James Redpath...

“With the strong arm and giant grasp, 'tis wrong To crush the feeble, unresisting throng. Who pities not the fallen, let him fear, Lest, if he fall, no friendly hand be near: Who sows ill actions and of blessing dreams, Fosters vain phantasies and idly schemes. Unstop thy ears! thy people's wants relieve! If not, a day shall come when all their rights receive.” Sadi....

To you, Old Hero, I dedicate this record of my Talks with the Slaves in the Southern States. To you is due our homage for First showing how, and how alone, the gigantic crime of our age and nation can be effectually blotted out from our soil forever. You have proven that the slaver has a soul as cowardly as his own “Domestic institution ;” you have shown how contemptible he is as a foe before the rifle of the earnest freeman. With your sword of the Lord and of Gideon you met him face to face ; w

In order that no man, or body of men, may be injured or misrepresented by unfair presentations or perversions of my creed, or induced to peruse the pages that follow, under false impressions or pretences, I will here briefly state my political, or rather my revolutionary Faith: I am a Republican— and something more. I am inflexibly opposed to the extension of slavery; but equally do I oppose the doctrine of its protection in States where it already exists. Non-intervention and protection are pra

I have visited the Slave States several times-thrice on an anti-slavery errand. First, in 1854. I sailed to Richmond, Virginia, from New York city; travelled by railroad to Wilmington, North Carolina; and from that port by sea to the city of Charleston. I remained there Two weeks-during the session of the Southern Commercial Convention. I then sailed to Savannah, where I resided Three months, when I returned direct to New York city. My Second journey was performed in the autumn of the same year.

My opinion of the slaveholders, and my feelings toward them, were greatly modified during my residence in Savannah. I saw so much that was noble, generous and admirable in their characters; I saw so many demoralizing pro-slavery influences— various, attractive, resistless— brought to bear on their intellects from their cradle to their tomb, that from hating I began to pity them. It is not at all surprising that the people of the South are so indifferent to the rights of the African race. For, as

Before proceeding on my Third trip to the sea<*> board slave States, let me narrate One scene that I witnessed in the Far West: On the 18th of October, 1855, I was at Parkville, Missouri. It is One of the little towns on the Missouri River, and acquired some celebrity during the troubles in Kansas. It is built on rugged and very hilly ground, as almost all the towns on this unstable river are. It was founded by Colonel Park, a citizen of Illinois, Twenty years, or more, before my visit to

I did not originally visit the Slave States for the purpose of writing a book. Hence the preceding notes of travel are much less minute than they would otherwise have been made. I shall make yet another journey South— Down the Mississippi; which (if the sale of this volume shall warrant it) I shall narrate at much greater length, and make more comprehensive and various— relating as well the effects of slavery on agriculture, trade and education, as on the morals of the subjugated people, and the

I was One day in an office where I occasionally called. A colored woman entered the room, inquired for me, and presented a note of introduction from an eminent reformer. She told me her sad story. She had been a slave, but had been liberated. She had a son in slavery. Having tasted the bitter draught of bondage, she was working, night and day, to save her son from the curse. He was in Parkville, Missouri. His master or masters had offered to sell him for Eleven hundred dollars. She had nearly ra