Lives of the Presidents of the United States

"In writing these sketches, the authors have endeavored to be thoroughly impartial, and to place themselves in the position which the subject of the sketch occupied, so as to look from his standpoint upon the great questions which he was called to consider. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were in political antagonism; but no man can read a true record of their lives and not be convinced that both were inspired with the noblest zeal to promote the best interests of their country and of the human race." - From the preface   There are few persons who can read this record of the lives of the first 20 Presidents of the United States without the conviction that there is no other nation which can present a consecutive series of twenty rulers of equal excellence of character and administrative ability. Probably the least worthy of all our Presidents would rank among the best of the kings whom the accident of birth has placed upon hereditary thrones; and not an individual has popular suffrage