r law, medicine, and theology, but for
business, agriculture, engineering, and teaching, all bear testimony to
the real interests of American democracy. The ideal was as yet far
removed from the fact, and the intellectual leaders of the United States
were yet to pass through a period of black pessimism, but the people
were still firm in their faith that education is the mainstay of popular
government, and gave their full devotion to both.

The four years of the Civil War carried the United States over a period
of social and economic transition and left it well started on the new
course. They enlarged and expanded the activities of government,
hastening that day when there should exist a public conviction that
government is a matter of technical expertness and must be run in a
scientific manner for the common good. They raised the problems of
taxation and currency to a new importance, and impressed their
significance upon the men who directed the industries of the country. In
their prosperity they made it possible to save the Union; and at their
close a Union party, uncertain of its strength and its personnel, faced
the problems of a united country which included an industrial North, a
desolated South, and a vanishing frontier.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

For further references upon the Civil War period, consult William E.
Dodd, _Expansion and Conflict_ (in this series), and F.L. Paxson, _The
Civil War_ (1911). The best and most exhaustive narrative is J.F.
Rhodes, _History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the
Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877_ (7 vols.,
1892-1906), and this may be supplemented to advantage by E.D. Fite,
_Social and industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil War_
(1910). There is a convenient account of the election of 1864, with
platforms and tables of votes, in E. Stanwood, _A History of the
Presidency_ (1898) and there are many valuable documents in E.
McPherson's annual _Political Manual_. The biographies of W.H. Seward,
by F. Bancroft, and Jay Cooke, by E.P. Oberholtzer, are among the best
of the period. There are no better summaries of finances than D.R.
Dewey's _Financial History of the United States_ (1903, etc.); W.C.
Mitchell's _History of the Greenbacks_ (1903); and J.A. Woodburn's
_Thaddeus Stevens_ (1913). In the _Annual Cyclopaedia_ (published by D.
Appleton & Co., 1861-1902) are useful and accurate accounts of current
affairs. E.L. Godkin began