and twenty-nine
chapters. Few memories can cover this eventful period of American
history. Commencing its career with the Republic, slavery grew with
its growth and strengthened with its strength. The dark spectre kept
pace and company with liberty until separated by the sword. Beginning
with the struggle for restriction or extension of slavery, I have
striven to record, in the spirit of honest and impartial historical
inquiry, all the events of this period belonging properly to my
subject. The development and decay of anti-slavery sentiment at the
South; the pious efforts of the good Quakers to ameliorate the
condition of the slaves; the service of Negroes as soldiers and
sailors; the anti-slavery agitation movement; the insurrections of
slaves; the national legislation on the slavery question; the John
Brown movement; the war for the Union; the valorous conduct of Negro
soldiers; the emancipation proclamations; the reconstruction of the
late Confederate States; the errors of reconstruction; the results of
emancipation; vital, prison, labor, educational, financial, and social
statistics; the exodus--cause and effect; and a sober prophecy of the
future,--are all faithfully recorded.

After seven years I am loath to part with the saddest task ever
committed to human hands! I have tracked my bleeding countrymen
through the widely scattered documents of American history; I have
listened to their groans, their clanking chains, and melting prayers,
until the woes of a race and the agonies of centuries seem to crowd
upon my soul as a bitter reality. Many pages of this history have been
blistered with my tears; and, although having lived but a little more
than a generation, my mind feels as if it were cycles old.

The long spectral hand on the clock of American history points to the
completion of the second decade since the American slave became an
American citizen. How wondrous have been his strides, how marvellous
his achievements! Twenty years ago we were in the midst of a great
war for the extinction of slavery; in this anniversary week I complete
my task, record the results of that struggle. I modestly strive to
lift the Negro race to its pedestal in American history. I raise this
post to indicate the progress of humanity; to instruct the present, to
inform the future. I commit this work to the considerate judgment of
my fellow-citizens of every race, "with malice toward none, and
charity for all."