and associations in public life, gave us opportunities which we did
not lose, and have not lost sight of; and if we dipped deeper into the
vicissitudes of life and law than they gave us credit for at the time,
we trust they will pardon us, on the ground of interest in the welfare
of the South.

Perhaps we should say, to support the true interests of the South, we
should and must abandon many of those errors we so strenuously supported
in years past; and thus we have taken up the subject of our book, based
upon the practical workings of an infamous law, which we witnessed upon
the individual whose name forms a part of the title.

Imprisoning a shipwrecked sailor, and making it a penal offence for
a freeman to come within the limits of a republican State, whether
voluntarily or involuntarily, seems to be considered commonplace,
instead of barbarous in South Carolina. This may be accounted for by the
fact that the power of a minority, created in wrong, requiring barbarous
expedients to preserve itself intact, becomes an habitual sentiment,
which usage makes right.

This subject has been treated with indifference, even by the press,
which has satisfied itself in discussing the abstract right as a
question of law, rather than by disclosing the sufferings of those who
endure the wrong and injustice. When we are called upon to support, and
are made to suffer the penalty of laws founded in domestic fear, and
made subservient to various grades of injustice, it becomes our duty
to localize the wrong, and to point out the odium which attaches to the
State that enacts such laws of oppression.

A "peculiar-institution" absorbs and takes precedence of every thing;
its protection has become a sacred element of legislative and private
action; and fair discussion is looked upon as ominous, and proclaimed
as incendiary. But we speak for those who owe no allegiance to
that delicate institution; citizens to all intents and, purposes
(notwithstanding their dark skins) of the countries to which they
severally belong; peaceable persons, pursuing their avocations, to
provide a respectable maintenance for their families, and worthy of the
same protective rights claimed by the more fortunate citizens of such
countries. In doing this we shall give a practical illustration of the
imprisonment of four individuals in South Carolina, and ask those who
speculate in the abstract science of State sovereignty, to reflect upon
the issue of that lame