AVE, AND FOUR YEARS IN
THE WHITE HOUSE.

NEW YORK:
G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers.
M DCCC LXVIII.

* * * * *

PREFACE

I have often been asked to write my life, as those who know me know that
it has been an eventful one. At last I have acceded to the importunities
of my friends, and have hastily sketched some of the striking incidents
that go to make up my history. My life, so full of romance, may sound
like a dream to the matter-of-fact reader, nevertheless everything I
have written is strictly true; much has been omitted, but nothing has
been exaggerated. In writing as I have done, I am well aware that I have
invited criticism; but before the critic judges harshly, let my
explanation be carefully read and weighed. If I have portrayed the dark
side of slavery, I also have painted the bright side. The good that I
have said of human servitude should be thrown into the scales with the
evil that I have said of it. I have kind, true-hearted friends in the
South as well as in the North, and I would not wound those Southern
friends by sweeping condemnation, simply because I was once a slave.
They were not so much responsible for the curse under which I was born,
as the God of nature and the fathers who framed the Constitution for the
United States. The law descended to them, and it was but natural that
they should recognize it, since it manifestly was their interest to do
so. And yet a wrong was inflicted upon me; a cruel custom deprived me of
my liberty, and since I was robbed of my dearest right, I would not have
been human had I not rebelled against the robbery. God rules the
Universe. I was a feeble instrument in His hands, and through me and the
enslaved millions of my race, one of the problems was solved that
belongs to the great problem of human destiny; and the solution was
developed so gradually that there was no great convulsion of the
harmonies of natural laws. A solemn truth was thrown to the surface, and
what is better still, it was recognized as a truth by those who give
force to moral laws. An act may be wrong, but unless the ruling power
recognizes the wrong, it is useless to hope for a correction of it.
Principles may be right, but they are not established within an hour.
The masses are slow to reason, and each principle, to acquire moral
force, must come to us from the fire of the crucible; the fire may
inflict unjust punishment, but then it purifies and renders