12 Years a Slave book in html format

http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/northup.html

provided by UNC Chapel Hill via the "Documenting the American South" project.



Here's the quote in the preface of the book:

"Such dupes are men to custom, and so prone
To reverence what is ancient, and can plead
A course of long observance for its use,
That even servitude, the worst of ills,
Because delivered down from sire to son,
Is kept and guarded as a sacred thing.
But is it fit or can it bear the shock
Of rational discussion, that a man
Compounded and made up, like other men,
Of elements tumultuous, in whom lust
And folly in as ample measure meet,
As in the bosom of the slave he rules,
Should be a despot absolute, and boast
Himself the only freeman of his land?" ~Cowper.