The decision to include no footnote references to authorities in a volume of this character probably requires no defense. In a great majority of instances the text itself indicates the authority. When an utterance of the Eve ning Post on the Dred Scott decision is quoted, it would assuredly be impertinent to quote the exact date. The author wishes to say that he has been at pains to ascribe no bit of writing to a particular editor without making sure that he actually wrote it. When he names Bryant as the writer of a certain passage, he does so on the authority of the Bryant papers, or the Parke Godwin papers, or one of the lives of Bryant, or of indisputable internal evidence. After 1881 a careful record of the writers of the most important Evening Post editorials was kept in the files of the Nation. The author wishes to thank the heirs of William Cullen Bryant, Parke Godwin, John Bigelow, Carl Schurz.