Many of these Recollections were published at intervals, during the years 1867 and 1868, in The Christian Register. They were written at the special request of the editor of that paper; and without the slightest expectation that they would ever be put to any further use. But so many persons have requested me to republish them in a volume, that I have gathered them here, together with several more recollections of events and transactions, illustrative of the temper of the times as late as the winter of 1861, when our guilty nation was left “to be saved so as by the fire” of civil war.

My readers must not expect to find in this book anything like a complete history of the times to which it relates. The articles of which it is composed are fragmentary and sketchy. I expect and hope they will not satisfy. If they whet the appetites of those who read them for a more thorough history of the conflict with slavery in our country and in Great Britain, they will have accomplished their purpose. That in the two freest, most enlightened, most Christian nations on earth there should have been, during more than half of the nineteenth century, so stout a defence of “the worst system of iniquity the world has ever known,” is a marvel that cannot be fully studied and explained, without discovering that the mightiest nation, as well as the humblest individual, may not with impunity consent to any sin, nor persist in unrighteousness without ruin. I am happy to announce that in due time a somewhat elaborate history of the rise and fall of the slave power in America may be expected from the Hon. Henry Wilson. He is competent to the undertaking. He is cautious and candid as well as brave and explicit. He was an Abolitionist before he became a politician. He has never ignored the rights of humanity, for the sake of partisan success or personal aggrandizement. Mr. Wilson, I believe, did as much as any one of our prominent statesmen to procure the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and to effect its subversion throughout the country.

My brief sketches have been taken, I presume, from a point of sight different somewhat from his. Many of my readers may wish that I had not reported so many of the evil words and deeds of ministers and churches. I have done so with regret and mortification. But it has seemed to me that the most important lesson taught in the history of the last forty years—the influence of slavery upon the religion of our country—ought least of all to be withheld from the generations that are coming on to fill our places in the Church and in the State.

My book, I fear, will be displeasing to many because they will not find in it much that they expect. I can only beg such to bear in mind what I have proposed to give my readers,—not a history of the antislavery conflict, only some of my recollections of the events and actors in it. I have merely mentioned the names of our indefatigable and able fellow-laborers, Henry C. Wright, Stephen S. Foster, and Parker Pillsbury. A due account of their valuable services in this country and Great Britain would fill a volume as large as this. But, for the most part, these became known to me through The Liberator and Antislavery Standard. My sphere of operation and observation was confined almost entirely to Massachusetts and Connecticut, until I removed to Central New York in 1845. My travels as an antislavery agent and lecturer were restricted to New England, and to the years from 1832 to 1836, before many who have since become distinguished had given themselves to the work. The field has been coextensive with our vast country. It cannot be supposed that I have personally known a tenth part of the individuals who have done good services, much less that I have been a witness of their words and deeds. Often have I been encouraged and delighted by unexpected tidings of noble words uttered and brave deeds done, in one part and another of the land, by individuals whom I never saw before nor since. Almost everywhere there was some one who promptly responded to the demand for the liberation of the enslaved, and dared to advocate their right to freedom. Could a perfect history be written of the antislavery labors of the last forty years, hundreds would be named as having rendered valuable services, of whom I have never heard; whose good word or work perhaps was not known beyond the immediate circle that was affected by it. But the memory thereof will not be lost. Every righteous act, every heroic, generous, true utterance in the cause of the outraged, crushed, despised bondmen, will be had in everlasting remembrance, and He who seeth in secret will hereafter, if not here, openly reward the faithful.

S.J.M.