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Every chronicle of manners has a certain value.
When customs are connected with principles, in their
origin, development, or end, such records have a
double importance; and it is because we think we
see such a connection between the facts and incidents
of the Littlepage Manuscripts, and certain
important theories of our own time, that we give the
former to the world.

It is perhaps a fault of your professed historian, to
refer too much to philosophical agencies, and too little
to those that are humbler. The foundations of
great events, are often remotely laid in very capricious
and uncalculated passions, motives, or impulses.
Chance has usually as much to do with the
fortunes of states, as with those of individuals; or,
if there be calculations connected with them at all,
they are the calculations of a power superior to any
that exists in man.

We had been led to lay these Manuscripts before
the world, partly by considerations of the above nature,
and partly on account of the manner in which
the two works we have named, “Satanstoe” and the
“Chainbearer,” relate directly to the great New
York question of the day, ANTI-RENTISM; which question
will be found to be pretty fully laid bare, in the
third and last book of the series. These three works,

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which contain all the Littlepage Manuscripts, do not
form sequels to each other, in the sense of personal
histories, or as narratives; while they do in that of
principles. The reader will see that the early career,
the attachment, the marriage, &c. of Mr. Cornelius
Littlepage are completely related in the present book,
for instance; while those of his son, Mr. Mordaunt
Littlepage, will be just as fully given in the “Chainbearer,”
its successor. It is hoped that the connection,
which certainly does exist between these three
works, will have more tendency to increase the value
of each, than to produce the ordinary effect of what
are properly called sequels, which are known to
lessen the interest a narrative might otherwise have
with the reader. Each of these three books has its
own hero, its own heroine, and its own picture of
manners, complete; though the latter may be, and
is, more or less thrown into relief by its pendants.

We conceive no apology is necessary for treating
the subject of anti-rentism with the utmost frankness.
Agreeably to our views of the matter, the existence
of true liberty among us, the perpetuity of
the institutions, and the safety of public morals, are
all dependent on putting down, wholly, absolutely,
and unqualifiedly, the false and dishonest theories
and statements that have been boldly advanced in
connection with this subject. In our view, New
York is, at this moment, much the most disgraced
state in the Union, notwithstanding she has never
failed to pay the interest on her public debt; and her
disgrace arises from the fact that her laws are trampled
under foot, without any efforts, at all commensurate
with the object, being made to enforce them.

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If words and professions can save the character of a
community, all may yet be well; but if states, like
individuals, are to be judged by their actions, and
the “tree is to be known by its fruit,” God help us!

For ourselves, we conceive that true patriotism
consists in laying bare everything like public vice,
and in calling such things by their right names.
The great enemy of the race has made a deep inroad
upon us, within the last ten or a dozen years, under
cover of a spurious delicacy on the subject of exposing
national ills; and it is time that they who
have not been afraid to praise, when praise was merited,
should not shrink from the office of censuring,
when the want of timely warnings may be one cause
of the most fatal evils. The great practical defect
of institutions like ours, is the circumstance that
“what is everybody's business, is nobody's business;”
a neglect that gives to the activity of the rogue a
very dangerous ascendency over the more dilatory
correctives of the honest man.

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