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Show vi PREFATORY. as good as she, seeing they have had the grace to preserve their consistency. In the course of the following Notes I have had frequent occasion to refer, in no very flattering terms, to a class of Abolition leaders. In this class arc 110t included such men as Charles Sumner and Salmon P. Chase, each of whom, in spite of his position on this subject, is CYCrY, inch a gentleman. In ftlis class are included such epicene c:haractcrs as Garrison, Abby Folsom, Theodore Parker, Lucy Stone, Henry C. 'Vright, Abby Kelly Foster, n.nd, last, not least, Horace l\Iann, Vir gregis, who, "like tho bulls of Borrowdalc, run mad with their own bellowing." 'rhey may be "very estimable characters in priva.tc life," for aught I know; some of them, I am told, are: but it is as public characters that I have to do with them, and, as such, feeling no respect for thctn, I have ac9ordingly expressed none. In conclusion, as I have had to follow the obliquities and sinuosities of the original work, treading in the footsteps and on the heels of ''my illustrious predecessor," and have, therefore, been unable to make my work a systematic one, I have to request the reader, after going through the Introduction, to turn to pages 110, 111, 122- 125, and 139, and read them carefully before commencing the work in course: he will then understand the ground I occupy, and will come, I think, to the conclusion, before he g<'ts through, that it is the only tenable one. PRELU1IN ARY. A KENTUCKIAN, dining at the Astor llouse in New York, took up the "Bill of Fare," and began devouring its contents, but falling foul of such jaw-breakers as "Huitres au gratin," "Pfit~ defoie gras," "]>ieds de coclton de lait," &c., &c., he at last gave up in despair, and called out, "Here! waiter! give me some bacon and greens! I'll go back to first principles." If tho author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had followed tho Kentuckian's example, a.nd, when she found herself getting beyond hor depth, gone back to fi1·st principles, she would have saved herself tho trouble of writing the book, and mo that of refuting it. To be sure, she might ha\'C 'been some twenty, or thirty, or perhaps fifty thousand dollars poorer for it, but hor loss would have been the country's gain. I do not moan merely that the purchasers of tho book would have saved their half-dollar, or dollar, or dollar·and-a-half, as the case might be; this would have been a small consideration : they would have saved much more than this; they would have saved themselves so la.vish an expenditure of "righteous indignation," and the country a great deal of useless, nay, mischievous excitement. 'l1he object of the following "Notes," is to answer a question that has b~en put to me ad nauseam. Durrng my last summer's annual trip to the North, wherever I went, tho first question was, How do you do? and the second, ( 7) |