To A. C. Butters for the address on "Washington," by John W. Daniel, from _Modern Eloquence_ published by George L. Schuman and Company.
To Henry Watterson, Louisville, Kentucky, for the extracts from his lecture on Abraham Lincoln.
To E. Benjamin Andrews and to his publishers, Fords, Howard and Hulbert, for the extracts from his lecture on Robert E. Lee.
To J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, for the poem by Thomas Buchanan Read, "The Rising in 1776."
To Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, for the poem by Henry van Dyke, "America for Me," and also for the extract from the poem "Wanted," by J. G. Holland.
To The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, for the poem by James Whitcomb Riley, "The Name of Old Glory."
To Henry Holcomb Bennett for his poem entitled, "The Flag Goes By."
To Christopher Sower Company, Philadelphia, for the poem by Edward Brooks, entitled "Be a Woman."
The selections from the poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Bayard Taylor are used by permission of and special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers of the works of those authors.
The thanks of the author are also extended to Nelson Warner, Katherine M. Cook, Mrs. L. R. Caldwell, Belvia Cuzzort, W. R. Hood, and Dr. Stephen B. Weeks of the Bureau of Education, for valuable assistance in the compilation of this work.
This dramatization of the Continental Congress portrays the spirit of the times during the period of the American Revolution. It deals principally with the debates for and against the Declaration of Independence; it is a summary of the grievances, struggles, sacrifices, and victories of the colonies from the enactment of the obnoxious Stamp Act by the British Parliament to the resignation of George Washington as commander-in-chief of the American army.
In the construction of a drama covering such a heroic period and relating to events so momentous, all of which must pass in review before us within an hour and a half's time, it is necessary to exercise a certain dramatic license. The historical literalist, like the scriptural literalist, makes the letter kill the spirit of the truth. After all, it is not the dry facts, dates, and mechanics of history that are of greatest importance; it is the fundamental principles, causes, and effects underlying the events as well as the spirit of the times, that are of first consideration.