office, choosing rather to be robed in the well woven garment of principle, than to possess and wear the insignia and tinsel baubles of office.
The work is an humble contribution to the political Anti-slavery literature of the country. The cause of freedom, in its active antagonism, with the system of slavery, has been prolific in this age, in the creation of a multitude of works, gay and grave, in which slavery has been exposed and freedom vindicated. The forum of the State, the Altars of religion, the Sanctum of the everteeming press, the genius of the Poet, and the fertile fancy of the Romancer, have produced their varied literary contributions to the great Anti-slavery cause of the country and the world. In these departments of intellectual effort, freedom, and the forming National literature of the country, have been richly augmented. This work, while claiming no pretension to an elevated literary standard, yet, in the manly thoughts, uttered through its pages by him, whose life it records, will be, we trust, no mean offering to the Anti-slavery literature of the country.
The work is also a correct historical exhibition of the progress and results of the important political contest, between freedom and slavery, during the age of our Republic, but especially during the last twenty-five years. Sentiments and acts, the indices of public opinion, are given, to enable the reader to have an intelligent and accurate view of the question, that now absorbs and agitates the nation; care has been taken to give historical facts as they are found in the public records and papers of the times in which they transpired, yet some errors may possibly be found. It was the feeling and purpose of the editor, "nothing to extenuate or set down aught in malice." He has been only a gleaner in the wide field of facts, that belong to the historic times, in which they were evolved, and has clothed them in the unvarnished language of truth. Greater amplification of the materials at hand might have been made.
The work, it is hoped, will not prove an unacceptable offering to the people of the great State of Ohio, whose early history and legislation are briefly sketched, and whose public servant, its subject was, longer, perhaps, than any other of the many distinguished men who were his compeers, in forming the character of the State, and giving to her, her present elevation of political power, wealth, and material prosperity. The work, National in its sentiments, is yet eminently a State work. The Subject, the Editor, the Publishing House, and the Events recorded in the work, all belong, mainly to the history and times of Ohio, and as such, are presented to the people of the Empire State of the West, and the country, to undergo their impartial scrutiny and judgment. To their judgment the work is now committed.