t possess the charm of transcendent excellence, or apologize
for something worse than rashness. The reader is, therefore, assured,
with all due promptitude, that his attention is not invited to a work of
ART, but to a work of FACTS--Facts, terrible and almost incredible, it
may be yet FACTS, nevertheless.

I am authorized to say that there is not a fictitious name nor place
in the whole volume; but that names and places are literally given, and
that every transaction therein described actually transpired.

Perhaps the best Preface to this volume is furnished in the following
letter of Mr. Douglass, written in answer to my urgent solicitation for
such a work:

ROCHESTER, N. Y. _July_ 2, 1855.

DEAR FRIEND: I have long entertained, as you very well know, a somewhat
positive repugnance to writing or speaking anything for the public,
which could, with any degree of plausibilty, make me liable to the
imputation of seeking personal notoriety, for its own sake. Entertaining
that feeling very sincerely, and permitting its control, perhaps, quite
unreasonably, I have often{2} refused to narrate my personal experience
in public anti-slavery meetings, and in sympathizing circles, when urged
to do so by friends, with whose views and wishes, ordinarily, it were a
pleasure to comply. In my letters and speeches, I have generally
aimed to discuss the question of Slavery in the light of fundamental
principles, and upon facts, notorious and open to all; making, I trust,
no more of the fact of my own former enslavement, than circumstances
seemed absolutely to require. I have never placed my opposition to
slavery on a basis so narrow as my own enslavement, but rather upon the
indestructible and unchangeable laws of human nature, every one of which
is perpetually and flagrantly violated by the slave system. I have also
felt that it was best for those having histories worth the writing--or
supposed to be so--to commit such work to hands other than their own. To
write of one's self, in such a manner as not to incur the imputation of
weakness, vanity, and egotism, is a work within the ability of but few;
and I have little reason to believe that I belong to that fortunate few.

These considerations caused me to hesitate, when first you kindly urged
me to prepare for publication a full account of my life as a slave, and
my life as a freeman.

Nevertheless, I see, with you, many reasons for regarding my
autob