M HESE Lectures are published in obedience to the call
1 of the audiences that listened to them in Berlin, Dresden, Florence, Paris, and London. Those audiences comprised many persons of the highest condition and culture in Germany, Italy, France, and England, — statesmen, jurists, diplomatists, professors, authors, divines, -as well as the chief representatives of American society in the great capitals of Europe. An auditory so diversified and so distinguished must have satisfied the ambition of any lecturer: but I am more proud to recognize their attendance as a compliment to my country; and most heartily do I thank my honored hearers for their earnest interest in the unfolding of American national life, and for their flattering request that the facts presented from the platform might again be laid before them in the more leisurely form of the printed page.
When I announced a course of lectures on the “ Origin and Development of the United States as a Nation,” to be given in the hearing of Europeans, some of my countrymen were of opinion, that, in the painful aspect of public affairs at home, it were better that Americans abroad should say or do nothing that should call attention to their country, already the subject of so much adverse criticism. There were those, even, who went so far as to say that they preferred not to be known as Americans, and would gladly exchange their nativity for that of an Englishman, a Frenchman, or a German. Though I respected the former feeling as much as I despised the latter, I could not entertain it under the peculiar conditions of the Centennial year. “ America is under a cloud,” said some to whom I was ready to listen with deference; " and the less that is said of her, the better. Till these disgraceful exposures are forgotten, we must hide our heads in silence, and trust to vindicate our country by deeds rather than by words."