Author George W. Julian (1817-1899) began practicing law in 1840 in Greenfield, IN. He was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1845, and to the U.S. House in 1848. He was one of the founders of the Free Soil Party and a leading opponent of slavery.

The author wrote in the Preface that this volume is “…devoted mainly to facts and incidents connected with the development of anti-slavery politics from the year 1840 to the close of the work of Reconstruction which followed the late civil war.” “…I have deemed it proper to state my own attitude and course of action respecting various public questions, and to refer more particularly to the political strifes of my own State.”