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Show 4 Dedication. I admit these facts. But there are thou an<ls in my country who have not yet bowed the knee to the Southern Baal. Preeminent among them was an heroic old man, who dared to defy the Slave Power in its oldest stronghold. lie died for your race; he died for his country. lie !aiel down his life to cover the foul stain on our national escutcheon, by endeavoring to liberate the bondmen of the Southern States. This event-the most glorious in the annals of the U nitcu States- has elicited frotn every free man an expression of his opinion on American Slavery. Ilcre, in this volume, arc some of these utterances. Read them, President; they arc worthy of your perusal. They 1nark the commencement of a new and more radically earnest crusade against the crime of the South, and the curse and disgrace of the Union. I think you will say, after reading them, in the words of a worthy Judge of Gonaives, to a native who denounced a foreign resident: "Stop! stop! my friend; although one may be a white, it docs not necessa'rily follow that he is a dog." With the sincerest wishes for the prosperity of your Government, and the advancement of your nation, materially, morally, and in political power, I have the honor to remain, your friend and fellow-laborer in the cause of Freedom, MALDEN, Massachusetts, April, 14, 1860. PREFACE. I II.AD two objects in view in editing thiijYolum c- fir~t, to preserve, in a 1) ·rmnncnt form, the memorable wonlH that have been spoken of Captnin .T olm Brown; aud, second, to aid the f:unilics of the blacks nnd the n10n of color, who recently wont to Jicavcn via liarpcr's Ferry, or who were murdered, with legal forms, at Charlestown, Virginia. The papers of which it cousi ts have been revised by their authors, at my roque t; or they arc printed, with their consent, from properly corrected editions. My desire to preserve the. e papers, arises not so 1nnch from friendship for the memory of the Cnptain, or a personal sympathy for the surviving relatives of his brave colored followers, as frorn the hope that I may thereby f:tn the holy flame that their action kindled, until, bccomiJJg a consuming fil'e, it shnll burn up, with tl1oroughncss and speed, every vestige of the crime of Atncrican Slavery. For I do most sincerely believe, notwitht;tanding the craven speeches of timc.·crving politicians, and the o·oodGod- good-dcvil exhortations of pusillanimous preachers, that the quickest way, nncl the 1110 t American ·way, and the only efficient way, in wl1ich to hasten on the Impending Crisis,-to bring to a speedy i~suc the approaching :lu<.t Irresistible Conflict between Sl::tve1·y and FrC'cdom,- 1 ~ (5) |
