A POPULAR HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE OF THE STATES. PRECEDED BY A SKETCH OF THE PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD AND THE PREFACE. LIBRAR OF THE UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA THERE are several excellent histories of the United States of North America in print, and it will naturally be asked what occasion there is for another. The title of this work is in part an answer to the question. It is intended to be a popular history - - a work for that large class who have not leisure for reading those narratives which aim at setting forth, with the greatest breadth and variety of circumstance, the annals of our nation's life. At the same time it is the design of the present work to treat the subject more at large than is done in those compends, some of them able in their way, which are used as text-books in the schools. Unlike these latter, it is not a compilation from histories already written, but in its narrative of events and its representation of the state of our country at different epochs, has derived its materials through independent research from original sources. It is also within the plan of this work to rely in part for its attraction, on the designs with which it is illustrated-likenesses of men conspicuous in our annals, views of places and buildings memorable in our history, and representations of usages and manners which have had their day and have passed away. But in saying this, we state but a small part of our plan. It is our purpose to present within a moderate compass a view of changes, political and social, occurring within our Republic, which have an interest for every nation in the civilized world, and the history of which could not be fully written until now. In the two centuries and a half of our existence as an off-shoot of the great European stock, a mighty drama has been put upon the stage of our continent, which, after a |