T!IEWS "BLIC LIB.7

3097

VOX AV

SDATIONS 17 L

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixiy-four,

By S. D. CARPENTER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the

United States, for the State of Wisconsin.

A PREPACE to a book is often synonymous such as to be as personally offensive as possible to with excuses, and I will render mine as briefly all conservatives, by the use approbious epias possible. I have compiled this work, not thets, such as "Traitor'—"Copperhead," &c. with a view to win literary fame, though per- With this work in his possession, no Democrat haps few, who have acquired the knowledge by need fear these epithets, for if he will compel experience, will deny me at least a modest his assailant to endure the infliction to read or claim to considerable research and laborious listen to a few choice paragraphs herein, the application; for, in truth I could have pro- insult will hardly be repeated; for, the followduced a volume of more than double the pro- ing pages constitute a bomb-proof battery-an portions of this, with less labor and pains- "iron clad” torpedo--that will be dangerous to taking, had I reduced it to a commentary on trifle with. the subjects which it embraces. But, for the For fifteen years I have been selecting and purposes intended, it was necessary to present preserving in scrap book form, the within evithe language employed by those who are here- dences of republican guilt, until I had creatin represented. This I have done as tersely as ed quite a “library" of scrap books. I was possible, without perverting the sentiments aware years ago that these scraps would one uttered. The task has been an herculean one. day become valuable. I was offered, during The difficulty has not been what to insert, but the political canvass of 1863, a large sum for what to leave out, lest I should compile a vol- my first volume of Scraps, and it occurred to ume of too poi erous proportions, for it would me that if one of my many volumes was prized have been much easier to have compiled 2,000 so highly, there were few that would not espages, without diminishing the interest. My teem it a privilege to pay $1.50 for the cream whole aim has been to present to the conserva- of them all. tives of the country a useful and convenient All the libraries in the " Union as it was,' digest of the sayings and doings of the North- might be searched in vain for the contents of ern Disunionists for the last sixty-five years, this book. The same might be found mostly together with a synopsis of the slavery agita- in the newspaper files of the last seventy years, tion and results of emancipation, from the hal. but it would require a practiced antiquarian cyon days of Rome down to the present time– years of research to hunt up and codify these embracing a statistical, didactic and editorial extracts from original sources, at an expense compendium of that restless spirit of meddling wholly inadequate to any probable remuneraagitation that has ruined the fairest govern- tion. Possessing these extraordinary faciliments on earth. I have presented the evidence ties, I have compiled this work both from the of Northern disunion and treason, in a conve- dictates of duty and hope of reward. I do not nient and tangible form, that the same may be warrant it free from errors; for, in addition to demonstrated to the people who now suffer in my other duties of publishing a Daily and consequence of these causes:

Weekly Newspaper, &c., I have without assis1st. By Editors through the press. 20. By public speakers from the rostrum.

tance, copied, codified and arranged the 31. By citizens, among

the masses in the school house work each evening, as needed for the printers and other gatherings, and in private discussions. The conduct of this war, from the highest the next day, nor have I been able to re-examofficial to the lowest parasite of power, has been line a single sheet of "copy," previous to its

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