viii
PREFACE.
to accomplish that good which you so enthusiastically anticipate.
Frederick Douglass.
There was little necessity for doubt and hesitation
on the part of Mr. Douglass, as to the propriety of his
giving to the world a full account of himself. A man
who was born and brought up in slavery, a living
witness of its horrors; who often himself experienced
its cruelties; and who, despite the depressing influences surrounding his birth, youth and manhood, has
risen, from a dark and almost absolute obscurity, to
the distinguished position which he now occupies,
might very well assume the existence of a commendable curiosity, on the part of the public, to know the
facts of his remarkable history.
Editor.