that highly favored institution, which is sought to be preserved and
perpetuated. "Facts are stubborn things,"--and this is the reason why
all systems, religious, moral, or social, which are founded in injustice,
and supported by fraud and robbery, suffer so much by faithful exposition.

The author has endeavored to present a true statement of the practical
workings of the system of Slavery, as he has seen and _felt it himself._
He has intended "nothing to extenuate, nor aught set down in malice;"
indeed, so far from believing that he has misrepresented Slavery as an
institution, he does not feel that he has the power to give anything like
a true picture of it in all its deformity and wickedness; especially
_that_ Slavery which is an institution among an enlightened and Christian
people, who profess to believe that all men are born _free_ and _equal_,
and who have certain inalienable _rights_, among which are _life,
liberty_, and the pursuit of happiness.

The author claims that he has endeavored since he had his freedom, as much
as in him lay, to benefit his suffering fellows in bondage; and that he
has spent most of his free life in efforts to elevate them in manners and
morals, though against all the opposing forces of prejudice and pride,
which of course, has made much of his labor vain. In his old age he sends
out this history--presenting as it were his _own body_, with the marks and
scars of the tender mercies of slave drivers upon it, and asking that
these may plead in the name of Justice, Humanity, and Mercy, that those
who have the power, may have the magnanimity to strike off the chains from
the enslaved, and bid him stand up, a Freeman and a Brother!