The Editor is conscious that the following Narrative has only its truthfulness to recommend it to favorable consideration. It is nothing more than it purports to be, namely; a plain, unvarnished tale of real Slave-life, conveyed as nearly as possible in the language of the subject of it, and written under his dictation. It would have been easy to fill up the outline of the picture here and there, with dark shadows, and to impart a heightened dramatic colouring to some of the incidents; but he preferred allowing the narrator to speak for himself, and the various events recorded to tell their own tale. He believes few persons will peruse it unmoved; or arise from a perusal of it without feeling an increased abhorrence of the inhuman system under which, at this hour, in the United States of America alone, three millions and a half of men, women, and children, are held as "chattels personal," by thirty-seven thousand and fifty-five individuals, many of them professing Ministers of the Gospel, and defenders of "the peculiar institution." In undertaking to prepare this volume for the press, the Editor's object was two-fold, namely; to advance the anti-slavery cause by the diffusion of information; and to promote the success of the project John Brown has formed, to advance himself by his own exertions, and to set an example to others of his "race." If by the little the Editor has done to render the volume interesting, he should secure for it a fair meed of popular favor, these two objects will be certainly accomplished, and his labor will not have been expended in vain.
The Editor is conscious that the following Narrative has only its truthfulness to recommend it to favorable consideration. It is nothing more than it purports to be, namely; a plain, unvarnished tale of real Slave-life, conveyed as nearly as possible in the language of the subject of it, and written under his dictation. It would have been easy to fill up the outline of the picture here and there, with dark shadows, and to impart a heightened dramatic colouring to some of the incidents; but he preferred allowing the narrator to speak for himself, and the various events recorded to tell their own tale. He believes few persons will peruse it unmoved; or arise from a perusal of it without feeling an increased abhorrence of the inhuman system under which, at this hour, in the United States of America alone, three millions and a half of men, women, and children, are held as "chattels personal," by thirty-seven thousand and fifty-five individuals, many of them professing Ministers of the Gospel, and defenders of "the peculiar institution." In undertaking to prepare this volume for the press, the Editor's object was two-fold, namely; to advance the anti-slavery cause by the diffusion of information; and to promote the success of the project John Brown has formed, to advance himself by his own exertions, and to set an example to others of his "race." If by the little the Editor has done to render the volume interesting, he should secure for it a fair meed of popular favor, these two objects will be certainly accomplished, and his labor will not have been expended in vain.
