when I
entered it.

The reader, perhaps, will inquire what good was gained by all these
sufferings of myself and my family--what satisfaction I can have, as it
did not succeed, in looking back to an enterprise attended with so much
risk, and which involved me in so long and tedious an imprisonment?

The satisfaction that I have is this: What I did, and what I attempted
to do, was my protest,--a protest which resounded from one end of the
Union to the other, and which, I hope, by the dissemination of this, my
narrative, to renew and repeat it,--it was my protest against the
infamous and atrocious doctrine that there can be any such thing as
property in man! We can only do according to our power, and the
capacity, gifts and talents, that we have. Others, more fortunate than
I, may record their protest against this wicked doctrine more safely and
comfortably for themselves than I did. They may embody it in burning
words and eloquent speeches; they may write it out in books; they may
preach it in sermons. I could not do that. I have as many thoughts as
another, but, for want of education, I lack the power to express them in
speech or writing. I have not been able to put even this short
narrative on paper without obtaining the assistance of a friend. I could
not talk, I could not write; but I could act. The humblest, the most
uneducated man can do that. I did act; and, by my actions, I protested
that I did not believe that there was, or could be, any such thing as a
right of property in human beings.

Nobody in this country will admit, for a moment, that there can be any
such thing as property in a white man. The institution of slavery could
not last for a day, if the slaves were all white. But I do not see that
because their complexions are different they are any the less men on
that account. The doctrine I hold to, and which I desired to preach in a
practical way, is the doctrine of Jefferson and Madison, that there
cannot be property in man,--no, not even in black men. And the rage
exerted against me on the part of the slave-holders grew entirely out of
my preaching that doctrine. Actions, as everybody knows, speak louder
than words. By virtue of my actions proclaiming my opinion on that
subject, I became at once, powerless as I otherwise was, elevated, in
the minds of the slave-holders, to the same high level with Mr. Giddings
and Mr. Hale, who they could not help believing must have been my secret
confederates.

If