Covey, and to wrench himself from the embrace of the
Garrisonians, and which has borne him through many resistances to
the personal indignities offered him as a colored man, sometimes
becomes a hyper-sensitiveness to such assaults as men of his mark
will meet with, on paper. Keen and unscrupulous opponents have
sought, and not unsuccessfully, to pierce him in this direction;
for well they know, that if assailed, he will smite back.
It is not without a feeling of pride, dear reader, that I present
you with this book. The son of a self-emancipated bond-woman, I
feel joy in introducing to you my brother, who has rent his own
bonds, and who, in his every relation--as a public man, as a
husband and as a father--is such as does honor to the land which
gave him birth. I shall place this book in the hands of the only
child spared me, bidding him to strive and emulate its noble
example. You may do likewise. It is an American book, for
Americans, in the fullest sense of the idea. It shows that the
worst of our institutions, in its worst aspect, cannot keep down
energy, truthfulness, and earnest struggle for the right.
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