Contains representative speeches by Socrates, Caesar, Cato, St. Augustine, John Knox, Calvin (Volume 1) -- John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, George Wahington (Volume 2) -- Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Napoleon, Tecumseh (Volume 4) -- Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun (Volume 5) -- Horace Mann, John Brown (Volume 6) -- Victor Hugo, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jefferson Davis, Oliver Wendell Holmes (Volume 7) -- Abraham Lincoln, Cassius Marcellus Clay (Volume 8) -- Frederick Douglass, John Jay, Josiah Gilbert Holland (Volume 9) -- William Tecumseh Sherman, Ulysses Simpson Grant (Volume 10) -- Zebulon Baird Vance: The slavery question, George Graham Vest: On Indian schools (Volume 11) --Benjamin Harrison, Edward Blake, Samuel L. Clemens, "Mark Twain" (Volume 12) -- Grover Cleveland (Volume 13) Lord Randolph Churchill, Cecil Rhodes, Theodore Roosevelt, William Jennings Bryan (Volume 14). Also contains essays on notable figures, including Socrates, Julius Caesar, Martin Luther, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt (Volume 15).

Contains primary source material.