record so pure and honorable."

But this is not the time for a campaign life of Abraham х

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