PREFACE. 



IF the close of an internal war forms the most critical moment in the career 

 of a nation, especially when that war has involved the nature and existence of 

 the institutions of a country, then there can be no period so important to the 

 people of the United States as that of the years which intervene until a final 

 settlement of all difficulties with the . Southern States. This period is the more 

 highly important here, as it includes circumstances without a parallel in the 

 previous history of mankind. The sudden emancipation of four millions of 

 slaves of another race of men, their immediate investment with civil ri- 

 their rapid elevation to the dignity and power of coequals in the Government 

 with their former masters, is a problem full of intense interest in every step of 

 its solution. In this view the present volume of the ANNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA con- 

 tains all the measures proposed or adopted in Congress for the reconstruction of 

 the Union ; the reports and debates on those measures ; the views of the Ex- 

 ecutive department of the Government ; the conflict of opinion between the 

 President and Congress, and the respective measures adopted by each ; the 

 change in the condition of the people of the Southern States, arising from their 

 new civil and political relations, together with all those events which illustrate 

 the history of this national crisis. 



Scarcely less important were the events in Europe, which have so changed 

 the political aspect of the western portion of that continent, and forebode mo- 

 mentous results in the future. The difficulties between Austria, Italy, and 

 Prussia, are explained in these pages, with the details of their negotiations, and 

 the military operations in that short and decisive war, accompanied by topo- 

 graphical and military maps and illustrations. The destruction of the old Ger- 

 man Union by the secession of Prussia, and other States, and the formation of a 

 northern confederation under her control and consolidation, resulting in placing 

 her among the great powers of Europe, are fully narrated. 



