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Title: Frederick Douglass
Author: Washington, Booker T.
Language: English
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AMERICAN CRISIS BIOGRAPHIES
Edited by
Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, Ph. D.
“=”The American Crisis Biographies“=”
Edited by Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, Ph.D. With the counsel and advice of
Professor John B. McMaster, of the University of Pennsylvania.
Each 12mo, cloth, with frontispiece portrait. Price $1.25 net; by mail,
$1.37.
These biographies will constitute a complete and comprehensive history
of the great American sectional struggle in the form of readable and
authoritative biography. The editor has enlisted the co-operation of
many competent writers, as will be noted from the list given below. An
interesting feature of the undertaking is that the series is to be
impartial, Southern writers having been assigned to Southern subjects
and Northern writers to Northern subjects, but all will belong to the
younger generation of writers, thus assuring freedom from any
suspicion of wartime prejudice. The Civil War will not be treated as a
rebellion, but as the great event in the history of our nation, which,
after forty years, it is now clearly recognized to have been.
Now ready:
=Abraham Lincoln.= By ELLIS PAXSON OBERHOLTZER.
=Thomas H. Benton.= By JOSEPH M. ROGERS.
=David G. Farragut.= By JOHN R. SPEARS.
=William T. Sherman.= By EDWARD ROBINS.
=Frederick Douglass.= By BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.
=Judah P. Benjamin.= By PIERCE BUTLER.
=Robert E. Lee.= By PHILIP ALEXANDER BRUCE.
=Jefferson Davis.= By PROF. W. E. DODD.
=Alexander H. Stephens.= By LOUIS PENDLETON.
=John C. Calhoun.= By GAILLARD HUNT.
In preparation:
=Daniel Webster.= By PROF. C. H. VAN TYNE.
=John Quincy Adams.= By BROOKS ADAMS.
=John Brown.= By W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS.
=William Lloyd Garrison.= By LINDSAY SWIFT.
=Charles Sumner.= By PROF. GEORGE H. HAYNES.
=William H. Seward.= By EDWARD EVERETT HALE, Jr.
=Stephen A. Douglas.= By PROF. HENRY PARKER WILLIS.
=Thaddeus Stevens.= By PROF. J. A. WOODBURN.
=Andrew Johnson.= By PROF. WALTER L. FLEMING.
=Henry Clay.= By THOMAS H. CLAY.
=Ulysses S. Grant.= By PROF. FRANKLIN S. EDMONDS.
=Edwin M. Stanton.= By EDWIN S. CORWIN.
=“Stonewall” Jackson.= By HENRY ALEXANDER WHITE.
=Jay Cooke.= By ELLIS PAXSON OBERHOLTZER.
[Illustration: Frederick Douglass]
AMERICAN CRISIS BIOGRAPHIES
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
by
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
Author of “Up from Slavery,” “Working with the Hands,” etc.
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1906, by
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
_Published, February, 1907_
PREFACE
The chance or destiny which brought to this land of ours, and placed in
the midst of the most progressive and the most enlightened race that
Christian civilization has produced, some three or four millions of
primitive black people from Africa and their descendants, has created
one of the most interesting and difficult social problems which any
modern people has had to face. The effort to solve this problem has put
to a crucial test the fundamental principles of our political life and
the most widely accepted tenets of our Christian faith. Frederick
Douglass’s career falls almost wholly within the first period of the
struggle in which this problem has involved the people of this
country,—the period of revolution and liberation. That period is now
closed. We are at present in the period of construction and
readjustment. Many of the animosities engendered by the conflicts and
controversies of half a century ago still survive to confuse the
councils of those who are seeking to live in the present and the future,
rather than in the past. But changes are rapidly coming about that will
remove, or at least greatly modify, these lingering animosities. This
book will have failed of its purpose just so far as anything here said
shall serve to revive or keep alive the bitterness of those
controversies of which it gives the history; it will have attained its
purpose just so far as it aids its readers to comprehend the motives of,
and the men who entered with such passionate earnestness into, the
struggle of which it gives in part a picture—particularly the one man,
the story of whose life is here narrated.
In the succeeding chapters, an effort has been made to present an
account of the life of Frederick Douglass as a slave and as a public man
during the most eventful years of the anti-slavery movement, the Civil
War, the period of reconstruction, and the after years of comparative
freedom from sectional agitation over the “Negro problem.”
To bring this study within the plan and purposes of the American Crisis
Series of Biographies, such subjects as “The Genesis of the Anti-Slavery
Agitation,” “The Fugitive Slave Law,” “The Underground Railway,” “The
American Colonization Society,” “The Conflict in Kansas for Free Soil,”
“The John Brown Raid,” “The Civil War,” “The Enlistment of Colored
Troops,” and “Reconstruction,” have been given more space than they have
received in earlier biographies.
While it is true that Frederick Douglass would have been a notable
character in any period, it is also true that in the life of hardly any
other man was there comprehended so great a variety of incidents of what
is perhaps the most memorable epoch in our history. The mere personal
side of Douglass’s life, though romantic and interesting, is here
treated only in outline.
S. Laing Williams, of Chicago, Ill., and his wife, Fannie Barrier
Williams, have been of incalculable service in the preparation of this
volume. Mr. Williams enjoyed a long and intimate acquaintance with Mr.
Douglass, and I have been privileged to draw heavily upon his fund of
information. He and Mrs. Williams have reviewed this manuscript since
its preparation and have given it their cordial approval.
In addition to these sources of information, I wish to make grateful
acknowledgment of my indebtedness to Major Charles R. Douglass for the
use of many printed addresses, and for interesting data showing his
father’s work in the Underground Railway.
I must also acknowledge my sense of gratitude for the opportunity
afforded in this work of getting close to the heart and life of this
great leader of my race. No Negro can read and study the life of
Frederick Douglass without deriving from it courage to look up and
forward.
CONTENTS
CHRONOLOGY 11
I. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, THE SLAVE 15
II. BACK TO PLANTATION-LIFE 33
III. ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY; LEARNING THE WAYS OF FREEDOM 54
IV. BEGINNING OF HIS PUBLIC CAREER 69
V. SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY 83
VI. SEEKS REFUGE IN ENGLAND 99
VII. HOME AGAIN AS A FREEMAN—NEW PROBLEMS AND NEW TRIUMPHS 116
VIII. FREE COLORED PEOPLE AND COLONIZATION 139
IX. THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 157
X. DOUGLASS, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE AND JOHN BROWN 174
XI. FOREBODINGS OF THE CRISIS 195
XII. DOUGLASS’S SERVICES IN THE CIVIL WAR 217
XIII. EARLY PROBLEMS OF FREEDOM 245
XIV. SHARING THE RESPONSIBILITIES AND HONORS OF FREEDOM 273
XV. FURTHER EVIDENCES OF POPULAR ESTEEM, WITH GLIMPSES INTO THE
PAST 302
XVI. FINAL HONORS TO THE LIVING AND TRIBUTES TO THE DEAD 334
BIBLIOGRAPHY 353
INDEX 355
CHRONOLOGY
1817— February. Born on a plantation at Tuckahoe, near the town of
Easton, Talbot County, on the eastern shore of Maryland; the
exact date not known. His mother, Harriet Bailey, was the slave
of Captain Aaron Anthony, the manager of the estate of Colonel
Edward Lloyd.
1825— Sent to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld, a relative of his
master.
1833— Returns to Maryland and becomes the slave of Thomas Auld, at St.
Michaels, Talbot County; while here he has an encounter with
the Negro slave-breaker, Covey.
1836— First attempt to run away results in his being sent back to
Baltimore where he is apprenticed by Thomas Auld to William
Gardiner of Fells Point, to learn the trade of ship-calker.
1838— September 3d. Makes his escape from Baltimore, reaching New York
the next day. September 15th, according to the marriage
certificate, possibly a day earlier, he marries a free colored
woman, Anna Murray, who on receiving the news of his escape
follows him to New York. They are directed to New Bedford,
Mass., by Anti-Slavery friends where Douglass begins his life
as a freeman. He changes his name from Frederick Augustus
Washington Bailey, to Frederick Douglass.
1841— August 11th. Makes his first speech before an Anti-Slavery
convention and becomes a lecturer in the Anti-Slavery cause.
1842— Participates in the campaign for equal rights in Rhode Island
during the “Dorr Rebellion.”
1843— Takes part in the campaign of “A Hundred Anti-Slavery
Conventions”; his hand broken in a fight with a mob at
Pendleton, Indiana.
1845— Writes, in order to prove that he is what he proclaims himself,
a fugitive slave, _Narrative of Frederick Douglass_, giving
the names of his owners. This book was published by the
Anti-Slavery Society. August 16th, sails for Liverpool,
England, lest the publication of his biography should lead to
his capture and reënslavement. He is received with enthusiasm
in England and his freedom is purchased by two members of the
Society of Friends.
1846— August 7th. Addresses the “World’s Temperance Convention” at
Covent Garden Theatre, London. December 5th, the papers are
signed which grant him his freedom.
1847— April 20th. Reaches America again. December 3d, the first issue
of the _North Star_, subsequently _Frederick Douglass’s Paper_,
is published, he having first removed to Rochester, N. Y.
Following its establishment came his rupture with Garrison and
the Abolitionist wing of the Anti-Slavery party.
1848— September. Delivers an address before a colored convention at
Cleveland, O., on farming and industrial education.
1851— Announces his sympathies with the voting Abolitionists.
1852— Supports the Free Soil party and is elected a delegate from
Rochester to the Free Soil Convention at Pittsburg, Pa.
1853— Visits Harriet Beecher Stowe at Andover, Mass., with reference to
the forming of an industrial school for colored youth.
1855— _My Bondage and My Freedom_ published in New York and Auburn.
1856— Supports Frémont, the candidate of the Republican party, for
President.
1858— _Douglass’s Monthly_ is established. Its publication is continued
until 1864.
1859— August 20th. Visits John Brown at Chambersburg, Pa. This was his
last interview with the old Anti-Slavery hero before the attack
on Harper’s Ferry, three weeks later. At this interview John
Brown made a final effort to induce him to join in the
dangerous enterprise.
1859— November 12th. Sails from Quebec on his second visit to England.
This trip is undertaken because he is in danger of being
implicated in the plot to cause an uprising of the slaves for
which John Brown had already been executed.
1860— Returns to the United States, called home by the death of his
daughter, Anna.
1860— December 3d. Attempts to speak in Tremont Temple, Boston, but the
meeting is broken up.
1863— Publishes in _Douglass’s Monthly_ his address to colored men
urging them to enlist in the Federal Army. He is instrumental
in forming the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts
Regiments of colored soldiers. Subsequently he visits President
Lincoln to secure fair treatment of the colored soldiers and is
promised, by Secretary Stanton, a commission as Assistant
Adjutant to General Thomas, which, however, he does not
receive.
1866— February 7th. Interviews President Johnson to urge upon him the
wisdom of granting the suffrage to the freedmen. Issues shortly
afterward an address in reply to President Johnson’s argument
against granting the suffrage to Negroes. In September, is
elected a delegate to the “National Loyalists’ Convention” in
Philadelphia.
1869— Becomes editor of the _New National Era_ which he continued to
edit until 1872, at a pecuniary loss of about $10,000.
1871— Visits San Domingo as Secretary to the Commission, consisting of
B. F. Wade, Dr. S. G. Howe and Andrew D. White, to determine
the attitude of that country toward annexation to the United
States. He is appointed a member of the upper house of the
territorial legislature of Washington, D. C., but shortly
resigns his position in favor of his son, Lewis. May 30th, he
delivers the Decoration Day address at Arlington National
Cemetery. Becomes president of the “Freedmen’s Savings and
Trust Company.”
1872— April. Presides at the National Convention of colored citizens
held in New Orleans. Chosen elector-at-large from the State of
New York on the Presidential ticket which elected General Grant
to a second term and is afterward designated to carry the vote
of the electoral college of New York to Washington.
1876— April 14th. Delivers an address at the unveiling of the Lincoln
Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C.
1877— Appointed Marshal of the District of Columbia, which office he
held until 1881.
1878— May. Visits St. Michaels and is reconciled to his old master,
Thomas Auld.
1879— September 12th. Reads a paper before the American Social Science
Association in which he opposes the Negro exodus to Kansas.
1881— May. Appointed Recorder of Deeds in the District of Columbia.
June 12th, visits the Lloyd plantation.
1882— January. _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_ published. August
4th, his first wife dies: she was the mother of five children.
1884— January 24th. Marries Miss Helen Pitts, of New York.
1889— Appointed Minister and Consul General to Hayti.
1893— Commissioner for the Haytian Republic at the World’s Fair at
Chicago. Makes an address on Negro Day at the Fair.
1895— February 20th. Dies at his home at Cedar Hill, Washington. Buried
with honors from the Metropolitan Church (African Methodist
Episcopal); public services being held subsequently in
Rochester. His body finally interred beside those of his wife
and daughter, in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, N. Y.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
CHAPTER I
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, THE SLAVE
The life of Frederick Douglass is the history of American slavery
epitomized in a single human experience. He saw it all, lived it all,
and overcame it all. What he saw and lived and suffered was not too much
to pay, however, for a great career. “It is something,” as he himself
said, “to couple one’s name with great occasions, and it was a great
thing to me to be permitted to bear some humble part in this, the
greatest that had come thus far to the American people.”
Tradition says he was of noble lineage, but of this there is no written
record. Frederick Douglass was born in the little town of Tuckahoe in
Talbot County on the eastern shore of Maryland, supposedly in the month
of February, 1817. The exact date of his birth was made the subject of
diligent search by him in the days of his manhood and freedom, but
nothing more definite than the month and year could be established. He
gleaned so much as this, he says, “from certain events, the date of
which I have since learned.”
In the early life of this child of slave birth, there were several
incidents that seemed to mark him for a high destiny. The very
pretentiousness of the name he bore, Frederick Augustus Washington
Bailey, was a possible indication of something unusual and promising in
his appearance and demeanor. Though it is not known who was his father,
it is fortunate that, out of the many uncertainties of his lowly origin,
a reasonably clear outline of the personality of his mother has come to
light and has been preserved. We cannot know her name or pedigree. The
slave-child saw little of his slave-mother, but he made a great deal of
this little. His references to her were frequent in his writings and
public addresses, and they all indicate the pride and love of a heart
true to its primal instincts.
While he was a child, his mother was employed on a plantation, a
distance of twelve miles from Tuckahoe. Her only opportunity of seeing
her son was by walking the distance after her day’s work, to return to
the field of her labors by dawn of the next day. To use his own
language: “These little glimpses of my mother obtained under such
circumstances and against such odds, meagre as they were, are indelibly
stamped upon my memory. She was tall and finely proportioned; of dark
and glossy complexion, with regular features; and among slaves she was
remarkably sedate and dignified. She was the only slave in Tuckahoe who
could read.” That she was a woman of marked superiority, and that her
child inherited from her much that raised him above the other slaves
among whom he lived, can be easily believed. When he had grown to
manhood and while reading Prichard’s _Natural History of Man_, he found
in the features of “King Rameses the Great” a strong resemblance to his
mother. There were four other children, one boy named Perry and three
girls. So far as is known, the brother and sisters showed none of the
marks of superiority that distinguished Frederick Augustus Washington
Bailey.
Whatever training Frederick had up to eight years of age, he received
from his Grandmother Bailey. It was in her cabin that he was born, and
it was by her that he was cared for and nourished. He was very fond of
this grandmother and has paid an affectionate tribute to her memory. She
was a woman of strong character and of unusual intelligence. There were
many things that she could do uncommonly well, such as gardening, and
her good luck in fishing was proverbial. She was also famed as a
fortune-teller and as such was sought far and wide by all classes of
people. Because of her intelligence and natural gifts, she was allowed
many privileges and a great deal of liberty; in her old age she was
amply provided for by her master, and saved from hard toil. Judging from
his frequent and fond references to his grandmother, young Douglass had
better care and more attention than the ordinary slave-child; he
probably had plenty to eat, and was taught good manners. Whatever it was
possible for an impressionable mind to gain from contact with a strong
and vigorous nature, the lad received from this unusual woman.
Until he was seven years of age, young Fred felt few of the privations
of slavery. In these childhood days, he probably was as happy and
carefree as the white children in the “big house.” At liberty to come
and go and play in the open sunshine, his early life was typical of the
happier side of Negro life in slavery. What he missed of a mother’s
affection and a father’s care, was partly made up to him by the
indulgent kindness of his good grandmother.
The owner of Fred and of his mother, grandmother, sisters, and brother,
was Captain Aaron Anthony. He was the proprietor of several plantations
and about thirty slaves near Tuckahoe. But Captain Anthony was something
more, and this fact became important in the subsequent history of young
Frederick Bailey; he had the distinction of being the manager of the
vast estate of Colonel Edward Lloyd, who belonged to one of the foremost
families of Maryland, and who owned between twenty and thirty
plantations with over one thousand slaves. His home was on a plantation
situated about thirty-five miles southeast of Baltimore and on the banks
of the Wye River, the mansion and its surroundings being typical of the
splendor and power of the wealthy slave-holder. When young Douglass
first gazed upon all these signs of wealth, he says: “I became impressed
with the baronial splendors of the Lloyd mansion and the princely mode
of living; the vast army of enslaved men, women, and children; the
completeness of the government that made it almost impossible for any of
these slaves to escape; the subordination of my own master; the great
number of mechanics that were skilled in all the trades, and the tutors
from New England that were hired to teach the Lloyd children.”
Near the mansion stood the plain but commodious home of Fred’s master,
Captain Anthony. The Anthony family consisted of Mrs. Lucretia Anthony,
the wife; Richard and Fred Anthony, sons; and an only daughter,
Lucretia, who became the wife of Captain Thomas Auld.
When Fred was between seven and eight years of age, his grandmother was
directed by her master to take her grandson to the Lloyd plantation.
After the boy arrived at his new home, he was put in charge of a
slave-woman for whom the only name we know is “Aunt Katy.” This change
brought him the first real hardship of his life. As an early consequence
of it, he lost the care and guidance of his grandmother, his freedom to
play, good food, and that affection which means so much to a child. When
he came under the care of Aunt Katy, he began to feel for the first time
the sting of unkindness. He has given a very disagreeable picture of
this foster-mother. She was a woman of a hateful disposition, and
treated the little stranger from Tuckahoe with extreme harshness. Her
special mode of punishment was to deprive him of food. Indeed he was
forced to go hungry most of the time, and if he complained, was beaten
without mercy. He has described his misery on one particular night.
After being sent supperless to bed, his suffering very soon became more
than he could bear, and when everybody else in the cabin was asleep, he
quietly took some corn and began to parch it before the open fireplace.
While thus trying to appease his hunger by stealth, and feeling dejected
and homesick, “who but my own dear mother should come in?” The
friendless, hungry, and sorrowing little boy found himself suddenly
caught up in her strong and protecting arms. “I shall never forget,” he
says, “the indescribable expression of her countenance when I told her
that Aunt Katy had said that she would starve the life out of me. There
was a deep and tender glance at me, and a fiery look of indignation for
Aunt Katy at the same moment, and when she took the parched corn from me
and gave me, instead, a large ginger-cake, she read Aunt Katy a lecture
which was never forgotten. That night, I learned, as never before, that
I was not only a child but somebody’s child. I was grander on my
mother’s knee than a king upon his throne. But my triumph was short. I
dropped off to sleep and waked in the morning to find my mother gone,
and myself again at the mercy of the virago in my master’s kitchen.”
There is no record of another meeting between mother and son. She
probably died shortly afterward, because if she had been within walking
distance, he certainly would have seen her again. Her memory in his
child’s mind was always that of a real and near personality. When he
became older, and conscious of his superiority to his fellows, he was
wont to say: “I am proud to attribute my love of letters, such as I may
have, not to my presumed Anglo-Saxon father, but to my sable,
unprotected, and uncultivated mother.” Thus, after his mother died, his
vivid imagination kept before him her image, as she appeared to him that
last time he saw her, through all his struggles for a fuller and freer
life for himself and his race.
With the loss of his mother and grandmother, he came more and more to
realize the peculiar relation in which he and those about him stood to
Colonel Lloyd and Captain Anthony. His active mind soon grasped the
meaning of “master” and “slave.” While still a lad, longing for a
mother’s care, he began to feel himself within the grasp of the curious
thing that he afterward learned to know as “slavery.” As he grew older
in years and understanding, he came also to see what manner of man his
master was. He described Captain Anthony as a “sad man.” At times he was
very gentle, and almost benevolent. But young Douglass was never able to
forget that this same kindly slave-holder had refused to protect his
cousin from a cruel beating by her overseer. The spectacle he had
witnessed, when this beautiful young slave was whipped, had made a
lasting and painful impression upon him. Vaguely he began to recognize
the outlines of the institution which at once permitted and, to a
certain degree, made necessary these cruelties. It was at this point
that he began to speculate on the origin and nature of slavery.
Meanwhile he became, in the course of his life on the plantation, the
witness of other scenes, quite as harrowing, and the memory mingled with
his reflections, and embittered them.
During this time an event occurred which gave a new direction and a new
impetus to the thoughts and purposes slowly taking form within him. This
event was the successful escape of his Aunt Jennie and another slave. It
caused a great commotion on the plantation. Nothing could happen in a
Southern community that excited so many and such varied emotions as the
escape of a slave from bondage:—terror and revenge; hope and fear,
mingled with the images of the pursued and the pursuers, with
speculation in regard to the capture of the fugitive, and with prayers
for his success in the minds of the slaves.
Young Douglass had begun to feel the burden of slavery and already had a
dim consciousness of its fundamental injustice, but up to this point, he
had known no other world than this immense plantation, and no other
people than these masters, overseers, and slaves. His horizon was
further enlarged and his imagination quickened by talking with certain
Negroes on the Lloyd plantation, who could recall the event of their
being brought from far-off Africa in slave-ships. Speaking of his own
state of feeling at this time, he says: “I was already a fugitive from
slavery in spirit and purpose.”
From now on his quick and comprehending mind saw and suffered things
that formerly never affected him. The hard and sometimes cruel
discipline, toil from sunrise to sunset, scant food, the stifling of
ambitions,—all these began now to be perceived and felt, and the
impression they left sank into the soul of this rebellious boy. He saw a
slave killed by an overseer, on no other charge than that of being
“impudent.” “Crimes” of this nature were committed, as far as he could
see, with impunity, and the memory of them haunted him by day and by
night.
Thus far Douglass had not felt the overseer’s whip. He was too small for
anything except to run errands and to do light chores. Of course, he had
been cuffed about by Aunt Katy; he says he seldom got enough to eat and
he suffered continually from cold, since his entire wardrobe consisted
of a tow sack. He was fortunate, however, in having two friends, who
often saved him from the pangs of hunger, and who now and then gave him
a word of kindness. One was young Daniel Lloyd, of the “great house,”
and the other, Miss Lucretia, his master’s daughter. This lady seems to
have had a real fondness for the boy, and would often give him something
good to eat and at times caress him in such a way as to recall to his
mind the few blessed moments he had known with his mother. Young Lloyd
also often protected him from the impositions of other boys.
To show how far the lad had advanced in his thinking, it is well to
quote his own words on this point: “I used to contrast my condition with
that of the blackbirds, in whose world and sweet songs, I fancied them
so happy. Their apparent joy only deepened the shadows of my sorrow.
There are thoughtful days in the lives of children, at least there were
in mine, when they grapple with all the primary subjects of knowledge,
and reach in a moment conclusions which no subsequent experience can
shake. I was just as well convinced of the unjust, unnatural, and
murderous character of slavery when nine years old, as I am now (1881).
Without any appeal to books, to laws, or to authorities of any kind, I
came to regard God as our Father, and condemned slavery as a crime.”
When Fred became nine years old, the most important event in his life
occurred. His master determined to send him to Baltimore to live with
Hugh Auld, a brother of Thomas Auld. Baltimore at this time was little
more than a name to young Douglass. When he reached the residence of Mr.
and Mrs. Auld and felt the difference between the plantation cabin and
this city home, it was to him, for a time, like living in Paradise. Mrs.
Auld is described as a lady of great kindness of heart, and of a gentle
disposition. She at once took a tender interest in the little servant
from the plantation. He was much petted and well fed, permitted to wear
boy’s clothes and shoes, and for the first time in his life, had a good
soft bed to sleep in. His only duty was to take care of and play with
Tommy Auld, which he found both an easy and an agreeable task.
Young Douglass yet knew nothing about reading. A book was as much of a
mystery to him as the stars at night. When he heard his mistress read
aloud from the Bible, his curiosity was aroused. He felt so secure in
her kindness that he had the boldness to ask her to teach him. Following
her natural impulse to do kindness to others and without, for a moment,
thinking of the danger, she at once consented. He quickly learned the
alphabet and in a short time could spell words of three syllables. But
alas, for his young ambition! When Mr. Auld discovered what his wife had
done, he was both surprised and pained. He at once stopped the perilous
practice, but it was too late. The precocious young slave had acquired a
taste for book-learning. He quickly understood that these mysterious
characters called letters were the keys to a vast empire from which he
was separated by an enforced ignorance. In discussing the matter with
his wife, Mr. Auld said: “If you teach him to read, he will want to know
how to write, and with this accomplished, he will be running away with
himself.” Mr. Douglass, referring to this conversation in later years,
said: “This was decidedly the first anti-slavery speech to which I had
ever listened. From that moment, I understood the direct pathway from
slavery to freedom.”
During the subsequent six years that he lived in Baltimore in the home
of Mr. Auld, he was more closely watched than he had been before this
incident, and his liberty to go and come was considerably curtailed. He
declares that he was not allowed to be alone, when this could be helped,
lest he would attempt to teach himself. But these were unwise
precautions since they but whetted his appetite for learning and incited
him to many secret schemes to elude the vigilance of his master and
mistress. Everything now contributed to his enlightenment and prepared
him for that freedom for which he thirsted. His occasional contact with
free colored people, his visit to the wharves where he could watch the
vessels going and coming, and his chance acquaintance with white boys on
the street, all became a part of his education and were made to serve
his plans. He got hold of a blue-back speller and carried it with him
all the time. He would ask his little white friends in the street how to
spell certain words and the meaning of them. In this way he soon learned
to read. The first and most important book owned by him was called the
_Columbian Orator_. He bought it with money secretly earned by blacking
boots on the streets. It contained selected passages from such great
orators as Lord Chatham, William Pitt, Fox, and Sheridan. These speeches
were steeped in the sentiments of liberty, and were full of references
to the “rights of man.” They gave to young Douglass a larger idea of
liberty than was included in his mere dream of freedom for himself, and
in addition they increased his vocabulary of words and phrases. The
reading of this book unfitted him longer for restraint. He became all
ears and all eyes. Everything he saw and read suggested to him a larger
world, lying just beyond his reach. The meaning of the term “Abolition”
came to him by a chance look at a Baltimore newspaper.
Slavery and Abolition! The distance between these two points of
existence seemed to have lessened greatly, after he had comprehended
their meaning. “When I heard the word ‘Abolition,’ I felt the matter to
be my personal concern. There was hope in this word.” As he afterward
went about the city on his ordinary errands, or when at the wharf, even
performing tasks that were not set for him to do, he was like another
being. That word “Abolition” seemed to sing itself into his very soul,
and when he permitted his thoughts to dwell on the possibilities that it
opened to him, he was buoyed up with joyous expectations. He tried to
find out something from everybody. He learned to write by copying
letters on fences and walls and challenging his white playmates to find
his mistakes; and at night when no one suspected him of being awake, he
copied from an old copy-book of his young friend Tommy. Before he had
formulated any plans for freedom for himself, he learned the important
trick of writing “free passes” for runaway slaves.
Notwithstanding his progress in gaining knowledge, his considerate
master and kind mistress, his loving companion in Tommy, his good home,
food and clothes, he was not happy or contented. None of these things
could stifle his yearning to be free. He has aptly described his own
feelings at this time in speaking of Mrs. Auld: “Poor lady, she did not
understand my trouble, and I could not tell her. Nature made us friends,
but slavery made us enemies. She aimed to keep me ignorant, but I
resolved to know, although knowledge only increased my misery. My
feelings were not the result of any marked cruelty in the treatment I
received. It was slavery, not its mere incidents, I hated. Their feeding
and clothing me well, could not atone for taking my liberty from me. The
smiles of my master could not remove the deep sorrow that dwelt in my
young bosom. We were both victims of the same overshadowing evil,—she as
mistress, I as slave. I will not censure her too harshly.”
But if his hopes and aspirations were excited by the vast and vague
horizon which the thought of emancipation opened to him, he was, on the
other hand, driven to something like despair when he considered how
distant and inaccessible was this “land of freedom” of which he dreamed.
The nearer and clearer appeared to him the possibility of this larger
life, the more torturing became the restraints that kept him from
seeking it. It was when thus pursuing in thought this phantom of a
greater world although at the same time in despair of ever attaining it,
that he found peace for a while in the consolation of religion. His
imagination had been aroused by the preaching of a white minister, a
Methodist, named Hanson. Feeling himself wretched and alone, he was in a
state of mind, as so many others have been before and since, to find
comfort in the thought of a kindly and overshadowing Power, a Protector
to whom he might turn, in his great distress, without reserve and
without misgiving. He surrendered himself completely to this new faith
in God. In his search for more light, he met a lasting friend and guide
in the person of a colored preacher to whom he fondly refers as “Uncle
Lawson.” This good and pious old man lived very near the home of Mr.
Auld. Young Douglass said of him: “He was my spiritual father. I loved
him intensely, and was at his house every chance I could get.”
Douglass’s master and mistress knew that he had become religious, and
though they were at that time but lukewarm in their support of the
church, they respected the piety in the young slave and seem to have
encouraged it. But unfortunately the boy’s interest in religion had
increased his desire to read, in order to become thoroughly acquainted
with the Bible. “I have gathered,” says Mr. Douglass, “scattered pages
of the Bible from the filthy street gutters, and washed and dried them,
that in moments of leisure I might get a word or two of wisdom from
them.”
Uncle Lawson could read a little and Douglass, who went frequently with
him to prayer meeting, spent much of his spare time on Sunday helping
him decipher its pages. When his master learned what he was doing, he
threatened to whip him if he went to Lawson’s again, but he stole away
whenever he could and got his needed instruction in the simple lessons
of faith.
Uncle Lawson was probably the first colored person that young Douglass
had met who appreciated his longings and powers. He was also the first
person who awakened in him a dim consciousness that he was destined for
a public career. Speaking of this, Douglass once said: “His words made a
deep impression upon me, and I verily felt that some such work was
before me, though I could not see how I could ever engage in its
performance.” The old preacher could go no further than to give
utterance to the familiar exhortations: “Trust in the Lord, the Lord can
make you free”; “Ask in faith and He will give you what you ask.” The
boy’s great respect for the honesty and piety of Uncle Lawson lent these
words a deep significance, and he never forgot the lessons that he
learned from this simple-minded man. How important was this teaching is
evidenced by Mr. Douglass’s own testimony: “Thus assisted and thus
cheered on under the inspiration of the preacher, I worked and prayed
with a light heart, believing that my life was under the guidance of a
wisdom higher than my own. I always prayed that God would in His great
good mercy and His own good time, deliver me from my bondage.” After
Douglass learned how to write with tolerable ease, he began to copy from
the Bible and the Methodist hymn-books at night, when he was supposed to
be asleep. He always regarded this religious experience as the most
important part of his education; it had the effect, not only of
enlarging his mind, but also of restraining his impatience, and
softening a disposition that was growing hard and bitter with brooding
over the disadvantages suffered by himself and his race. He greatly
needed something that would help him to look beyond his bondage and
encourage him to hope for ultimate freedom.
While he was undergoing this, to him, novel religious experience, and
while he was gradually being adjusted to the situation in which he found
himself, there came one of those dreaded changes in the fortunes of
slave-masters that made the status of the slave painfully uncertain. His
real master, Captain Anthony, died, and this event, complicated with
some family quarrel, resulted in Douglass being recalled from Baltimore
to the plantation. This was a depressing incident in his slave-life. It
is true that Mr. and Mrs. Auld were not at this time as gentle with him
as when he first came to the city. He was under stricter discipline, was
constantly watched, and his liberties were circumscribed in many ways
that were both inconvenient and irritating. But in spite of all this he
was comparatively free from the usual severities of slavery. He had many
interests and many happy relationships that he was able to cultivate
outside of the Auld household. He had become something of a leader among
the young colored men of the city. He had taught many of them their
letters. Among the white boys of his acquaintance he also had a large
circle of friends, who loved him and were loyal to him. Most important
of all was his affection for his religious teacher, Uncle Lawson.
Through these attachments in the more complex life of the city, and the
opportunities for mental and spiritual growth which they offered, he was
able to throw off to a great degree the gloom and doubt of his earlier
youth. He had begun to feel that he was actually preparing himself for
that larger life of leadership in freedom, that had been hinted to him
by Uncle Lawson. But all these happy relations were rudely severed when
he was recalled to the plantation.
“It did seem,” he said, “that every time the young tendrils of my
affection became attached, they were rigidly broken off by some
unnatural, outside power, and I was looking away to Heaven for the rest
denied to me on earth.”
CHAPTER II
BACK TO PLANTATION LIFE
When young Douglass left Baltimore to go back to the plantation, he was
about sixteen years of age;—strong, healthy, and fully capable of the
hard work of a field hand. But this was not the most difficult task he
now had to face. Conditions that he met there were to test his character
as it had never been tested before, and the trials he endured during
this period profoundly influenced all his future life. For the first
time in many years, he was to feel the “pitiless pinchings of hunger.”
He says: “So wretchedly starved were we that we were compelled to live
at the expense of our neighbors, or steal from our own larder. This was
a hard thing to do, but after much reflection, I reasoned myself into
the belief that there was no other way to do—and after all there could
be no harm in it, considering that my labor and person were the property
of Master Thomas, and that I was deprived of the necessaries of life. It
was simply appropriating what was my own, since the health and strength
derived from such food were exerted in his service. To be sure, this was
stealing according to the law and gospel I had heard from the pulpit,
but I had begun to attach less importance to what dropped from that
quarter, on certain points.”
Having found a principle upon which he could justify, against the
precepts of morality, the practice of stealing from his own master, in
order to get enough to eat, it was not difficult to go farther and
discover a warrant based on grounds quite as logical, for the habit of
stealing from others beside his master, when the same necessity seemed
to justify it.
“I am not only a slave of Master Thomas,” he argued, “but I am also a
slave of society at large. Society at large has bound itself in form and
fact to assist Master Thomas in robbing me of my liberty and the just
reward of my labor; therefore whatever rights I have against Master
Thomas, I have equally against those confederated with him.” It is thus
that Mr. Douglass, writing years afterward, construed the argument with
which the boy solved the doubts and questions arising in his mind when
he found himself following the custom, prevalent among the slaves, of
persistent petty stealing.
Whatever one may think of this theory as a justification for the
practice, it is interesting as showing in Douglass, even as a boy, the
tendency to get clear ideas in regard to his own conduct and the conduct
of those about him, and to make his actions conform to some fundamental
rule. A boy who was disposed to think thus clearly and to apply the test
of elementary principles to the lives and actions of those about him,
was already a dangerous slave. And so the summer of 1833 found Douglass
more determined than ever to run away.
Meanwhile he tells us that there were several incidents which served
still further to shape in his mind the view of his master and the class
his master represented. About this time there was a religious revival in
the neighborhood of St. Michaels, where Douglass lived. Master Thomas
became converted and was afterward a devoted member and class-leader in
the Methodist church. Young Douglass attended the camp-meeting, and,
from his position behind the preacher’s stand, where a space had been
marked off for colored people, watched the process of conversion in his
master with great interest and close attention.
Another episode tended to add to the perplexity in the young slave’s
mind and still further undermine his faith in the moral superiority of
the master-class, and in the religion which based its justification of
slavery on the fact of that superiority. To add further to his
confusion, he had read somewhere, in the Methodist discipline, that “the
slave-holder shall not be eligible to an official station in the
church.” When he saw Mr. Auld making open confession of his sins, and
afterward given official position in the church, he felt sure that a
great change must necessarily come over his disposition and character.
But his master’s face, Douglass said, became more stern with increasing
piety, and the discipline he enforced upon his slaves was even more
rigid. This was a severe test of the religious convictions of the young
slave-boy. He knew that religion had made him better, kinder, and more
appreciative of all that was true and beautiful. It had also given him
comfort during the period of his servitude. He had looked forward, with
sincere faith in the power of religion, to some marked change in Master
Thomas. The resulting experience left him disappointed and confused.
At the request of an earnest and sincerely pious white man, named
Wilson, Douglass had joined in an attempt to conduct a Sunday-school for
young colored people. During the second meeting of this innocent
company, it was violently broken up by a mob, chief among whom was his
master, Thomas Auld. The men were armed with sticks and other missiles
and drove away both pupils and teachers, warning them never to meet
again. The only explanation given for this violent interruption of what
seemed a harmless and worthy occupation, was the rough remark of one
member of the party, that Douglass wanted to be another Nat Turner. The
fear inspired by his unfortunate slave insurrection was responsible for
much of the hardship which Negroes in the South, free and slave, were at
this period compelled to endure. The memory of it hardened the heart of
many a master against his slaves and made him cruel and suspicious where
he would naturally have been kind and confident.
But Thomas Auld seems not to have had even this excuse for some of his
acts which still further embittered the young slave, already grown
critical and suspicious of all that his master did. It was not long
after his conversion, Douglass says, that he began to beat the boy’s
crippled and unfortunate cousin, Henny, with unusual barbarity, finally
setting her adrift to care for herself. All these incidents crowded
quickly upon the young slave’s mind at a time when he had already begun
to test and measure the actions of his master and those about him by the
principles of universal right and justice, which his study of the
_Columbian Orator_ had furnished him, and which his reflections and
comparisons were steadily making more clear and definite. The effect was
to render him bold and rebellious to such an extent that he soon became
a fit subject to be “broken in” by some overseer, who knew how to handle
“impudent” slaves.
A man named Edward Covey, living at Bayside, at no great distance from
the camp-ground where Thomas Auld was converted, had a wide reputation
for “breaking in unruly niggers.” Covey was a “poor white” and a farm
renter. To this man Douglass was hired out for a year. In the month of
January, 1834, he started for his new master, with his little bundle of
clothes. From what we have already seen of this sensitive, thoughtful
young slave of seventeen years, it is not difficult to understand his
state of mind. Up to this time he had had a comparatively easy life. He
had seldom suffered hardships such as fell to the lot of many slaves
whom he knew. To quote his own words: “I was now about to sound
profounder depths in slave-life. Starvation made me glad to leave Thomas
Auld’s, and the cruel lash made me dread to go to Covey’s.” Escape,
however, was impossible. The picture of “the slave-driver,” painted in
the lurid colors that Mr. Douglass’s indignant memories furnished him,
shows the dark side of slavery in the South. During the first six weeks
he was with Covey, he was whipped, either with sticks or cowhides, every
week. With his body one continuous ache from his frequent floggings, he
was kept at work in field or woods from the dawn of day until the
darkness of night. He says: “Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me in body,
soul, and spirit. The overwork and the cruel chastisements, of which I
was the victim, combined with the ever growing and soul-devouring
thought, ‘I am a slave—a slave for life, a slave with no rational ground
to hope for freedom,’ had done their worst.”
He confesses that at one time he was strongly tempted to take his own
life and that of Covey. Finally, his sufferings of body and soul became
so great that further endurance seemed impossible. While in this
condition, he determined upon the daring step of returning to his
master, Thomas Auld, in order to lay before him the story of abuse. He
felt sure that, if for no other reason than the protection of property
from serious impairment, his master would interfere in his behalf. He
even expected sympathy and assurances of future protection. In all this
he was grievously disappointed. Auld not only refused sympathy and
protection, but would not even listen to his complaints, and immediately
sent him back to his dreaded master to face the added penalty of running
away. The poor lone boy was plunged into the depths of despair. A
feeling that he had been deserted by both God and man took possession of
him.
Covey was lying in wait for him, knowing full well that he must return
as defenseless as he went away. As soon as Douglass came near the place
where the white man was hiding, the latter made a leap at Fred for the
purpose of tying him for a flogging. But Douglass escaped and took to
the woods where he concealed himself for a day and a night. His
condition was desperate. He felt that he could not endure another
whipping, and yet there seemed to him no alternative. His first impulse
was to pray, but he remembered that Covey also prayed. Convinced, at
length, that there was no appeal but to his own courage, he resolved to
go back and face whatever must come to him. It so happened that it was a
Sunday morning and, much to his surprise, he met Covey who was on his
way to church, and who, when he saw the runaway, greeted him with a
pleasant smile. “His religion,” says Douglass, “prevented him from
breaking the Sabbath, but not from breaking my bones on any other day in
the week.”
On Monday morning, Douglass was up early, half hoping that he would be
permitted to resume his work without punishment. Covey was astir
betimes, too, and had laid aside his Sunday mildness of manner. His
first business was to carry out his fixed purpose of whipping the young
runaway. In the meantime Fred had likewise fully decided upon a course
of action. He was ready to submit to any kind of work, however hard or
unreasonable, but determined to defend himself against an attempt at
another flogging. In the cold passion that took possession of him, the
slave-boy became utterly reckless of consequences, reasoning to himself
that the limit of suffering at the hands of this relentless
slave-breaker had already been reached. He was resolved to fight and did
fight. He began his morning work in peace, obeying promptly every order
from his master, and while he was in the act of going up to the
stable-loft for the purpose of pitching down some hay, he was caught and
thrown by Covey, in an attempt to get a slip knot about his legs.
Douglass flew at Covey’s throat recklessly, hurled his antagonist to the
ground, and held him firmly. Blood followed the nails of the infuriated
young slave. He scarcely knew how to account for his fighting strength,
and his dare-devil spirit so dumbfounded the master, that he gaspingly
said: “Are you going to resist me, you young scoundrel?” “Yes, sir,” was
the quick reply.
Finding himself baffled, Covey called for assistance. His Cousin Hughes
came to aid him, but as he was attempting to put a noose over the unruly
slave’s foot, Douglass promptly gave him a blow in the stomach which at
once put him out of the combat and he fled. After Hughes had been
disabled, Covey called on first one and then another of his slaves, but
each refused to assist him. Finding himself fairly outdone by his angry
antagonist, Covey quit with the discreet remark: “Now, you young
scoundrel, you go to work; I would not have whipped you half so hard, if
you had not resisted.”
Douglass had thus won his first victory and was never again threatened
or flogged by his master. The effect of this encounter, as far as he
himself was concerned, was to increase his self-respect, and to give him
more courage for the future. He said that, “when a slave cannot be
flogged, he is more than half-free.” To the other slaves he became a
hero, and Covey was not anxious to advertise his complete failure to
break in this “unruly nigger.” It speaks well for the natural dignity
and good sense of young Douglass that he neither boasted of his triumph,
nor did anything rash as a consequence of it, as might have been
expected from a boy of his age and spirit.
On Christmas Day, 1834, young Douglass’s time with Covey was out. He
then learned that he had been hired to a William Freeland, who owned a
large plantation near St. Michaels, and by January 1st, was with his new
master. Mr. Freeland was a great improvement upon Covey. He was less
direct in his professions, but more humane in his manner toward his
slaves. He was what was called a “kind master.” He did not overwork or
underfeed his slaves and he was sparing of the lash. All this was
Paradise to young Douglass, when compared with the strenuous life he had
led with Covey. The effect of so much kindness was evidenced in the
character of the Freeland slaves. Mr. Douglass describes them as a
superior class of men and women, and he loved, esteemed, and confided in
them, as with real friends, generous and true.
With these new and better conditions and with these superior companions
in bondage, Douglass felt a renewal of that old impulse to do something
for his fellow slaves. He naturally first turned to the thought of
teaching them to read and write. He found time and spirit again to look
at his library,—the blue-back speller and the _Columbian Orator_. He
first started a Sunday-school under the trees, at a safe distance from
the “big house,” gathering together some thirty young people. They were
making fine progress, when, one Sunday, his former experience was
repeated, and they were rushed upon and scattered. The school was again
started, however, and this time Douglass seems successfully to have
evaded the vigilance of his master. In addition to the Sunday-school, he
devoted three evenings a week to his fellow slaves.
His leadership among all the Negroes was recognized and respected by
them. This brought with it his first consciousness of that peculiar
power over men, which in after-life made him so conspicuous a figure
among the heroes of the Abolition struggle. The whole year at Freeland’s
was spent in self-development and in the mental and spiritual
improvement of his companions in bonds.
At the end of this time he learned that his services had been hired for
another twelve months to Mr. Freeland. This seemed to promise good for
him in the future. The Bible, the spelling book, and the _Columbian
Orator_ were read and re-read and, at each new reading, he felt an
enlargement of mind and an increasing thirst for liberty. The kindness
of Mr. Freeland and the pleasant companionship of the Harris brothers
and other slaves, served only to increase his discontent. He liked his
master and would gladly have remained with him as a free man, but he
could never overcome his increasing impatience of the restraints of
slavery, and, with this ambition for liberty, his troubles began. He
made a solemn vow to himself that the year should not close without
witnessing some earnest effort on his part to escape. This vow also
included the freedom of his slave-companions, for whom he had conceived
a lasting attachment. He succeeded in winning to his scheme five trusted
confidants. These were John and Henry Harris, Sandy Jenkins, the
footman; Charles Roberts, and Henry Bailey. Young Douglass impressed
them with the perils of the undertaking. His knowledge of the
difficulties of a successful escape, little as it actually was,
surprised and awed them.
When he had fully determined upon his plans, he found that it would
perhaps require many weeks to perfect them. His first task was to study
the character, the temperament, and the various personal qualifications
of the men whom he proposed to make his partners in this dangerous
undertaking. He must learn whether they were proof against the sin of
betrayal under all possible circumstances. Each man must cultivate an
unhesitating faith in the others. Each must have unlimited courage, both
physical and moral. All must learn the tricks of self-concealment, and
of assumed indifference and deception. They must understand the various
kinds of perils they were likely to encounter. The kidnapper, the
slave-catcher, the black and white detectives, and the whole range of
restraints that, like a continuous wall, hemmed in a slave, must be
considered and understood. If he had hope in his heart, he must not
betray it by so much as a look, in manner or in speech. Overseers were
all eyes and ears and quick to suspect something was wrong if a slave
seemed unusually thoughtful, sullen, or happy. They were by no means
easily deceived as to the real intention of a slave planning to run
away. To become an object of suspicion was merely to insure that the
suspected slave would be the more closely guarded. Young Douglass fully
realized the severity of the penalty that must follow failure, but he
never wavered in his determination to make a dash for liberty, at any
cost.
Having satisfied himself that his companions were proof against
treachery and were of the right sort of mettle, he began to study the
practical means of escape. There were no well-marked routes from slavery
to freedom, no highways, byways, or “underground railways,” known to him
at that time. Such knowledge belonged wholly to the region north of the
boundary line of freedom. He had heard of slaves escaping, but how they
got away and by what route was always a mystery. He had heard that there
was a region called North, and that in this far haven, white and black
people alike were free. He had heard of a land called Canada, but its
location on maps and charts was unknown to him. He had no conception of
the physical size of the world. He had seen Baltimore, St. Michaels, and
the adjoining plantations; beyond this all was blank. He knew something
of theology, but nothing of geography. He did not know that there were
states called New York and Massachusetts. New York City was the northern
limit of his knowledge. He had received vague hints that the dominion of
slavery was without boundary and that even in New York, there were
slave-catchers and kidnappers. But it was at this time an unknown land.
In these difficulties, young Douglass looked steadily North in the
direction of the free-states, seeking some chance guidance. His habit of
reasoning out things that in any way affected his status as a slave and
as a man, has already been noted. Everything that he saw, or heard, or
read enlarged his knowledge of life and its meaning. His stay in
Baltimore had been a sort of school to him. Here for the first time, he
had seen free colored people; the coming and going of ships gave him his
first ideas of direction and distance; the Chesapeake Bay was a thing of
wonder;—all of which awakened in him many thoughts that led him away
from bondage.
While young Douglass was secretly working out his plans for escape, one
of his confidants, Sandy, the footman, said to him: “I dreamed last
night that I was roused from sleep by strange noises, like a swarm of
angry birds; looking to see what it was, I saw you, Frederick, in the
claws of a large bird surrounded by a large number of birds of all
colors and sizes. They were all picking at you. Now I saw that as plain
as I see you now, and honey, watch the Friday night dream; there is
sump’n in it, sho’s you born, dere is indeed, honey.” Douglass confessed
that the dream related to him by old Sandy disturbed him for awhile. He
felt sure that his plans were seriously handicapped by unseen forces of
some sort, but he soon regained his usual courage and overcame his
superstitious apprehensions. The Saturday night before Easter had been
fixed upon as the time for flight. A large canoe, owned by a Mr.
Hamilton, had been seized and made ready for the confederates. They were
to paddle down the Chesapeake Bay to its head. Douglass had already
written out passes for each of the fugitives in the following form:—
“This is to certify that I, the undersigned, have given leave to the
bearer, my servant, John, full liberty to go to Baltimore to spend the
Easter holidays.—W. H.
“_Near St. Michaels, Talbot Co., Md._”
On the night before the proposed flight, every possible detail had been
rehearsed and arranged. The resolution of each party to the conspiracy
was tested and proved firm, except that of Sandy, who, much to the
disgust of Douglass, backed out. Early Saturday morning, they were all
at work in the usual way. Douglass was the only one who was troubled
with a presentiment of evil. He turned abruptly to Sandy, who was
working near him, and said: “We are betrayed!” Within a short while his
worst fears were being realized. Looking toward the “big house,” he
easily discerned a stranger on horseback and an unusual stir. It was not
long before he was abruptly accused of plotting to run away, and taken
into custody. Thus it turned out that at the very time he had planned to
be on the road to freedom, he was a prisoner bound for Easton, to be
examined by a magistrate.
His companions, the two Harris brothers, were likewise accused. Henry,
however, was the only one who did not tamely submit to being arrested
and handcuffed. When a revolver was pointed at him by the officer, he
knocked it from the man’s hands and dared any one to shoot him. The
recalcitrant slave was soon overpowered, however, and all were led away.
The excitement caused by Harris’s daring revolt served one purpose, of
which young Douglass’s alertness enabled him to take advantage. He
adroitly threw his pass, the only incriminating evidence against them,
in the fire, and by some secret sign advised the others to eat theirs
with their bread on the journey, which they did.
When they were examined, each stoutly disclaimed all knowledge of plans
for running away and denied that they had any intention of doing so.
Notwithstanding the total lack of evidence against them, the officers
and Douglass’s master were thoroughly convinced that they were plotting
some wickedness. There was always something so mysterious, as well as
commanding in the manner of young Douglass, that he was naturally
regarded as the ringleader, when any misconduct of the slaves was
complained of. His fellows in bonds treated him with a deference never
shown toward any but white people. As a slave he worked well and did his
full duty, but his masters always regarded him with suspicion, and
something akin to fear.
The examination of the four culprits must have afforded an interesting
scene. Young Douglass, though a slave in chains, as well as a prisoner
at the bar, had the temerity to assume the rôle of attorney and to
attempt the defense of his comrades, for whose present predicament he
felt himself responsible. When Thomas Auld insisted that the evidence in
hand, showing the intention to run away, was strong enough to hang in
case of need, Douglass promptly replied: “The cases are not equal. If
murder were committed, the thing is done, but we have not run away.
Where is the evidence against us? We were quietly at work.” Douglass was
confident that the only tangible evidence against them had been
skilfully destroyed, and he knew also that his companions had been slyly
but effectively coached as to what to say and how to act when they came
before the examining magistrate.
So completely had they failed to make young Douglass and his companions
convict themselves, that very shortly Mr. Freeland came to the jail and
took home his own slaves, leaving Douglass still in confinement. He was
glad to know that his companions had escaped punishment, but by this
last separation from them he seemed to have reached the very depths of
the desolation which it was the lot of a slave to experience.
Through the bars of his imprisonment, he could watch the slave-traders
from Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana apparently eager to get hold of
him. He could even hear them pass comments upon his size, strength, and
general appearance, and make guesses as to his age. For the first time
since he left Covey’s, he felt both hopeless and helpless. If he should
be sold and sent down into the far South, he well knew that all chances
for escape would be cut off forever.
While in this condition of dejection and hopelessness, the unexpected
happened. His owner, Thomas Auld, who, in spite of Douglass’s
rebelliousness, always cherished a peculiar fondness for him, ordered
his release from jail, and at once decided to send him back to Baltimore
to live with Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld. In telling Fred what he intended to
do, he said that he wanted him to learn a trade, and that if he would
behave himself and give him no more trouble, he would emancipate him
when he became twenty-five years old.
The happy assurance that he was not to be punished and that he was again
to have the privileges of the city, was at first almost too much to be
believed. All of his hopes for ultimate freedom were revived and his
confidence in himself, which had been severely shaken by his recent
failure and disgrace, was renewed. Under the circumstances, it seems to
have been the only wise and practicable course his master could pursue.
Mr. Freeland would not again allow him to come upon his plantation;
Covey had failed to break his spirit; and his reputation as a would-be
runaway and a “smart nigger” made him a desperate asset in the
slave-market of Talbot County. In sending him to Baltimore to learn a
trade, with a possibility of ultimate freedom, it was thought that he
would be more serviceable and more tractable. Then, again, the most
threatening aspect of young Douglass’s attempted flight was the daring
plot to use the Chesapeake Bay. Heretofore the slaves who had succeeded
in making good their escape were compelled to find a path through deadly
swamps and woods, other avenues being so carefully guarded that a
successful runaway was very rare. Every effort, therefore, must be made
to keep the Douglass venture a secret; he must be removed as far as
possible from his old plantation-life. If he had had a different master,
nothing could have saved him from the slave-traders. The
good-heartedness of Thomas Auld was the only thing that preserved our
young hero for that larger life which he was to make for himself, and
help to make for so many others of his race.
When, through the kindness of Mr. Auld, Douglass again turned his face
toward Baltimore, he fully realized that the change was fraught with
importance to him. He remembered that it was in this city he had caught
the first suggestion that there was a life to be lived above the low
levels of a slave. There, in the family of Hugh Auld, he had learned to
wear clothes, had acquired good manners and the ability to read, and,
for the first time, had felt, in the person of his teacher and
benefactor, Mrs. Sophia Auld, the civilizing and softening touch of a
superior woman’s kindness.
To his alert and observing mind, Baltimore again became a real school.
It quickened his perception, and fired his imagination, and was the
place, above all others, short of a free state, where he most longed to
live. Hugh Auld easily succeeded in getting young Douglass apprenticed
to a calker, in the extensive ship-yards of William Gardiner, on Fell’s
Point. The conditions under which he had to work were very trying; he
did not mind the severe labor, but he was much disturbed by the intense
prejudice existing among the white boys and mechanics. During the six
months that he worked with this firm, every one seemed to have license
to make use of and abuse him. He was not a coward, and would quickly
strike back at a man who insulted or attempted to maltreat him. Finally,
however, he was assaulted by a crowd of ruffians and frightfully beaten.
His face was swollen and he was covered with blood. In this condition,
he reported himself to Mr. Auld, who was furious when he beheld the
pitiable state of his slave. Mrs. Auld took pity upon him and kindly
dressed his wounds, and nursed him until they were healed. In the
meantime he was angrily withdrawn from Mr. Gardiner’s employ, and it was
sought to bring to punishment the perpetrators of the assault. Auld
appeared with Douglass before a magistrate, and explaining how his slave
had been attacked without provocation, demanded a warrant for the guilty
parties, but both were surprised and chagrined when the magistrate
replied: “I am sorry, sir, but I cannot move in this matter except upon
the oath of a white man.” This incident made a deep impression on
Douglass. It gave him a new and vivid sense of his helplessness and
dependence, and measurably increased his determination to be free at any
cost.
Hugh Auld soon after became foreman in the ship-yards of Walter Price,
of Baltimore. He took Douglass with him and, under his protection, Fred
finished learning his trade and within one year became able to command
and receive from seven to nine dollars per week, the largest wages at
that time paid for such labor. All of his earnings, of course, were
turned over to his master. From now onward he had no trouble in securing
work. He was permitted to find his own employment and make his own
arrangements or contracts for pay. This was a distinct advancement over
his former condition of servitude, and was his first experience of
self-direction and self-dependence.
He was soon known among the colored people of the city as a young man of
singular power. His superiority of mind was recognized and, almost
without being conscious of it, he became a leader. There was at that
time an organization of free colored people, known as the East Baltimore
Improvement Society. Although membership in this exclusive body was
limited to free people, young Douglass was eagerly admitted. This was
the first organization of any kind, outside of the church, to which he
had ever belonged. It is probable that he had here his first opportunity
to exercise his natural gift of eloquence.
But with all these improvements in his conditions of life, he was not
happy. A sense of bondage, however slight, made him restless and
impatient. “Why should I be a slave?” was the question that went with
him night and day. He has truly said: “To make a contented slave, you
must make him a thoughtless one.”
Kind treatment, liberty to come and go as he pleased and to make his own
contracts for employment; mingling with freemen, as if he himself were
free; the high esteem in which he was held by fellow workmen and
employers, and by free people; and the promise of emancipation at
twenty-five years of age, were no consolation to the heart that panted
to be its own. He had already become too much of a man to remain a
willing slave!
CHAPTER III
ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY; LEARNING THE WAYS OF FREEDOM
For the second time in his life, Frederick Douglass now began earnestly
to study the possible means of permanently breaking his fetters. At the
end of every week, when he turned his entire earnings over to his
master, his sense of injustice and indignation increased. He was
scarcely able to conceal his discontent. His intense longing to be free
must have betrayed itself in his countenance, for very soon he noticed
that he was being closely watched. The fact that he had at one time made
an attempt to run away caused more or less uneasiness.
Young Douglass soon found that the difficulties of escape were quite as
great in Baltimore as on the Freeland plantation. The railroads running
from that city to Philadelphia were compelled to enforce the most
stringent regulations with reference to colored people. Even free
Negroes found it difficult to comply with them. Every one applying for a
railway ticket was required to show his “free papers” and to be measured
and carefully examined before he could enter the cars. Besides this, he
was not allowed to travel by night. Similar regulations were enforced by
steamboat companies. In addition to all these difficulties, every road
and turnpike was picketed with kidnappers on the lookout for fugitive
slaves. Douglass found it much easier to learn the obstacles than the
aids to successful escape. The former were many and obvious; the latter
were few and difficult to discover. It was impossible to profit by the
experience of those who had run the gauntlet successfully, and whenever
it was learned that some keen-scented slave had found a pathway to
freedom, the information was carefully concealed from those in bonds.
Every slave preparing to escape his fetters must act without guide or
precedent, and form his own plan of deliverance.
Douglass was now convinced that he must hereafter be the arbiter of his
own fortunes. He at once decided that his great need was money. The
problem was how to get the necessary sum. His whole time and all of his
earnings belonged to his master, and so long as this was the case the
funds must still be a long way off. He finally determined to propose to
his owner, Master Thomas Auld, that he be allowed to have his own time.
In other words, he would agree to pay him so much a week, and all in
excess of that sum he would keep as his own. This proposition merely
angered Mr. Auld, who accused young Douglass of scheming to run away,
and threatened him with severe punishment, if he ever mentioned such a
thing again. But Douglass had too much at stake to give up. He made the
same proposition to Master Hugh Auld and it was accepted. By the terms
of this agreement young Douglass was to be allowed all of his time, and
to make his own contracts and collect his own wages; while in return for
these privileges, he was to pay his master three dollars each week,
board and clothe himself, and buy his own tools.
This was a pretty hard bargain, but it meant his first step toward
freedom, so he entered upon it cheerfully. From May until August, 1838,
he worked for himself under the above conditions, kept all his
obligations, and was able to save out of his earnings a neat sum of
money. In the month of August occurred an unfortunate interruption of
his plans. One Saturday night, instead of taking his wages to his
master, he was persuaded to go out of town to a camp-meeting. He
convinced himself that there could be no objection to this, since he had
the money and purposed turning it in early Monday morning. Owing to some
misunderstanding, however, he was compelled to remain one day longer
than he had intended. On coming back to the city, he went directly to
his master and made his payment. Instead of being indifferent to his
absence, Hugh Auld was almost beside himself with rage. Addressing
Douglass, he said: “You rascal, I have a good mind to give you a sound
whipping. How dare you go out of the city without my leave? Now, you
scoundrel, you have done for yourself; you shall have your time no
longer. The next thing I shall hear of you, will be your running away.
Bring home your tools at once; I will teach you how to go off in this
way.”
Poor Douglass was for the moment dismayed by this very serious
consequence of an innocent error of judgment. He had had his own way so
long, he had begun to feel that his master’s only interest in him was
the regular payment of the three dollars per week which he had been
receiving during the previous four months. All his hopes for liberty had
been staked on the continuance of this arrangement for a few months
longer. Douglass understood the man who was now his master. He had lived
with him long enough not to take his threats too seriously. Mr. Auld
would have been indeed shortsighted if he had not used an occasion of
this kind to impress his slave with the seriousness of taking such a
liberty. Douglass did not, therefore, lose heart and as a result of this
episode, he made two important resolutions. One was to go out in search
of work and return to the old contract; and the other was to fix
September 3, 1838, as the day of his flight from slavery.
He soon found good employment in the Butler ship-yards. Mr. Butler
thought much of the young slave calker and gave him every opportunity to
earn good wages. At the end of the first week, he presented to his
master the whole of his earnings, amounting to nine dollars, which was
accepted with evident satisfaction. For the moment Master Hugh seemed
entirely to have forgotten the reprehensible conduct of only a few days
before. Having thus shrewdly helped his master to recover his good
temper and natural kindness, Douglass took special pains to keep him
pleased and unsuspicious. The second week of his employment, he again
turned over the whole amount of his wages, nine dollars. Mr. Auld was
overjoyed at this earning capacity of Douglass and as an evidence of it
made him a present of twenty-five cents. In the last week he worked as a
slave, he gave his master six dollars.
Ever since the first trouble with Auld, he had been pushing his plans to
redeem his pledge to himself that he would run away on Monday, September
3, 1838. These were anxious days and many small details had to be
mastered. He must carefully avoid anything in manner or word which could
excite the slightest suspicion. He had to test the fidelity of a number
of free colored people whose aid, in secret ways, was very essential to
him. Who these persons were, has never been revealed and in fact, it was
not until many years after emancipation that Mr. Douglass disclosed to
the public how he succeeded in making his daring escape. “Murder
itself,” he says, “was not more severely and surely punished in the
state of Maryland than aiding and abetting the escape of a slave.”
Young Douglass’s flight had not outward semblance of dramatic incident
or thrilling episode and yet, as he modestly says, “the courage that
could risk betrayal and the bravery which was ready to encounter death,
if need be, in pursuit of freedom, were features in the undertaking. My
success was due to address rather than to courage, to good luck rather
than bravery. My means of escape were provided by the very means which
were making laws to hold and bind me more securely to slavery.”
By the laws of the state of Maryland, every free colored person was
required to have what were called “free papers” which must be renewed
frequently, and, of course, a fee was always charged for renewal. They
contained a full and minute description of the holder, for the purpose
of identification. This device, in some measure, defeated itself, since
more than one man could be found to answer the general description;
hence many slaves could get away by impersonating the real owners of
these passes, which were returned by mail after the borrowers had made
good their escape. To use these papers in this manner was hazardous both
for the fugitives and for the lenders. Not every freeman was willing to
put in jeopardy his own liberty that another might be free. It was,
however, often done and the confidence that it necessitated was seldom
betrayed. Douglass had not many friends among the free colored people in
Baltimore who resembled him sufficiently to make it safe for him to use
their papers. Fortunately, however, he had one who owned a “sailor’s
protection,” a document describing the holder and certifying to the fact
that he was a “free American sailor.” This “protection” did not describe
its bearer very accurately. But, it called for a man very much darker
than himself, and a close examination would have betrayed him at the
start. In the face of all these conditions young Douglass was relying
upon something beside a dubious written passport. This something was his
desperate courage. He had learned to act the part of a freeman so well
that no one suspected him of being a slave. He had early acquired the
habit of studying human nature. As he grew to understand men, he no
longer dreaded them. No one knew better than he the kind of human nature
that he had to deal with in this perilous undertaking. He knew the
speech, manner, and behavior that would excite suspicion; hence he
avoided asking for a ticket at the railway station because this would
subject him to examination. He so managed that just as the train started
he jumped on, his bag being thrown after him by some one in waiting. He
knew that scrutiny of him in a crowded car _en route_ would be less
exacting than at the station. He had borrowed a sailor’s shirt,
tarpaulin, cap and black cravat, tied in true sailor fashion, and he
acted the part of an “old salt” so perfectly that he excited no
suspicion. When the conductor came to collect his fare and inspected his
“free papers,” Douglass, in the most natural manner, said that he had
none but promptly showed his “sailor’s protection,” which the railway
official merely glanced at and passed on without further question. Twice
on the trip he thought he was detected. Once when his car stood opposite
a south-bound train, Douglass observed a well-known citizen of Baltimore
who knew him well, sitting where he could see him distinctly. At another
time, while still in Maryland, he was noticed by a man who had met him
frequently at the ship-yards. In neither of these cases, however, was he
interfered with or molested. When he got into the free state of
Pennsylvania, he felt more joy than he dared express. He had by his cool
temerity and address passed every sentinel undetected and no slave, to
his knowledge, he afterward said, ever got away from bondage on so
narrow a margin of safety.
After reaching Philadelphia, he hurried on to New York. It took him just
twenty-four hours to make the run from the slave city of Baltimore to
the free city of New York. Measured by his intense anxiety, the distance
and time must have seemed without end. For fifteen years he had been
patiently planning to get his feet upon free soil and breathe the air of
a free state. No one ever did more to free himself or to deserve the
liberty into which he was now about to enter. He came to New York, his
pulses throbbing with high hopes. He soon learned, however, that his
stay there was not safe and that the slave-traders plied their vocation
even in the free-states.
Douglass’s instinct for right action seldom failed him. Although he was
totally ignorant of New York and its people, and had never heard of a
“Vigilance Committee,” he had managed, in a few days after his arrival,
to put himself under the protection and guidance of such influential
friends of the Negro race as Lewis and Arthur Tappan, Thomas Downing,
and Theodore Wright, who were at that time high officials in that
extensive Underground Railway system which had already safely carried
thousands of passengers from bondage to freedom.
He retained a keen remembrance of his former experiences in Baltimore
and was conscious of a sense of protection in his Abolition friends; yet
at the age of twenty-one years, in this new environment of freedom, he
was in many respects as ignorant as a child. To what was north, or east,
or west of New York, he was entirely oblivious neither did he know the
kind and the condition of the people among whom he was to live and work
out his destiny. Where to go, what to do, and how to use his freedom,
were questions he could ask, but could not answer. It was enough, now,
just to know that he was free. What was to be his relationship to these
non-slave-holding people was yet to be discovered.
It is an evidence of his self-reliance and honor, as well as his loyalty
to his past, that, almost the first step in his new life, was to send
for his promised wife. She came to New York at once, and they were
wedded by Rev. J. W. C. Pennington, a Presbyterian minister of that
city. The early marriage of the young man must be regarded as an
important event in his career as a freeman. It was a marriage for love
and, as his wife was a woman of strong character and determination, she
was able actively to assist her husband while he was seeking to
establish himself in a new country. The act also made him at once a
home-builder and the head of a family. Though he was poor almost to the
very limit of poverty, without work, without habitation, and without
friends or relationships, having nothing, in fact, but himself, which
included a sound body and strong will, he went about planning and doing
things as if certain that all must come out as he wished.
His newly discovered friends decided it was best for him not to stay
longer in New York, and that New Bedford, Mass., was a much safer place.
There he could work at his trade without danger of re-capture. He
cheerfully started on his journey, though he had not enough money to pay
his way. The stage-driver, plying between Newport and New Bedford, held
a part of his baggage as security for his unpaid passage and when he and
his wife arrived at their destination they had nothing to live on except
faith. In this New England town everything was strange to Douglass, but
he was not long in finding a friend, a colored man named Nathan Johnson.
The latter, the first important acquaintance the refugee made among
Northern colored people, had a good home, good standing in the
community, and more than ordinary intelligence. He very soon discovered
that Frederick Douglass was a man of superior fibre and became his firm
friend.
Johnson’s house was well furnished with books and music, and bore other
evidences of good taste and a cultivated mind. He was in a position to
render just that kind of help which the young fugitive and his new wife
needed at this time. He at once redeemed the baggage held by the
stage-driver, and gave Douglass needed directions and advice as to how
to get work and to establish himself.
Nathan Johnson had the further distinction of being the man who gave to
the Maryland slave the name he ever afterward bore. Douglass left the
South as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. His new-found friend had
just been reading Scott’s _Lady of the Lake_, and persuaded the young
man that Douglas was a name of poetic and historical significance; he
was sure it would be further glorified by its new owner. With so
auspicious a beginning, the refugee started out bravely to seek work and
make a living for himself and his wife.
As he moved about in the New England town, he was much impressed by
Northern civilization, and was greatly surprised to see white people,
who while rich, educated, and powerful, were yet not slave-holders. Up
to this time he had known but two classes of white people, slave-holders
and non-slave-holders. The non-slave-holding white people of the South,
he knew, were generally ignorant, despised, and poor; while those who
owned slaves seemed to own everything else worth having. Here in New
England he observed that white people were high or low according to
their character, ability, and possessions. Life appeared to him larger,
wider, and fuller of possibilities than he had dreamed, even in his more
hopeful days down on the Eastern Shore. These impressions and the better
understanding of his own condition gave him courage and made him feel
equal to any task or problem. His first occupation, as a free man, was
putting away some coal for Ephraim Peabody, for which he was paid two
dollars. He cherished this “free money,” for it was the first he had
ever earned that he could call his own. He cheerfully went from one job
to another, proud as a bank president in the new dignity which freedom
seemed to have conferred upon him. He accepted any kind of task he could
find to do, such as sawing wood, digging cellars, removing rubbish,
helping to load cargoes on ships, scrubbing out ship cabins, and the
rough work in a foundry. The employment was hard and the pay small, yet
it did not seem so to this newly emancipated slave. The right to dispose
of his own labor, and to have and to hold all that he made was a
profound and unceasing satisfaction to him.
His spare moments were given to studying and reading everything he could
lay hold of. He saw from the first that his freedom could not be
profitably used and protected without knowledge and the mental
discipline that comes with the effort to acquire it. He was liked by
everybody who employed him, because he made it a matter of principle to
do all and more than his full duty in every occupation. He put as much
zeal, intelligence, and cheerful industry into these common tasks as he
later gave to pursuits of a more dignified character.
Young Douglass was cheered and heartened in this wholesome atmosphere of
freedom,—free schools, free labor, and general fair play, to such a
degree that it was a long time before he began to feel the presence and
trammels of race prejudice as they existed in New Bedford and elsewhere
in the North in that day. That there was a feeling against his color he
learned when he attempted to follow his trade as a calker. When he
sought to hire himself to a certain ship-owner at New Bedford, he was
told to go to work, but when he went to the boat with his tools, the
foreman informed him that every white man would quit if he struck a blow
at his trade. This unexpected _dénouement_ drove Douglass back to common
labor, at which he could earn less than one-half of what he could have
made as a calker. He accepted the situation in good spirit, however,
feeling that the worst possible treatment in freedom was infinitely
better than slavery.
He met his next rebuff when he attempted to attend one of the lectures
under the auspices of the New Bedford Lyceum Association. He was refused
a ticket on the ground that it was against the policy of the society to
admit colored people to the lecture-room. It was not long, however,
before this discrimination was done away with, since men like Charles
Sumner, Emerson, Horace Mann, and Garrison, refused to speak before the
organization unless the restriction was removed. The privilege of
attending these meetings and hearing some of the great anti-slavery
leaders was a matter of great import to Douglass. Indeed, it was the
very thing he needed as a part of his education in preparation for his
life work. He heard for the first time white men who were taking strong
positions on the question of the abolition of slavery. The existence of
an anti-slavery society and an anti-slavery movement of ever-widening
extent and influence in the nation impressed him as nothing had done
since he came from the South. The things for which he had secretly
dreamed and yearned and struggled in Maryland were now becoming great
national issues, with men of might behind them, pushing them on and
seeking to make them the foremost questions of the day.
Quite as important as the privilege of hearing slavery discussed was the
chance he obtained of reading William Lloyd Garrison’s paper, _The
Liberator_. Garrison’s direct and uncompromising words came to him like
a trumpet call. He began to cherish each number as second only in
importance to the Bible. Heretofore he had had no one to help him reason
out the philosophy of the question. What the facts of slavery were he
knew by actual and bitter suffering. The words of no one could make him
feel their injustice and pain more than his own experiences had made him
feel them, but here, behold, was a mighty man, a prophet in his moral
earnestness—a sort of Isaiah, who with inspired fervor, predicted the
ultimate downfall of slavery.
_The Liberator_ and Mr. Garrison’s words were as important to young
Douglass and his intellectual development as was the _Columbian Orator_,
which had inspired him while a slave in Baltimore. Those who knew him at
once recognized his intelligence. The colored people of New Bedford were
the first to discover his fluency as a speaker and to give ear to his
original ideas on the question of freedom for their race. He was often
called upon to speak in meetings held by colored men in the town, and in
colored churches. As far as the masses of the people were concerned,
however, he was still an obscure Negro laborer. There was no one except,
perhaps, Nathan Johnson, who saw in this patient and cheerful toiler the
promise of a public career. No men of African descent had up to this
time achieved anything like distinction. A colored man might now and
then be smart as a freak of nature; no one was prepared to think of his
becoming great by sheer force of mind and character. But the power
within this young fugitive slave and the forces without him were fast
shaping themselves to call him forth and hold him up as an example to
all the world.
CHAPTER IV
BEGINNING OF HIS PUBLIC CAREER
Years had passed and great changes had taken place since Uncle Lawson,
the old colored preacher, who had been Frederick Douglass’s first
spiritual teacher and comforter, had solemnly told him that “the Lord
had a great work for him to do,” and that he must prepare to do it.
These words were spoken at a time when the boy was just beginning to
awaken to the vast possibilities of human life, and, dimly conscious of
his own powers, was groping to find his place in the world. Douglass had
never forgotten this speech. It seemed now that the prophecy of the old
colored man was to be fulfilled. During the first years at New Bedford,
he had been industriously preparing himself to perform the task that
destiny apparently had assigned him. He had no teachers to help him in
his studies, or direct him in his reading. He had no definite notion of
what the future had in store for him, nor of how he was to be used “to
perform the great work,” of which Uncle Lawson had spoken. The latter
believed that his young _protégé_ was to become a preacher of the
Gospel, because that seemed the only possible future of the slave upon
whom unusual gifts had been bestowed. But Douglass had reached the
conclusion that, if any great work had been assigned him, it was in the
direction of securing the freedom of the members of his race in bonds.
He was faithfully preparing himself to meet the emergency that should
call him into the service of that cause.
In the summer of 1841, the opportunity, long waited for, came. A great
anti-slavery convention was called by William Lloyd Garrison and his
friends, to meet at Nantucket. We have already seen how deeply young
Douglass was impressed with Mr. Garrison’s writings in _The Liberator_,
and it can be easily inferred that the word “anti-slavery” should have
stirred him as no other word in the language of freedom. For the first
time since he came to New Bedford he determined to take a holiday for
the purpose of going to Nantucket and becoming as much as possible a
part of the anti-slavery meeting. However ardent others might be in
their interest for the convention, to him it meant everything worth
living for and dying for to find the white people in a free community
taking hold of the question of abolition as if their own kith and kin
were in chains.
Douglass went to see, listen, and learn. This was privilege enough for
one occasion. When he was sought out by a citizen of New Bedford, who
had heard of him, and was asked to say a few words, he was quite
startled. So frightened was he, “it was with much difficulty,” he says,
“that I could stand erect or could command or articulate two words
without hesitation and stammering. I trembled in every limb. I am not
sure that my embarrassment was not the most important part of my speech,
if speech it could be called. The audience sympathized with me and at
once, from having been remarkably silent, it became much excited.”
But his embarrassment soon subsided. Parker Pillsbury, an eye-witness,
says: “When the young man, Douglass, closed late in the evening, none
seemed to know or care for the lateness of the hour. The crowded
congregation had been wrought up almost to enchantment as he turned over
the terrible apocalypse of his experience in slavery.”
If Abolition was a great cause in the minds of those astonished
auditors, it became more sincerely so after the young fugitive from
bondage had concluded. William Lloyd Garrison followed, and of him
Pillsbury says: “I think that Mr. Garrison never before, nor afterward
felt more profoundly the sacredness of his mission. I surely never saw
him more deeply and divinely inspired. He said among other things, ‘Have
we been listening to a thing—a piece of property, or a man?’ ‘A man,’
shouted the audience. ‘And should such a man be held a slave in a
republican and Christian land?’ ‘No, no. Never, never!’ was the fervent
response. ‘Shall such a man be sent back to slavery from the soil of old
Massachusetts?’ Almost the whole assembly sprang with one accord to
their feet and shouted, ‘No, no!’ long and loud.”
Measured by its effect on the audience and by its importance to himself
and the Abolition cause, this first speech was one of the greatest Mr.
Douglass ever made. Only three years out of bondage, never having been
at school, wholly self-taught and coming direct from hard toil to a
platform, he had been invited to speak before an audience of proud and
cultured New Englanders!
The whole thing seemed so incredible and was so unexpected that those
who heard him never ceased to wonder how such wisdom and eloquence could
come from a slave. It was by far the most dramatic and important
incident that had occurred in the anti-slavery fight up to this time.
William Lloyd Garrison was quick to discern that the cause needed this
fugitive slave, more than any other man or thing, as an argument and an
illustration in the further work of the anti-slavery society. Others
spoke from knowledge and conviction gained by reading and study;
Douglass spoke from twenty years’ experience of all the phases of
slave-life. His words had the charm born of things seen, felt, and
suffered. His presentation of the subject was more than argument; it was
a transcript from actual life.
Immediately after the convention, John A. Collins, then the general
agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, went to Mr. Douglass
and urged him to accept a position as one of his assistants, publicly to
advocate its principles. This unexpected offer was quite as embarrassing
as was the request for him to speak at the meeting. Acting upon an
impulse of self-mistrust, and a sense of unfitness, he tried to refuse,
but all excuses were swept aside by Mr. Collins, and finally Douglass
decided to make a trial for three months.
After recovering from his first timidity, he entered the fight with
enthusiasm. No one was more surprised than he at his ability to meet the
expectations of the people. In the early part of his work he was
accompanied by George Foster. They traveled and lectured from the same
platform through the eastern counties of Massachusetts. He was
frequently introduced to the audiences as a “chattel,” a “thing,” a
“piece of property,” and Mr. Collins invariably called their attention
to the fact that the speaker was a “graduate from an institution whose
diploma was written upon his back.”
A great deal of interest was excited in the meetings that he was invited
to address. Many of those who came out of curiosity to see and hear a
fugitive slave went away convinced and converted to the anti-slavery
cause. Douglass soon persuaded his friends and associates to think that
he was too much of a man to be employed as a mere “exhibit.” At first
his eloquence and success with the public both delighted and alarmed
them. There began to arise a fear that his power as an orator would
prove too great. It seemed well enough for him to tell the story of his
servitude, but when he indulged in logic and flights of fancy and
invective, it was feared that he would be considered an impostor. If
slavery was such a degrading thing as this man said it was, the question
naturally arose, How, then, did he acquire his accomplishments? Besides,
Douglass did not give the name of his master, or the state from which he
came.
All this was true enough, and the truth was somewhat embarrassing, but
the people did not stop to consider the omission. Douglass was now a
resident of Massachusetts; he was a slave, owned in Maryland. To state
the facts about his identity would be to invite slave-catchers to New
Bedford to reclaim strayed property. There was nothing for him to do but
to keep the dangerous secret securely locked in his own bosom and talk
down the doubts and suspicions that were now and then expressed. George
Foster, Mr. Garrison, Mr. Collins, and other friends, who happened to be
on the same platform with him, were always admonishing him not to appear
too intelligent, too oratorical, or too logical, lest his claim of
having been a slave be discredited. “Give the facts,” they said, “and we
will take care of the philosophy.” “Let us have the facts only.” “Tell
your story, Frederick; people will not believe you were ever a slave, if
you go on in this way.” “Be yourself.” “Better have a little plantation
dialect than not.” “It is not best that you should seem so learned.”
Such were the complaints and warnings that came to him from those who
most admired him, during the first few months of his career as an
orator. The young man could scarcely curb his impatience, so great was
his moral earnestness. The thoughts which he uttered flowed so
spontaneously and uncontrollably from his lips, that it seemed to him he
could no more limit himself than he could stop the force of gravitation.
Speaking of this embarrassment he says: “It was impossible for me to
repeat the same old story month after month and keep up my interest in
it. I could not follow the injunction of my friends, for I was now
reading and thinking. New views of the subject were being presented to
my mind: I could not always curb my moral indignation.”
In order to remove all doubts as to whether he was a slave, he put the
facts, including the name of his master, in the possession of the
Anti-Slavery Society. As soon as Phillips and Garrison knew the truth,
they advised him to go on as before, for if he gave his name and that of
his master, he would be in danger of re-capture,—even in Massachusetts.
When he showed to Wendell Phillips a manuscript detailing the facts of
his slave-life, he was advised “to throw it in the fire”; but so
straightforward and earnest and effective was his work, and so rapid his
development as an orator, that he soon overcame all doubts, and those
who had once urged him to curb his intellectual flights learned to
admire his courage, and to put a higher value on his services to the
cause of Abolition. Whenever there was serious work to be done, and the
best men and women were needed to combat pro-slavery policies and
measures, he was eagerly sought. His name now began to be announced with
those of the foremost advocates of freedom.
In the latter part of the year 1841, and in the early months of 1842,
the Abolitionists were called upon for a show of strength. The appeal
came from Rhode Island. The people of that state were aroused to a high
pitch of interest in an effort to adopt a new constitution in place of
the old colonial charter that had been in use since the Revolution.
Making a new constitution was a political question and every political
contest, however local in concern, afforded occasion for the pro-slavery
and anti-slavery people to clash. In this Rhode Island contest, interest
centred on the proposition to restrict the right of suffrage to white
citizens only. The pro-slavery sentiment of this, as of other Northern
states, was so strong, that there seemed to be a great likelihood of the
“color line” being fixed in the supreme law of the commonwealth. To
combat this danger, the anti-slavery societies massed their forces and
went into the little state to dispute every inch of the ground. Stephen
S. Foster, Parker Pillsbury, Abby Kelley, James Monroe, and Frederick
Douglass were the advance guard. The contest here was somewhat different
from the more or less peaceful work of holding public meetings in
Massachusetts to create public opinion. Here was a clean-cut issue in
which was involved the right of free Negroes to be full citizens in a
Northern state. Under the leadership of Thomas W. Dorr, the pro-slavery
forces had to be opposed by strong arguments and not by mere sentiment.
There was also a decided feeling against “intermeddlers,” as Douglass
and his associates were called. Meetings were held all over the state,
and soon it was plain to be seen that the anti-slavery people were
making progress in overcoming the “Dorrites.” It was a picturesque and
dramatic campaign, the chief features of which were the conspicuous
parts taken by Frederick Douglass, the fugitive slave, and Abby Kelley.
Mr. Douglass says that she “was perhaps the most successful of any of
us. Her youth and simple Quaker beauty, combined with her wonderful
earnestness, her large knowledge and great logical powers bore down all
opposition to the end, wherever she spoke, though she was before pelted
with foul eggs, and no less foul words, from the noisy mobs which
attended us.”
Mr. Douglass speaks in generous praise of the effectiveness of other
anti-slavery advocates, who were associated with him in this campaign.
He himself made a multitude of friends and added immensely to his
prestige as an orator. He was received by many of the leading citizens
of the state, almost as a brother. Among these new friends he gratefully
mentions the Clarks, Keltons, Chases, Adamses, Greens, Eldridges,
Mitchells, Anthonys, Goulds, Fairbanks, and many others.
Yet it was not all smooth sailing for the colored orator. He was
frequently dragged from the cars by mobs, though his associates were
always loyal to him, many of them refusing to go where he could not.
This was especially the case with Wendell Phillips, James Monroe, and
William A. White.
The result of the battle in Rhode Island was a complete triumph over
those who had sought to abridge the suffrage. The victory was not only
important, as a show of strength of the Abolitionists, but it prevented
the establishment of a dangerous precedent which might have had its
influence upon other states.
From Rhode Island, Mr. Douglass was called to speak in various places.
At first he was not always well received, but in nearly every case,
after he had once appeared, converts were made and opposition ceased. At
one time when he, with Garrison, Abby Kelley, and Foster, attempted to
speak in Hartford, Conn., the doors of every hall and church were closed
against them, but they spoke under the open sky, to so much effect that
some of their opponents had the grace to confess to a sense of shame for
such action.
At Grafton, Mass., Douglass was advertised to speak alone. There was no
house, church, or market-place in which he was permitted to appear. Not
to be outdone, he went up and down the streets ringing a dinner-bell
that he had borrowed, announcing that “Frederick Douglass, recently a
slave, will lecture on Grafton Common this evening at seven o’clock.” As
a result of this notice, he spoke to a great concourse of people, and as
usual advanced the cause of Abolition.
In the year 1843, the movement had so far progressed that a great
undertaking was announced. It was proposed to hold one hundred
conventions under the auspices of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society
in such states as New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and
Pennsylvania. Mr. Douglass was selected as one of the agents to assist
in the work. This was regarded as an ambitious scheme on the part of Mr.
Garrison, and attracted a great deal of public attention. Among the
speakers associated with Mr. Douglass in this tour were George Bradburn,
John A. Collins, James Monroe, Sidney Howard Gay, and Charles Lennox
Remond, the last-named a colored man of unusual eloquence.
Mr. Douglass felt very proud, as well he might, of being given so
prominent a part in this important enterprise, and of being associated
with men of such distinction. The wisdom of holding these conventions
was soon made manifest, when it was discovered how ill-informed were the
masses of the people as to the nature of the issue the Abolitionists
were seeking to force upon the attention of the country.
The crusade received rather a chilly reception in the Green Mountain
State. Along the Erie Canal, from Albany to Buffalo, it was more than
difficult to excite any interest or to make converts. In Syracuse, the
home of Rev. Samuel J. May, and where such men as Gerrit Smith, Beriah
Green, and William Goodell lived, Douglass and his friends could not
obtain a hall, church, or market-place to hold a meeting. Everybody was
discouraged and favored “shaking the dust from off their feet,” and
going to other parts. But Frederick Douglass did not believe in
surrender. He was determined to speak his word for the gospel of
Abolition here, even if he must do so under the open sky, as in
Connecticut and Massachusetts. In the morning he began in a grove with
five people present. So powerful was his appeal that in the afternoon he
had an audience of five hundred and in the evening he was tendered the
use of an old building that had done service as a Congregational church.
In this house the convention was organized and carried on for three
days. The seeds of Abolition were so well sown in Syracuse, that
thereafter it was always hospitable ground for anti-slavery advocates.
Mr. Douglass had a more friendly reception in Rochester, which was to be
his future home. Here he found a goodly number of Abolitionists and his
words made a lasting impression.
The next meeting of importance was in Buffalo. The outlook for a
convention in this western New York city was so discouraging that Mr.
Douglass’s associates turned on their heels and left him to “do Buffalo
alone.” The place appointed was a dilapidated old room that had once
been used as a post-office. No one was there at first except a few
hack-drivers who sauntered in from curiosity. But Mr. Douglass went at
them with great earnestness, as if they could settle all the problems
that were overburdening his heart. Out of this small and unsympathetic
beginning, grew a great convention. Every day for nearly a week, in the
old building, he spoke to constantly increasing crowds of people who
were worth talking to, until finally a large Baptist church was thrown
open to him. Here the size and character of the audience were
flattering. So great was the eagerness to hear him that on Sunday
evening he addressed an outdoor meeting of five thousand people in the
park.
At this Buffalo meeting Mr. Douglass called to his assistance a number
of prominent colored speakers, such as Henry Highland Garnet, Theodore
S. Wright, Amos G. Bearman, Charles M. Ray, and Charles Lennox Remond,
all of powerful speech and growing influence, who held a convention of
their own, at which the ex-slave made an eloquent address.
From this city Douglass continued on his way into Ohio and Indiana. The
Ohio meeting, held in Clinton County, was a notable event. This was the
farthest west Mr. Douglass had been as yet and he now went into the
state of Indiana. This was dangerous ground, as he soon learned when he
attempted to deliver his message. Here he found a mob-spirit harder to
resist than any he had encountered in the East. In attempting to speak
at Richmond, Ind., where Henry Clay had been heard shortly before, he
received a shower of “evil-smelling eggs.” From this place he went to
Pendleton, where he could find no hall or church in which to speak; but,
not to be outdone, he attempted what he had successfully accomplished at
Syracuse, and at other places. He had a platform erected in the woods. A
large assembly of people came out to hear the colored orator, but the
Hoosiers, in this part of the state, were determined not to be
persuaded.
It was, as one of them rudely expressed it, a case of “no nigger speaker
for us.” As soon as the meeting began, a mob of fifty or sixty
rough-looking men ordered Douglass to stop. An attempt to disregard this
threatening command, maddened the rioters. They tore down the platform
and violently assaulted the orator and his associate, Mr. White. Seeing
the danger, Douglass began to fight his way through the crowd with a
club. The sight of a weapon in the hands of a Negro angered the mob
still more, and they set upon him with such fury that he was felled to
the ground, being beaten so fiercely that he was left for dead. Having
dispersed the meeting, the men mounted their horses and rode away. Mr.
Douglass’s right hand was broken, and he was in a state of
unconsciousness for some time. He was unable to speak for several days,
being tenderly cared for by a Mrs. Neal Hardy, a member of the Society
of Friends, until his wounds were healed, but he never recovered the
full use of his right hand.
Notwithstanding this rough treatment, Mr. Douglass would not allow
himself to be frightened out of the state. He continued his work for a
long time, and compelled a respectful and peaceful hearing. He was no
coward and was not afraid of mobs. He did not stop until, according to
the plans determined upon by the Anti-Slavery Society of Massachusetts,
the one hundred conventions had been held. The work was accomplished, in
spite of indifference, contemptuous criticism, and sometimes violent and
bloody opposition.
Although it seemed at the time that not much had been achieved, the seed
sown was to bear fruit when a few years later the South and North were
arrayed against each other in the great struggle for the preservation of
the Union.
CHAPTER V
SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY
Frederick Douglass was so much a part of the Abolition movement from
1838 to the final overthrow of slavery in the United States, that his
career will be the better understood after a brief review of the
condition of the country as affected by the evil during those years.
At the time of Douglass’s escape from bondage in 1838, slavery was the
one great and overshadowing fact in our national life. According to the
census of 1840, the number of slaves in the United States was about
2,500,000 and the number of free colored people about 300,000. The value
of slave-property was upward of two billions of dollars. No other
interest in the United States at that time approximated in the amount of
its invested capital the sum represented in these human chattels. The
labor of these slaves was to a very considerable extent the basis of
American commerce and credit. Not the South alone, but the entire
nation, was interested directly or indirectly, in preserving the
integrity and maintaining the economic value of slave-labor. The mining,
the manufacturing, and the great grain interests of the present time
were unknown and scarcely dreamed of in those early days of the nation’s
industries. Cotton was “king,” and its dominion affected in some way,
and to some degree, the social, political, and economic life of the
republic.
The results of Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin were such as to
check the current of sentiment in favor of emancipation, which had found
expression in the sayings of Thomas Jefferson, Madison, and other
Revolutionary leaders. In his great speech of March 7, 1850, Daniel
Webster said: “In 1791 the first parcel of cotton of the growth of the
United States was exported and amounted to 19,200 pounds. It has gone on
increasing rapidly until the whole crop may now, perhaps, in a season of
great product and great prices, amount to $100,000,000.” According to
the estimates of the United States Census Bureau in its census of 1900,
cotton production increased from 2,000,025 pounds in 1790 to 987,637,200
pounds in 1849, and 2,397,238,140 pounds in 1859. The enormous capital
invested in this industry created a close community of interest between
the planters of the South and the capitalists of the North; hence the
influence of the cotton trade was felt in both sections.
This enormous interest easily dominated the politics of the times, North
and South. The most prominent statesmen of the nation, after 1850, were
either openly committed to policies and measures to protect and extend
the power of slavery, or were silent, since to oppose these policies and
measures meant, in many instances, political extinction. The trend of
all legislation in our national government at this period was directly
opposed to emancipation. Meanwhile, the evil flourished and became more
and more a part of the spirit and blood of our national life. If there
were no slavery in the Northern states, one reason was that slave-labor
had proven unprofitable. In the early days of the institution, the North
was quite as willing to legalize and protect slavery as the South, and
continued to do so as long as it paid and was practicable. The mere fact
that slavery was profitable where climatic conditions were congenial to
cotton raising, increased the demand for both slaves and territory. The
pressure for more slaves and more territory for slavery, was so
persistent, that it constantly became easier to ignore moral and
religious precepts, to set aside the national maxims, and to override
the laws that stood in the way of its extension and power. For example,
the slave-trade was prohibited by national law, yet so little effort was
made to enforce this law, that importations kept the market well
supplied. The acts of Congress, the messages of our presidents, the
utterances of our cabinet ministers, and correspondence with the
representatives of the nation at foreign courts, contain abundant
evidences of the constant concern of our government that nothing should
be done to impair the security of slave-property in the United States.
The acts of Congress by which every addition to our national domain
south of the Ohio River became slave-territory, clearly show this. When
in 1855, a “slaver” was driven by storm to seek refuge in Bermuda, our
Minister at the Court of St. James was instructed that, “in the present
state of diplomatic relations with the government of his British
Majesty, the most immediately pressing of the matters with which the
United States Legation at London is now charged, is the claim of certain
American citizens against Great Britain, for a number of slaves wrecked
on the island in the Atlantic.” The message contains a polite hint that
“neglect to satisfy these demands might possibly tend to disturb and
weaken the kind and amicable relations that now so happily subsist
between the two countries.”
By sanction of the national government, slavery was legalized and
protected at the national capital. The war with Mexico, which resulted
in the annexation of Texas, was followed by the establishment of slavery
in the territory so acquired. It was fostered and defended as a national
institution not only by numerous acts of the government, but by public
sentiment in the Northern states. It had existed before the foundation
of the Union. It had been accepted as a fact by the framers of the
Constitution. As such, it had a legitimate claim, it was urged, to the
protection of the government. It was generally assumed that, on the
whole, the Negro was better off in slavery than as a free man. Though
the Northern people did not favor the extension of slavery, they were
disposed to meet in a spirit of conciliation every demand for more
protection, more power, and more territory for this traffic.
When opposition, not on grounds of expediency but of fundamental right,
began to manifest itself in Northern states by the circulation of
Abolition papers, the alarm of slave-owners was expressed in no
uncertain tones. Some of the governors of slave-states and their
legislatures made urgent demands that such publications be suppressed.
The following is a sample of some of the resolutions passed by the
legislatures: “Resolved that our sister states are respectfully
requested to enact penal laws prohibiting the printing, within their
respective limits, of all such publications as may have a tendency to
make our slaves discontented.”
The messages of the governors of two Northern states, William L. Marcy
of New York, and Edward Everett of Massachusetts, aptly illustrate
sentiment in the North at this time. Governor Marcy said: “Without the
power to pass such laws, the states would not possess all the necessary
means for preserving their external relations of peace among
themselves.” Governor Everett said: “Whatever by direct and necessary
operation is calculated to excite an insurrection among slaves, has been
held by highly respectable legal authority an offense against the peace
of this commonwealth, which may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common
law.”
In the same year, 1836, the Rhode Island legislature reported on a bill
in conformity with the demands of the slave-states. The significance of
this action is that it was taken fully two months prior to the request
of the Southern states. Thus it appears that the idea of the suppression
of free speech and free publication against slavery was first broached
in a Northern state.
President Jackson, in his annual message to Congress, in 1835 suggested
“the propriety of passing such laws as will prohibit, under severe
penalties, the circulation in the Southern states, through the mail, of
incendiary publications, intended to instigate the slaves to
insurrection.”
The Postmaster-General, a Northern man, serving under Jackson, refused
to “sanction” or condemn the acts of certain postmasters in arresting
the circulation of Abolition circulars, characterized as “incendiary
matter.”
The state of public feeling at this time fully justified the government
and its officials in everything they did to protect slavery, since their
action was sanctioned by a sentiment national in extent and character.
Just how strong was this public opinion in the North may be further
illustrated by the spirit of mob-violence that forms one of the darkest
chapters in the struggle to make this country, in deed as well as in
name, “the home of the free.” William Lloyd Garrison and Benjamin Lundy,
were repeatedly assaulted while they were running a paper in Baltimore
in 1827. The gentle and pious young Quakeress, Prudence Crandall, of
Canterbury, Conn., was arrested and sent to jail for allowing colored
children to attend her school. Her brother, Dr. Reuben Crandall, was
arrested in the city of Washington, thrown into prison on August 11,
1833, and held there for eight months on the charge of circulating
incendiary publications with the intent of inciting slaves to
insurrection. The only evidence against him was that he had in his trunk
some anti-slavery circulars. He died from the effects of his
imprisonment soon after his release.
On the 4th day of July, 1834, an anti-slavery meeting in New York was
made the occasion of a frightful riot. At Worcester, Mass., in 1835, an
anti-slavery speaker, Rev. O. Scott, son of an ex-governor, was forcibly
prevented from delivering a lecture, and his notes were torn up. On the
same day at Canaan, N. H., an academy was demolished, for the reason
that it was designed for the instruction of colored youth. At Boston, on
October 21, 1835, a mob of “five thousand gentlemen” attacked the Boston
Female Anti-Slavery Society and dispersed one of its meetings while its
president was at prayers. At Syracuse, N. Y., in October, 1833, a crowd
of “prominent” citizens broke up a meeting called by Gerrit Smith to
form an anti-slavery society; and in December, 1836, an anti-slavery
meeting at New Haven, Conn., was dispersed by students of Yale College.
At Alton, Ill., on the 7th day of November, 1837, Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy
was shot and killed and his printing press destroyed by a mob. At
Cincinnati, O., in 1836, and again in 1840, mobs of citizens demolished
the printing press of the _Philanthropist_, owned by James G. Birney, an
ex-slave-holder from Kentucky. Pennsylvania Hall, in Philadelphia, built
for the free discussion of all questions interesting to the American
people, was burned by a mob in May, 1838, because Abolitionists had been
allowed to hold a meeting there.
But what was perhaps the most heartless of all instances of violence
occurred on the 1st of August, 1842, at Philadelphia. The colored people
of that city had built a fine church and hall in which they were holding
a temperance celebration on the day of the anniversary of British
emancipation. A mob was formed which burned the building, demolished the
homes of the participants, and in a most savage and brutal manner, beat
and maltreated its innocent victims. This riot lasted two days and the
city authorities offered but feeble protection.
Many other incidents of violence directed against attempts to discuss
the slavery question might be recited, but enough have been mentioned to
indicate public feeling in almost every community in the
non-slave-holding States. All these manifestations of opposition to
anti-slavery agitation and action were at first and for a long time very
generally sanctioned by the churches, the schools and colleges, and by
the politicians of the free North. All the forces of conservatism in the
country were, as might have been expected, in favor of preserving the
_status quo_, and scarcely any cause in the whole history of our country
has ever been so unpopular as this Abolition movement. It seemed that
the slave-holders might rest perfectly secure in the assurance that
their interests would be well guarded by their friends in the
free-states, assisted by the natural inertia of the great mass of the
Northern people, who were instinctively opposed to any sudden or violent
change such as the agitation of the Abolitionists seemed to portend.
The inherent weakness of slavery in this country appeared when the very
laws that were passed to sustain and support it served merely to arouse
the public to a real comprehension of its evils. Gradually it became
clear to an ever-increasing number of citizens that it had no place in a
republic. It was out of harmony with the doctrines and principles fought
for in the Revolutionary War, and it did violence to the consciences of
large numbers of men and women, North and South, who, uncontrolled by
prejudice, were free to think and act for themselves. Thousands of
Southern people who felt that slavery was a wrong, emancipated their
slaves; others were moved to treat them with unusual kindness, and still
others held them because they could not help themselves.
Many influences were at work to arouse and quicken the moral sense of
the public and to make it conscious of the issues involved in the
question. Such agencies as the missionary movement, in its effort to
“evangelize” the world; the work of the Bible, tract and educational
societies, the religious awakening of the masses, in response to the
appeals of such eloquent preachers as Beecher, Rice, and Summerfield;
and the new interest in the former teachings of Hopkins and Edwards:—all
these forces, along with the new enthusiasm for social and political
reform, which found expression in the work of temperance and peace
societies and the fight against the cruel treatment of the Indians,
especially the Cherokees, aroused the people and prepared them to take
part in the discussion of public questions, giving them a new sense of
the significance and the responsibility of self-government. This revived
public spirit was aided and advanced by the growing influence of the
modern newspaper press, and of journals dealing with a variety of
subjects other than politics. Each moral and social question came to
have an organ to spread its views. Every one who had a gift for writing
had the opportunity to impress his opinions upon the public, if he could
but get hold of a press and printing outfit. A noted author of that
period says: “No one can comprehend in their real and distinctive
characteristics, the existing agitations of America, if he does not take
into account the new power and changed direction of the public press
constituting a new era in human history.”
With these agencies for the education of the masses, there came into
being the lecture platform. Any man or woman with a talent for fluent
speech and a “cause,” was at liberty to take the rostrum and attempt to
get a hearing. The same writer, above quoted, says: “The railway car of
1838, and the electric telegraph ten years after, were scarcely greater
innovations or greater curiosities than were the voluntary lectures,
free public conventions, and the moral and religious weekly journals
with their correspondence from 1825 to 1830.”
The development of these moral and religious agencies furnished the
masses of the American people with the means of creating a more active
interest in public affairs. Out of these grew that broader knowledge and
more acute moral sense which led them to inquire into the sanctions that
seemed to hedge about and protect the institution of slavery.
It was in such an atmosphere, in which religious enthusiasm touched and
quickened the sense of responsibility of the people in social and
political conditions, that the Abolition spirit grew and became a power
in public affairs. The question of slavery was definitely put before the
people as a political issue in the Missouri Compromise in 1820. During
the debate that followed they heard for the first time, the doctrine of
“immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slave.” Interest in
this new and radical doctrine was immediate and wide-spread. To those
who owned slaves, and indeed to the vast majority of the people, North
and South, who accepted slavery as an established institution with a
legitimate claim to protection from attack, this new doctrine seemed at
once revolutionary and dangerous.
The cry at once went up, “Put down the discussion and silence the
agitation!” It was indeed a question that could not survive debate. As a
matter of fact, the opposition which Abolition aroused was the one thing
that insured its final triumph. Men felt instinctively—it was the
republican habit of mind—that there must be something essentially
unsound in a system that could not tolerate open and free discussion.
Hence it was that every attempt to suppress the agitation defeated its
own purposes. The characters who now began to push to the front in the
ranks of the Abolitionists were men of stern American fibre. Facts,
figures, and arguments began to pile up which showed that this country
could not long exist “half-slave and half-free.” The terms “pro-slavery”
and “anti-slavery” came into the vocabulary of political discussion
during this new conflict. The breach between the forces represented by
these names grew wider and wider as the strife continued. The very
nature of the issue caused a degree of bitterness that has never before
or since been equaled in political argument in the United States. There
could be no such thing as compromise. A test of moral and physical
strength was sooner or later inevitable.
The issues of the contest may be summarized with advantage.
PRO-SLAVERY
The powers and privileges the conservative party sought to maintain and
defend were:
The unlimited authority of the master or owner of slaves.
Abrogation of marriage and the family relation among slaves.
The power to enforce labor without wages.
Incapacity of the slaves to acquire and hold property.
Incapacity to enjoy civil, domestic, and political rights.
Incapacity to make contracts or bargains.
The liability of the slave to be sold like other chattels, and separated
from relatives.
The authorized prosecution of the inter-state slave-trade.
The power of the master to forbid education, and to permit religious
gatherings at his own discretion.
The power of the legislatures of slave-states to prohibit education of
slaves by their masters.
ANTI-SLAVERY
The principles for which the Abolitionists contended were the following:
All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
Slavery, or more properly, the practice of slave-holding, is a crime
against human nature and a sin against God.
Like all other sins, slavery should be abolished unconditionally,
repented of, and abandoned. It is always safe to leave off doing wrong
and never safe to continue in wrong-doing.
It is the duty of all men to bear testimony against wrong-doing, and
consequently to bear testimony against slave-holding.
Immediate and unconditional emancipation, is preëminently safe and
beneficial to all parties concerned.
No compensation is due to the slave-holder for emancipating his slaves;
and emancipation creates no necessity for such compensation because it
is of itself a pecuniary benefit, not only to slaves, but to masters.
There should be no compromise in legislation, jurisprudence, or the
executive action of the government, any more than in the activities and
responsibilities of private life.
No wicked enactments can be morally binding. There are at the present
time the highest obligations resting upon the people of the free-states
to remove slavery, by moral and political action, as prescribed in the
Constitution of the United States.[1]
Footnote 1:
See William Lloyd Garrison—“The Story of His Life Told by His
Children,” vol. 1, p. 408, _et. seq._, where the full text of the
Declaration of Sentiments of the Anti-Slavery Convention of 1833 is
given.
Societies were formed on all sides. On the 10th day of January, 1832,
the New England Anti-Slavery Society was established in Boston. In 1833,
another society was organized in New York City. A call was issued for a
national anti-slavery convention, to be held in Philadelphia, December
4th, 5th, and 6th, in 1833, for the purpose of forming a National
Anti-Slavery Society. Upward of sixty delegates came to this meeting
from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. This was the
beginning of the national anti-slavery movement. Arthur Tappan, a
well-known merchant of New York City, was chosen president. Among the
delegates in attendance were such distinguished men as John G. Whittier,
the poet; Beriah Green, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizur Wright, A. L.
Cox, and William Goodell. After this time anti-slavery societies were
formed in every Northern state, men and women alike being eligible to
membership.
The Quaker element in this anti-slavery movement was strong and
important. Benjamin Lundy was the pioneer Abolitionist and no single
American ever did more for emancipation. In an appeal to the public in
1830, he said: “In a period of ten years prior to 1830, I have
sacrificed several thousand dollars of my own hard earnings; have
traveled upward of five thousand miles on foot and more than twenty
thousand miles in other ways; have visited nineteen states of this Union
and held more than two hundred public meetings, and have performed two
voyages to the West Indies, by which means the liberation of a
considerable number of slaves has been effected.”
The anti-slavery movement was a warfare, but its weapons were those of
peace. Appeal to the people by public addresses and through the medium
of the press, constituted the only method of fighting. Agitators in
behalf of this cause flooded the country with facts, figures, and
arguments. They brought the republic back to the principles of liberty
and justice upon which it was founded. They urged this issue so
persistently that no other question was permitted to equal it in public
interest. They set out with the determination that there was to be no
peace, no ease of conscience, no further prosperity, no national glory
until this question of slavery was settled and settled right. As the
subject grew in interest and importance, it attracted to itself some of
the brightest minds of the country; men who afterward became
distinguished as statesmen, poets, authors, orators. Even men of wealth,
whose natural interest would have inclined them to aid in preserving
existing conditions, joined the ranks. They gave to the movement a
character for respectability and made it a power that must be reckoned
with. The new party demanded a new dispensation, and with such
persistency, upon grounds which appealed so directly to the fundamental
political beliefs of the people, that finally there was not enough
inertia in the nation to oppose its demands.
While these revolutionary forces were gathering strength, the great mass
of the Negro people in the United States were dumb. In the plantation
states, the black man was a chattel; in the Northern states, he was a
good deal of an outlaw.
He was not permitted to share in the responsibilities and benefits of
citizenship sufficiently to be able to make his abilities known and his
purposes respected. “A man without force,” to use Mr. Douglass’s words,
“is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so
constituted that it cannot honor a helpless man, though it can pity him,
and even this it cannot do long, if signs of power do not arise; you can
put a man so far beneath the level of his kind that he loses all just
ideals of his natural position.”
CHAPTER VI
SEEKS REFUGE IN ENGLAND
When Frederick Douglass had concluded his remarkable tour from Vermont
to Indiana in the interest of the anti-slavery conventions, he was one
of the most popular and widely talked of men on the American platform.
The public everywhere was eager to learn everything possible about the
“runaway slave” who was winning his place among the foremost of American
orators. Interest in him was farther enhanced by the publication of his
“Narrative,” in 1845. Its issue was made necessary by the demand for
something definite concerning the antecedents of this “alleged slave.”
His accomplishments as a speaker and as a reasoner seemed inconsistent
with the representation made by him, that he had had no schooling, and
that he had been a slave until he was twenty-one years of age. There was
a desire for the exact facts. Yet to give them was dangerous. His
growing popularity was likewise a peril. The possibility of his capture
and return to slavery increased with his influence as an orator and
agitator.
After this publication, Douglass’s personal friends and the leaders of
the anti-slavery cause became more and more apprehensive. It would have
been regarded as little less than a calamity to have had Frederick
Douglass, the incomparable orator, the man in whom almost for the first
time, the silent, toiling slaves had found a voice, dragged back into
bondage. Under the circumstances it was deemed expedient for him to go
to England. Douglass himself was less anxious than his associates. He
was willing to continue to run any risk, if thereby he might serve the
cause of emancipation. His objections, however, were overruled, and he
was obliged to depart. He sailed on the steamer _Cambria_ of the Cunard
Line, Saturday, August 16, 1845, and James N. Buffum, of Lynn, Mass.,
accompanied him.
Though an English boat, Douglass was not allowed cabin accommodations
upon it. This aroused the indignation of a large number of the
passengers, among whom were many anti-slavery people,—notably the
Hutchinson family, the sweet singers of the Abolition cause. Mr.
Douglass by this time had become so used to such humiliations that he
easily made himself at home in the steerage. Within a few days, however,
he was the most popular person on the boat. Cabin passengers came into
his dirty quarters to see and talk with him. And presently all
restrictions were removed and he was welcomed and honored in every part
of the great steamer. A short speech which he delivered _en route_
aroused the resentment of some who were on the ship and a group of young
men threatened to throw him overboard. It was only by the interference
of the captain that Mr. Douglass was saved from violence. On reaching
Liverpool Thursday, August 28, 1845, these young men attempted to
forestall any possible influence he might try to exert, by the
publication of statements derogatory to his character and standing; but
such statements, instead of having the desired effect, served but to
arouse great interest in him.
In going to Great Britain, Mr. Douglass had no fixed plan or program. He
was merely fleeing to a land of safety to escape capture and a return
into slavery. He soon found, however, that he was almost as well-known
in England, as he was in New England. The remarkable story of his life
had been widely read by the British public, especially by those
interested in the anti-slavery cause. They had just passed through an
anti-slavery agitation which had resulted in emancipation in the West
Indies. Many of the most distinguished men in public life in Great
Britain were Abolitionists, and they took an active and eager interest
in the question. All attention was now centred upon America, and the men
and women there who were leaders in the Abolition movement, were
well-known. Douglass found a hospitable public awaiting him. It was the
time of the great political struggle for the repeal of the Corn Laws and
the dissolution of the union between England and Ireland. Some of the
greatest orators and statesmen in English history were on the stage of
action at this period. The black leader was stirred and inspired by the
debates in which such men as Cobden, Bright, Disraeli, Lord Brougham,
Sir Robert Peel, Daniel O’Connell and Lord John Russell took part. He
met all of them personally, was received cordially by them, and treated
with much deference. He dined with Bright and O’Connell, and in Belfast
was tendered a breakfast, at which a member of parliament presided.
While in Edinburgh he was entertained by the eminent philosopher, George
Combe. Thomas Clarkson, who had assisted in inaugurating the
anti-slavery movement in England, and who was at that time the most
distinguished Abolitionist in the world, was deeply affected by meeting
Mr. Douglass, of whom he had heard much. Taking both of his hands he
feelingly said: “God bless you, Frederick Douglass; I have given sixty
years of my life to the emancipation of your people, and if I had sixty
more, they should all be given in the same way.”
Mr. Douglass cherished a peculiar liking for Daniel O’Connell at that
time the incomparable orator and leader of the Irish people. He had a
genuine and lovable personality and was a powerful advocate. He had an
intense hatred for slavery, as for all forms of oppression and
injustice. He introduced Mr. Douglass always as the “Black O’Connell.”
His fondness for the “Maryland slave” made the latter’s tour through
Ireland a continuous ovation. At Cork, a public breakfast was tendered
him and the mayor presided at the first meeting he addressed. On October
4th, Father Mathew devoted an evening to him and Mr. Buffum. The British
and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society presented Douglass with a Bible
splendidly bound in gold. In response to this gracious act, he made the
following acknowledgment:
“I accept thankfully this Bible, and while it shall have the best place
in my home, I trust also to give its precepts a place in my heart.
Twenty years ago while lying, not unlike a dog, at the feet of my
mistress, I was roused from the sweet sleep of childhood to hear the
narrative of Job. A few years afterward found me searching for the
Scriptures in the muddy street gutters to rescue its pages from the
filth. A few years later, I escaped from my chains; gained partial
freedom, and became an advocate for the emancipation of my race. During
this advocacy, a suspicion obtains that I am not what I profess to be,
to silence which, it is necessary for me to write out my experiences in
slavery and give the names of my enslavers. This endangers my liberty;
persecuted, hunted and outraged in America, I have come to England, and
behold the change. The chattel becomes a man. I breathe: I am free!
Instead of culling the Scriptures from the mud, they come to me dressed
in polished gold, as the free and unsolicited gift of devoted hearts.”
Shortly after this happy occurrence, Douglass, with his associate, Mr.
Buffum, left Ireland. He had spoken about fifty times to the people in
various parts of the island. Everywhere he had made a deep impression
and intensified the interest in the American struggle for emancipation.
In carrying the campaign into Scotland, he met for the first time
something in the nature of an opposition or pro-slavery sentiment.
William Lloyd Garrison had already arrived there. It was during the
great excitement, in consequence of the position taken by the “Free
Church” of Scotland in accepting money from slave-holders to be used in
spreading the Gospel. In the cities of Glasgow, Greenock, Edinburgh, and
other places were seen such sensational placards, as, “Send Back the
Money.” These posters fairly indicated the state of public feeling upon
this subject, which was intensified by the presence of Frederick
Douglass, J. N. Buffum, William Lloyd Garrison, and George Thompson, and
by their terrible arraignment of slavery. At one of the great meetings
held at Cannon Mills, Edinburgh, Mr. Douglass was a speaker. It seemed
to be a test of strength between the friends and foes of the policy of
the “Free Church.” Doctors Cunningham and Candlish, men powerful in
influence, learning, and eloquence, championed the cause of the “Free
Church.” Mr. Douglass’s part in the meeting, was, as usual, a striking
one. His facts and figures and actual experiences as a slave, silenced
all arguments of a mere academic sort.
In one of his addresses in Scotland, when he was charged with being in
the pay of some rival religious sect, he said: “I am not here alone: I
have with me the learned, wise and revered heads of the church. But with
or without their sanction, I should stand just where I do now,
maintaining that man-stealing is incompatible with Christianity; that
slave-holding and true religion are at war with each other, and that a
Free Church should have no fellowship with a slave church. The Free
Church, in vindicating their fellowship of slave-holders, have acted on
a damning heresy that a man may be a Christian, whatever may be his
practice, so his creed is right. It is this heresy that holds in chains
three millions of men, women, and children in the United States.”
Each of his Scotch addresses was of this uncompromising and stirring
character. It was a matter of surprise and wonder to his associates to
witness his resourcefulness and readiness to meet all arguments and to
sweep aside all half-truths, uttered in behalf of slavery. Summing up
his work in Scotland, one who had followed him and studied its effects,
wrote: “He has divided the Free Church against itself on account of
slavery. He has gained the admiration and esteem of all the friends of
the slave in this country. He has always kept an open platform, yet none
of the rabbis have been found gallant enough to break lance with him. He
completely exposed their miserable attempts to reconcile slavery with
Christianity.”
While in England and Scotland a man named Thompson, who formerly lived
in St. Michaels, and who pretended to have known Douglass on the
Freeland and Covey plantations, published a letter that tended to
discredit some of his assertions. The ex-slave met these charges in a
straightforward manner, which must have left no doubt of his
truthfulness. In his reply to the Thompson letter, he said: “You have
completely tripped up the heels of your slave-holding friends and laid
them flat at my feet. You have done a piece of anti-slavery work which
no anti-slavery man could do again. If I could see you now, amid the
free hills of Scotland, where the ancient ‘black Douglas’ once met his
foes, I presume I might summon sufficient courage to look you in the
face; and were you to attempt to make a slave of me, it is possible you
might find me almost as disagreeable a subject as was the Douglas to
whom I have just referred.”
The several months spent by the traveler in England were filled with
interesting incidents. His oratorical triumph was complete, and the
attentions accorded him by many prominent people, unusually flattering.
Indeed, it can be said that he was positively lionized in London, but he
bore it with becoming dignity and the grace of a man born to high
conditions.
Perhaps special mention should be made of his address at the World’s
Temperance Convention, held in Covent Garden, August 7, 1846. A large
delegation from the United States was present and some prominent
Americans were on the program. The meeting was an immense affair and, in
point of interest, the number of delegates, and the countries
represented, genuinely international in character. Mr. Douglass was
asked to address the convention and his speech was looked forward to
with great interest. He rather anticipated a sensational outcome of his
attempt to make himself heard, because he was not called upon until the
delegates had spoken, and what they had said furnished him with the very
text that appealed most strongly to his convictions and feelings. As he
rose, the convention was in a quiver of excitement, for it was the first
time that this much-talked-of fugitive from slavery had had a chance to
stand up in the presence of men and women representing all shades of
party opinion, and say the word that concerned the destiny of himself
and his people. He began:
“Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen—I am not a delegate to this
convention. Those who would have been most likely to elect me as a
delegate could not, because they are to-night held in abject slavery
in the United States. Sir, I regret, that I cannot fully unite with
the American delegates in their patriotic eulogies of America and
American societies. I cannot do so for this good reason: there are at
this moment three millions of the American population, by slavery and
prejudice, placed entirely beyond the pale of American temperance
societies. The three million slaves are completely excluded by
slavery, and four hundred thousand free colored people are almost as
completely excluded by an inveterate prejudice against them on account
of their color. [Cries of “Shame! Shame!”]
“I do not say these things to wound the feelings of the American
delegates; I simply mention them in their presence and before this
audience that, seeing how you regard this hatred and neglect of the
colored people, they may be inclined, on their return home, to enlarge
the field of their temperance operations and embrace within the scope
of their influence my long-neglected race. [Great cheering, and some
confusion on the platform.]
“Sir, to give you some idea of the difficulties and obstacles in the
way of the temperance reformation of the colored population of the
United States, allow me to state a few facts. About the year 1840, a
few intelligent, sober, and benevolent colored people of Philadelphia,
being acquainted with the alarming ravages of intemperance among a
numerous class of colored people in that city, and finding themselves
neglected and excluded from white societies, organized societies among
themselves, appointed committees, sent out agents, built temperance
halls, and were earnestly and successfully rescuing many from the
fangs of intemperance.
“The cause went on nobly, until August 1, 1842, the day when England
gave liberty to one hundred thousand souls in the West Indies. The
colored temperance societies selected this day to march in procession
through the city, in the hope that such a demonstration would have the
effect of bringing others into their ranks. They formed their
procession, unfolded their teetotal banners, and proceeded to the
accomplishment of their purpose. It was a delightful sight. But, sir,
they had not proceeded down two streets before they were brutally
assailed by a ruthless mob; their ranks broken up; their persons
beaten and pelted with stones and brickbats. One of their churches was
burned to the ground, and their best temperance hall utterly
demolished.” [“Shame! Shame! Shame!” from the audience and cries of
“Sit down” from the Americans on the platform.]
A tremendous commotion was caused by this speech. The American
delegation was alarmed and indignant. One member wrote an account of the
event for the New York _Evangelist_, from which the following extracts
will serve to gauge the feeling:
“They all advocated the same cause, showed a glorious union of thought
and feeling, and the effect was constantly being raised—the moral
scene was superb and glorious—when Frederick Douglass, the colored
Abolitionist, agitator and ultraist, came to the platform and so spoke
_á la mode_ as to ruin the influence almost of all that preceded! He
lugged in anti-slavery or Abolition, no doubt prompted to it by some
of the politic ones who used him to do what they would not themselves
venture to do in person. He is supposed to have been well paid for
this abomination.
“What a perversion, an abuse, an iniquity against the law of
reciprocal righteousness, to call thousands together and get them,
some certain ones, to seem conspicuous and devoted for one sole and
grand object, and then all at once, with obliquity, open an avalanche
on them for some imputed evil or monstrosity, for which, whatever be
the wound or injury inflicted, they were both too fatigued and hurried
with surprise, and too straitened for time, to be properly prepared. I
say it is a streak of meanness; it is abominable. On this occasion Mr.
Douglass allowed himself to denounce America and all its temperance
societies together as a grinding community of the enemies of his
people; said evil with no alloy of good concerning the whole of us;
was perfectly indiscriminate in his severities; talked of the American
delegates and to them as if he had been our schoolmaster, and we his
docile and devoted pupils; and launched his revengeful missiles at our
country without one palliative word, and as if not a Christian or a
true anti-slavery man lived in the whole United States.
“We all wanted to reply, but it was too late. The whole theatre seemed
taken with the spirit of the Ephesian uproar; they were furious and
boisterous in the extreme, and Mr. Kirk could hardly obtain a moment,
though many were desirous in his behalf, to say a few words, as he
did, very calmly and properly, that the cause of temperance was not at
all responsible for slavery, and had no connection with it.”
At a Peace Convention held in London, Douglass made an address from
which the following excerpt is given to show to what an extent he at
this time shared the illusions of the Abolitionists, who, while
preaching the doctrine of non-resistance, were steadily feeding the
passions that made war eventually inevitable:
“You may think it somewhat singular, that I, a slave, an American slave,
should stand forth at this time as an advocate of peace between two
countries situated as this and the United States are, when it is
universally believed that the war between them would result in the
emancipation of three millions of my brethren, who are now held in the
most cruel bonds in that country. I believe this would be the result;
but such is my regard for the principle of peace; such is my deep, firm
conviction that nothing can be attained for liberty universally by war,
that were I to be asked the question whether I would have my
emancipation by the shedding of one single drop of blood, my answer
would be in the negative.”
Thus he spoke in 1846, but by the time Lincoln was nominated for
President, and war was actually impending, Douglass was prepared to
welcome it as a part of the price to be paid for justice, progress, and
freedom.
His ability to discuss any of the live questions of the day was a matter
of genuine surprise to the English people. At a farewell entertainment,
given to him, March 30, 1847, just before leaving London, William
Howitt, the author, said: “He [Douglass] has appeared in this country
before the most accomplished audiences, who were surprised, not only at
his talents, but at his extraordinary information; and all I can say is,
I hope Americans will continue to send such men as Frederick Douglass,
and slavery will soon be abolished.”
Mr. Douglass had now spent about twenty-three months in England,
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Like every other new experience, this
opportunity for travel in foreign lands was an education, and those who
had watched and heard him most often in his lecture-tours and in social
intercourse, could easily note his progress in breadth of sympathy and
intellectual grasp. He learned some things in England that he never
could have learned in his own country. The possibility of a perfect
comradeship between people of differing nationalities, creeds, and
colors was a fact that deeply impressed him. He learned that the great
men of the times, who had the power to make and unmake international law
as well as to mould and express public opinion, all regarded slavery as
a blight on civilization. He learned to have a new and stronger faith in
the ability and disposition of the white race to deal fairly with his
race. If he hated slavery more because of what he had seen, heard, and
experienced in England, he had gained a new strength of heart and mind
to battle for its extinction in America.
It would have been pleasant for him to have remained abroad and have
become a citizen of free Britain. No colored man had ever been more
flattered and fêted by the public. His friends and admirers multiplied
everywhere. Many of his oversea friends urged him to surrender his
American allegiance, but no inducement, however alluring, could cause
him to desert his fellow-men in bonds. In fact, when it was given out in
the United States that an attempt would be made by his old masters, the
Aulds, to arrest him on his return and carry him back to a Maryland
plantation, Douglass wrote: “No inducement could be offered, strong
enough to make me quit my hold upon America as my home. Whether a slave
or a freeman, America is my home, and there I mean to spend and be spent
in the cause of my outraged fellow countrymen.”
As the time approached for him to leave England, a deep concern for his
safety began to be felt and expressed by his British friends. As an
outcome of this feeling, a proposition was made by Mrs. Ellen
Richardson, belonging to the Society of Friends, that a fund be raised
to purchase his freedom and thus remove all possibility of danger of
re-enslavement. The proposition was at once accepted, and gladly acted
upon by Mrs. Richardson and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Henry Richardson. As
the result of correspondence, the purchase price, £150, was named and
the sum was raised. The following is a true copy of the legal papers by
force of which Frederick Douglass became free:
“Know all men by these presents, that I, Thomas Auld, of Talbot County
and State of Maryland, for and in consideration of the sum of one
hundred dollars[2] current money, to me paid by Hugh Auld of the city
of Baltimore, in the said state, at and before the sealing and
delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof I, the said Thomas
Auld, do hereby acknowledge, have granted, bargained, and sold, and by
these presents do grant, bargain, and sell unto the said Hugh Auld,
his executors, administrators, and assigns, one Negro man, by the name
of Frederick Bailey or Douglass, as he calls himself—he is now about
twenty-eight years of age—to have and to hold the said Negro man for
life. And I, the said Thomas Auld, for myself, my heirs, executors and
administrators, all and singular, the said Frederick Bailey, alias
Douglass, unto the said Hugh Auld, his executors, and administrators,
and against all and every person or persons whatsoever, shall and will
warrant and forever defend by these presents. In witness whereof, I
set my hand and seal this thirteenth day of November, eighteen hundred
and forty-six. (1846.)
THOMAS AULD.
“Signed, sealed and delivered in presence of Wrightson Jones, John C.
Lear.”
Footnote 2:
The £150 were paid to Hugh Auld who had previously obtained his $100,
which seems to have been a sort of quit claim deed from his brother
Thomas.
“To all whom it may concern: Be it known that I, Hugh Auld of the city
of Baltimore, in Baltimore County, in the State of Maryland, for
divers good causes and considerations me thereunto moving, have
released from slavery, liberated, manumitted, and set free, and by
these presents do hereby release from slavery, liberate, manumit, and
set free, my Negro man, named Frederick Bailey, otherwise called
Douglass, being of the age of twenty-eight years or thereabouts, and
able to work and gain a sufficient livelihood and maintenance; and
him, the said Negro man named Frederick Douglass, I do declare to be
henceforth free, manumitted and discharged from all manner of
servitude to me, my executors and administrators forever.
“In witness whereof, I, the said Hugh Auld, have hereunto set my hand
and seal the fifth of December, in the year one thousand eight hundred
and forty-six.
HUGH AULD.
“Sealed and delivered in presence of T. Hanson Belt, James N. S. T.
Wright.”
This purchase of Mr. Douglass’s freedom was not approved by some of the
ultra-Abolitionists in the United States. A contributor to _The
Liberator_ said: “Let us beg of you never to publish another word in
your paper about the ransom of Douglass. I am quite ashamed that our
American Abolitionists should expose their narrowness in expressing so
many regrets at their loss of slave-property in Douglass. They seem to
feel that he was their property, and not his man.”
Many Abolitionists thought it a violation of anti-slavery principles and
a waste of money. Mr. Douglass’s own feelings in the matter are stated
by himself in the following language: “For myself, viewing it in the
light of a ransom or as money extorted by a robber, and regarding my
liberty of more value than one hundred and fifty pounds sterling, I
could not see in it either a violation of the law of morality or
economy.”
In still another practical way did his English friends show their
affection for Douglass before he left them. Having learned upon his
return to America that it was his desire to publish a newspaper, in the
interest of his people, the sum of $2,500 was without difficulty raised
and presented to him for that purpose.
The contrast between the conditions of his coming to England and those
of his returning to the United States affords an interesting evidence of
his power of conquest. He went to England knowing no one, and personally
known by no one; he returned to his own country carrying with him the
friendships of men and women whose acquaintance but few Americans, at
that time, could have obtained. He went to Great Britain a slave in
danger of re-capture and re-subjugation; he returned, freed from his
master by the bounty of English friends. He was empowered and equipped
to publish the gospel of immediate and unconditional emancipation.
Douglass arrived home in the spring of 1847. He sailed early Sunday,
April 4th. The last night of his stay abroad was spent as the guest of
John Bright and his sisters. From no one in England could Douglass have
received a more gracious welcome and friendly benediction than from this
great commoner. The only incident that in any way clouded his departure
was the act of the officers of the steamer _Cambria_ in refusing to let
him have the berth previously engaged for him. When the English people
heard of this, great indignation was voiced in the press and from the
platform, in every part of the United Kingdom. The result was that Mr.
Cunard in an open letter expressed his regrets, and Mr. Douglass was
given a stateroom; but he was not permitted to leave it or to place
himself in view of the other passengers during the sixteen days he was
upon the sea.
CHAPTER VII
HOME AGAIN AS A FREEMAN—NEW PROBLEMS AND NEW TRIUMPHS
Frederick Douglass returned to American shores on the 20th day of April,
1847. The date and fact of his coming marked the beginning of a new
chapter in his career. To be free and feel free was a great source of
strength both to himself and to his friends, in renewing the struggle
for emancipation. He had not only a bracing sense of security against
the dangers of capture and return to slavery, but he had gained
wonderfully in mental and spiritual equipment. The two years in England
were years of education and inspiration. During that time he had met and
mingled freely with large men who were dealing successfully with large
problems. Emancipation had acquired a broader meaning for him as a
consequence of his visit. In America he had not been able to free
himself from the conviction that emancipation, confused as it was with
all the interests of daily life, was a sectional or at most, a national
question. Looking back, from this distance, upon his own life and the
great struggle of which it had become a part, he was able to realize
more fully than before the truth of what Garrison long had taught, that
slavery was a world question,—a question not of national or sectional
expediency, but of fundamental human right.
With this larger vision gained by European experience and study, he was
the better prepared to take up the old battle-cry of “Unconditional
Emancipation.” His trip abroad had not merely widened his vision and
deepened his sense of the moral significance of the struggle in which he
was engaged; it had measurably increased his prestige with the American
public. The fact that Europe had recognized his talents and had honored,
in him, the race and the cause he represented, strengthened his position
as a speaker, and lent a new importance to the things he had to say.
Before he went to England, he was seldom noticed or referred to in any
of the great pro-slavery newspapers of the country, except as a
“runaway-nigger” and a “freak,” “preternaturally clever.” After his
return, allusions to him were frequent and more abusive. In giving
notice of a public anti-slavery meeting in Boston, one of these papers
said: “The Abolitionists headed by William Lloyd Garrison, and tailed by
Mr. Frederick Douglass, the fugitive slave, are in full blast. He,
Douglass, elaborates very eloquently and fearfully, and is a good deal
of a demagogue in black.”
These newspaper attacks on Mr. Douglass were largely due to the
resentment aroused in this country because of the way in which he had,
in England, denounced America for its slave-holding policy. This feeling
was not confined to the newspapers, but was shown at several large
gatherings that Mr. Douglass addressed in company with William Lloyd
Garrison.
In Boston an attempt was made to “silence” him. Stones were thrown in
the meeting at Norristown, Pa., and at a very large assembly held in the
court house at Harrisburg, Pa., on the 9th of August, 1847, after Mr.
Garrison had spoken without molestation, Douglass was violently
interrupted when he tried to speak, and was not allowed to continue. But
such disturbances were not general, nor did they have the effect of
shaking the eloquent apostle’s determination to be heard. During the
same month he and Garrison held numerous anti-slavery meetings in
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. There was in these meetings
abundant evidence that the cause of Abolition was gaining ground. The
gatherings in Oberlin and Cleveland were especially notable for the
interest manifested. One of the Cleveland papers had the following
notice of the meeting: “The Menagerie Company, Garrison, Douglass,
Foster (and we expect Satan) are to be here on Saturday next and open at
seven o’ clock in the evening in the big tent, and continue their
harangues over the Sabbath. This trio has made sale for a great many
unmerchantable eggs in other places.” It was evident, from the size of
the Cleveland meeting, and from the interest aroused in the addresses of
Douglass, Garrison, and Foster that this newspaper did not reflect the
popular feeling.
In the early part of September, 1847, Mr. Douglass was the presiding
officer of a colored convention held in Cleveland. His address upon this
occasion was a notable departure from all former models. It showed that
he had been giving a great deal of thought to the needs of his people.
It was a powerful plea, “that the doors of the schoolhouse, the
workshop, the church, and the college shall be open as freely to our
children as to the children of other members of the community.” The
following extract is especially important, and prophetic of the
present-day needs of the colored race: “Try to get your sons into
mechanical trades; press them into blacksmith-shops, the machine-shops,
the joiner’s-shops, the wheelwright-shops, the cooper-shops, and the
tailor-shops. Every blow of the sledge-hammer wielded by a sable arm is
a powerful blow in support of our career. Every colored mechanic is, by
virtue of circumstances, an elevator of his race. Every house built by
black men is a strong tower against the allied hosts of prejudice. It is
impossible for us to attach too much importance to this aspect of the
subject. Trades are important. Wherever a man may be thrown by
misfortune, if he have in his hands a useful trade, he is useful to his
fellow-men, and will be esteemed accordingly, and, of all men who need
trades, we are the most needy.”
It was advice of this kind, in which the passionate controversialist
displayed from time to time something of the foresight and the
constructive ability of the statesman, as well as his growing popularity
with the wiser and more influential class of the white people, that gave
Douglass high place, and made him the undisputed leader of the free
colored element of the country.
Two things, above all others, were at this time pressing themselves upon
his thought and attention: one was his cherished project of establishing
a newspaper of his own; and the other, the preservation of his friendly
relations with William Lloyd Garrison.
He had long looked to Garrison and his associates for advice and
direction in everything of importance, and in an enterprise of such
moment as this newspaper, he naturally felt that their opinion was
indispensable. The money was raised, as we have already seen, by English
friends, and sent over to Mr. Douglass within three months after he
reached America, with the understanding that the use of it was to be
left wholly to his discretion. It was clearly stated that, if he thought
it inexpedient to invest the funds in a newspaper, he could use them,
under trustees of his personal choosing, for the benefit of himself and
his children. But he wanted an “organ” of his own. As time went on he
believed that he perceived the need of it more and more.
“I already saw myself,” he said, “wielding my pen as well as my voice in
the great work of renovating the public mind and building up a public
sentiment which should send slavery to the grave, and restore to
‘liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ the people with whom I suffered.”
Among other considerations that moved him to establish his own paper was
the conviction that the example of a well-managed and ably edited organ
would be a powerful evidence that the Negro was too much of a man to be
held a chattel.
Another side to this question had not occurred to him until this time.
His attention was called to the fact that he was more than Frederick
Douglass, the individual. What he did and said, and what he was and was
to be, were of so much concern to his associates and co-workers that,
when it became known that he intended to start a newspaper, difficulties
of all kinds arose. Douglass knew that Garrison opposed his enterprise.
Could he ignore that leader’s advice? Clearly, his first impression was
that he could not. He felt then and ever afterward that he owed
everything to Mr. Garrison. It was the latter who had discovered and
brought him to the attention of the people. The word of such a man must
be law to him. Garrison’s philosophy of this whole slavery question was
accepted by Douglass without an “if.” He was so completely under the
spell of the great Abolitionist’s personality that, when he learned of
the opposition to the newspaper project, he was overwhelmed with
surprise and disappointment.
Various reasons were given for this attitude. Mr. Garrison thought it
quite “impractical to combine the editor and the lecturer without either
causing the paper to be more or less neglected, or the sphere of
lecturing to be seriously circumscribed.” It was further urged that the
publication was not needed, that it would diminish the support of the
papers already in existence, and that it could not succeed. Some of
Douglass’s other friends advised him, that being a man without any
education and without any literary training, he would make himself
ridiculous as an editor. These counselors wished to save him from the
humiliation of an ignominious failure, and cautioned him against the
mistake of allowing his ambition to bring him into ridicule and
contempt. This opposition coming from his former advisers and associates
caused him to hesitate, and, for a time, to give up the scheme; so,
instead of starting the paper as soon as he received the money to be
devoted to that purpose, he postponed the project for nearly a year, out
of deference to the judgment of these wise and close friends.
During the interval, Mr. Douglass had time to examine into the merits of
the advice against his becoming an editor. He had a further opportunity
to feel the public pulse and learn something more definite in regard to
the prospects for good or evil of a newspaper, such as he had in mind.
He was much in demand on the lecture platform. His vogue was growing all
the time, and with increasing popularity and power, he saw the
possibility of a reading constituency large enough to support his
publication and widen his influence.
But other considerations intervened to widen the breach between himself
and Garrison. The Abolition movement, as planned and carried on by the
outspoken leader and his followers, was non-political. It sought to
effect a revolution, but by the moral regeneration of the people.
Slavery, as Garrison conceived it, was a national sin which could be
reached only by an appeal to the national conscience; but the effect of
the anti-slavery agitation had not been confined to those who accepted
his revolutionary doctrines. Many persons who were unable to follow the
relentless logic of Mr. Garrison to its revolutionary conclusions were
roused to opposition to slavery by the sting and fire of his sermons.
The number of people who were disposed to do something to check its
extension was rapidly increasing. This wider anti-slavery movement was
fast drifting from a mere unorganized sentiment, without force
sufficient to compel resistance, into a political party with a definite
platform. Those who could not follow the “disunion” and “non-resistance”
principles of Garrison, but began to fear the aggression of the
slave-power, joined the “Free Soil” and “Liberty” parties. The issue
raised by the Abolitionists was daily becoming less a question of the
right or wrong of slavery and more a question of how, under the actual
circumstances in which the institution existed, it might best be gotten
rid of.
Garrison and his followers, supported by the infallible logic of their
leader, still clung to the disunion policy, which was primarily a
discharge of conscience from all complicity with slavery and only
secondarily a means to the abolition of slavery.
Frederick Douglass, with less consistency, perhaps, and a keener sense
for the practical exigencies of the situation, was undoubtedly
influenced by a desire to get into close touch with this larger
audience. The sequence of events, and Douglass’s position in relation to
them, tended to convince him that he was justified in his desire to
found a newspaper. A colored periodical would be no new thing. As early
as 1827 the _Ram’s Horn_, published by and for Negroes, had been started
in the North. Other papers conducted by colored men were, _The Mystery_,
_The Disfranchised American_, _The Northern Star_, and _The Colored
Farmer_. Opportunity and duty seemed to combine in urging him to do the
thing that he had abandoned in deference to the advice of Mr. Garrison
and at length he reached the point where he no longer feared failure,
every objection urged against his purpose seeming to be overcome.
Being thus convinced, he heroically set himself to the task. The first
duty was to select a field sufficiently removed from New England not to
compete with _The Liberator_ and _The Anti-Slavery Standard_. Rochester,
N. Y., was the place chosen. This was good anti-slavery territory, but
it was of the Gerrit Smith kind as distinguished from the Garrison kind.
Both of these men were towers of strength in the cause of Abolition, and
both were lavish in the expenditure of time and means for the cause of
freedom.
On the 3d day of December, 1847, appeared the first issue of the _North
Star_. The name was afterwards changed to _Frederick Douglass’s Paper_,
in order to avoid all possible confusion with other anti-slavery organs
with similar names. It was issued weekly, and had an average circulation
of 3,000 subscribers, with a maximum of 4,000. A colored man named
Delaney, who afterward distinguished himself as a Union soldier in the
Civil War, had had some experience in newspaper work and aided Mr.
Douglass in the publication. Financially the paper soon proved to be
more of a sacrifice than a money-making venture, but in this there was
no disappointment, for its purpose was to make public opinion rather
than money. It took everything that Mr. Douglass had and could obtain to
keep the _North Star_ in the newspaper firmament. He became deeply in
debt and was compelled to mortgage his home to meet the heavy demands
upon him. His old friends and many new ones came repeatedly to his
rescue. The most important of these was Mrs. Julia Griffith Crofts, a
gracious woman who took hold of the business management herself. After a
year’s effort the circulation increased from 2,000 to 4,000, and enough
money was realized to pay off all indebtedness and lift the mortgage
from Mr. Douglass’s home. The paper grew in popularity and influence,
and its patrons and financial helpers included such men as Gerrit Smith,
Horace Mann, Salmon P. Chase, Joshua R. Giddings, Charles Sumner,
William H. Seward, and John G. Palfrey. Support came from these leaders,
not in a patronizing way to help a “poor, struggling colored man’s
paper,” but rather as a tribute to the high merit of the publication.
Those who were sure that Mr. Douglass could never write as well as he
could speak were surprised at this new evidence of his versatility and
resourcefulness.
In an issue of Mr. Garrison’s paper, dated January 28, 1848, these
flattering words appeared: “The facility with which Mr. Douglass has
adapted himself to his new and responsible position is another proof of
his genius and is worthy of especial praise. His editorial articles are
exceedingly well written; and the typographical, orthographical, and
grammatical accuracy with which the _North Star_ is printed surpasses
that of any other paper ever published by a colored man.” Edmund Quincy,
commenting on the _North Star_, paid a high tribute to the new editor
and said that its “literary and mechanical execution would do honor to
any paper, new or old, anti-slavery or pro-slavery, in the country.” The
ease with which Mr. Douglass adapted himself to his new responsibility,
and the high praise that came to him from all parts, added immensely to
his influence and prestige. What the _North Star_ said editorially on
the many live questions of the day was liberally quoted and widely
discussed.
The successful carrying out of this enterprise was a distinct advantage
to Mr. Douglass as a vindication of his own individuality. It is a good
thing for a man to have an idea, but it is a better thing for him to
have sufficient force of character to put his idea into effect. A man
stands or falls by what he is able to do rather than by what he is able
to say. Mr. Douglass was told that the responsibility was too great. It
is always at this point that the strength of a man is tested. Frederick
Douglass rose above the fears of his friends and took the first step
that led him to a more commanding position. The determination to have
his own way in this newspaper enterprise was his first “declaration of
independence.” While Mr. Douglass tells us that he felt an abiding
gratitude toward William Lloyd Garrison for what that man had done in
giving him a start in his upward career, he had reached the point where
he must cease to rely upon the initiative of others. He must begin to
trust himself and his own powers, and cease to be a burden upon those
who had been his guides and teachers.
The anti-slavery cause was assuming large proportions. Every event in
the social, economic, and political life of the nation pushed this
question into prominence. All sorts of people were becoming interested
in the slavery issues, but there were so many sides to the problem that
it was not always easy to see the right. There was for a time a growing
confusion of ideas, policies, doctrines, and a puzzling division and
subdivision of forces, both in the pro-slavery and anti-slavery ranks.
There were those who thought and asserted that the Federal Constitution
was a “pro-slavery instrument,” and others who were equally insistent
that it was anti-slavery. There were those who were Abolitionists in
doctrine, but in politics voted with one or the other of the old
parties, both of which were pro-slavery in their policies. There were
those who, while believing in the equality of the Negro, were extreme in
their opposition to the admission of women into membership in
anti-slavery societies. A large number of liberty-loving people could go
no further in their hostility to slavery than to oppose its extension
into new territory. These made a partial trial of their anti-slavery
feelings in the Free Soil and the Liberty parties.
Only two classes of people in the country occupied fixed positions on
the great question. These were William Lloyd Garrison and his
associates, and the slave-holders and their followers. Mr. Garrison’s
famous utterance that “the United States Constitution was a covenant
with death and an agreement with hell,” and his declaration of “no union
with slave-holders,” constituted his unvarying platform. The
slave-holding interests were equally tenacious of their creed and quite
as fixed in their determination to risk everything rather than yield an
inch to the anti-slavery clamor.
Enough has been said to show that the time had come when the man who
wished to be respected, believed in, and followed, must be strong enough
to have convictions of his own and be responsible to himself and the
public for these convictions. It was now incumbent upon Mr. Douglass to
find solid ground on which, amidst so many conflicting opinions, to
oppose slavery. The conclusions of his studies and thinking had the
disagreeable effect of leading him away from Garrison’s doctrine of
“non-resistance” and “disunion.” From his first reading of _The
Liberator_ he held firmly to Garrison. What that leader said or believed
on the question, Mr. Douglass accepted without reservation. It is well
that he did. No one could be a weakling who lived and labored under so
stimulating a guide. There was something sublime in his moral courage,
and something extraordinary in the steadiness with which, unswerved by
the changing circumstances about him, he pursued his fixed purposes. It
was this quality of soul in him that made him always the dominant figure
and influence in the contest. Abolition had become so closely identified
with his name that the question could scarcely be discussed without some
reference to him. It is no wonder that Frederick Douglass was so
completely under his spell, but it must certainly be counted an evidence
of the ex-slave’s intellectual sincerity and strength of mind that when
he could in practice no longer follow the disunion theory, he had the
courage and ability to frame a clear and logical statement of the
grounds for his own action.
His explanation of his change of position is best told in his own words:
“My first opinions were naturally derived and honestly entertained.
Brought directly, when I escaped from slavery, into contact with
Abolitionists, who regarded the Constitution as a slave-holding
instrument and finding their views supported by the united and entire
history of every department of the government, it is not strange that
I assumed the Constitution to be just what these friends made it seem
to be. I was bound, not only by their superior knowledge, to take
their opinions in respect to this subject, as the true ones, but also
because I had no means of showing this unsoundness.
“But for the responsibility of conducting a public journal, and the
necessity imposed upon me of meeting opposite views from Abolitionists
outside of New England, I should in all probability have remained firm
in my disunion views. My new circumstances compelled me to re-think
the whole subject, and to study with some care, not only the just and
proper rules of legal interpretation, but the origin, design, nature,
rights, powers, and duties of civil government, and also the relations
which human beings sustain to it. By such a course of thought and
reading, I was brought to the conclusion that the Constitution of the
United States, inaugurated ‘to form a more perfect union, establish
justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty,’
could not well have been designed at the same time to maintain and
perpetuate a system of rapine and murder like slavery, especially as
not one word can be found in the Constitution to authorize such a
belief. Then again, if the declared purposes of an instrument are to
govern the meaning of all its parts and details, as they clearly
should, the Constitution of our country is pure warrant for the
abolition of slavery in every state of the Union.”
Having thus, and by other reasonings convinced himself of the
unconstitutionality of slavery, the editor of the _North Star_ voiced
the conviction in and out of season, until it was overthrown. In thus
separating from the Garrisonian Abolitionists, there was much
heart-burning on both sides, but nothing of the nature of rivalry or
jealousy, as some writers have attempted to show. Both Garrison and
Douglass were manly in their attitude toward friend and foe, and too
sincere in their convictions to be otherwise than high-minded in their
differences on matters of principle.
It has been charged against Mr. Douglass, and not without reason, that
he was ungrateful in turning upon the men who had made him what he was;
that it was ambition and the desire for success in a wider field which
prompted him to independent action. No doubt there were, and are, those
to whom his course during this period seemed then and still seems
unwise, mistaken, and directed rather by selfish interests than by the
lofty idealism that guided the labors of the Abolitionists, from whom he
at this time parted company. However this may be, it is likely that the
differences which sprang up between Garrison and Douglass at this period
were due, in great part, to certain fundamental differences of mind and
temperament making this divergence of views inevitable.
The power which Garrison exercised over his contemporaries was due, to a
considerable degree, to the clearness and vigor of his intellect and the
unflinching fidelity with which he followed its decrees. The first thing
that he demanded of himself and of others was that they should think and
feel rightly in regard to this question of slavery. The revolution he
sought to effect was a purely spiritual one: he aimed to change men’s
minds and hearts. The power he desired to overthrow was a state of
mind—a state of mind which permitted slavery to exist.
Douglass, on the contrary, was destined, by natural disposition, for a
different field of action. He was by temperament a politician, and, like
all politicians, more or less of an opportunist. He was less interested
in the theory upon which slavery should be abolished than he was in the
means by which freedom could be achieved. No doubt he was influenced to
a considerable degree, in the formulation of his views in regard to the
Constitution, by his practical sense of what the situation demanded,
and, even if these views have not been upheld by subsequent
interpretation of that document, they still appeal strongly to common
sense.
Whatever motives may have influenced Douglass in taking the position
that he did, there seems to be no reason for doubting their sincerity.
Though drawn into different fields of endeavor in the cause of
anti-slavery, the importance of Garrison and his work was in no wise
diminished in Douglass’s eyes. In 1860 he wrote to _The Liberator_
concerning the anti-slavery society: “So far from working for the
annihilation of that society, I never failed, even in the worst times of
my controversy with it, to recognize that organization as the most
efficient generator of anti-slavery sentiment in the country.” And in
September, 1890, he said in Boston: “It was they [Garrison and Phillips]
who made Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party possible. What
abolished slavery was the moral sentiment which had been created, not by
the pulpit, but by the Garrisonian platform.”
Finally, it seems clear that, through all this controversy, Douglass
retained his affection for William Lloyd Garrison, and that this feeling
was honestly reciprocal. There is, in the life of the great
Abolitionist, as told by his children, a bit of correspondence that
reveals the tender side of these two robust human natures. It was at a
time when Mr. Garrison was very much disturbed on account of the Negro
newspaper project. Mr. Douglass had accompanied him on a lecture tour as
far west as Cleveland, where Garrison became ill and his colored
colleague was compelled to leave him to meet other engagements. Letters
were frequently exchanged, but for some reason they were not received.
This mutual failure to hear from each other gave rise to many unpleasant
misgivings. Samuel J. May, the friend of both, writing to Garrison under
date of October 8, 1847, says: “Frederick Douglass was very much
troubled that he did not get any tidings from you when he reached
Syracuse on the 24th of September. He left reluctantly, yet thinking
that you would be following in a day or two, and as he did not get any
word from you at Waterloo, nor at Auburn, he was almost sure he should
meet you at my house. His countenance fell and his heart failed him when
he found me likewise in suspense about you. Not until he arrived at West
Winfield did he get any relief, and then through _The Liberator_ of the
23d.”
Some days afterward, Mr. Garrison wrote as follows: “Is it not strange
that Douglass has not written a single line to me or any one else in
this place, inquiring after my health, since he left me on a bed of
illness? It will also greatly surprise our friends in Boston to hear
that, in regard to his project for establishing the _North Star_, he
never opened his lips to me on the subject, nor asked my advice in any
particular whatever! Such conduct grieves me to the heart. His conduct
about the paper has been impulsive, inconsiderate, and highly
inconsistent with his decision in Boston. What will his English friends
say of such a strange somerset? I am sorry that friend Quincy did not
express himself more strongly against the project in _The Liberator_. It
is a delicate matter, I know, but it must be met with firmness.”
True to his own high sense of gratitude to Mr. Garrison, and always
deferential to the latter’s position in the anti-slavery fight, Mr.
Douglass never permitted himself to utter a single word of criticism or
complaint. The field was large enough and the work was great enough for
each to display the full measure of his respective powers toward the one
great object, the abolition of slavery. During this period, Mr. Douglass
always found time and opportunity for platform work. Every great
gathering of the anti-slavery forces was enlivened in interest by his
presence. His power as an orator did not diminish, as was predicted, by
his continued ascendency as an editor. On the contrary, his words gained
force as he became more confident of himself, and more clear in regard
to his convictions. In the great anti-slavery convention held in New
York, he made a speech which revealed remarkable strength. The following
extract from a report of the meeting is worth quoting in proof of the
stirring quality of his address:—
“Frederick Douglass now takes the platform, and is welcomed with
applause. The assembly is now fixed in its close attention, and
Frederick is going on to show up the cowardly and sneaking conduct of
John P. Hale in bringing in a bill to protect property, and not daring
to stand up and fearlessly advocate the right of slaves to run away, and
the right and duty of Abolitionists to protect them. Frederick is
describing _Punch’s_ portraits of Brother Jonathan, with the devil
hovering over him, eyeing with satisfaction passing events. The audience
give him great applause. He is speaking to great effect, portraying the
wrongs of the colored population of this nation. His eloquence sways the
great assembly with him. He denounces the Northerners, who swear to
support the Constitution, as the real slave-holders of the country. It
is good to listen to him. He shows up the Northern apologists of slavery
as those whose smiles he does not want. He pledges himself to denounce
those enemies of God and man, who swear to support the Constitution, as
his enemies. Frederick has got the audience into a great state of
glorification; and he is now showing that there is no way to abolish
slavery except by the dissolution of the Union. There, he is done, and
the meeting is breaking up. It has been a pleasant and profitable time.”
In the course of his career as a public speaker, Douglass developed a
capacity for repartee that made him the dread of any one who had the
temerity to interrupt him in a public discussion. At the convention to
which I have just referred, he was described as “with brows knit, fiery
eyes like daggers, scorn upon his thick lips, and lurking in his sable
woe-begone visage the traces of malignity, disappointment, and despair.”
By another paper, when speaking on the same platform with Garrison,
Phillips, and Lucretia Mott, he was called the “master-genius of the
crowd.”
In 1848, Mr. Douglass took another step forward, and became an advocate
of female suffrage. He had had opportunity to judge of the worth of
woman in the anti-slavery movement. The work done by Lucretia Mott, the
Grimké sisters, Frances Wright, Ernestine L. Rose, and other forceful
leaders, strongly impressed him with what seemed to him the great
injustice of excluding such women from the benefits of those rights by
means of which citizenship could be protected. On the 19th day of July
of that year the Seneca Falls convention was held. The following extract
from the _North Star_ shows Mr. Douglass’s position:
“We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women
to be justly entitled to all we claim for man. We go further and express
our conviction that all political rights, which it is expedient for man
to exercise, it is equally so for women. All that distinguishes man as
an intelligent and accountable being is equally true of woman; and if
that government only is just which governs only by the free consent of
the governed, there can be no reason in the world for denying to woman
the exercise of the elective franchise, or a hand in making and
administering the laws of the land. Our doctrine is that ‘Right is of no
sex.’ We, therefore, bid the women engaged in this movement our humble
Godspeed.”
Mr. Douglass consistently held to these views ever afterward. He was one
of the first of all prominent Americans to champion the cause of female
suffrage, and the women in return esteemed him and accorded to him more
honor than has been shown to most men by their organizations. He was
always a guest in any large gathering of woman suffragists.
In connection with the labor of running his newspaper and keeping up a
strenuous interest in the many public questions that appealed to his
heart and conscience, it is fitting to make some mention of his early
experiences in Rochester, N. Y., his home, and the scene of his most
important activities for twenty-five years. He became deeply attached to
the city and its people. He said: “I know of no place in the Union where
I could have located at the time with less resistance, or received a
larger measure of sympathy and coöperation, and I now look back to my
life and labor with unalloyed satisfaction, having spent a quarter of a
century among its people. I shall always feel more at home there than
anywhere else in this country.”
When Mr. Douglass began the publication of the _North Star_, there were
people in the city who felt it a sort of disgrace that a Negro paper
should be established in their midst. This was not surprising. It is
doubtful if, at that time, any inhabited spot in the United States could
have been found entirely free from race prejudice. So far as the Negro
was concerned, wherever he wished and tried to be a good citizen, he
found himself in the “enemy’s country.” The most troublesome of
Douglass’s early experiences in Rochester was the attempt to educate his
children. They were not allowed to attend the public school in the
district in which he lived and owned property; and his young daughter,
who was the “apple of his eye,” was so unkindly treated in Tracy
Seminary, a school for girls, that she had to leave it. This difficulty,
like every other that he encountered in his career, served only to
embolden him; it encouraged him to fight. He went at the question with
his characteristic force, and before long every barrier was removed and
the children of black parents were freely admitted to all the schools of
the city. Indeed he conducted himself so well and was personally so
interesting that he soon became a popular citizen of Rochester, and his
friends were as numerous and cordial in pro-slavery as in anti-slavery
circles. Among those mentioned in his biography, for whom he had a
special fondness, are Isaac Post, William Hallowell, Samuel D. Porter,
William C. Bliss, Benjamin Fish, Asa Anthony, and Myron Holley. From
time to time he addressed the citizens in Corinthian Hall. His audiences
were always composed of the best people in Rochester, and in this way he
did much to break down the prejudice against his race. This hall was
built and owned by a prominent pro-slavery man, but so great was his
respect for Mr. Douglass that he cheerfully allowed it to be used for
the propaganda of emancipation. Thus the black leader became proud of
Rochester and in more ways than can well be recited, the city honored
him as no other colored man has ever been honored by an American
municipality.
CHAPTER VIII
FREE COLORED PEOPLE AND COLONIZATION
The recognized leadership of Frederick Douglass among the colored people
of the country may be dated from the publication of the _North Star_.
Prior to that time he was regarded as an Abolition orator and a
conspicuous example of the possibilities of the Negro race. He had not
yet established his relationship with the free colored people of the
North.
Douglass came from the South. His hardest experiences and bitterest
memories were those of the Southern plantations. It was the toiling
black masses, whose fortunes he had shared, that claimed his first and
profoundest sympathy and interest. “Freedom first and rights afterward,”
was the precept that had thus far guided his efforts in behalf of his
race. His position as the publisher of a colored newspaper brought him
into closer touch with the interests and aspirations of the free colored
people of the North. They had obtained freedom, but they were thus far
in practice, to a large degree, without rights. Douglass seemed to feel
that the work he was doing and the position he occupied gave him some
special claim to the support and loyalty of these people. He sometimes
complained of and took deeply to heart the criticism and petty
fault-finding with which a few of his fellow freedmen followed his
movements. But, on the whole, they gave him generous support, and
accorded him grateful recognition for his services. The leading colored
men of the period who, in various ways, were helping the cause of
emancipation, rallied around him and lived and labored in intimate
association with him.
At this time the free Negroes formed a considerable portion of the
American population. In 1850 there were about 230,000 of them in the
slave-states and about 200,000 in the free-states. The liberation from
bondage of this nearly half-million of colored persons had been brought
about in various ways. The larger portion of them in the Northern states
became free through their emancipation by Northern slave-holders. Those
in the slave-states were either manumitted by their former masters or
had by personal enterprise bought their own freedom. Here and there were
a few West Indian colored people who had come to the United States to
find a home. An ever-increasing number in the North were runaway slaves
who had gained their freedom in some such way as Frederick Douglass had
gained his. These were for the most part a superior class of men and
women. The fact that they had the courage and enterprise to win their
own liberty is good evidence that they had personal initiative and
ambition. Among their number were many who, like Douglass, had secretly
learned to read and write while they were still slaves. Others were
first-rate mechanics who, in spite of opposition, found good employment.
The attitude of the white citizens of the North toward the free people
of color was, in almost every way, hostile. The slave-holders of the
South were angered by the loss of their property and the Northern people
were annoyed by the presence, in their midst, in ever-increasing
numbers, of this class. In fact, prejudice against the free blacks in
the Northern states came to be of the most uncompromising sort. In many
sections the status of the free Negro was often little better than that
of an outlaw. It was literally true that he had “no rights that a white
man was bound to respect.” Wherever the Negro turned his face for
encouragement or for opportunity, he met with opposition and
discouragement. His children were generally shut out of the public and
private schools. In many instances those which would admit colored
pupils, in defiance of public sentiment, were burned down or mobbed and
the teachers ostracized. The case of Miss Prudence Crandall, in
Canterbury, Conn., in 1833, is fairly illustrative of the public feeling
in regard to Negro education. Miss Crandall was a beautiful young
Quakeress of tender heart and great courage, who had opened a school for
young women in the village of Canterbury. A chance admission of a
colored girl raised such a storm of indignation among her neighbors that
she was assailed by a mob and an attempt was made to burn the building.
When she still persisted in having her way, she was arrested and sent to
jail.
Other instances of this kind might be cited. In nothing were the
Northern people more bitterly intolerant than in their opposition to the
education of the children of free colored families. The same spirit that
in the slave-holding states accounted it a crime to teach colored people
to read and write, made it very dangerous for any man or woman to do, or
attempt to do, the same thing in the free-states.
In some of the Northern commonwealths, as Illinois, for example, the
term “black laws” was given to a code of special regulations which were
applied to men and women of a dark complexion. In nearly all of the
states north of the Ohio, the Negro was disfranchised either by
constitution, statute, or public sentiment. In practice, he was not
regarded as a member of political society and was, consequently, almost
wholly without the guarantee of civil rights. The Christian people were
often as hostile as non-church people. Mr. Garrison mentions “a certain
Baptist church in Hartford, Conn., where the ‘Negro pews’ were boarded
up in front so that only peep-holes gave an outlook; truly a human
menagerie.” In a Massachusetts town, the floor was cut out from under a
colored member’s pew by the church authorities, so that he could not
occupy it. In all means of travel, either by rail or stage-coach, the
Negro passenger was rigidly quarantined. His presence was everywhere
frowned upon unless he appeared as a servant or a slave.
This anti-Negro feeling in the North was not a passing whim or
sentiment; it was deeply rooted and constitutional. People, noble and
ignoble, were alike influenced by race prejudice. Abolitionists found
themselves swayed to such an extent by the sentiment about them that
they often did not have the courage to act consistently with their
principles. Mr. Douglass gives a very interesting incident in the early
part of his career, which aptly illustrates how at times race feeling
manifested itself in the most unexpected places. He had been invited to
speak at Concord, N. H., by a subscriber of _The Liberator_. Arriving in
the town, he went directly to the home of the Abolitionist, where it was
expected he would be entirely welcome. He was received with anything but
enthusiasm. When the good man got ready to go to the church, where the
meeting was to take place, he drove off alone and left the orator of the
occasion to walk and find the way—a distance of two miles—as best he
could. Upon reaching the church, Mr. Douglass was obliged to introduce
himself, as no one was willing to risk his reputation by standing
sponsor for a Negro. After the address, the Abolitionists went to their
several homes for lunch, but no one invited Mr. Douglass to eat, and the
hotel did not entertain Negroes. Hungry, chilly, and desolate, he found
his way to the graveyard, and while roaming among the graves and
contemplating the equality of men in death, he was approached by a
gentleman who proved to be a Democratic senator from New Hampshire. He
took Mr. Douglass to his home and treated him with the greatest
courtesy.
Another cause of racial antagonism was the dread, on the part of
slave-owners, that the presence of an increasing number of free colored
people in the free-states would be an incentive to the more enterprising
slaves to run away. This fear was certainly justified by the constantly
enlarging stream of fugitives. The Negro’s growing desire for freedom
was the fundamental weakness of the slave-system. When the veterans of
the War of 1812 returned to the Southern states and told of the land of
Canada which was consecrated to free men, the seed of discontent took
root in slavery’s soil. The good news was passed along, and, as a
result, thousands of slaves learned to associate the words Canada and
freedom. Many a one, ignorant of everything except his master and the
plantation, had received tidings of the Haytian struggle for liberty; of
the Nat Turner uprising in Virginia; and of the success of those who had
the courage and enterprise to flee to Massachusetts, New York, and
elsewhere north of the Ohio River. Negroes who had dared to emancipate
themselves in the way Frederick Douglass had done were a direct menace
to the security of slavery. Every man who succeeded in making his escape
began at once to plan and plot for the escape of those he had left
behind. On the border-land of freedom there was continuous skirmishing
for friends in chains.
In spite of the humble position they occupied, the free Negroes, in one
way or another, helped to make sentiment against the slave-power. Like
Douglass, they became “human arguments,” at once offering evidence as to
the capacity of the race and the limitations that slavery imposed upon
it. They were quickeners of the public conscience.
Since the Negroes were escaping from Southern plantations, in spite of
all precautions and every kind of threat and punishment, an organized
effort was made to send all free colored people out of the country and
deposit them on the west shore of Africa. This movement found expression
in the American Colonization Society, which was organized in 1817. Its
declared purposes were:
(1) “To colonize the blacks on the West Coast of Africa.”
(2) “To discourage manumission by slave-holders.”
(3) “To avoid insurrection.”
An attempt was put forth to make this colonization scheme a national
policy, and the general government, as well as the several states, was
appealed to for its support. In many of the slave-holding states there
were direct appropriations of money to forward this enterprise.
Ministers, statesmen, educators, slave-holders, and many who were not
slave-holders, endorsed the plan of the Colonization Society as a most
happy solution of the difficult problem of dealing with the Negro
question. It met with popular favor throughout the country. The Southern
people saw in it the removal of a great menace to slavery; it appealed
to the humane sentiments of the North, for it seemed to say to the free
people, “Now we are going to give you an opportunity, and will
materially aid you to found a government of your own on the soil of
Africa.” To some of the Negroes this policy appeared fair and generous,
especially when they considered the extent to which, by popular
prejudice, they were shut out from the rights and benefits supposed to
be the natural heritage of all American citizens. Certain it is that
nothing concerning the Negro had, up to this time, been proposed in
which men of the North and South met so nearly on common ground. In
1834, such names as James Madison, Chief Justice Marshall, General
Lafayette, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Gerrit Smith were enrolled
among the officers of the society. But in spite of the distinguished
character of those who were associated with the movement, it was thought
by many that the propaganda carried on by the Colonization Society did
much to increase the prejudice against the colored people. The following
extracts from some of the speeches of its members and friends, and from
its documents and publications, show the pro-slavery spirit of the
society:
Henry Clay said: “The emancipated slave should be removed. This is a
condition indispensable. Expense of expatriation is to be defrayed by a
fund to be derived from the labor of each freedman.”
Judge Bullock of Kentucky said: “He [the colored man] is an exotic that
does not and cannot flourish on American soil. There is no place for him
in this country. It is not their land, and they cannot be made at home
here.”
_The Colonization Journal_ said: “You cannot abolish slavery, for God is
pledged to sustain it.”
“Policy, and even the voice of humanity, forbid the progress of
manumission. It would be as humane to throw them from the decks in the
Middle Passage as to set them free in this country. Free blacks are a
greater nuisance than slaves. This class of persons is a curse and a
contagion where they reside.”—_Colonization Report_, iv, 261.
“An anomalous race of beings, the most depraved on earth.”
“They constitute a class by themselves, out of which no individual can
be elevated and below which none can be depressed. Even necessity places
them in a class of degraded beings.”
“Christianity cannot do for them here what it will do for them in
Africa. This is no fault of the colored man, nor the white man, but an
ordinance of Providence, and no more to be changed than the laws of
motion.”
“If the free people of color were generally taught to read, it might be
an inducement for them to remain in this country. We should offer them
no such inducement.”
“It must appear evident to all ... that measures calculated to bind the
colored people to this country and seeking to raise them to a level with
the whites, whether by founding colleges or in any other way, tends
directly to counteract and thwart the whole plan of colonization.”
Such were the teachings and spirit of the American Colonization Society
at that time. The effect was naturally and necessarily brought home, in
some form or other, to every colored man, woman, and child in the
free-states. Justifying, as it did, an already existing prejudice, its
tendency was, everywhere and in every direction, to bring about a
narrowing of opportunities. Thus, there soon sprang up an active
opposition to the society and its purposes. The anti-slavery members
withdrew their support when they saw that the organization was almost
wholly pro-slavery in spirit and purpose.
Meanwhile, the colored people began to show themselves worthy of respect
in the efforts they were making to improve their own condition. It could
not be denied that, in those Northern states where he was given an
opportunity to work, the Negro was, on the whole, a peaceful, loyal,
law-abiding, and industrious citizen. In spite of the might of all the
forces against him, he doggedly persisted in his determination to be a
man, to win a right to remain in this country, and to deserve the
privileges of citizenship therein. No race under like conditions ever
exhibited greater patience and faith in the ultimate triumph of right
over wrong.
In times of war the Negro was instantly ready to sacrifice himself for
the good of his country. As sailor or soldier, no commander ever had
occasion to complain of his courage or lack of soldierly qualities. Just
before the battle of New Orleans, in the winter of 1814, General
Jackson, through his Adjutant General, made the following stirring
address to his black soldiers:
“To the Men of Color—Soldiers: From the shores of Mobile I called you
to arms, I invited you to share the perils, and to divide the glory
with your white countrymen. I expected much from you, for I was not
unmindful of those qualities which must render you so formidable to an
invading foe. I knew that you could endure hunger and thirst and all
the hardships of war. I knew that you loved the land of your nativity,
and that, like ourselves, you had to defend all that was most dear to
man, but you surpassed my hopes. I have found in you, united to these
qualities, that noble enthusiasm which impels to great deeds.
“Soldiers! The President of the United States shall be informed of
your conduct on the present occasion and the voice of the
representatives of the American nation shall applaud your valor, as
your general now praises your valor.”
The black heroes of New Orleans nobly won a place on the roll of honor,
among those who strove for the protection and preservation of the
American republic.
In the arts of peace and in the every-day struggles to live and survive
the forces that made for his degradation, the Negro showed a courage and
a disposition altogether creditable. While many were thinking that the
black people were hopelessly incapable of absorbing American
civilization, the latter were building churches of their own and
organizing the great African Methodist Episcopal Zion, and the Colored
Methodist Episcopal Church. These have steadily grown in membership
until they have come to be numbered among the great religious bodies of
the Christian world. They also founded and developed a Baptist
organization which, with its schools, colleges, and missions, is
regarded as one of the important civilizing agencies of the country.
What the colored people accomplished for themselves, in their great
religious associations and under so many hindering influences, is of far
greater importance than is generally understood, or recognized by the
American people. To the restraining and humanizing forces of these
religious bodies, is largely due the peaceful and law-abiding character
of the Negro population. In those critical periods of our history a race
with passions less in restraint might have caused no end of trouble and
bloodshed. These efforts of the free colored people of the North to
improve their condition by means of religious training, were accompanied
by endeavors to provide themselves with the facilities for secular
education. There was never a time in the history of the American Negro
when he did not show an eagerness to learn. Whether on the plantation in
the far South, where ignorance in the slave was slavery’s only security,
or in the northern states, where schools were closed against him by
popular prejudice, he was always struggling, by night and by day, to
obtain an education. The most important and creditable thing in his
career as slave or freeman, and the most striking thing in his
achievements, is his passion and struggle to lift from himself and his
race the dark mantle of ignorance. This persistent determination to be
educated has won for him more consideration and more friends among the
white race, than any other one trait.
When practically every school, public and private, closed its doors
against the admission of a Negro child, these courageous people tried to
establish schools of their own. In every Northern community where there
were colored persons some way was provided for their education.
Sometimes classes would meet in a private house, like that of Primus
Hall in Boston; at other times in a Negro church, and often in a barn.
In these early efforts to furnish means of education, in spite of the
protest of white neighbors, there was exhibited fine courage, impressive
sacrifice, and rare consecration. Here the Negro was always at his best.
Such men as Primus Hall and the Ruffins in Massachusetts; Nelson Wells
in Maryland; John F. Ganes and Peter H. Clark in Ohio; John F. Cook in
Washington; John Peterson in New York; Thomas and Fannie Jackson Coppin
in Pennsylvania, all noble types of men and women, saw to it that ways
and means for the education of the children of their day and generation
should be provided. Hundreds of the best types of white men and women
became interested in the education of the Negro as a result of his own
persistent efforts in this direction. Some of these friends gave
themselves as teachers, while others gave money for the founding and
sustaining of schools and colleges. A few of those started at this early
period, still live, many colored men and women, who have since become
prominent in public affairs, having received their education in these
establishments.
One of the most interesting of these schools that have survived the
revolution of conditions is the “Institute for Colored Youth,” founded
in Philadelphia in 1837, from funds bequeathed for that purpose by
Richard Humphrey. The trustees were instructed to establish an
institution “for the education of the descendants of the African race in
school learning, in the various branches of the mechanical arts and
trades and agriculture.”
In the preamble of the constitution, the following language is used:
“We believe that the most successful method of elevating the moral and
intellectual character of the descendants of Africa, as well as
improving their social condition, is to extend to them the benefits of a
good education, and instruct them in the knowledge of some useful trade
or business whereby they may be enabled to obtain a comfortable
livelihood by their own industry; and through these means to prepare
themselves for fulfilling the various duties of domestic and social life
with reputation and fidelity, as good citizens and pious men.”
This school has recently been reorganized and considerably enlarged, and
removed to Cheyney, Pa., near Philadelphia, the work being entrusted to
Hugh M. Browne, an educator of proved worth and responsibility. It
starts out upon a career of increased usefulness, with the express
purpose of fitting teachers for their appointed work.
The men and women who have graduated from the Institute have more than
justified the generosity of its founder, and they have likewise
reflected the unexampled excellence as a teacher of Mrs. Fannie Jackson
Coppin, an early graduate of Oberlin, and one of the first principals of
this famous school in Philadelphia. Her influence on the lives and
careers of many prominent men and women of the Negro race is quite
beyond comparison with that of any other of our early Negro educators.
Charlotte L. Fortin, now Mrs. Frank J. Grimké, Frances Ellen Watkins
Harper, and Mary Ann Shadd Carey must always be mentioned among the men
and women whose devotion to the education of the members of their race
has made the American people recognize the justice and the usefulness of
giving the Negro the teaching he so earnestly desires.
The lack of economic and industrial opportunities of the free colored
people, prior to the Civil War, can be easily inferred from what has
already been said concerning the general sentiment of proscription that
prevailed. As a general rule, they were not allowed to work at any of
the trades and their children were not accepted as apprentices. It has
already been noticed how impossible it was for Mr. Douglass, even in
Massachusetts, to follow his occupation as a ship-calker, although, as
we have seen, he had no trouble in obtaining good employment in
Baltimore.
But the Negro, in this as in matters of education, persisted in his
effort to learn trades and to work at them. There were in the
free-states a considerable number of colored mechanics. Many of them had
fitted themselves for their work while in slavery, and either by
self-purchase or as runaways, had obtained their freedom. From these
mechanics the trades were passed along to others by apprenticeships. In
this way colored men entered and maintained themselves in many
employments. There were always some people who were willing to hire
skilled Negro mechanics. In cities like Philadelphia, they were, for a
time, important factors in the industrial life. Indeed, long before
slavery was abolished, every large northern city had a certain number of
enterprising individuals who had succeeded in establishing themselves in
some of the trades. In many communities they were making commendable
headway as contractors, caterers, shopkeepers, tailors, shoemakers, and
barbers. Not a few of them accumulated small fortunes. A number too had
built up enviable reputations in the professions, especially in
medicine, the ministry, and journalism. Some obtained their education in
England, but most of them managed to get their training in this country.
In all this activity and enterprise they were not without leaders of
force and intelligence. In the period covered by the anti-slavery
movement, there was a remarkable group of aggressive and influential
colored agitators. Without attempting to name all the prominent men who
coöperated with Mr. Douglass in the anti-slavery warfare, we should
mention a few, in order to make complete any account of the struggle in
which their leader was so heroically engaged. Henry Highland Garnet of
New York, was a gifted and thoroughly educated man. He was a
Presbyterian minister and as such held an influential position, being
elected at one time as a delegate to a Peace Conference at Frankfort,
Germany. Charles Lennox Remond, Dr. James McCune Smith, Samuel R. Ward,
H. Ford Douglass, Martin R. Delaney, John M. Langston, J. Howard Day,
and Mifflin W. Gibbs, were men of rare oratorical gifts and were heard
and admired on every great anti-slavery occasion. Robert Purvis, of
Philadelphia, would have held a high place in any age, and the cause of
freedom would have suffered without his aid. He was a man of patrician
manners and had all the instincts of an aristocrat. He was for many
years, vice-president of the National Anti-Slavery Society, and he
enjoyed the intimate acquaintance and association of some of the most
eminent men of his time.
It would scarcely be possible to write a history of the anti-slavery
movement without mentioning the work of William Still. He had the rare
powers of heart and mind that gave him an interest in and a large grasp
of affairs. He was one of the original stockholders of _The Nation_, and
a close friend of John Brown’s. It was at his house that the latter’s
family were concealed after the Harper’s Ferry tragedy. Mr. Still’s
contribution to the literature of the anti-slavery cause has a special
value and is nowhere duplicated.
These colored men, who were associated with Mr. Douglass, got their
training in the school of adversity. They were permitted to share few of
the joys of life. Men of strong faith, they spent themselves in the
service of their people. When the history of the Negro in America comes
finally to be written and scholars seek to tell the story of the curious
problem in civilization which his presence here creates, these
dark-skinned heroes of an unpopular race may find their place in the
ranks of those who helped to benefit the world.
CHAPTER IX
THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW
Pro-slavery and anti-slavery were at this time the names of two sets of
ideas and two states of mind that no longer admitted of compromise. The
words meant immeasurably more in 1850 than they had in 1830. If they had
ever been mere academic terms, they were fast becoming fighting
terms,—the standards of two hostile camps. In the minds of the people,
they stood, respectively, for irreconcilable principles. With every
fresh event affecting either one side or the other, new and more intense
animosities were engendered, and the two forces were driven farther and
farther apart. Those who believed in the institution, became more and
more firmly fixed in their determination not only to resist every attack
upon it, but to give it the widest possible extension. Those who stood
opposed to slavery were equally fixed in their determination that it
should be destroyed.
The anti-slavery movement was fast becoming something more than a
sentiment or an opinion with which one might try conclusions in the
forum. It was fast becoming a revolutionary movement which meant force,
more force, and, finally, the utmost force. All the time Frederick
Douglass, like William Lloyd Garrison, was in the forward ranks. The
tone of “no compromise” rang out with increasing insistence.
“Come what will,” said Douglass, “I hold it to be morally certain that
sooner or later, by fair means or foul means, in peace or in blood, in
judgment or in mercy, slavery is doomed to cease out of this otherwise
goodly land, and liberty is destined to become the settled law of the
republic.”
“I am in earnest,” said Garrison, “I will not equivocate, I will not
excuse, I will not retract a single inch, and I will be heard.”
These declarations by these two conspicuous Abolitionists are aptly
expressive of the growing intensity of the anti-slavery feeling. Such
words called more loudly for action than for argument. What was known in
the United States during the anti-slavery struggle as the “Underground
Railway,” best represents all that was aggressive and militant in that
contest. This so-called “railway system” was constituted and operated in
defiance of law by the Abolitionists. It was Abolition in action.
But if the Underground Railway was conducted in defiance of law, it
should be said that the law in its terms, spirit, and effects seemed to
them who were engaged in operating the road to be in defiance of those
principles of liberty and the rights of man, which they had been taught
to think were higher than any positive enactment of a legislature.
The Underground Railway had none of the features of the modern railway,
except the carrying of passengers, and these were limited in kind and in
the direction of the travel. No one could obtain passage on this road,
unless he or she were a slave, and wanted to be free. The trains ran in
but one direction, and that was Northward. There were no “Jim Crow”
cars, no sleepers and no smokers, and all passengers were carried free
of charge. It was a railroad without stockholders, but it had
innumerable directors. No dividends were paid except to passengers, and
such dividends were in the form of certificates of freedom from bondage.
To be more explicit, the Underground Railway was a system of clandestine
travel, extending from the borders of “Mason and Dixon’s Line” through
the North and West to Canada. The residence of Mr. Douglass was one of
the last stations on the line before reaching British soil. Much has
been written about this mysterious railway, but the details of its
activities have never been told. From September 26, 1850, to the
breaking out of the Civil War, the new and rigid Fugitive Slave Law was
in active operation, and it was in open violation of this measure that
the Underground Railway was conducted. A slave, and sometimes an entire
family or body of slaves, would make the dash for liberty, escaping
across the borders of Maryland into Pennsylvania. There they found
themselves in the hands of friendly Quakers, who piloted them by night
to other stations, where they were secreted until a favorable
opportunity presented itself to push them along farther north.
Mr. Douglass’s house in Rochester was a large three-story frame
structure, situated in the centre of four acres of land on South Avenue,
two miles from the business portion of the city. It stood out by itself,
the nearest residence being fully five hundred feet away to the north.
This was the objective point, before reaching Canada, for many slaves
fleeing from the South. The tales of privation and suffering told by
these men, women, and children who escaped half-clad, encountering in
the wintertime snow-drifts and zero weather, made a profound impression
on the people of the North through whose towns they passed and in whose
homes they constantly sought protection. Thus it was that many a
Northern farmer, convinced, it may be, of the right or expediency of
slavery, found himself compelled, from motives of common humanity, to
open his doors to these refugees, and grant their appeals for food and
shelter. Many a cold winter night has a knock come to Mr. Douglass’s
door, when a white-faced stranger, covered with frost and snow, would
announce in whispered tones that he had a sleigh full of runaway Negroes
_en route_ for Canada. Mr. Douglass, or Mrs. Douglass in her husband’s
absence, calling the boys, Lewis, Fred and Charles, would have fires
started in that part of the house where fugitives were hidden away, and
at an opportune time they were taken to Charlotte, seven miles from
Rochester, and placed aboard a Lake Ontario steamer for Canada. These
friendly white farmers had to hasten on for fear of detection, which
meant terrible penalties. Thus it will be seen that the risks which
their sympathy for the slave led them to take were very serious.
It required large sums of money to keep this Underground Railway system
in motion. The runaways must be fed, clothed, and their passage paid
across the lake to Canada. Mr. Douglass was in the lecture-field most of
the time to raise money to do his part. The Female Anti-Slavery Society,
with its branches throughout the North, solicited funds and clothing,
and, as these unfortunate fugitives were invariably destitute, means had
to be supplied them until they could secure employment under the British
flag.
Besides William Still of Philadelphia, among colored people, Mr.
Douglass had the active coöperation of Dr. James McCune Smith, of New
York; Stephen J. Myers, of Albany; William Rich, of Troy, and Rev. J. W.
Loguen, of Syracuse. Many others actively assisted in the work,
including Charles Lennox Remond, William Whipper, of Philadelphia;
Thomas L. Dorsey, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, Anthony Barrier, of
Brockport, N. Y., and Thomas Downing, of New York. There were not a few
clashes with the law in efforts to capture and return escaping slaves,
but only two or three such attempts were successful.
Mr. Douglass’s home was always considered an asylum for runaways, and
was constantly under the surveillance of the United States marshals;
nevertheless, not a single fugitive, after reaching him, was ever
apprehended and carried back. The majority of the escapes were made in
winter, when the oversight on the plantation was less rigid than in the
working-season, and many who were given passes during the Christmas
holidays to visit neighboring towns or plantations, seized that
opportunity for a longer journey.
The western and southwestern branch of the Underground Railway was
operated from Cincinnati, O., and through Michigan to Canada. Fugitive
slaves from Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana
took this latter route. The whole number of slaves who successfully made
their escape through the system has never been ascertained.
The thousands of men, women, and children, white and black, who had a
hand in conducting this Underground Railway were less concerned about
the statistics of their dangerous work than they were with results. That
the number of slaves set free by the operation of the system ran up into
the thousands, was evident from the vast army of people in all parts of
the North engaged in the work, and the constantly increasing colored
population in the free-states and Canada. There was scarcely a day or
night when some black man or woman did not defy the perils of the
journey and elude the vigilance of the law to find free soil. So
persistent were these enslaved people in running away from bondage that
they excited not merely the sympathy but often the admiration of those
not otherwise interested in their cause. The perils and adventures of
these sombre fugitives stirred the blood and touched the heart. William
Still’s volume of nearly eight hundred pages, contains a carefully kept
record of the experiences of those runaways who came under the immediate
observation and direction of the “Vigilance Committee” of the
Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Their resourcefulness, cleverness,
and daring revealed to the Northern people an unsuspected quality in the
Negro character.
The stories of these fugitives, told in their own simple-hearted way,
and attested by the hardships that they had undergone, were, to those
who heard them, a revelation of conditions in the South, of which they
had hitherto known only at secondhand. They might still doubt the
expediency of granting freedom to the slave but they could no longer
question the sincerity of his desire for liberty and with that desire
they were compelled to sympathize. As Douglass said: “Men were better
than their theology, and truer to humanity than their politics or their
offices.”
The manner of Douglass’s flight—riding out of Baltimore and Maryland in
daylight and in sight of those who knew that he was a slave—is a good
illustration of the boldness and ingenuity of some of the escapes. Among
the hundreds of interesting cases cited by Mr. Still is that of William
Crafts, who gained his liberty by acting the part of a valet or
body-servant of his wife. She was of light brown complexion, and for
this adventure wore men’s clothing. Another case is that of a
slave-woman who hitched up her master’s horse and carriage and, taking
her family of five children and several others, drove off to liberty.
Box Brown was the name of a slave, who permitted himself to be nailed up
in a box and sent by express to Baltimore. Two colored women dressed
themselves in deep mourning and rode Northward to freedom in the same
coach as their masters, who did not know them. In some cases slaves
secreted themselves for several months and, when search for them had
ceased, crept off unsuspected. In hundreds of instances, the parts were
as cleverly played as if the fugitives had had special training in the
drama of running away from their masters. In nearly all cases these
black men and women took desperate chances. The conductors of the
Underground Railway were everywhere, and at all times on the alert. They
knew every path, the byways and highways in which slaves might hide or
on which they might travel to reach freedom. The stations were always
ready and open to receive them. It was never too late, or too early, or
too difficult, or too perilous to be on the lookout to welcome, protect,
and pass on fugitives to the next place of safety. Clothing, food,
shoes, carriages, wagons, horses, and mules were always at hand. No
secret society has ever veiled its proceedings in deeper mystery than
this widely separated army of determined conspirators and emancipators.
The secret service men of the government tried to locate the stations
and the station-agents, but the more they searched, the less they found.
It is a curious fact that the United States secret service men seem to
have had just as little success in uncovering the systematic plans for
aiding slaves to escape to the Northern states as in preventing the
smuggling of slaves from Africa into the Southern states. The traffic of
the Underground Railroad continued to increase in volume and the slave
once off United States soil was beyond reach or recall.
Some of the men and women who were carrying on this clandestine work of
delivering fugitives were people of much prominence. Among them were
members of Congress, distinguished clergymen, editors, prominent
merchants, doctors, lawyers, farmers, and tradesmen. From the
slave-holders’ standpoint, the situation was not encouraging. They
rightly felt that unless something effective were done to stop this
increasing loss, slave-labor would cease to be profitable. This
condition of things required a remedy, a remedy more far-reaching than
any guaranteed the slave-holding system under the law then existing. To
meet these attempts of the Abolitionists to undermine the system, the
pro-slavery leaders deemed it just and necessary to extend the arm of
national power to reclaim and carry back to bondage every slave who
reached a free state in quest of liberty. The government that sanctioned
slavery as a national institution; that acquired new territory for the
extension of slavery; that derived a goodly part of its revenue from it,
was bound, they believed, to do what was necessary to make slavery more
secure. Until the Underground Railway began to do so large a business,
there was thought to be enough law in the Constitution of the United
States.[3]
Footnote 3:
As provided in Article IV, Section 2: “No person held to service in
one state, under the laws thereof, escaping to another state, in
consequence of any law or regulation therein, shall be discharged from
such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on the claim of the
party to whom such service or labor may be due,” supplemented by the
statute giving force to its provisions in 1793.
The constitutionality of this law had been fully upheld by the Supreme
Court in what was known as the “Prigg case,” wherein Justice Story
declared that it was self-executing, so that an owner could seize and
carry away his runaway slave wherever he found him, providing he could
do so without breach of the public peace. Those who desired and demanded
more legal provisions for the better protection of slavery were in
absolute power North and South. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts was as
much in favor of it as Henry Clay of Kentucky and Calhoun of South
Carolina; and in response to popular demand, the new Fugitive Slave Law
was passed on September 10, 1850, as a part of the great Compromise
Measures of that year.
The instrument was most carefully drawn, and covered ten sections. Those
who worked out its carefully-worded provisions had evidently studied the
Underground System with considerable care, and this law was framed to
meet the conditions that the railroad had created. Some of its main
features were as follows:—
A United States Commission and a United States court should have
concurrent jurisdiction in disposing of cases of fugitive slaves
brought before them.
Any postmaster or clerk could be appointed a commissioner to hear
cases under the law.
A United States marshal was under penalty of $1,000 for refusing or
neglecting to make an arrest when called upon to do so.
Fugitive slaves could be arrested, with or without warrant and taken
before a commissioner or judge, who was empowered to dispose of the
case forthwith.
If a fugitive escaped from a United States marshal, the latter could
be sued on his bond and the full value of the slave recovered.
There was a penalty of five years in prison or a fine of $5,000 for
aiding or abetting a slave’s escape.
The only proof needed was an affidavit by the alleged owner or some
one acting in his behalf alleging right of property, escape or service
due on escape, and a description of the person arrested, certified to
by the magistrate.
There were provisions for military aid for the United States marshal
in case of resistance.
The commissioner received a larger fee in case of extradition than he
would obtain in case of discharge.
The slave thus arrested could not testify in his own behalf and was
not allowed a jury trial.
The first effect of the law was to create a panic and stampede among the
colored people of the free-states. It looked for awhile as if every
Negro resident north of the Ohio had lost faith in the tenure of his own
title to himself. There was wholesale emigration to Canada of colored
people from every part of the United States. In his Life of Frederick
Douglass, Mr. Holland gives an account of forty Negroes of Boston, who
left home within three days after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed. The
pastor of a colored church and his entire membership of 112 persons fled
to British soil. A number of talented men who had done service in the
anti-slavery cause, went to England. Mr. Douglass, who was in close
touch with every movement, every fear, and every secret purpose of his
people, says:
“I was compelled to witness the terribly distressing effects of this
cruel enactment; fugitive slaves, who had lived for many years safely
and securely in western New York and elsewhere, some of whom by industry
and economy had saved some money and bought little homes for themselves
and their children, were suddenly alarmed and compelled to flee to
Canada. Even colored people who had been free all their lives felt very
insecure in their freedom, for under this law the oaths of any two
villains were sufficient to confine a free man to slavery for life....
Although I was now free myself, I was not without apprehension. My
pardon was of doubtful validity, having been bought when out of
possession of my owner, and when he must take what was given or not at
all.... From rumors that reached me, my house was guarded by my friends
several nights.”
A much more serious consequence of the Fugitive Slave Law was the
altogether unexpected feeling of resentment aroused in the North by its
enforcement. There was abundant willingness among the Northern people
that the slave-holders should have their slaves and that they should
have everything needed to protect and make secure their property rights
in them; but when it came to pressing unwilling citizens into the
service of men who were hunting slaves, there was a very natural
revulsion of sentiment. Just how intense was this feeling may best be
illustrated in the history of three different cases that created
wide-spread interest at the time. These were known respectively as the
Burns, Shadrach, and Thomas Sims cases.
Anthony Burns had made his escape from his master in Virginia and in
1854 was living in Boston. In the month of May he was arrested under the
provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law. At this particular time, Boston
was aroused because of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,
repealing the Missouri Compromise, and thereby permitting the extension
of slavery in the western territories. Burns was confined in the Boston
court-house under strong guard. The people were in a mood to become
profoundly interested in his case, which presented itself to them as an
illustration of the cruelties of slavery and of the Fugitive Slave Law.
Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, Richard A. Davis, Charles M. Ellis,
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and many others equally prominent, gave
practical effect to this interest by securing a postponement of the
hearing for a few days. In the meantime, a meeting was called in Faneuil
Hall in which feeling ran high. While it was in progress, Colonel
Higginson led in an attempt to rescue Burns. The door of the jail was
battered in, the deputy was killed, and the Colonel and others were
wounded. When the case came up for a hearing before Commissioner Loring,
Burns had the best counsel that Boston could afford, but like all cases
under the Fugitive Slave Law, there was no escape. After the formalities
were complied with, he was ordered back to his master. When this
decision became known, many houses were draped in black and so intense
was the public feeling against it, that the government directed that
Burns should be returned in a United States revenue cutter. He was
escorted to the wharf by a strong guard and the streets were thronged
with Boston citizens in a great state of excitement. There seemed to be
no possible escape from a bloody riot. When the water-side was reached
and an outbreak was imminent, a minister named Foster cried out, “Let us
pray,” and with this call for prayer silence fell upon the excited
throng; but the law had its way and Burns was sent back.
The case of Shadrach was less exciting, but is interesting as presenting
another and different view of the sentiment excited by the Fugitive
Slave Law. He was a fugitive and a resident of Boston. He had been
arrested in February, 1851, and during a postponement of his hearing
before the United States Commissioner, the Boston Abolitionists rescued
him and got him into Canada, the land of safety. The government
officials in Washington took serious notice of this rescue of a United
States prisoner and the uproar that followed seemed altogether out of
proportion to the incident. Commenting on the excitement at the capital
at this apparent determination of Boston to defy the national
government, Mr. Garrison wrote:
“The head and front of the offending in this instance—what is it? A
sudden rush of a score or two of unarmed friends of equal liberty—an
uninjurious deliverance of the oppressed out of the hands of the
oppressor—the quiet transportation of a slave out of this slavery-ruled
land to the free soil of Upper Canada ... a solitary slave in Boston is
plucked as a brand from the burning, and forthwith a Cabinet Council is
held and behold a menacing proclamation!”
Senator Henry Clay was “horrified” and proposed an inquiry as to the
expediency of passing an additional law making it a penal offense in the
nature of treason for any one to interfere with the smooth and peaceful
exercise of his pet measure in the Compromise Bill. Mr. Webster declared
that the rescue of Shadrach was “strictly speaking” treason.
Scarcely had the United States grand jury finished its examination of
the Shadrach case when Boston was again in the midst of an excitement
over the arrest and extradition of another fugitive slave, Thomas Sims.
Profiting by the failure to send Shadrach back to his master, the
officials had taken extraordinary precautions to prevent a rescue by mob
or otherwise. The court-house where Sims was imprisoned was surrounded
by chains and guarded by a large part of the city police force. As a
further precaution, the state militia was called out and kept in
readiness to quell a possible riot. A part of this soldiery furnished an
escort all the way to Savannah, where the prisoner-slave was delivered
safely.
The bloody resistance on the part of runaways at Christiana, Pa., did
more than anything else, in the opinion of Mr. Douglass, to put a check
on the execution of the law. At this place three colored men were
pursued by officers, and, when hard-pressed, turned about, shot, and
killed a Mr. Gorsuch, wounded his son, drove back the officers, and then
made their escape to Rochester, where they were rescued and given
shelter in Mr. Douglass’s house. The latter, with his assistants,
finally smuggled these fugitives to the Canadian shores, but in doing so
he imperiled his own safety to a greater extent than ever before,
because he was not only harboring fugitives from slavery, but fugitives
from justice. After this experience, the law became a dead letter. It
not only intended to put an end to the business of the Underground
Railroad, but to make every community in some degree responsible for the
return of runaway slaves, and it proved to be one of the most unpopular
and irritating pieces of legislation enacted by the Federal Government.
This act, more than any other one thing, increased opposition to
slavery. Thousands of people who were either indifferent or hostile to
the anti-slavery cause, flocked to the ranks of the Abolitionists when
they saw what it meant and whither it was leading the nation. The
language used by the leaders, both in their publications and on the
stump, became more bitter and defiant.
Mr. Douglass was always in the storm-centre of every movement to thwart
the execution of this measure. He was in Boston, and in continuous
conference with Theodore Parker, Higginson, Garrison, and others
belonging to the “vigilance” committees. It was in these meetings that
Douglass says he “got a peep into Parker’s soul.” He characterized him
as “a man who shrank from no opportunity to do his full duty when man’s
liberty was threatened.” Mr. Douglass’s thorough and comprehensive
understanding of each succeeding change in the development of the
slavery question was generally recognized by friend and foe. When he was
invited by the members of the New York state legislature to address them
on the subject, he was selected because no man then living could speak
with a fuller knowledge of the great issue.
Belonging to this period of increasing antagonism between pro-slavery
and anti-slavery parties was the decision in the Dred Scott case. This,
the Fugitive Slave Law, and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, taken together,
represent the sum of the conservative forces in the nation opposed to
the Abolitionists and their cause. Douglass’s opinion of the situation,
as it concerned himself and his people, is voiced in the following
extract from an address delivered at New York in May, 1857:
“I am myself not insensible to the many difficulties that beset us on
every hand. They fling their broad and gloomy shadows across the pathway
of every thoughtful colored man in this country. For one, I see them
clearly and feel them sadly. Standing, as it were, barefoot, and
treading upon the sharp and flinty rocks of the present, and looking out
upon the boundless sea of the future, I have sought in my humble way to
penetrate the intervening mists and clouds, and, perchance, to descry in
the dim and shadowy distance the white flag of freedom.”
CHAPTER X
DOUGLASS, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE AND JOHN BROWN
The anti-slavery agitation made and revealed some of the most notable
characters in American history. As it grew in extent and intensity, it
attracted to itself men and women gifted with the powers needed to force
great issues to a conclusion. Those who were already in the struggle,
like Mr. Douglass, became more strongly committed to it, and those who
were not yet enlisted, but belonged to it by right of individual
temperament and spiritual inheritance, hurriedly took their places in
the foremost ranks of responsibility and action.
There was no such thing as indifference in this matter. For those who
understood the vast issue there were grave questions involved, and in
some form or other the right or wrong of it knocked at the door of every
one’s mind and conscience.
To those who were sufficiently gifted to say and do anything great
concerning this cause, the opportunity was now at hand. In the midst of
the confusion and controversy, the public was ready to listen to some
clear voice that would tell it the facts in regard to American slavery.
Harriet Beecher Stowe responded to this need and was inspired to recite
the story of the Negro in America. This she did with a mastery and a
fascination that commanded the widest reading ever yet given to an
American book. She so stirred the hearts of the Northern people that a
large part of them were ready either to vote, or, in the last extremity,
to fight for the suppression of slavery. The value of _Uncle Tom’s
Cabin_ to the cause of Abolition can never be justly estimated.
Mrs. Stowe was a member of the great Beecher family, and was by
inheritance, as well as by special inspiration, peculiarly fitted to
perform this service. She developed a concern in the slavery question in
the natural course of her interest in all questions of the time. She
lived for awhile in Cincinnati, where she was brought into close touch
with some of the most cruel incidents of slavery,—the flight and capture
of fugitives. Her sensitive nature was stung by seeing men hunted
through the streets of the city, and carried back into bondage. She was
near the scene when Birney’s anti-slavery press was destroyed by the
mob. The whole atmosphere about her was surcharged with the spirit of
the controversy, and the more she learned of the issue, the deeper
became her interest in it. Stirred by sympathy for those whom she had
come to regard as the victims of a bad system, she determined to know
everything that was possible to be known about it.
Crossing the Ohio River, Mrs. Stowe went down into the land of slavery,
to study the institution at first hand. When she left the South and
returned to New England with her husband, she saw and felt the evil as
few in the North had ever seen and felt it.
She soon discovered that the great mass of the Northern people were not
able to share her views. She found most of them either indifferent or
incredulous, and concluded that if they had had her experiences, they
would also have her convictions. The immediate incentive to the writing
of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ was the desire to arouse the national conscience
and bring the people to a sense of their responsibility. This remarkable
story first appeared in an anti-slavery newspaper, and proved so popular
that it was soon issued in book form. The rapidity with which one
edition after another was published and consumed at home and abroad, was
without precedent. The Abolitionists were quick to recognize the story
as the most powerful engine that had yet been employed against slavery.
Frederick Douglass thus speaks of its influence:
“Nothing could have better suited the moral and humane requirements of
the hour. Its effect was amazing, instantaneous, and universal. She
[Mrs. Stowe] at once became the object of interest and admiration the
world over.”
The author was not only concerned for the well-being of those who were
enslaved in the South, but was also intensely interested in those who
were already free in the North. She looked to Mr. Douglass as the most
eminent representative of the Negro race in the free-states, and before
sailing for England, whither she had been invited by the people, who
were anxious to show her some honors for what she had done, asked him to
her home in Andover, Mass. He gladly accepted the invitation, and, in
his _Life and Times_, gives the following account of his visit:
“I was received at her home with genuine cordiality. There was no
contradiction between the author and her book. Mrs. Stowe appeared in
conversation equally well as she appeared in her writing. She made to me
a nice little speech in announcing her object in sending for me: ‘I have
invited you here,’ she said, ‘because I wish to confer with you as to
what can be done for the free colored people of the country. I am going
to England and expect to have a considerable sum of money placed in my
hands, and I intend to use it in some way for the permanent good of the
colored people and especially for that class which has become free by
their own exertions. In what way to do this most successfully is the
subject which I wish to talk with you about. In any event I desire to
have some monument rise after _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, which shall show that
it produced more than a transient influence.’”
They discussed at some length the condition of his people in the
Northern states, and as a result both concluded that there should be
established an “Industrial College,” where colored people could learn
some of the useful handicrafts,—to work in iron, wood and leather—and
where a good plain English education could also be obtained. Their
poverty kept them ignorant, and ignorance kept them degraded. Mrs. Stowe
became so much interested in Mr. Douglass’s educational purposes that
she asked him to submit his plans in writing, so that she could take
them to England with her and show them to her friends. On his return to
Rochester he elaborated his views, as she had requested. The plans were
then shown to many of the leading Negroes who worked with him, and they
very heartily approved. Later they were submitted to a convention of
representative colored people in Rochester to receive the endorsement of
that body. In this educational scheme, Mr. Douglass has given evidence
of his understanding of the needs of the Negro in our generation, as
well as of those in his own. The following is an extract from the
statement which he sent to Mrs. Stowe in 1853:
“The plan which I humbly submit in answer to this query is the
establishment in Rochester, N. Y., or in some other part of the United
States, equally favorable to such an enterprise, of an Industrial
College in which shall be taught several important branches of the
mechanic arts. This college shall be open to colored youth. I will
pass over the details of such an institution as I propose.... Never
having had a day’s schooling in all my life, I may not be expected to
map out the details of a plan so comprehensive as that involved in the
idea of a college. The argument in favor of an Industrial College, a
college to be conducted by the best men and the best workmen which the
mechanic arts can afford; where the colored youth can be instructed to
use their hands, as well as their heads; where they can be put in
possession of the means of getting a living, whether their lot in
after-life may be cast among civilized or uncivilized men, whether
they choose to stay here, or prefer to return to the land of their
fathers, is briefly this: Prejudice against the free colored people in
the North has nowhere shown itself so invincible as among mechanics.
The farmer and the professional man cherish no feeling so bitter as
that cherished by these. The latter would starve us out of the country
entirely. At this moment I can more easily get my son into a lawyer’s
office to study law than I can into a blacksmith’s shop to blow the
bellows and to wield the sledge-hammer. Denied the means of learning
the useful trades, we are pressed into the narrowest limits to obtain
a livelihood. In times past we have been the hewers of wood and
drawers of water for American society, and we once enjoyed a monopoly
in menial employments, but this is so no longer. Even these
employments are rapidly passing out of our hands. The fact is, that
colored men must learn trades; must find new employments new modes of
usefulness to society; or they must decay under the pressing wants to
which their condition is rapidly bringing them.
“We must become mechanics; we must build as well as live in houses; we
must make as well as use furniture; we must construct bridges as well
as pass over them, before we can properly live or be respected by our
fellow-men. We need mechanics as well as ministers. We need workers in
iron, clay, and leather. We have orators, authors, and other
professional men, but these reach only a certain class, and get
respect for our race in certain select circles. To live here as we
ought, we must fasten ourselves to our countrymen through their
every-day cardinal wants. We must not only be able to black boots, but
to make them. At present, in the Northern states, we are unknown as
mechanics. We give no proof of genius or skill at the county, state,
or national fairs.
“The fact that we make no show of our ability is held conclusive of
_our inability to make any_, hence all the indifference and contempt
with which incapacity is regarded fall upon us, and that too when we
have had no means of disproving the infamous opinion of our natural
inferiority. I have during the last dozen years denied before
Americans that we are an inferior race, but this has been done by
arguments based upon admitted principles rather than by the
presentation of facts. Now, firmly believing as I do, that there are
skill, invention, power, industry, and real mechanical genius among
the colored people, which will bear favorable testimony for them, and
which only need the means to develop them, I am decidedly in favor of
the establishment of such a college as I have mentioned. The benefits
of such an institution will not be confined to the Northern states nor
to the free colored people. They would extend over the whole Union.
The slave, not less than the freeman, would be benefited by such an
institution. It must be confessed that the most powerful argument now
used by the Southern slave-holder, and the one most soothing to his
conscience, is that derived from the low condition of the free colored
people of the North. I have long felt that too little attention has
been given by our truest friends in this country, to removing this
stumbling block out of the way of the slave’s liberation.
“The most telling, the most killing refutation of slavery is the
presentation of an industrious, enterprising, thrifty and intelligent
free black population. Such a population I believe would rise in the
Northern states under the fostering care of such a college as that
proposed.
“Allow me to say in conclusion that I believe every intelligent
colored man in America will approve and rejoice at the establishment
of some such institution as that now suggested. There are many
respectable colored men, fathers of large families, having boys nearly
grown, whose minds are tossed by night and by day with the anxious
query, What shall I do with my boys? Such an institution would meet
the wants of such persons. Then, too, the establishment of such an
institution would be in character with the eminently practical
philanthropy of your trans-Atlantic friends. America could scarcely
object to it as an attempt to agitate the public mind on the subject
of slavery, or to dissolve the Union. It could not be tortured into a
cause for hard words by the American people, but the noble and good of
all classes would see in the effort an excellent motive, a benevolent
object temperately, wisely and practically manifested.”
It would hardly be possible to show in any better way the far-reaching
and prophetic character of the mind of Frederick Douglass. This letter
indicates very plainly that even before General Armstrong had formulated
his plan of academic and industrial education, before Hampton Institute,
and long before Tuskegee Institute was thought of, Frederick Douglass
saw the necessity for just such work as many of the industrial schools
are doing in the South at the present time.
It is thus most pleasant to have the name of Douglass linked with the
cause of industrial education. He believed not only in academic and
college training but also in agricultural and mechanical education.
Hampton, Tuskegee and many other institutions are now putting his
teachings into practice.
While in England, Mrs. Stowe was made the object of much abuse by
certain American newspapers, which accused her of obtaining British gold
for her own use. Douglass, through the _North Star_, defended her
vigorously against these charges, and the malicious were silenced. For
reasons which he could not ascertain, the plans for the industrial
school were never carried out, and, so far as is known, Mrs. Stowe never
again took up the project with him.
The period that discovered to America and the world Harriet Beecher
Stowe, the writer of the Abolition movement, also revealed John Brown,
the man of action. What Mrs. Stowe felt and wrote, John Brown attempted
to carry into effect.
Mr. Douglass’s relations with this man were more intimate and continuous
than his associations with the author of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_. No one
could be a part of the anti-slavery movement between 1849 and 1859
without knowing and being more or less influenced by the personality of
John Brown. His opposition to slavery was like that of no other person.
It was scarcely a compliment to him to say that he was highly regarded
by the Abolitionists; their feeling toward him had in it more of awe
than admiration. At all times he would rather fight than discuss
slavery. He began to dislike it when he was twelve years of age. His
business, his family, his patriotism were all subordinated to the one
dominant purpose of hurling himself, and everybody else who would follow
him, against the system. He would judge and estimate all persons by what
they thought and felt about slavery. John Brown early formed an
attachment for Douglass, being, in the beginning of his career, better
known by the Negroes than by the white people. He mingled with them
continually, hearing over and over again the stories, sometimes
thrilling, sometimes pathetic, of a dawning desire for freedom, and soon
learned to know almost everything about their condition. He became one
of the most active conductors of the Underground Railway system.
Douglass says that when the slaves mentioned the name of John Brown,
they dropped their voices to a whisper, as if it were a sort of
profanity to speak of him as they would of any one else.
In 1847, Douglass received an urgent invitation from Brown to visit him
at his home in Springfield, Mass. He responded to the call as if to a
command, and he has given the following account of that visit:—
“At the time to which I now refer, this man was a respectable merchant
in a populous and thriving city, and our first place of meeting was at
his store. A glance at the interior, as well as at the massive walls
without, gave me the impression that the owner must be a man of
considerable wealth. My welcome was all that I could have asked. Every
member of the family, young and old, seemed glad to see me, and I was
made at home in a very little while. I was, however, a little
disappointed with the appearance of the house and its location. After
seeing the fine store I was prepared to see a fine residence in an
eligible locality, but this conclusion was completely dispelled by
actual observation. It was a small wooden building on a back street,
in a neighborhood chiefly occupied by laboring men and mechanics,
respectable enough, to be sure, but not quite the place, I thought,
one would look for the residence of a flourishing and successful
merchant. Plain as was the outside of this man’s house, the inside was
plainer. There was an air of plainness about it which almost suggested
destitution. My first meal passed under the misnomer of tea, though
there was nothing about it resembling the usual significance of that
term. It consisted of beef-soup, cabbage and potatoes—a meal such as a
man might relish after following the plough all day or performing a
forced march, of a dozen miles, over a rough road in frosty weather.
Innocent of paint, veneering, varnish, or table-cloth, the table
announced itself unmistakably of pine and of the plainest workmanship.
There was no hired help visible. The mother, daughters and sons did
the serving, and did it well. They were evidently used to it, and had
no thought of any impropriety or degradation in being their own
servants. Everything implied stern truth, solid purpose, and rigid
economy. I was not long in company with the master of this house
before I discovered that he was indeed the master of it, and was
likely to become mine too, if I stayed long enough with him. He
fulfilled St. Paul’s idea of the head of the family. His wife believed
in him, and his children obeyed him with reverence. Whenever he spoke,
his words commanded earnest attention. His arguments, which I ventured
at some points to oppose, seemed to convince all; his appeals touched
all, and his will impressed all. Certainly I never felt myself in the
presence of a stronger religious influence than while in this man’s
house.
“In person he was lean, strong, and sinewy, of the best New England
mold, built for times of trouble, and fitted to grapple with the
flintiest hardships. Clad in plain American woolen, shod in boots of
cowhide leather, and wearing a cravat of the same substantial
material, under six feet high, less than 150 pounds in weight, aged
about fifty years, he presented a figure straight and symmetrical as a
mountain pine. His bearing was singularly impressive. His head was not
large but compact and high. His hair was coarse, his strong spare
mouth, supported by a broad and prominent chin. His eyes were bluish
gray, and in conversation they were full of light and fire. When on
the street, he moved with a long springing race-horse step, absorbed
by his own reflections, neither seeking nor shunning observation. Such
was the man whose name I heard in whispers; such was the spirit of his
house and family; such was the house in which he lived; and such was
Captain John Brown, whose name has now passed into history, as that of
one of the most marked characters and greatest heroes known to
American fame.
“After the strong meal described, Brown cautiously approached the
subject which he wished to bring to my attention; for he seemed to
apprehend opposition to his views. He denounced slavery in look and
language fierce and bitter; he thought that slave-holders had
forfeited their right to live, that the slaves had a right to gain
their liberty in any way they could; did not believe that moral
suasion would ever liberate a slave, or that political action would
abolish the system. He said that he had long had a plan which could
accomplish this end, and he had invited me to his house to lay that
plan before me. He said that he had been for some time looking for
colored men to whom he could safely reveal his secret, and at times he
had almost despaired of finding such men; but that now he was
encouraged, because he saw heads of such rising in all directions. He
had observed my course at home and abroad, and he wanted my
coöperation. His plan, as it then lay in his mind, had much to commend
it. It did not, as some suppose, contemplate a general rising among
the slaves, and a general slaughter of the slave-masters. An
insurrection, he thought, would only defeat the object; but his plan
did contemplate the creating of an armed force which should act in the
very heart of the South. He was not averse to the shedding of blood,
and thought the carrying of firearms would be a good rule for the
colored people to adopt, as it would give them a sense of their
manhood. No people, he said, could have self-respect, or be respected,
who would not fight for their freedom. He called my attention to the
map of the United States. ‘These mountains,’ he said, ‘are the basis
of my plan. God has given the strength of the hills to freedom; they
were placed here for the emancipation of the Negro race; they are full
of natural forts, where one man for defense will be equal to a hundred
for attack; they are full also of good hiding places, where large
numbers of brave men could be concealed, and baffle and elude pursuit
for a long time. I know these mountains well, and could take a body of
men into them and keep them there, in spite of all the efforts of
Virginia to dislodge them. The true object to be sought is first of
all to destroy the money value of slave-property; and that can only be
done by rendering such property insecure. My plan, then, is to take,
at first, about twenty-five picked men, and begin on a small scale;
supply them with arms and ammunition and post them in squads of fives
on a line of twenty-five miles. The most persuasive and judicious of
these shall go down to the fields from time to time, as opportunity
offers, and induce the slaves to join them, seeking and selecting the
most reckless and daring.’”
From this time on the relationship between these two Abolitionists grew
in intimacy and thereafter Mr. Douglass’s Rochester home was John
Brown’s headquarters whenever he was in that part of the country.
In the Springfield conference, he related his daring plans for the
rescue of the slaves in Virginia. Mr. Douglass readily saw how
impracticable and certain of disastrous failure this project must be,
but John Brown could never be made to understand the peril of anything
that he thought it was right to do. The possibility of failure seemed
never to enter into his calculations. Mr. Douglass said to him at
Springfield:
“Suppose you succeed in running off a few slaves, and thus impress the
Virginia slave-holders with a sense of insecurity in their slaves, the
effect will be only to make them sell their slaves further South.”
Whereupon Captain Brown replied: “That will be just what I want first to
do; then I would follow them up. If we could drive them out of one
county it would be a great gain; it would weaken the system throughout
the state.”
“But,” said Douglass, “they would employ blood-hounds to hunt you out of
the mountains.”
“That they might attempt,” was the answer, “but the chances are that we
should whip them, and when we should have whipped one squad, they would
be careful how they pursued us.”
Thus would Brown confidently meet all possible obstacles to his plan of
invasion. If any other man had urged such views about freeing the slaves
with a force of less than one hundred men in the Virginia mountains, he
would have been regarded as ridiculous; but John Brown was an advocate
of such intensity of faith and readiness to put himself in front of
every danger, that it required no little courage to oppose him.
Mr. Douglass was evidently much affected by this interview. He had never
before seen courage and self-confidence so imperious, or a determination
to do something large and terrible so absolutely regardless of
consequences. After this conference he admits that his own “utterances
became more and more tinged by the color of this man’s strong
impressions,” and his conviction grew “that slavery could only end in
blood.”
Brown’s influence was easily traceable in Mr. Douglass’s subsequent
utterances, both in the _North Star_ and in his public addresses. During
the fight for free soil and free men in Kansas, after the
Kansas-Nebraska bill became a law, Mr. Douglass probably did more than
any one to supply the militant captain with money and munitions. The
full size of Brown as a man was revealed in Kansas when the struggle
between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces became actual war. His
daring deeds in going into the state of Missouri, bringing out dozens of
slaves and conducting them safely to the North; and his fight to keep
Kansas free, could not have succeeded, but for the support of such men
as Frederick Douglass. Captain Brown’s experiences and adventures here
strengthened his conviction that his plans for the invasion of Virginia
were right. He had studied the mountain ranges and was satisfied in his
own mind that the “Almighty had raised those mountains for the very
purpose of aiding him to strike a death blow to slavery.” The
correspondence between the two men continued and the black leader was
well informed of every movement. Brown never ceased to urge the ex-slave
to join him, both in drawing up a constitution for future use and in the
actual fighting. Indeed he had so exalted an opinion of Douglass’s
influence that it was believed the slaves in Virginia and other parts of
the South would rise _en masse_ if they knew that he was a part of this
rescuing army.
About three weeks before the assault at Harper’s Ferry, while John Brown
was at Chambersburg, making final arrangements for his attack, he sent
an urgent letter to Douglass, begging a conference. The latter knew that
this was a perilous step and would certainly implicate him in the
conspiracy when the crash of failure came; yet he ignored the danger and
responded. He speaks of this last visit to the old warrior, in part, as
follows:
“I approached the old quarry with a good deal of caution, for John Brown
was generally armed and regarded strangers with suspicion. He was there
under ban of the government and heavy rewards were offered for his
arrest for several offenses which he is said to have committed in
Kansas. He was then passing under the name of John Smith. As I came near
him, he regarded me rather suspiciously, but soon recognized me and
received me cordially. He had in his hand, when I met him, fishing
tackle, with which he had been fishing in a stream hard by, but I saw no
fish.... The fishing was simply a disguise and was certainly a good one.
He looked in every way like a man of the neighborhood and as much at
home as any of the farmers around there. His hat was old and
storm-beaten and his clothing was about the color of the quarry itself,
his present dwelling-place. His face wore an anxious expression and he
was much worn by exposure. I felt that I was on a dangerous mission and
was as little desirous of discovery as himself.”
Captains Brown, Kage, Shields Green and Mr. Douglass sat down to hold a
council of war. The whole scheme of the proposed attack on Harper’s
Ferry and its capture was gone over without the slightest hint of
possible failure. Douglass opposed the plan as wholly impracticable and
fatal to all who might engage in it, but his arguments were promptly set
aside by Brown. “He was not to be shaken by anything I could say, but
treated my views respectfully. The debate continued during Saturday and
Sunday. Brown was for striking a blow that would arouse the country, and
I, for the policy of gradually and secretly drawing off the slaves to
the mountains, as at first suggested by Brown himself.” In the most
fervent manner he urged Mr. Douglass to remain and take part in the
fight. Just before the latter’s departure, Brown threw his arm around
the black man’s neck and said: “Come with me, Douglass! I will defend
you with my life. I want you for a special purpose. When I strike, the
bees will begin to swarm, and I shall want you to help hive them.”
The colored leader did not yield to the entreaty. Brown was incapable of
seeing the death-trap that he had set for himself and his followers, and
even if he could have seen it, he would not have been moved from his
determination. A thousand men might have followed him and all have
perished, but there could have been but one martyr, and that was
himself. Mr. Douglass’s death would have been a wanton sacrifice,
because it would have meant nothing to the cause for which he had
contributed so much of his life during the previous twenty-five years.
He had a right to feel, as his subsequent career so abundantly proved,
that his work was not finished. Of all the Abolitionists he was the only
one who followed Brown to the last with advice, money, and other
assistance. Because of what he had already done, and especially in this
final conference at Chambersburg, he became amenable, as afterward
appeared, to the charge of treason.
When the news was flashed over the land that John Brown was captured,
the whole country was thrown into a state of great excitement. In
Virginia the conclusion was quickly reached that the raid was backed by
a wide-spread conspiracy and that men high in rank were implicated. Mr.
Douglass at the time was addressing a large audience in Philadelphia. If
he had any fear for himself, he did not show it. By lingering in the
state so near the borders of slavery, where he had just been in
conference with the head and front of the movement, he was in imminent
danger. Brown’s satchel, now in the hands of the officials, contained
much of Douglass’s correspondence. His friends were apprehensive and
insisted upon his immediate flight from Philadelphia to his home in
Rochester, and thence to Canada. As a matter of precaution, the
following telegram was sent by his friend, Miss Assing, to Rochester:
“B. F. Blackall, Esq.: Tell Lewis [Douglass’s eldest son] to secure all
the important papers in my desk.”
All the newspapers stated that the Federal Government would spare no
pains to run down and arrest every one who was in any way connected with
the conspiracy. It would have been gratifying to those in power to have
laid hands on Frederick Douglass and to have made an example of him,
because he was regarded as one of the most offensive of those who fought
slavery. That his friends were not unduly anxious for his safety is also
proven by the following copy of a letter signed by the Governor of
Virginia and sent to the President:
“(Confidential.)
“RICHMOND, VA., NOV. 13, 1859.
“_To His Excellency, James Buchanan, President of the United States,
and to the Honorable Postmaster-General of the United States_:
“GENTLEMEN:—I have information such as has caused me, upon proper
affidavits, to make requisition upon the Executive of Michigan for the
delivery up of the person of Frederick Douglass, a Negro man, supposed
now to be in Michigan, charged with murder, robbery, and inciting
servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. My agents for the arrest
and reclamation of the person so charged, are Benjamin M. Morris and
William N. Kelly. The latter has the requisition and will wait on you to
the end of obtaining nominal authority as post-office agents. They need
to be very secretive in this matter, and some pretext for traveling
through this dangerous section for the execution of the laws in this
behalf, and some protection against obtrusive, unruly, or lawless
violence. If it be proper to do so, will the Postmaster-General be
pleased to give to Mr. Kelly, for each of these men, a permit and
authority to act as detectives for the Post-office Department, without
pay, but to pass and repass without question, delay, or hindrance?
“Respectfully submitted,
“By your obedient servant,
“HENRY A. WISE.”
Mr. Douglass was fairly pushed into Canada by his friends, but the
determination to get hold of him was so strong that he was not regarded
as safe even there. It would not have been impossible to effect some
plan for arresting him so long as he remained so close to his native
land. It was decided therefore that he must again go to England. He had
already planned this trip, but the interesting events that culminated in
the Harper’s Ferry tragedy had delayed his departure.
Mr. Douglass stated publicly that he would be perfectly willing to be
tried anywhere in New York State, but not elsewhere. He took passage for
England from Quebec on the 12th day of November, 1859, and was
everywhere received with the old-time cordiality. As he was fresh from
the scenes and events that had stirred the English almost as much as the
American people, he was in great demand for more complete information.
He had occasion to deliver many addresses and it was everywhere manifest
that he had lost none of his former prestige. The only setback he
suffered was when he applied to George M. Dallas, the American Minister
to the Court of St. James, for a passport for the purpose of visiting
Paris. He was refused on the ground that he was not a citizen of the
United States. His visit was cut short by the distressing news of the
death of his beloved little daughter, Anna, the delight and life of his
home, his absence having covered only five months. He returned to find
the public temper toward him mollified by the swift happenings of a
season which was marked by incessant change in the currents of popular
feeling.
CHAPTER XI
FOREBODINGS OF THE CRISIS
The ten years from 1850 to 1860 were years of cumulative danger to the
republic and to the principles of liberty and democracy upon which it
was founded. For the Negro these years contained more of perils than of
hopes. The great historical events growing out of the conflict between
the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery parties appeared to have set the
goal of emancipation ever farther out of the range of practical
possibilities. The Fugitive Slave Law seemed for a time to put an end to
all hopes for further rescues from bondage. The Dred Scott Decision made
every Negro, free or slave, an outlaw. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill
threatened to render slavery so thoroughly national that Abolition would
be forever impossible. Finally, the John Brown raid intensified, for a
time, the hatred toward the colored people and their friends in the
North.
But the success of the pro-slavery party was more apparent than real. It
had gained merely a tactical victory. All the deeper currents of the
nation’s life were running counter to it. The raid excited the horror of
the people. Even men active as Abolitionists denounced the acts of John
Brown as both foolhardy and wicked. It seemed for a time that every one
prominent in social and political life in the North was anxious publicly
to disavow all share in what was described as a “reckless and fanatical”
deed. But John Brown’s raid did not bring the people of the North and
South any nearer together. On the contrary, it merely widened the breach
between them. The North might disclaim this act, but the people of the
opposite section were not satisfied with these disclaimers. It seemed to
them that behind John Brown was a great conspiracy, and that the North,
having determined to make a nullity of the Fugitive Slave Law, was
preparing to follow it up with still more daring efforts to free the
slaves at any cost.
Brown was hurried to the gallows, but not before an effort was made to
implicate in his crime men who were prominent as Abolitionists. It has
already been shown what steps were taken to capture Frederick Douglass.
A Congressional committee was appointed for the purpose of thoroughly
investigating the whole matter, but it accomplished nothing. It is
scarcely necessary to say that the death of Brown produced an impression
throughout the country quite as profound as that already created by his
“raid.” The execution changed public sentiment at once. People now began
to feel and to say that the cause, and not the man, had been on trial
when he was found guilty. The sentence of death passed by the Virginia
court transformed Brown in the eyes of a great many Northern people into
a martyr and shed a halo over the cause for which he gave his life.
Emerson compared the gallows of Virginia to the cross in Palestine. All
through the North the people began to sing the song that continued to be
a favorite throughout the Civil War:
“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
But his soul is marching on.”
The panic-stricken friends of freedom recovered their spirits and
renewed their attacks with increased vigor. To quote from Frederick
Douglass: “John Brown’s defeat was already assuming the form of victory,
and his death was giving new life and power to the principles of justice
and liberty. What he had lost by the sword, he had more than gained by
the truth.”
The people of the South all through this controversy had shown
themselves correct interpreters of public sentiment. They clearly saw
that the execution of John Brown did not put an end to the cause of
Abolition. This reckless act of invasion was merely typical of what was
possible on a scale of vaster proportions. In spite of everything that
had been achieved by law and by decisions of the Supreme Court, the
trend of feeling in the North was steadily against slavery. In spite of
the Fugitive Slave Law and an increasing vigilance on the part of
masters and their agents, the Underground Railroad continued its
business of carrying slave-property to free soil. Charles Sumner’s
speech in the Senate added fresh interest to the cause of emancipation,
and the continued popularity of _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ was ominous. All
these disquieting circumstances boded some dreadful issue of the
controversy. The drift of events is best exhibited in the effects of the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, already referred to. When this bill became a law,
as the consummation of the policy of Senator Stephen A. Douglas of
Illinois, the physical boundary between slavery and freedom, which many
had supposed to be fixed as firmly as the Declaration of Independence,
was swept away and all the vast empire of the west and northwest became
disputed ground between the forces of free soil and slavery. This act
gave effect to the new doctrines of state sovereignty. Whatever may have
been its purpose, the result was to unite the forces of the North and
South, pitting the two sections against each other in a struggle for
supremacy in the new territory. In outward appearance this new doctrine
was peaceful and sound, but it held dreadful possibilities. Expressed
plainly, the Kansas-Nebraska Law said that whether these new states
should be free or slave-states must be left to the people. It was for
them to vote slavery “up” or “down.” In other words, if the majority of
the people of these territories voted for slavery, it became, by their
sovereign will, an institution fixed and irrevocable; if not, slavery
was forever to be shut out, just as it was excluded from Massachusetts.
The intensity of public interest in and anxiety for the future status of
these new states was shown in the instant rush into Kansas from New
England of colonists favorable to the cause of free soil, and from the
South of colonists favorable to the cause of slavery. Each side
appreciated how momentous was the issue. The people of Missouri and
other neighboring slave-states knew that it would be difficult, with a
free state adjoining them to hold their bond-servants in security. The
people of New England and other Northern states understood that the
political supremacy of the free-states would be forever lost if the
South were able to make slave-ground out of the western territory.
It was an exciting contest and soon proved a gory one. Men from both
sections were expecting that the struggle would be attended with
bloodshed and they went out armed and prepared for it. Kansas, “bleeding
Kansas,” was a battle-ground. It is not necessary here to recount the
sanguinary incidents between the cohorts of emancipation and slavery in
this neutral territory. Suffice it to say that in the end the cause of
free soil triumphed and the contest was merely preliminary to a vaster
conflict of which it was a premonitory token.
Before and during these stormy events in Kansas, there was in progress
an intellectual conflict which was destined to have a more serious
ending. This was the historic debates between Abraham Lincoln and
Stephen A. Douglas, both of Illinois. More clearly, perhaps than any
other one event, this round of speeches formulated the issue which
divided the American people politically on the question of slavery. It
revealed to the nation a man who gave to them, for the first time, a
frank and clear-cut definition of the issue to which it had been brought
by the struggle. Lincoln said in effect: “The Union cannot long endure,
half-slave and half-free. It must be all one or all the other, and the
public mind can find no resting-place but in the ultimate extinction of
slavery.”
Of course, this was but a reiteration of what had been repeatedly said
by the Abolitionists during the past twenty-five years, but coming now
at a time when there was an unconscious groping of the popular mind
toward a definite issue for public action, these clear words seemed to
be charged with meaning of tremendous importance. The people of the
whole country listened to these Illinois debaters with an interest that
seemed prescient of coming events. As the debate progressed, Mr. Lincoln
seemed to rise visibly and steadily from the western provincial
obscurity he had lived in up to this point, to a prominence in which he
appeared for the time to overshadow every one else who had spoken on the
great question. The immediate prize to be won in the debate was a seat
in the United States Senate; but before its close, this sank into
insignificance, and the presidency of the United States, the
preservation of the Union, and the fate of slavery, had become the
stakes of the contest.
The issues in the coming election already began to shape themselves
along the lines enunciated by Mr. Lincoln and Senator Douglas. In due
time new political alignments were completed as follows:
(1) The pro-slavery and Union Democrats of the North stood for state
sovereignty, or the right of the people of a territory to admit or bar
slavery as they saw fit. Senator Douglas was the unquestioned leader of
this wing of the Democratic party.
(2) The pro-slavery people of the South stood for the bold declaration
that the Constitution of its own force gave the right to carry slaves
into any territory of the United States and to hold them there, with or
without the consent of the people of the territory. John C. Breckinridge
was the leader of the Southern wing of the Democracy.
(3) Abraham Lincoln was chosen to bear the standard of all the people
who were opposed to both varieties of pro-slavery Democrats. His
doctrine was that the Federal Government had the right to exclude
slavery from the territories of the United States, and that this right
and power ought to be exercised to keep slavery within the confines of
the then existing slave-states.
It will be seen that emancipation was not an issue on the surface of
these declarations of principles. The whole question appeared to be:
Shall slavery have the power of expansion? If this power were denied,
could there be any doubt as to what must ultimately follow? If the
people feared the power of slavery to such an extent that they would or
could keep it within a restricted territory, would not this principle,
when successful, be the first step toward its extirpation? The South
more clearly than the North understood that the triumph of Mr. Lincoln
would settle nothing. Beneath these platform utterances was the
unwritten issue: Slavery’s security of expansion, or its “ultimate
extinction.” If the South won in the impending contest, not only would
slavery be secured by the right of its extension into the undivided
territory west of the Mississippi, but political supremacy might pass
permanently from the free-states.
The position of Stephen A. Douglas and his followers was rather
anomalous. As the Senator at one time expressed it, he cared not whether
the question of extending slavery into the territories was “voted up or
voted down”; with him the important thing seemed to be that the people
of the new territory should have the opportunity to vote on the question
and decide for themselves the character of their institutions.
Mr. Lincoln’s followers represented nearly everything left of the spirit
that was glorified in the Declaration of Independence and the Revolution
of 1776. Those who would preserve the soil of the West free; those who
would not only restrict, but abolish slavery altogether; and those who
would endow the Negro with all the proclaimed natural rights of man,
supported Lincoln.
The situation was complicated as well as perilous. Heretofore, when the
only question between the North and the South was slavery or the right
to hold slaves, the people of the North were governed as much by their
racial prejudices as the Southern people. Now, however, when other
questions, incidental to slavery, as, for instance, the future political
supremacy, were involved with the main issue, many men and women, who
had heretofore been indifferent or silent, became actively concerned,
and felt impelled to take a definite stand. There seems never to have
been any possibility of the North and South going to war on account of
Negro slavery. It was at this time clear from the whole history of the
controversy that if the Negro were ever to be free, his freedom must
come as a consequence and not as the cause of a conflict.
Probably no man in public life saw this more clearly than Frederick
Douglass. He was just as much a part of the history in the process of
making, all about him, as he was permitted to be. He had his say and was
heard. He understood the trend of events and he was not swept away by
merely transitory incidents. In all this controversy he sought
constantly, in his speeches, and in his paper, _Douglass’s Monthly_, to
lift into clear view the paramount issue. The following extract from one
of his speeches indicates the clearness with which he saw, and the
definiteness with which he was able to foreshadow the events of the next
succeeding years:
“The only choice left to this nation is abolition or destruction. You
must abolish slavery or abandon the Union. It is plain that there can
never be any union between the North and South, while the South values
slavery more than nationality. A union of interests is essential to a
union of ideas and without this union of ideas, the outer form of union
will be but as a rope of sand.”
During the Illinois debates, Frederick Douglass did all he could to
enforce the arguments and extend the steadily growing influence of Mr.
Lincoln. He made an extensive campaign in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa.
His audiences were large and interested, being eager to hear any man who
could speak with the distinction, clearness, and frankness that
characterized his public utterances. He had grown in esteem and the
mob-spirit that tried to harass him in his earlier campaigns in the West
had given way before his increasing influence and popularity. Once in
Illinois he met Senator Douglas, who treated him with marked courtesy.
In 1854, Frederick Douglass delivered an address in Chicago which ranks
as one of his greatest orations. Frederick May Holland, who has already
been referred to as the author of a valuable biography of the Negro
leader, has given to the public, for the first time, I believe, nearly
all of this interesting speech. The reproduction of at least a part of
it seems essential to this chapter:
“The Constitution knows no man by the color of his skin. The men who
made it were too noble for any such limitation of humanity and human
rights. The term ‘white’ is a modern term in the legislation of this
country. It was never used in the better days of our republic, but has
sprung up within the period of our national degeneracy.
“I am here simply as an American citizen, having a stake in the weal
or woe of the nation in common with other citizens. I am not here as
the agent of any sect or party. Parties are too politic and sects are
too sectarian, to select one of my odious class and of my radical
opinions, at this important time and place, to represent them.
Nevertheless, I do not stand alone here. There are noble-minded men in
Illinois who are neither ashamed of their cause nor their company.
Some of them are here to-night, and I expect to meet them in every
part of the state where I may travel.
“But, I pray, hold no man or party responsible for my words, for I am
no man’s agent, and I am no party’s agent.... It is alleged that I
came here in this state to insult Senator Douglas. Among gentlemen
that is only an insult that is intended to be such, and I disavow all
such intention. I am here precisely as I was in this state one year
ago—with no other change in my relations to you, or the great question
of human freedom, than time and circumstances have brought about. I
shall deal with the same subject with the same spirit now as then,
approving such men and such measures as look to the security of
liberty in the land and with my whole heart condemning such men and
measures as serve to subvert or endanger it. If Hon. S. A. Douglas,
your beloved and highly gifted senator, has designedly or through
mistaken notions of public policy, ranged himself on the side of
oppressors, and the deadliest enemies of liberty, I know of no reason,
either in this world or in any other world, which should prevent me or
any one else, from thinking so or saying so.
“The people in whose cause I came here to-night are not among those
whose right to regulate their own domestic concerns is so feelingly,
and earnestly, and eloquently contended for in certain quarters. They
have no Stephen A. Douglas, no General Cass, to contend at North
Market Hall for their popular sovereignty. They have no national
purse, no offices, no reputation with which to corrupt Congress, or to
tempt men, mighty in eloquence and influence into their service. Oh,
no! They have nothing to commend them, but their unadorned humanity.
They are human—that’s all—only human. Nature owns them as human; but
men own them as property, and only as property. Every right of human
nature, as such, is denied them; they are dumb in their chains. To
utter one groan or scream for freedom in the presence of the Southern
advocate of popular sovereignty, is to bring down the frightful lash
upon their quivering flesh. I know this suffering people; I am
acquainted with their sorrows; I am one with them in experience; I
have felt the lash of the slave-driver, and stand up here with all the
bitter recollections of its horrors vividly upon me.
“There are special reasons why I should speak and speak freely. The
right of speech is a very precious one. I understand that Mr. Douglas
regards himself as the most abused man in the United States; and that
the greatest outrage ever committed upon him was in the case in which
your indignation raised your voices so high that he could not be
heard. No personal violence, as I understand, was offered him. It
seems to have been a trial of vocal powers between the individual and
the multitude; and as might have been expected, the voice of one man
was not equal in volume to the voices of five thousand. I do not
mention this circumstance to approve it; I do not approve it. I am for
free speech, as well as free men and free soil; but how ineffably
insignificant is this wrong done in a single instance, compared to the
stupendous iniquity perpetrated against more than three millions of
the American people, who are struck dumb by the very men in whose
cause Mr. Senator Douglas was here to plead! While I would not approve
the silencing of Mr. Douglas, may we not hope that this slight
abridgment of his rights, may lead him to respect in some degree the
rights of other men, as good in the eye of Heaven as himself?
“Let us now consider the great question of the age, the only great
national question which seriously agitates the public mind at this
hour. It is called the vexed question, and excites alarm in every
quarter of the country.
“The proposition to repeal the Missouri Compromise, was a stunning
one. It fell upon the nation like a bolt from a cloudless sky. The
thing was too startling for belief. You believed in the South and you
believed in the North; and you knew that the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise was a breach of honor; and therefore, you said that the
thing could not be done. Besides both parties had pledged themselves
directly, positively, and solemnly against reopening in Congress the
agitation on the subject of slavery; and the President himself had
declared his intention to maintain the national quiet. Upon these
assurances you rested and rested fatally. But you should have learned
long ago that men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.
It is folly to put faith in men who have broken faith with God. When a
man has brought himself to enslave a child of God, to put fetters on
his brother, he has qualified himself to disregard the most sacred of
compacts; beneath the sky there is nothing more sacred than man, and
nothing can be properly respected when manhood is despised and
trampled upon.
“It is said that slavery is the creature of positive law, and that it
can only exist where it is sustained by positive law—that neither in
Kansas nor Nebraska is there any law establishing slavery, and that
therefore, the moment a slave-holder carries his slaves into these
territories, he is free and restored to the rights of human nature.
This is the ground taken by General Cass. He contended for it in the
North Market Hall, with much eloquence and skill. I thought, while I
was hearing him on this point, that slave-holders would not be likely
to thank him for the argument. It is not true that slavery cannot
exist without being established by positive law. The instance cannot
be shown where a law was ever made establishing slavery, where the
relation of master and slave did not previously exist. The law is
always an after-coming consideration. Wicked men first overpower and
subdue their fellow-men to slavery, and then call in the law to
sanction the deed. Even in the slave-states of America, slavery has
never been established by law. It was not established under the
colonial charters of the original states, nor the Constitution of the
United States. It is now and has always been a system of lawless
violence. On this proposition I hold myself ready and willing to meet
any defender of the Nebraska bill. I would not hesitate to meet even
the author of that bill himself.
“He says he wants no broad, black line across this continent. Such a
line is odious, and begets unkind feelings between the citizens of a
common country. Now, fellow citizens, why is the line of thirty-six
degrees, thirty minutes, a broad black line? What is it that entitles
it to be called a black line? It is the fashion to call whatever is
odious in this country, black. You call the devil black, and he may
be; but what is there in the line of thirty-six degrees, thirty
minutes, which makes it blacker than the line which separates Illinois
from Missouri or Michigan from Indiana? I can see nothing in the line
itself which should make it black or odious. It is a line, that’s all.
It is black, black and odious, not because it is a line, but because
of the things it separates. If it keep asunder what God has joined
together, or separate what God intended should be fused, then it may
be called an odious line, a black line; but if, on the other hand, it
marks only a distinction natural and eternal, a distinction fixed in
the nature of things by the eternal God, then I say, withered be the
arm and blasted be the hand that would blot it out.
“Nothing could be further from the truth, then, to say that popular
sovereignty is accorded to the people who may settle the territories
of Kansas and Nebraska. The three great cardinal powers of government
are the executive, legislative and judicial. Are these powers sacred
to the people of Kansas and Nebraska? You know they are not. That bill
places the people of that territory, as completely under the powers of
the Federal government as Canada is under British rule. By this
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Federal government has the substance of all
governing power, while the people have the shadow. The judicial power
of the territories is not from the people of the territories, who are
so bathed in the sunlight of popular sovereignty by stump eloquence,
but from the Federal government. The executive power of the
territories derives its existence, not from the overflowing fountain
of popular sovereignty, but from the Federal government. The
secretaries of the territories are not appointed by the sovereign
people of the territories, but are appointed independent of popular
sovereignty.
“But is there nothing in this bill that justifies the supposition that
it contains the principle of popular sovereignty? No, not one word.
Even the territorial councils, elected, not by the people of the
territory, but only by certain descriptions of people, are subject to
a double veto power, vested, first in the governor, whom they did not
elect, and second in the President of the United States. The only
shadow of popular sovereignty is the power given to the people of the
territories by this bill to have, hold, buy, and sell human beings.
The sovereign right to make slaves of their fellow-men, if they
choose, is the only sovereignty that the bill secures.
“But it may be said that Congress has the right to allow the people of
the territories to hold slaves. The answer is, that Congress is made
up of men, and possesses only the rights of men; and unless it can be
shown that some men have a right to hold their fellow-men as property,
Congress has no such right. There is not a man within the sound of my
voice, who has not as good a right to enslave a brother man, as
Congress has. This will not be denied, even by slave-holders.
“Error may be new, or it may be old, since it is founded in a
misapprehension of what truth is. It has its beginnings; and its
endings. But not so truth. Truth is eternal. Like the great God, from
whose throne it emanates, it is from everlasting to everlasting, and
can never pass away. Such a truth is man’s right to freedom. He was
born with it. It was his before he comprehended it. The title deed to
it was written by the Almighty on His heart; and the record of it is
in the bosom of the Eternal; and never can Stephen A. Douglas efface
it, unless he can tear from the great heart of God this truth; and
this mighty government of ours will never be at peace with God, unless
it shall practically and universally embrace this great truth as the
fountain of all its institutions, and the rule of its entire
administration....
“Now, gentlemen—I have done. I have no fear for the ultimate triumph
of free principles in this country. The signs of the times are
propitious. Victories have been won by slavery; but they have never
been won against the onward march of anti-slavery principles. The
progress of these principles has been constant, steady, strong and
certain. Every victory won by slavery has had the effect to fling our
principles more widely and favorably among the people. The annexation
of Texas, the Florida war, the war with Mexico, the Compromise
Measures, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, have all signally
vindicated the wisdom of the great God, who has promised to override
the wickedness of men for His own glory—to confound the wisdom of the
crafty and bring to naught the counsels of the ungodly.”
The nomination, in 1860, of Mr. Lincoln by the Republican party, of
Stephen A. Douglas by the Northern Democracy, and of John C.
Breckinridge by the Southern Democracy, brought on that memorable
campaign which preceded the final collision between the North and the
South.
“Into the fight,” says Frederick Douglass, “I threw myself, with a firm
faith and more ardent hope than ever before, and what I could do by pen
and voice was done with a will. The most memorable feature of the
canvass, was that it was prosecuted under the shadow of a threat.”
The followers of Breckinridge had boldly announced that if they were
defeated, they would not submit to the rule of Abraham Lincoln, but
would proceed to take the slave-states out of the Union. This threat of
secession was not a new one, but, coming, as it did, after the failure
to make Kansas a slave-state, it created something like a panic in the
North. It served for the moment to divert public opinion from political
issues to the very grave possibility of national disruption.
In spite of this openly declared purpose on the part of the Southern
Democracy, the Republican party, made up in part of Whigs, the old
“Liberty” and “Free Soil” parties, and a large number of the
Abolitionists, elected Abraham Lincoln as President of the United
States.
It was a signal victory, but it brought with it little comfort, more
anxiety, and many grave responsibilities. The people of the North were
desirous of peace, and so were the people of the South; but to agree on
terms was difficult. While the North, in the presence of a great triumph
was worried and anxious, the South openly and resolutely began to
prepare for secession and war. When, in the early part of the
presidential canvass, the South notified the nation what it would do in
case of defeat, the threat was generally accepted as mere bluster. No
sooner was the result of the election known than there began to
accumulate evidence which indicated that this threat was backed by a
very positive determination to carry it out. The states south of the
Ohio prepared to leave the Union in orderly procession, as if secession
were a familiar and undisputed custom. The administration, under
President Buchanan, saw the process of national dismemberment go on and
merely declared that it could find no power in the Constitution to
coerce a state. In the presence of this unchallenged dissolution of the
Union, the North fairly quaked with fear. An opinion which favored
almost any kind of compromise that would save the country from the
horrors of civil war gained wide influence. While the South was
confident of its strength to maintain itself in its present course, it
did finally and with apparent reluctance, indicate a few of the
conditions on which it would agree to remain in the Union. Among these
were the following:
Each Northern state, through its legislature or in convention assembled,
should repeal all laws which tended to impair the constitutional rights
of the South.
It should pass laws for the easy and prompt execution of the Fugitive
Slave Law.
Laws should be passed imposing penalties on all malefactors, who should
hereafter encourage the escape of fugitive slaves.
Laws should be passed declaring and protecting the rights of
slave-holders to travel and sojourn in Northern states, accompanied by
their slaves.
Every state should instruct its representatives and senators in Congress
to repeal the law prohibiting the sale of slaves in the District of
Columbia, and pass laws sufficient for the full protection of slave
property in the territories of the Union.
These conditions, offered by the South, could not be heartily approved
by the people who had just won such a decided victory on an issue
involving these very conditions. Yet there was a decided wave of popular
feeling in favor of peace upon any terms. Men of positive convictions
and eminent in all walks of life—William H. Seward, H. B. Anthony, and
Joshua R. Giddings—were now ready to purchase it at almost any price.
The enthusiasm for emancipation and free soil that had so stirred the
North during the presidential campaign, began to wane, and so serious a
reaction set in that, for a time, it seemed likely to make barren the
Republican victory. Not only so, but the mob-spirit of the ’30’s was
reawakened, and Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick
Douglass, and their supporters were assaulted on the streets of Boston.
The people of the North refused to tolerate further agitation against
slavery, and were desirous, in every possible way, to appease the anger
of the other section. Committees were appointed to confer with
representatives of the South for the purpose of obtaining a better
understanding of their grievances.
Thus, while the North seemed anxious to recede from almost every
position it had won in the recent election, the South was too confident
of its strength and of the justice of its cause to give much
encouragement to the messengers of peace from the other side. The
situation just described is an interesting illustration of the
characteristic difference between the people of the North and the South
on every question in which the Negro was involved. The North was very
reluctant to make slavery an issue; the South was always willing to be
challenged on that issue. In the North, the Negro was a problem; in the
South, he was property. It is always easier to deal with property than
to deal with a problem. For example: In the Kansas and Nebraska
controversy, the South wanted territory for slave-property, and the
North wanted it as an outlet for New England emigrants. If the only
question involved had been to save the black man from further
enslavement, the South would very possibly have won. In other words,
interest in the Negro as a human being, deserving a chance to live and
grow, was not the only and perhaps not the immediate motive behind the
men who fought for free soil. Slavery was fundamental and therefore,
from the point of view of party politics, a dangerous issue. There were
men in the North and also in the South who for conscience’ sake would
like to have seen the Negro emancipated, but the nation was not yet
ready for it. It involved consequences so vast and so far-reaching that
the mass of the people hesitated and were afraid. In the state of the
country at that time, the political parties of the North were anxious to
make it appear to the South that they had little or no concern about the
Negro, either as a freeman or a slave. Their great anxiety was to save
the Union. Mr. Lincoln was politically wise enough to state that his
administration was in no way committed to emancipation or to anything
else that looked to a change in the condition of the Negro people. He
would save the Union with or without slavery. He would very likely have
found himself lacking in national confidence or support, had he failed
to make this declaration.
When the South decided to go out of the Union, it furnished the
President with the one thing needed and that was a platform on which he
could unite the people of the North. When his policy was distinctly the
preservation of the government, Free Soil Democrats, Abolitionists, and
all believers in an undivided country, came at his call. All sentiment
in favor of emancipation served only to swell the passionate appeal to
the national feeling to save the Union. The Negro’s only hope was that,
in this threatened conflict to preserve intact the federation of the
states, his emancipation might become an inevitable necessity.
Frederick Douglass expressed this hope in the following language: “I
confess to a feeling allied to satisfaction at the prospect of a
conflict between the North and South. Standing outside of the pale of
American humanity, denied citizenship, unable to call this land of my
birth my country, and adjudged by the Supreme Court to have no rights
which a white man was bound to respect, and longing for the end of
bondage for my people, I was ready for any political upheaval that would
bring about an end to the existing condition of things.”
CHAPTER XII
DOUGLASS’S SERVICES IN THE CIVIL WAR
The Civil War came on as the direct result of the irreconcilable
sentiments of the North and the South on the question of slavery and the
political conflicts already mentioned. On the part of the South, it was
begun and waged with marvelous courage and intelligence to preserve
slavery and to establish the right of secession; and on the part of the
North, to preserve the Union, and the right of Congress to deal with
slavery as a national issue. During the first two years of the war, the
Federal Government did and said everything possible to convince the
people of the South that the new Republican party had no intention, near
or remote, of interfering with slavery. At the very beginning of
hostilities, William H. Seward, Secretary of State, declared to the
nations of the world that “terminate however it might, the status of no
class of people of the United States would be changed by the Rebellion;
that the slaves would be slaves still and that the masters would be
masters still.” This policy was consistently followed in the field of
military operations, as well as in the civil administration of the
government.
General McClellan, Commander-in-Chief of the Union Army, early in the
conflict, warned the slaves that “if any attempt was made by them to
gain their freedom, it would be suppressed by an iron hand.” In many
places Union soldiers were detailed to guard the plantations of Southern
slave-owners. In parts of the South in possession of the Federal army,
black fugitives, who had found their way into the lines, were returned
to their masters by order of the commanding officers. The following is a
copy of the proclamation issued by General T. W. Sherman at Port Royal
in November, 1861:
“In obedience to the order of the President of these United States of
America, I have landed on your shores with a small force of national
troops. The dictates of duty which, under the Constitution, I owe to a
great sovereign state, and to a proud and hospitable people, among whom
I have passed some of the pleasantest days of my life, prompt me to
proclaim that we have come among you with no feelings of personal
animosity; no desire to harm your citizens, destroy your property or
interfere with your lawful rights or your social and local institutions
beyond what the cause herein briefly attended to, may render
unavoidable.”
This proclamation is typical of those issued by General John A. Dix,
General Burnside, and other Union commanders in different parts of the
South. All this was in perfect accord with President Lincoln’s
oft-repeated declaration, that his paramount object was to save the
Union and not to save or destroy slavery. “If I could save the Union,
without freeing the slaves, I would do it,” said he. “If I could do it
by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I
do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps
to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not
believe it would help to save the Union.... I have here stated my
purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no
modification of my oft-expressed wish that all men everywhere could be
free.”
This declaration of President Lincoln was reflected in every act of
every agency of his administration. It gave the cause of the Union a
spirit and character wholly apart from the cause of Emancipation. It is
needless to say that this attitude of the Federal government was not
pleasing to the Abolitionists, and the colored people in the free-states
were much disheartened. Horace Greeley voiced the impatience of this
element when, in a letter of complaint to the President, he said: “Every
hour of defense of slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the
Union;” and asked, “if the seeming subserviency of your policy to the
slave-holding, slavery-upholding interests, is not the perplexity and
the despair of statesmen of all parties?”
In spite of the seeming pro-slavery policy of the national
administration, Frederick Douglass was earnestly consecrating every
energy of his being to the President’s support. He was wise enough to
understand that if Lincoln in the beginning, had stated his policy to
be, not only to save the Union, but also to free the slaves, all would
have been lost. While other Abolitionists were impatient and doubtful of
Mr. Lincoln’s course, Douglass declared himself convinced that the war,
even though it be called a “white man’s war,” was nevertheless the
beginning of the end of the nation’s great evil. He still believed, and
so declared in his public speeches, that “the mission of the war was the
liberation of the slaves as well as the salvation of the Union.” “I
reproached the North,” he said, “that they fought with one hand, while
they might strike more effectively with two; that they fought with the
soft white hand, while they kept the black iron hand chained and
helpless behind them; that they fought the effect, while they protected
the cause; and said that the Union cause would never prosper until the
war assumed an anti-slavery attitude and the Negro was enlisted on the
side of the Union.”
It required time and the cumulation of events to bring about a state of
feeling that would tolerate the suggestion of using colored men in the
Union army. Mr. Douglass more than any other one man, helped to bring
about this change. It finally became evident that if the Negroes were
good enough to be employed in the Confederate ranks, as laborers, they
ought to be good enough for like service in the Union lines. In the
South, thousands of Negroes were at home, protecting the families of the
men who fought in the field, and raising crops as subsistence for the
Confederate soldiers and their wives and children; thousands more were
employed in building fortifications, digging trenches, and doing work
which otherwise would have had to be done by the men who were needed at
the front; and, anomalous as it may seem, a few colored men, it is said,
were actually enrolled and enlisted as soldiers in the Confederate army,
fighting for their own continued enslavement. The following account was
published of a procession of Southern troops in New Orleans in November,
1861: “Over 28,000 troops were reviewed by Governor Moore, Major-General
Scoville, and Brigadier-General Ruggles. The line was over seven miles
long. One regiment comprised 1,400 free colored men.”[4]
Footnote 4:
Greeley: _The American Conflict_, Vol. II, p. 522.
It was expedient that the government, in enlisting Negroes, should move
with extreme caution, not only to prevent undue irritation of Southern
feeling, but what was more serious, to avoid offending the deep-seated
prejudice against colored people in the North. It was rightly believed
that thousands of white men would refuse to enlist if Negroes were to
serve in the army on an even footing with them. Then again, the border
states, which were more or less favorable to the Union, would be
irrevocably lost to it. In due time, however, all objections were swept
aside by the pressure of black men themselves and by the needs of the
government.
Correspondents from the seat of war began to tell how a Negro regiment
at Port Royal, and certain Negro companies in Louisiana had conducted
themselves in battles for the Union, and these accounts dispelled all
doubts as to their fighting capacity. The early orders by the government
to return all fugitive slaves to their masters were no longer issued.
General Benjamin P. Butler announced that he would regard all fugitive
slaves, finding their way into his lines, as “contraband of war.”
Colored men were being employed extensively as laborers in building
fortifications, roads, entrenchments, and as cooks and other necessary
workers in support of the army. Their usefulness was so manifest that
prejudice gradually gave way to a more kindly feeling of respect. When
the white Union troops thus recognized the services, kindness, and
faithfulness of these black men, they were soon willing to tolerate them
in their ranks.
Mr. Douglass eagerly assisted in the formation of the first regularly
organized regiments of United States colored troops, the Fifty-fourth
and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Infantry Volunteers. Governor Andrew, an
ardent Abolitionist, was justly proud of this important experiment, and
said: “I stand or fall as a man and a magistrate with the rise or fall
in the history of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.” Colonel Robert Gould
Shaw, who commanded the regiment, was one of the noblest sons of this
freedom-loving commonwealth.
In order to satisfy any lingering misgivings that the people might have
concerning this step by the government, it was stated that the regiments
to be enlisted would not be put into active service, being held for
garrison duty in districts where yellow fever was prevalent. It was also
decided not to give them the same pay as that allowed to the white
troops. Negro soldiers were to receive only seven dollars per month. At
Fort Wagner the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts soon had an opportunity to
show what it could do. The conduct of the men was so brave that it put
an end to all further opposition to Negro enlistment. These colored
soldiers refused to accept any reward for their services until the
government was ready to pay them what it gave to other troops. They
continued to serve and fight for the honor of the flag and the
preservation of the Union until in the following year the country voted
full pay to its black defenders. The Massachusetts volunteers, and all
Negro regiments subsequently enlisted, were officered by white men.
Mr. Douglass rendered valuable aid in getting together enough fit men
for the two New England regiments. His two sons, Lewis H. and Charles R.
Douglass, who are still living in Washington and are honored citizens,
were among the first to enlist. Their father’s influence with the
colored people of the country was so great that his services were almost
indispensable. He was distressed by the restrictions placed on these
soldiers, but said: “While I, of course, was deeply pained and saddened
by the estimate thus put upon my race, and grieved at the slowness of
heart which marked the conduct of the loyal government, I was not
discouraged, and urged every man who could enlist to get an eagle on his
button, a musket on his shoulder, and the star and spangle over his
head.” On March 2, 1863, he issued an appeal to his people which was in
part as follows:
“Men of Color, To Arms.
“When first the rebel cannon shattered the walls of Sumter and drove
away its starving garrison, I predicted that the war then and there
inaugurated would not be fought out entirely by white men. Every
month’s experience during these dreary years has confirmed that
opinion. I have implored the imperiled nation to unchain against her
foes her powerful black hand. Slowly and reluctantly that appeal is
beginning to be heeded. Stop not now to complain that it was not
heeded sooner. That it should not, may or may not have been best. This
is not the time to discuss that question. Leave it to the future. When
the war is over, the country saved, peace established, and the black
man’s rights are secured, as they will be, history with an impartial
hand will dispose of that and sundry other questions. Action! action!
not criticism, is the plain duty of this hour. Words are now useful
only as they stimulate to blows. The office of speech now is only to
point out when, where and how to strike to the best advantage. From
East to West, from North to South, the sky is written all over, ‘Now
or Never.’ Liberty won only by white men will lose half its lustre.
‘Who would be free, must themselves strike the blow.’ ‘Better, even to
die free, than to live slaves.’ This is the sentiment of every brave
colored man amongst us. There are weak and cowardly men in all races.
We have them amongst us. They tell you this is a ‘white man’s war’;
that you will ‘be no better off after the war, than you were before
the war’; that the ‘getting of you into the army is to sacrifice you
on the first opportunity.’ Believe them not. Cowards themselves, they
do not wish to have their cowardice shamed by your example. Leave them
to their timidity, or to whatever motive may hold them back. I have
not thought lightly of the words I am now addressing to you. The
counsel I give comes of close observation of the great struggle now in
progress, and of the deep conviction that this is your hour and mine.
In good earnest, then, and after the best deliberation, I now, for the
first time during this war, feel at liberty to call and counsel you to
arms. By every consideration which binds you to your enslaved fellow
countrymen, and to the peace and welfare of your country; by every
aspiration which you cherish for the freedom and equality of
yourselves and your children; by all the ties of blood and identity
which make us one with the brave black men now fighting our battles in
Louisiana and in South Carolina, I urge you to fly to arms, and smite
with death the power that would bury the government and your liberty
in the same hopeless grave. I wish I could tell you that the state of
New York calls you to this high honor. For the moment her constituted
authorities are silent on the subject. They will speak by and by, and
doubtless on the right side, but we are not compelled to wait for her.
We can get at the throat of treason and slavery through the state of
Massachusetts. She was first in the War of Independence; first to
break the chains of her slaves; first to make the black man equal
before the law; first to admit colored children to her common schools;
and she was first to answer with her blood the alarm-cry of the
nation, when its capital was menaced by rebels. You know her patriotic
governor, and you know Charles Sumner. I need not add more.
“Massachusetts now welcomes you to arms as soldiers. She has but a
small colored population from which to recruit. She has full leave of
the general government to send one regiment to the war, and she has
undertaken to do it. Go quickly and help fill up the first colored
regiment from the North. I am authorized to assure you that you will
receive the same wages, the same rations, the same equipments, the
same protection, the same treatment, and the same bounty, secured to
white soldiers. You will be led by able and skilful officers, men who
will take special pride in your efficiency and success. They will be
quick to accord to you all the honor you shall merit by your valor,
and to see that your rights and feelings are respected by other
soldiers. I have assured myself on these points. More than twenty
years of unswerving devotion to our common cause may give me some
humble claim to be trusted at this momentous crisis. I will not argue.
To do so implies hesitation and doubt, and you do not hesitate; you do
not doubt. The day dawns. The morning star is bright upon the horizon.
The iron gate of our prison stands half open. One gallant rush from
the North will fling it wide open, while four millions of our brothers
and sisters shall march out into liberty.
“The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries
and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the place of
common equality with all other varieties of men. Remember Denmark
Vesey, of Charleston; remember Shields Green, and Copeland, who
followed noble John Brown, and fell as glorious martyrs for the cause
of the slave. Remember that in a contest with oppression, the Almighty
has no attribute which can take sides with the oppressors. The case is
before you. This is our golden opportunity. Let us accept it and
forever wipe out the dark reproaches unsparingly hurled against us by
our enemies. Let us win for ourselves the gratitude of our country,
and the best blessings of our posterity through all time. The nucleus
of this first regiment is now in camp at Readville, a short distance
from Boston. I will undertake to forward to Boston all persons
adjudged fit to be mustered into the regiment, who shall apply to me
at once, or at any time within the next two weeks.”
The immediate effect of the enlistment of colored troops in the Union
army was to call forth a feeling of resentment on the part of the white
soldiers of the South. It is asking too much of human nature to have
expected anything else. The prejudice instantly found official
expression in the proclamation by the Confederate government that it
would treat white officers of colored troops and colored soldiers when
captured, as felons; Negro Union prisoners would be shot or sent back to
slavery. This threat was literally carried out in several instances. For
nearly a year the Confederate armies pursued this course toward black
men who were caught wearing the uniform of a Union soldier.
During all this time the Federal government was silent: no word of
protest and no threat of retaliation. Horace Greeley in the _Tribune_
put the matter in strong terms when he stated that “every black soldier
now goes to battle with a halter about his neck.... The simple question
is, Shall we protect and insure to our Negro soldiers the ordinary
treatment of a prisoner of war? Every Negro yet captured has suffered
death or been sent back to the hell of slavery, from which he had
escaped.”
The colored people in the North were for a time thoroughly discouraged.
The government, it seemed to them, put a low estimate upon them as
soldiers. When Mr. Douglass was appealed to by Major George L. Stearns,
an Abolitionist, and friend of John Brown, he expressed himself in part
as follows:
“I am free to say, dear sir, that the case looks as if the confiding
colored soldiers had been betrayed into bloody hands by the government
in whose defense they had been so heroically fighting.... If the
President is ever to demand justice and humanity for black soldiers,
is not this the time for him to do it? How many Fifty-fourth men must
be cut to pieces, its mutilated prisoners killed and the living sold
into slavery or tortured to death by inches, before Mr. Lincoln shall
say, ‘Hold! Enough’?”
Appeals of this kind finally had the effect of moving the government to
action. In order himself to be sure as to just what it intended to do,
and before inducing any other colored men to go to the front, Mr.
Douglass made up his mind to see the President personally. It was, at
this time, an unheard-of thing for a colored man to go to the White
House with a grievance, but he had many influential friends and admirers
in Washington, who assured him that he would be well treated. Senators
Sumner, Wilson, and Pomeroy; Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase,
Assistant Secretary of War Dana, all guaranteed him a safe passage into
Mr. Lincoln’s presence. Senator Pomeroy introduced Mr. Douglass, and
they soon found that they had much in common. The one had traveled a
long hard journey from the slave-cabin of Maryland, and the other a
thorny road from the scant and rugged life in Kentucky, to the high
position of President. The one was too great to be a slave, and the
other too noble to remain, in such a national crisis, a private citizen.
Mr. Douglass’s account of this historic interview with the President,
the first instance of the kind, I believe, in the history of the
country, is worth reproducing:
“I was accompanied to the Executive Mansion and introduced to
President Lincoln by Senator Pomeroy. Long lines of care were already
deeply written on Mr. Lincoln’s brow, and his strong face lighted up
as soon as my name was mentioned. As I approached and was introduced
to him, he arose and extended his hand and bade me welcome. I at once
felt that I was in the presence of an honest man—one whom I could
love, honor, and trust without reserve or doubt. Proceeding to tell
him who I was and what I was doing, he promptly but kindly stopped me,
saying, ‘I know who you are, Mr. Douglass; Mr. Seward has told me
about you. Sit down. I am glad to see you.’ I then told him the object
of my visit; that I was assisting to raise colored troops; that
several months before I had been very successful in getting men to
enlist, but that now it was not easy to induce the colored men to
enter the service because there was a feeling among them that the
government did not, in several respects, deal fairly with them. Mr.
Lincoln asked me to state particulars. I replied that there were three
particulars which I wished to bring to his attention. First, that
colored soldiers ought to receive the same wages as those paid to
white soldiers. Second, that colored soldiers ought to receive the
same protection when taken prisoners, and be exchanged as readily and
on the same terms as any other prisoners, and that, if Jefferson Davis
should shoot or hang colored soldiers in cold blood, the United States
government should, without delay, retaliate in kind and degree upon
Confederate soldiers in its hands as prisoners. Third, when colored
soldiers, seeking ‘the bubble reputation, at the cannon’s mouth’
performed great and uncommon service on the battle-field, they should
be rewarded by distinction and promotion precisely as white soldiers
are rewarded for like services.
“Mr. Lincoln listened with patience and silence to all I had to say.
He was serious and even troubled by what I had said and by what he
himself had evidently before thought upon the same points. He, by his
silent listening, not less than by his earnest reply to my words,
impressed me with the solid gravity of his character.
“He began by saying that the employment of colored troops at all was a
great gain to the colored people; that the measure could not have been
successfully adopted at the beginning of the war; that the wisdom of
making colored men soldiers was still doubted; that their enlistment
was a serious offense to popular prejudice; that they had larger
motives for being soldiers than white men; that they ought to be
willing to enter the service upon condition; that the fact that they
were not to receive the same pay as white soldiers seemed a necessary
concession to smooth the way to their employment at all as soldiers,
but that ultimately they would receive the same. On the second point,
in respect to equal protection he said the case was more difficult.
Retaliation was a terrible remedy, and one which it was very difficult
to apply; that, if once begun, there was no telling where it would
end; that if he could get hold of the Confederate soldiers who had
been guilty of treating colored soldiers as felons he could easily
retaliate, but the thought of hanging men for a crime perpetrated by
others was revolting to his feelings. He thought that the rebels
themselves would stop such barbarous warfare; that less evil would be
done if retaliation were not resorted to and that he had already
received information that colored soldiers were being treated as
prisoners of war. In all this I saw the tender heart of the man rather
than the stern warrior and commander-in-chief of the American army and
navy, and while I could not agree with him, I could but respect his
humane spirit.
“On the third point he seemed to have less difficulty, though he did
not absolutely commit himself. He simply said that he would sign any
commission to colored soldiers whom his Secretary of War should
commend to him. Though I was not entirely satisfied with his views, I
was so well satisfied with the man and with the educating tendency of
the conflict that I determined to go on with the recruiting.”
From the White House, Mr. Douglass went directly to the War Department
and had an interview with Stanton. Contrary to his expectation, he found
the Secretary most cordial, listening to the complaints with interest
and patience. Douglass says that Stanton made “the best defense that I
had heard from any one of the treatment of colored soldiers by the
government. I was not satisfied, yet I left in the full belief that the
true course to the black man’s freedom and citizenship was over the
battle-field and that my business was to get every black man I could
into the Union army.
“Both the President and Secretary assured me that justice would
ultimately be done to my race and,” he adds, “I gave full credit and
faith to these promises.” He was now better than ever prepared to say to
his people that, if they would be free, they must not be afraid to
suffer injustice and, if need be, cruelty.
In his interview with Mr. Stanton, the question came up as to the
advisability of commissioning colored men as officers of colored
regiments. The Secretary expressed his willingness and readiness to
issue a commission to Mr. Douglass, if he would accept. On being assured
that he would, Stanton promised to make him assistant adjutant to
General Thomas, who was recruiting and organizing troops in Mississippi.
He returned to his home in Rochester, N. Y., confidently expecting that
the commission would be sent him, but for some reason, not explained, it
was never issued. Mr. Douglass’s only comment on this lapse of the
Secretary of War was: “The government, I fear, was still clinging to the
idea that positions of honor in the service should be occupied by white
men and that it would not do to inaugurate the policy of perfect
equality.”
At length the outlook improved. Signs appeared of better treatment of
the colored soldiers by the Confederate armies. On July 30, 1863,
President Lincoln issued an order “that for every soldier of the United
States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be
executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery,
a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works.” All
the Union generals readily coöperated with the President’s efforts to
have his black troops receive equal consideration. General Grant was
especially interested in this matter and gave instructions to the white
men in his ranks to treat the colored soldiers as comrades.
The Negro troops, by their soldierly qualities, displayed at Fort
Wagner, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Morris Island, and other places, had
fully earned the right to honorable treatment, and such deserving had
its good effects. When the government finally recognized the services of
its black defenders, there was no trouble in getting the colored men to
enlist. From each state and territory in and out of the Union, they
offered themselves to the Federal government with as much eagerness as
if they were already in possession of every right they hoped to receive.
The following table of figures will show how largely black men responded
to President Lincoln’s call to the defense of the Union:
Connecticut 1,764
Maine 104
Massachusetts 3,966
New Hampshire 125
Rhode Island 1,837
Vermont 120
New Jersey 1,185
New York 4,125
Pennsylvania 8,612
Colorado 95
Illinois 1,811
Indiana 1,537
Iowa 440
Kansas 2,080
Minnesota 104
Michigan 1,387
Ohio 5,092
Wisconsin 165
Delaware 954
District of Columbia 3,269
Kentucky 23,703
Maryland 8,718
Missouri 8,344
West Virginia 196
Alabama 4,969
Arkansas 5,526
Florida 1,044
Louisiana 3,480
Mississippi 17,869
North Carolina 5,035
South Carolina 5,462
Tennessee 20,123
Texas 47
At large 733
Not accounted for 5,083
Officers 7,122
———————
Total 186,017[5]
Footnote 5:
_History of the Negro Race in America_, George W. Williams, Vol. II,
p. 299.
In addition to this impressive total it is estimated that there were
about 92,576 colored men serving with regiments in other capacities.
That the Negroes proved to be good soldiers, whenever or wherever their
fibre was put to trial, is the unvarying testimony of every officer and
commander who had any opportunity to know their conduct in the field.
The exigencies of the war were such that the troops thus furnished were
sorely needed. The whole fighting strength of the North was none too
great to cope with the Southern armies, and the enlistment of black men
was effected at a critical moment in the struggle.
From another point of view, this employment of colored troops with their
good conduct on the field was an important event in the history of the
Negro. It was the first opportunity given to him to demonstrate, on a
large scale, that he was superior to the estimate put upon him at that
time by the American people. The current of popular feeling against the
race rapidly changed. The Southern soldiers also altered their attitude
when they discovered in black skin courage and character worthy of honor
and respect.
On both sides of the firing-line the colored men proved themselves to be
friends of the white race. They shrank from no danger, however great;
they refused no task, however difficult; but worked, and fought, and
died without complaint. Negro men and women, as non-combatants, secretly
fed, hid, and protected thousands of Union soldiers who were in perilous
positions and without a friend or hope of favor in a hostile country.
Many a man in blue owed life and liberty to the nursing and protection
of some tender-hearted slave. It was to the care and devotion of these
same humble folk that the Southern masters, when summoned to war,
entrusted the cultivation of their lands and the lives and property of
their families. The Negro was the “good Samaritan” in those terrible
days, when white men were savagely bent upon destroying one another.
The armies on both sides of the conflict were indebted to the black man
as friend and as fighter. In the South, he fought against himself; in
the North, he fought for himself. In helping to save the Union by his
service and by his death on battlefields, he put himself in a position
to claim a share in the fruits of reëstablished peace, and in the
good-will of a reunited country. In view of his recorded part in this
civil contest, it can never be said that the Negro was a mere passive
recipient of the freedom that came to all the members of his race.
After the government had fully committed itself to the policy of
enlisting colored men in the Union army, the struggle began to assume
the character of a war for liberty. It became so as a military
necessity. President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Emancipation, issued on
the first day of January, 1863, sounded the death-knell of slavery, and
was an expression of a changed attitude on the part of the government
and of the people generally, foretelling the end of the war.
The President had been criticised by the Abolitionists, because he chose
to fight battles for the preservation of the Union, rather than for the
extirpation of slavery. If Douglass had ever faltered in his faith in
Mr. Lincoln’s desire for Abolition, he was reassured by an incident
which occurred at this time. Shortly after the Proclamation was issued,
the President summoned him to the White House. He reports that Mr.
Lincoln was somewhat anxious because the slaves in the South were not
coming into the Union lines as fast as he expected and wished. He said
that he might be forced into arrangements for peace before his purposes
could be realized, and if so, he wanted the greatest possible number of
slaves within the territory of freedom. The President thought that
Douglass could, in some way, bring his Proclamation to the knowledge of
the Negroes, and organize raiding parties, which would aid them to
escape from bondage and reach Union ground. Referring to this interview
Mr. Douglass said:
“Mr. Lincoln saw the danger of premature peace, and like a thoughtful
and sagacious man, he wished to provide means of rendering such
consummation as harmless as possible. I was most impressed by this
benevolent consideration because he had before said, in answer to the
peace clamor, that his object was to save the Union.... What he said
on this day showed a deeper moral conviction against slavery than I
had ever seen before in anything spoken or written by him. I listened
with the deepest interest and profoundest satisfaction and at his
suggestion agreed to undertake the organization of a band of
scouts, ... and urge the slaves to come within our boundaries.”
This plan, however, was soon rendered unnecessary by Union victories in
the field and a better military outlook.
Two incidents occurred at this meeting which showed the President’s
strong and almost affectionate regard for Frederick Douglass. What these
were are best told by Douglass himself. He says: “While in conversation
with him, his secretary twice announced Governor Buckingham of
Connecticut, one of the noblest and most patriotic of the loyal
governors. Mr. Lincoln said: ‘Tell Governor Buckingham to wait, for I
want to have a long talk with my friend, Frederick Douglass.’ I
interposed and begged him to see the governor at once, as I could wait,
but no, he persisted that he wanted to talk with me and that Governor
Buckingham could wait.... In his company I was never in any way reminded
of my humble origin, or of my unpopular color.”
The other pleasing incident of this visit is likewise best told in
Douglass’s own words: “At the door of my friend, John A. Gray, where I
was stopping in Washington, I found one afternoon the carriage of
Secretary Dole, and a messenger from President Lincoln with an
invitation for me to take tea with him at the Soldiers’ Home, where he
then passed his nights, riding out after the business of the day was
over at the Executive Mansion. Unfortunately, I had an engagement to
speak that evening and having made it one of the rules of my conduct in
life never to break an engagement if possible to keep it, I felt obliged
to decline the honor. I have often regretted that I did not make this an
exception to my general rule. Could I have known that no such
opportunity could come to me again, I should have justified myself in
disappointing a large audience for the sake of a visit with Abraham
Lincoln.”
The Emancipation Proclamation, as Mr. Douglass at the time said, was
“the turning point in the conflict between freedom and slavery.” He and
his race lived through the first two years of the administration of the
“party of liberty,” in a kind of agony of hope and doubt. What the
colored race, North and South, wanted in a hurry came with slowness. As
the time approached for the word of deliverance, the country was in a
state of feverish excitement. For those who had been connected with the
movement for Abolition, everything else, for the moment, seemed to lose
its interest, its importance, and its value in the presence of this
impending event. Indeed, the whole country vibrated with expectation.
In Tremont Temple, in Boston, on the day when Mr. Lincoln’s Proclamation
was looked for, there was gathered a memorable company. Many of the most
notable men in New England were present to join with the colored people
in the song of jubilee. To quote Mr. Douglass: “A line of messengers was
established between the telegraph office and the platform, and the time
was occupied with brief speeches from Hon. Thomas Russell, Anna
Dickinson, J. Sella Martin, William Wells Brown, and myself.... At last
when patience was well-nigh exhausted and suspense was becoming agony, a
man, I think Judge Russell, with hasty step advanced through the crowd
and with a face fairly illumined with the news he bore, exclaimed, in
tones that thrilled all hearts: ‘It is coming, it is on the wires.’ The
effect of this announcement was startling beyond description, and the
scene was wild and grand.”
When the message finally came and was read, there was a scene of
indescribable rejoicing. The crowd was so crazy with excitement that
midnight came upon them before they were aware of it and they adjourned
to a colored Baptist church where the jubilation did not fully exhaust
itself until morning. Mr. Douglass described it as “the most affecting
and thrilling occasion I ever witnessed and a worthy celebration of the
first step on the part of the nation in its departure from the thraldom
of ages.”
The Proclamation put new energy into all war measures and as the four
years of Mr. Lincoln’s first administration approached the end, there
was no one to oppose him for a renomination. His reëlection seemed to be
an overwhelming vindication of his policy. Frederick Douglass was a
prominent figure at the inauguration ceremonies and was looking
gratefully and joyously up into the kindly face of the great President
when he uttered these noble words: “Fondly do we hope, and fervently do
we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen’s
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until
every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by another
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it
must be said, that ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether.’”
Speaking of this event Mr. Douglass said:
“In the evening of the day of the inauguration, another new experience
awaited me. The usual reception was given at the Executive Mansion,
and though no colored person had ever ventured to present himself on
such an occasion, it seemed, now that freedom had become the law of
the republic, and colored men were on the battle-field mingling their
blood with that of white men in one common effort to save the country,
that it was not too great an assumption for a colored man to offer his
congratulations to the President with those of other citizens. It is
never an agreeable experience to go where there can be any doubt of
welcome, and my colored friends had too often realized discomfiture
from this cause to be willing to subject themselves to such
unhappiness. It was plain, then, that some one must lead the way, and
that if the colored man would have his rights, he must take them; and
now, though it was plainly quite the thing for me to attend President
Lincoln’s reception, they all with one accord began to make excuses.
It was finally agreed that Mrs. Dorsey should bear me company, so
together we joined in the grand procession of citizens from all parts
of the country and moved slowly toward the Executive Mansion. Upon
reaching the door, two policemen stationed there took me rudely by the
arm and ordered me to stand back, for their directions were to admit
no persons of my color. I told the officers I was quite sure there was
some mistake for no such order could have emanated from President
Lincoln; and that if he knew I was at the door, he would desire my
admission. They then, to put an end to the parley, as I suppose,
assumed an air of politeness, and offered to conduct me in. We
followed their lead, and we soon found ourselves walking some planks
out of a window, which had been arranged as a temporary passage for
the exit of visitors. We halted as soon as we saw the trick, and I
said to the officers, ‘You have deceived me. I shall not go out of
this building till I see President Lincoln.’ At this moment a
gentleman who was passing in, recognized me, and I said to him: ‘Be so
kind as to say to Mr. Lincoln that Frederick Douglass is detained by
officers at the door.’ It was not long before Mrs. Dorsey and I walked
into the spacious East Room, amid a scene of elegance such as in this
country I had never before witnessed. Like a mountain pine, high above
all others, Mr. Lincoln stood, in his grand simplicity and home-like
beauty. Recognizing me, even before I reached him, he exclaimed, so
that all around could hear him, ‘Here comes my friend Douglass.’
Taking me by the hand, he said, ‘I am glad to see you. I saw you in
the crowd to-day listening to my inaugural address. How did you like
it?’ I said, ‘Mr. Lincoln, I must not detain you with my poor opinion,
when there are thousands waiting to shake hands with you.’ ‘No, no,’
he said, ‘you must stop a little, Douglass; there is no man in the
country whose opinion I value more than yours. I want to know what you
think of it.’ I replied, ‘Mr. Lincoln, that was a sacred effort.’ ‘I
am glad you liked it,’ he said; and I passed on, feeling that any man,
however distinguished, might well regard himself honored by such
expressions from such a man.”
The events of the war moved rapidly toward the end and to peace. Mr.
Douglass was in Boston when Richmond was captured. New England was more
stirred over the fall of the Confederate capital than by any other
single event of the war, except the Emancipation Proclamation. Faneuil
Hall was again the scene of a great gathering. The victory was to be
celebrated in song and speech. The governor of the state, Senator
Wilson, and Robert C. Winthrop were among the speakers, and with them
was Frederick Douglass. A meeting of this kind anywhere in New England
would at that time have been incomplete without him. His presence on the
platform, sharing honors with the patrician Winthrop, served to
illustrate the change of fortunes that are possible under a democratic
form of government. Less than twenty-five years before, Douglass, a
fugitive from Maryland, had stood behind Mr. Winthrop’s chair at table
as a waiter, at a dinner in his honor in New Bedford. He had won the
position he now occupied by his services to a people whose cause men in
the North had come at length to recognize as their own, because it was
the cause of humanity.
Mr. Douglass at this time had reason to feel not only joy but gratitude.
It was clear that all he had hoped and struggled for was soon to be
realized. The close of the war and the overthrow of the institution of
slavery was for him a sort of personal victory. But his rejoicing was
soon turned to mourning. At the time of the assassination of President
Lincoln he was in Rochester, and he spoke at a meeting held to give
expression to the sorrow which that event created. The circumstances are
thus related by a friend:
“Rochester court-house never held a larger crowd than was gathered to
mourn over the martyred President. The meeting was opened by the most
eloquent men at the bar and in the pulpit, with carefully prepared and
earnestly uttered addresses. All the time the people were not aroused.
Douglass, who told me that he would not speak because he was not
invited, sat crowded in the rear. At last the feeling could be
restrained no more; and his name burst upon the air from every side and
filled the house. The dignified gentlemen who directed had to surrender.
Then came the finest appeal in behalf of the father of his people, who
had died for them especially, and would be mourned by them as long as
one remained in America who had been a slave. I have heard Webster and
Clay in their best moments; Channing and Beecher in their highest
inspirations. I never heard truer eloquence; I never saw profounder
impression. When he finished the meeting was done.”
CHAPTER XIII
EARLY PROBLEMS OF FREEDOM
The close of the Civil War left many of the agencies of emancipation
without a cause. The anti-slavery publications, the state and national
anti-slavery societies, “vigilance committees,” and the vast Underground
Railroad system, saw their purposes accomplished in the terms of peace.
The American Anti-Slavery Society, which had been the longest in
existence, and which, under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison,
had done more for freedom than any other single agency, was now ready to
wind up its affairs. When a proposition was made for its dissolution,
Frederick Douglass opposed it, giving his reasons in these words: “I
felt that the work of the society was not done, that it had not
fulfilled its mission, which was not merely to emancipate but to elevate
the enslaved class ... that the Negro still had a cause and that he
needed my pen and voice to plead for it.”
In taking this position, he showed that he had a clear and far-reaching
comprehension of the many and serious problems and obligations that
would in time result from the enforced emancipation of his people. He
clearly foresaw that these problems were of a kind which had never
before come within the range and scope of our national experience, and
that if the country were to make the most of the good results of the
war, and minimize its evils, the machinery of liberation and destruction
must somehow be converted to the service of peace and construction. Two
great questions had been settled, that the United States was to remain
an indivisible nation, and that slavery was henceforth impossible in
this nation.
The problems growing out of these achievements are still difficult.
Before the Civil War, the people of the United States might have been
classified as non-slave-holding and slave-holding white people; enslaved
and free Negroes. Now, two of these classes, the slave-holders and the
enslaved Negroes, disappeared and in the latter’s stead, a new element
was injected into the population, the freedmen, 4,000,000 souls, utterly
destitute, without learning, without experience, and without traditions;
dependent for their guidance, and almost for bare existence, upon the
direction and good-will of the older elements. If, after the war, the
South and the North could have united to repair the damages and solve
the problems the conflict had left behind it, the history of the colored
people in America, as well as their present condition, might have been
different from what it is.
In facing the problems of reconstruction, the people of the North had no
precedents and little knowledge of the Negro’s character to guide them.
The men who had the responsibility of providing for the present and
future, of rehabilitating the South on the basis of freedom, were
trained to treat every question, social and political, from the
standpoint of party politics. But reconstruction needed the services of
the sociologist more than of the party leader. There were but few in
public life capable of treating these matters in a non-partisan, a
non-sectional, and a scientific spirit. Men could not so quickly
overcome the animosities engendered by the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln,
who alone seemed to have a spirit large enough to be the President of
all the people, even to the least of them, was gone, and there was none
in public service to take his place. While others acted in the spirit of
war, he acted in the spirit of peace. In managing large questions, he
had a wonderful insight into the things that would aggravate conditions
and a fine courage in avoiding them, until they had spent their force
with as little harm as possible. His penetrative powers, the contagion
of his kindly spirit, his unswerving love for what was just, were needed
quite as much after as before and during the civil strife. Had Mr.
Lincoln lived, his clear vision, it is safe to say, would have avoided
many of the evils to which the country has since fallen heir. As it was,
however much the white people in slavery’s former domain may have
suffered, the Negro has borne the brunt of every mistake of the period
of Reconstruction.
The Southern people had lost (so it seemed at the time at least)
everything that was worth having and fighting for,—their “cause,” their
property in slaves, their prestige, and their political supremacy. Their
homes were devastated and their plantations ravaged by the conquering
Yankees. Their task was not to build up what had been destroyed, but to
begin anew. It is asking too much to expect that they could have faced
these conditions with a cheerful spirit. The slaves, as property, were
now free, and this freedom was regarded as a punishment visited upon
their former masters.
Free labor was new, and apart from this there was none of it to take the
place of that of the liberated slaves. Furthermore, the white people had
little or no faith in their possible usefulness. They feared that the
Negro as a free man would not work, would not honor his contracts, and
would use his liberty to commit all sorts of crimes against society.
They could not, at once, rid themselves of the feeling that physical
compulsion was the only way to keep the Negro within the bounds of law
and labor. Carl Schurz, who, under the authority of the President, made
a very thorough and statesman-like investigation of conditions, issued
an official report of his findings, and it is clear from this paper
that, if the Southern people could have overcome their fears of Negro
freedom, the work of reconstruction would have been greatly simplified.
They, however, were in no frame of mind to accept and honor any program
for reconstruction emanating from the North. They insisted that they
alone knew the Negro and what was best to be done for him and with him.
Between the North and the South, stood the ex-slave, free and that was
all. His situation was anomalous. As Mr. Douglass aptly says, “He was
free from individual masters, but the slave of society.” Yet, because of
his long service to the country, either as a slave or a freeman, he
deserved more than he could possibly have been paid in terms of law,
defining and defending his rights. He was without power and, as Mr.
Douglass in describing him, said, “a man without force, is without the
essential dignity of human nature.”
In this almost totally helpless condition, the North expected too much
of him and the ex-masters too little. It required more than the shock of
four years of internecine war to change the solidarity of slavery into a
society of organized self-helpfulness. A people who had been so long
enslaved could not help being slavish in habits and instincts. They had
little family life, no society, no institution except the church, a
rudimentary conception of common interests, and very few traditions and
ideals. No race ever came into the domain of freedom, independence, and
democracy so little furnished with the elements of self-protection and
self-determining purpose, as did the emancipated slaves forty years ago.
Yet there were everywhere in the South important exceptions to this
condition of race helplessness. Many free colored people, especially in
the cities, were not hopelessly behind in the procession of progress.
They fully understood the meaning of the war and its results. When the
last gun was fired and they saw emancipation as a reality, their joy was
unbounded. In many of the Southern cities, thousands of them gathered in
the open streets and commons, where they shouted and prayed with full
hearts, voicing in songs of jubilee and thanksgiving their gratitude for
their great deliverance. There has been nothing like these
demonstrations in the history of American liberty. No one who saw them
could have any doubt whatever as to the Negro’s appreciation of his
freedom. It is a notable fact that in none of them was ever heard a word
of hatred or revenge toward those who had been responsible for their
long enslavement. Their gratitude was too great to leave room for
resentment. God, Lincoln, and Freedom formed a mysterious trinity in the
new awakening of these emancipated people.
All this was perfectly natural and hopeful, so far as it went, but it
was not long before exultation gave way to the consciousness that this
dearly bought liberty was a serious thing. The Negro capacity for
happiness was large, but he could not live and sustain himself by this
alone. Owning nothing, he had no place to live. Having nothing, he could
get nothing. In addition to the ex-slaves, who were still fastened to
the places where slavery left them and freedom found them, a great
multitude, known as refugees, after emancipation made their way into the
Union lines. When the war closed these were still with the Union army
and dependent upon it for rations. It soon became apparent to those in
authority, that something must be done in a large way by the Federal
government itself to provide for this unorganized horde. To meet this
serious condition, Congress, in the spring of 1865, passed an act
establishing the “Freedmen’s Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and
Refugees.” Its main provisions were as follows:
The Bureau was to have supervision and management of abandoned lands.
It was to look after all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen.
It was to be under the control of a commission appointed by the
President and to continue its labors for one year after the close of
the war.
The Secretary of War was given authority to issue provisions,
clothing, and fuel for the immediate and temporary needs of freedmen
and their wives and children.
The War Department was to set apart for the use of loyal refugees and
freedmen abandoned lands under the control of the United States Army
and assign to such freedmen, not more than forty acres of land, and to
protect such persons in the possession of such land for at least three
years at an annual rent, not to exceed six per cent. upon the
appraised value of the land. At the end of that time, the tenant was
allowed to purchase it and receive therefor from the government a
certificate of purchase.
In addition to these provisions, the Freedmen’s Bureau was intended to
be a “friendly intermediary” between the ex-masters and ex-slaves.
Nothing could have been done more surely to smooth the way for a kindly
relationship between the two parties in question, if such a relationship
had been possible. General O. O. Howard was the first commissioner of
that Bureau. He had made a record as a soldier in the Union Army, but,
better still, he was a man of humane impulses, without sectional bias,
and of exalted Christian character. The value of his services in the
work of Reconstruction can be easily seen by a glance at some of his
reports made to Congress in 1865–1870.
In these five years of work on the part of the Bureau to bring order out
of chaos, there had been established over 4,000 schools, employing 9,000
teachers and giving instruction to about a quarter of a million pupils
of all ages. In 1870 the school attendance in the old slave-states
amounted to nearly eighty per cent. of the enrollment. The demand for
learning on the part of the colored people, as shown by the Bureau’s
work, was amazing, and afforded a gratifying evidence of their sense of
responsibility as freedmen. The Negroes themselves made a good showing
of what they were able to do by their own efforts in creating the means
for their instruction. They sustained over 1,300 schools and built over
500 school buildings, contributing more than $200,000 out of their
earnings to further the cause of education.
The value of the Freedmen’s Bureau in thus stimulating an interest in
this important subject and in developing a serious sense of
responsibility on the part of the freedmen cannot well be overestimated.
Carl Schurz in his report says:
“The Freedmen’s Bureau would have been an institution of the greatest
value, under competent leadership, had not its organization, to some
extent, been invaded by mentally and morally unfit persons.... Nothing
was needed at this time so much as an acknowledged authority, standing
guard between the master and the ex-slave, commanding and possessing the
confidence and respect of both, to aid the emancipated black man to make
the best possible use of his unaccustomed freedom, and to aid the white
man to whom free Negro labor was a well-nigh incurable idea, in meeting
the difficulties, partly real and partly conjured up by the white man’s
prejudiced imagination.”
The lack of fit men, in sufficient numbers, to continue the good work
inaugurated by the Freedmen’s Bureau was the cause, in great part, of
the failure of Reconstruction methods of helpfulness. There were
employed men of partisan spirit whose vision was clouded by political
aspirations, and thus the future well-being of both races in the South
was not kept paramount. The cause of most of the evils that in a few
years followed and overwhelmed the colored people in the South, was lack
of men strong in character, patriotism, justice, and understanding for
the work in hand. This is true, in spite of the fact that there were
those who were equal to the occasion, but who alone had not the power to
perform the tasks set for them. No greater injury has been done the
colored people of this country than that which resulted from putting
them in a position of political antagonism to their former masters.
But the purposes of this biography do not require a full statement of
the causes that led to the overthrow of the temporary supremacy held by
the freedmen and their Northern allies. A careful reading of the history
of the Southern states since the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to
the Constitution of the United States in 1865, must convince the
impartial reader that the Negroes were less the instigators than the
victims of the mistakes of Reconstruction. Many of those who played the
false rôle of friends and leaders left the freedmen to bear the brunt of
the punishment which they have since suffered patiently, heroically, and
alone. The Negroes of the South during the Reconstruction period were
always amenable to wise direction. Those who were on hand to guide them,
easily won their favor. There seems to be no reason to doubt that, had
it been offered, the freedmen would have followed the leadership of the
best elements in the South as willingly, if not more willingly, than
that which they did accept.
The difficulty was that the Southern people could not in a day, or in a
decade, change their inborn conviction that emancipation was forced upon
them as a punishment. They accepted this punishment in a spirit in which
injured pride, the sense of loss of property, loss of “cause,” and
revenge were elements. But with all these losses and defeats, the
imperious temper of the Southern people suffered no impairment, and they
were in no mood to take hold of the work of Reconstruction in the spirit
of the victorious North.
The South hesitated to act, and the ex-slave had no power to do so. As a
result, the responsibility for movements for the protection of the
Negroes fell to the North. It sought to accomplish this object by giving
freedmen all the rights of citizenship. Under the presuppositions upon
which our government was founded, this step was logical, even though it
may have been, and indeed seems to have been, at that time unwise.
What has been said in the foregoing pages indicates what may be called
the new field of labor for Frederick Douglass after emancipation. When
the great war came to an end and the object for which he had so long
labored was indeed an accomplished fact, he confessed that his great joy
was somewhat tinged with a feeling of sadness. He said, “I felt that I
had reached the end of the noblest part of my life.” He was still in his
prime, and all his faculties were clear and ready for action. He had no
occupation, no business, no profession. His training and associations,
during the previous thirty years, had unfitted him for manual labor, and
he had no fortune that would enable him to live without exertion of some
kind. But thoughts and feelings of this sort were soon swept aside by
new interests and anxieties of the most absorbing character.
In the first place, fresh evidences of his popularity began to manifest
themselves. His struggle for emancipation had been so conspicuous, his
eloquence so stirring, and his participation in all the great questions
of the day so earnest and compelling, that his vogue continued as
before.
In the great diversity of distinguished men and women who figured in the
history of the quarter of a century immediately preceding the Civil War,
Frederick Douglass was in the fullest sense of the word, a “self-made
man.” All kinds of persons were interested in him. His authority on
every matter that concerned the Negro, North or South, was seldom
questioned. His leadership, up to this time, was not often disputed. The
American people manifested greater desire to hear him than ever before
and invitations to lecture began to pour in upon him from colleges,
lyceums, literary societies, and churches. It is scarcely too much to
say that he was one of the most popular men on the lecture platform, and
at a time when such illustrious personages as Henry Ward Beecher,
Wendell Phillips, Theodore Tilton, Anna Dickinson, and Mary A. Livermore
gave to the American lyceum its highest distinction. His themes were no
longer anti-slavery in character. His new lectures bore such titles as,
“Self-made Men,” “The Races of Men,” “William, the Silent,” “John
Brown,” etc., all of which showed a wide reading, and a mastery of the
art of eloquence. In addition to these lectures, he was called upon from
every direction for informal talks on an almost endless variety of
subjects.
But whatever might be the theme or the occasion, he could not get away
from the Negro problem. As he said, “I never rise to speak before any
American audience, without a feeling that my failure or success will
bring harm or benefit to my whole race.” When the all-important question
of reconstruction came to be considered, Mr. Douglass was found to be
fully conversant with the progress of events, prepared to say his word,
and play his part. While other men were uncertain, confused, and timid,
Douglass’s stand was bold, direct, and fearless. When it was time for
him to speak and act, his words attracted wide attention and many
persons in and out of Congress were willing to follow his leading. He
had always been frank, honorable, and resourceful on the question of
just treatment for his race and he was so far in advance of most of the
men who had it in their power to make and unmake the laws, that it would
have been a decided misfortune for the colored people to have been
without his guidance. He had a wide acquaintance among men in public
life. No other Negro in this country, at the time, knew political
leaders in and out of Congress so intimately. His qualities of prudence
and sagacity, as well as his great personal charm, made him welcome in
the councils of his party. He was the soul of honor. Being thus gifted,
Douglass was able to be as much for his people in a personal as in a
public capacity. He had a way of getting close to the men in power and
of reaching their hearts and enlisting their sympathies for the objects
in whose service he was engaged. This was most fortunate. His race was
without official connection with the government, without experience, and
with no clearly defined status as citizens. If ever the colored people
needed a strong man capable in every way to represent them, it was now,
when the war was over and the question, what to do with the free Negro,
must be answered in definite terms of law and governmental policy. Aside
from his commanding abilities, and his personal attractiveness to men,
Mr. Douglass had lived through the very experiences that fitted him to
know and feel what the Negro needed and ought to have. He had been a
slave, a fugitive slave, and a freedman, at a time, too, when Negro
freedom was most despaired of. No white man could appreciate, as he
could and did, the sweetness of the terms, Freedom and Liberty. One of
his earliest utterances on this subject indicates his feeling at this
period. “I saw no chance,” he said, “of bettering the condition of the
freedman, until he should cease to be merely a freedman and should
become a citizen, and that there was no safety for him or for anybody
else in America, outside of the American government.”
At the time when Mr. Douglass publicly took this position, he was far
more radical than some of the most ardent of his anti-slavery
associates. This declaration was then regarded as a challenge to the
sense of justice of the American people. Many earnest friends of the
Negro thought it was asking too much, even though the race deserved the
franchise. Others argued that the Negro was unfit for the suffrage and
that it would aggravate the already strained relations between the two
races in the South. Opposition was expected by Mr. Douglass and he was
ready to meet it. No one understood better than he that his people had
had no training for citizenship, but he was accustomed to say, that “if
the Negro knows enough to fight for his country, he knows enough to
vote; if he knows enough to pay taxes to support the government, he
knows enough to vote; if he knows as much when sober as an Irishman
knows when he is drunk, he knows enough to vote.” He anticipated the
evils that would follow the enfranchisement of the ex-slaves, but
insisted that such evils would be temporary and that the good would be
permanent. He further insisted that it was worth all the suffering
endured by his race to have that principle established; that the right
of suffrage would be an incentive to arouse the latent energies of the
Negro to become worthy of full citizenship, and that such impulse was
imperatively needed. He always declared that political equality was a
widely different thing from social equality. He vigorously protested
that the right of suffrage did not mean Negro domination in the
slave-states, if the best white people would wisely assume the
leadership of the blacks. He believed in the domination of the fittest,
and insisted that the white people of the South, because of their
superiority in intelligence and in all the forces that make for
supremacy, were in no danger of being overwhelmed by the new voters. He
believed in the rule of the competent and that in the long run
intelligent supremacy would be tempered with justice and the true spirit
of democracy. He believed that those who were strong enough, either to
help the ex-slave to get upon his feet or to crush him in his efforts to
rise, would choose the more generous course.
At any rate, he deemed the time ripe to claim for the freedmen full
citizenship and equality before the law. When the question came forward
for discussion, the people of the North were filled with enthusiasm over
the results of the war and for the great objects they believed to have
been achieved by it. It was the occasion to make a hero of every one who
had taken part in the civil contest on the side of the Union. Even the
Negro, for the first time, became the recipient of more than respectful
consideration. The people of the North were as proud of his freedom as
he was himself. If to give the Negro the franchise, and laws to protect
him in the exercise of it as a citizen, would make more lasting the
results of the war, the North was now in a mood to grant it to him,
since it seemed to add to the significance of the great struggle which
had just been so victoriously concluded. Douglass took advantage of this
condition of things to advocate suffrage for his people. By speech and
print and personal appeals to the leaders of public opinion, he urged
this cause upon them in and out of season. There was no lack of evidence
that it was gaining in every direction. The number of those who thought
the suffrage ought to be granted, because it was right; those who
thought it a good thing from a partisan standpoint, and those who
thought the results of the war would be lost unless the Negro were given
the privilege, increased rapidly.
What Douglass calls one of the first steps in the direction of popular
favor for universal suffrage, was an interview that he had with
President Johnson on the 7th of March, 1866. He headed a delegation of
prominent colored men, including George T. Downing, Lewis H. Douglass,
William E. Matthews, John Jones, John F. Cook, Joseph E. Otis, A. W.
Ross, William Whipper, John M. Brown, and Alexander Dunlop. The visit of
these black men to the President for the purpose of urging upon the
government the policy of the franchise for the freedmen, attracted the
attention of the entire nation. Nothing better could have been devised
to bring the whole question before the people and obtain a hearing for
it.
The delegation soon found that Mr. Johnson was not in sympathy with
their plans for Negro enfranchisement. The President had evidently
anticipated their purpose in calling upon him and he was fully prepared
to answer their arguments. He spoke to them at great length and left no
ground for them to doubt his position in the matter. He also gave them
no opportunity to reply. On returning from the White House, his
colleagues empowered Mr. Douglass to prepare an address to the public,
to be printed simultaneously with Mr. Johnson’s address to them. Mr.
Douglass’s paper was in the form of a reply to the President’s arguments
against the suffrage proposition, and was as follows:
“Mr. President:—In consideration of a delicate sense of propriety as
well as of your own repeated intimations of indisposition to discuss
or listen to a reply to the views and opinions you were pleased to
express to us in your elaborate speech to-day, the undersigned would
respectfully take this method of replying thereto.
“Believing as we do that the views and opinions you expressed in that
address are entirely unsound and prejudicial to the highest interest
of our race, as well as to our country at large, we cannot do other
than expose the same and, as far as may be in our power, arrest their
dangerous influence. It is not necessary at this time to call
attention to more than two or three features of your remarkable
address. The first point to which we feel especially bound to take
exception, is your attempt to found a policy opposed to our
enfranchisement, upon the alleged ground of an existing hostility on
the part of the former slaves to the poor white people of the South.
We admit the existence of this hostility, and hold that it is entirely
reciprocal. But you obviously commit an error by drawing an argument
from an incident of slavery, and making it a basis for a policy
adapted to a state of freedom. The hostility between the whites and
blacks of the South is easily explained. It has its root and sap in
the relation of slavery, and was incited on both sides by the cunning
of the slave-masters. These masters secured their ascendency over both
the poor whites and blacks by putting enmity between them.
“They divided both to conquer each. There was no earthly reason why
the blacks should not hate and dread the poor whites when in a state
of slavery, for it was from this class that their masters received
their slave-catchers and slave-drivers and overseers. They were the
men called in upon all occasions by the masters whenever any fiendish
outrage was to be committed upon the slaves. Now, sir, you cannot but
perceive that, the cause of this hatred removed, the effect must be
removed also. Slavery is abolished. The cause of this antagonism is
removed, and you must see that it is altogether illogical to legislate
from slave-holding and slave-driving premises for a people, whom you
have repeatedly declared it your purpose to maintain in freedom.
“Besides, if it were true, as you allege, that the hostility of the
blacks toward the whites must necessarily project itself into a state
of freedom, and that this enmity between the two races is even more
intense in a state of freedom than in a state of slavery, in the name
of Heaven, we reverently ask, how can you, in view of your proffered
desire to promote the welfare of the black man, deprive him of all
means of defense, and clothe him, whom you regard as his enemy, in the
panoply of political power? Can it be that you recommend a policy
which would arm the strong and cast down the defenseless? Can you, by
any possibility of reasoning, regard this as just, fair, or wise?
Experience proves that those are most abused who can be abused with
the greatest impunity. Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped
easiest. Peace between races is not to be secured by degrading one
race and exalting another, by giving power to one and withholding from
another, but by maintaining a state of equal justice between all
classes. First pure, then peaceable.
“On the colonization theory you were pleased to broach, very much
could be said. It is impossible to suppose, in view of the usefulness
of the black man in time of peace as a laborer in the South and in
time of war as a soldier in the North, and a growing respect for his
rights among the people and his increasing adaptation to a high state
of civilization in his native land, that there can ever come a time
when he can be removed from this country without a terrible shock to
its prosperity and peace. Besides, the worst enemy of the nation could
not cast upon its fair name a greater infamy than to admit that
Negroes could be tolerated among them in a state of the most degrading
slavery and oppression, and must be cast away, driven to exile, for no
other cause than having been freed from their chains.”
When the question reached Congress, the Negro was not lacking in friends
who were willing to go the full length of the Frederick Douglass program
of Reconstruction. The first step taken was a report made to the Senate
by a committee having the subject in charge. This report in effect
provided that the whole matter of franchise be left to the option of the
several states concerned. Mr. Douglass believed he saw in this
proposition the continued political enslavement of his people, and he
was on his guard. The following communication written and sent to the
Senate by the delegation which had visited President Johnson speaks for
itself:
“To the Honorable, the Senate of the United States:—The undersigned,
being a delegation representing the colored people of the several
states, and now sojourning in Washington, charged with the duty to
look after the best interests of the recently emancipated, would most
respectfully, but earnestly, pray your honorable body to favor no
amendment of the Constitution of the United States which will grant
any one or all of the states of this Union to disfranchise any class
of citizens on the ground of race or color, for any consideration
whatever. They would further respectfully represent that the
Constitution as adopted by the Fathers of this Republic in 1789
evidently contemplated the result which has now happened, to wit, the
abolition of slavery. The men who framed it, and those who adopted it,
framed and adopted it for the people, and the whole people, colored
men being at the time legal voters in most of the states. In that
instrument as it now stands, there is not a sentence or a syllable
conveying any shadow of right or authority by which any State may make
color or race a disqualification for the exercise of the right of
suffrage, and the undersigned will regard as a real calamity the
introduction of any words expressly or by implication, giving any
state or states such power; and we respectfully submit that if the
amendment now pending before your honorable body shall be adopted, it
will enable any state to deprive any class of citizens of the elective
franchise, notwithstanding it was obviously framed with a view to
affect the question of Negro suffrage only.
“For these and other reasons the undersigned respectfully pray that
the amendment to the Constitution recently passed by the House and now
before your body, be not adopted. And as in duty bound,” etc.
In addition to this letter addressed to the United States Senate, Mr.
Douglass and his associates saw and argued the matter with every member
of that body who would grant them an audience. The “Option Measure” was
defeated and to a considerable extent through Mr. Douglass’s influence.
By this time the question of Negro suffrage had become a leading issue.
For the purpose of obtaining the sense of the country on this subject,
there was arranged what was known at the time as the “National
Loyalists’ Convention,” to be held at Philadelphia in September, 1866.
It was made up of delegates from all parts of the Union, including many
influential men in and out of public life. Rochester elected Mr.
Douglass as its sole representative, which was a great tribute to him,
giving new recognition to the Negro race. The entire country was quick
to take notice of the city’s action, in so important a gathering, and
there was not only objection but open opposition to Mr. Douglass’s
taking a seat in the convention. Some of the leading delegates united in
an effort to persuade him not to go.
Speaking of the situation, Mr. Douglass says that at Harrisburg, there
was attached to his train cars loaded with representatives from some of
the western states.
“When my presence became known to these gentlemen,” he continues, “a
consultation was immediately held among them upon the question of what
was best to be done with me. It seems strange, in view of all the
progress which had been made, that such a question should arise. But
the circumstances of the times made me the Jonah of the Republican
ship, and responsible for the contrary winds and misbehaving weather.
I was duly waited upon by a committee of my brother delegates to
represent to me the undesirableness of my attendance upon the National
Loyalists’ Convention. The spokesman of these sub-delegates was a
gentleman from New Orleans.... He began by telling me that he knew my
history and my works and that he entertained no very slight degree of
respect for me; that both himself and the gentlemen who sent him, as
well as those who accompanied him, regarded me with admiration; that
there was not among them the remotest objection to sitting in the
convention with me, but their personal wishes in the matter they felt
should be set aside for the sake of our common cause; that whether I
should or should not go in the convention was purely a matter of
expediency; that I must know that there was a very strong and bitter
prejudice against my race in the North as well as in the South and
that the cry of social and political equality would not fail to be
raised against the Republican party if I should attend this loyal
National convention.... I listened very attentively to the address,
uttering no word during its delivery; but when it was finished, I said
to the speaker and the committee, with all the emphasis I could throw
into my voice and manner, ‘Gentlemen, with all respect, you might as
well ask me to put a loaded pistol to my head and blow my brains out,
as to ask me to keep out of this convention to which I have been duly
elected. Then, gentlemen, what would you gain by the exclusion? Would
not the charge of cowardice, certain to be brought against you, prove
more damaging than that of amalgamation; would you not be branded all
over the land as dastardly hypocrites, professing principles which you
have no wish or intention of carrying out? As a matter of policy or
expediency, you will be wise to let me in. Everybody knows that I have
been duly elected as a delegate by the city of Rochester. This fact
has been broadly announced and commented upon all over the country. If
I am not admitted, the public will ask, “Where is Douglass? Why is he
not seen in the convention?” and you would find that inquiry more
difficult to answer than any charge brought against you for favoring
political or social equality; but ignoring the question of policy
altogether and looking at it as one of right and wrong, I am bound to
go into that convention; not to do so would be to contradict the
principles and practice of my life.’”
The delegates withdrew from the car in which Mr. Douglass was riding
without accomplishing their purpose. It was soon made evident to him
that his argument had not changed the prejudices of his visitors. When
he reached Philadelphia and learned of the plans of the convention, he
easily detected a concerted scheme to ignore him altogether. “I was,” he
says, “the ugly and deformed child of the family and to be kept out of
sight as much as possible, while there was company in the house.”
It had been arranged that the delegates should assemble at Independence
Hall and from there march in a body through the streets to the building
where the convention was to be held. Mr. Douglass was present at
Independence Hall at the appointed time, but he at once realized the
situation. Only a few of the delegates, like General B. F. Butler, had
the courage even to greet him. He was not only snubbed generally, but it
was hinted to him that if he attempted to walk in the procession through
the streets of a city where but a few years ago Negroes had been
assaulted and their houses and schools burned down, he would be jeered
at, insulted, and perhaps mobbed. It required no little courage to act
in the face of these conditions, but Douglass never wavered. He was
strong enough not to falter even at the desertion of men whom he had a
right to regard as his friends.
When the procession was formed, the delegates were to march two abreast.
By this arrangement, the man who would have the hardihood to walk beside
the only Negro in line would be an easy mark for scorn and contempt if
not bodily attack. It was believed that no white man, under these
conditions, would dare to march with Douglass. One delegate after
another, those who had formerly taken counsel with him, passed him by.
But to use his own words: “There was one man present who was broad
enough to take in the whole situation and brave enough to meet the duty
of the hour; one who was neither afraid nor ashamed to own me as a man
and a brother. One man of the purest Caucasian type, a poet, a scholar,
brilliant as a writer, eloquent as a speaker, and holding a high
influential position, the editor of a weekly journal having the largest
circulation of any weekly paper in the state of New York, and that man
was Theodore Tilton. He came to me in my isolation, seized me by the
hand in a most brotherly way, and proposed to walk with me in the
procession.”
The delegates marching through the streets of Philadelphia met with a
great ovation, and Mr. Douglass was singled out for special marks of
favor. Along the entire way he was loudly cheered, applauded, and
congratulated by the multitude. Those who had misjudged the sentiments
of the Philadelphians were ashamed of themselves when they saw that he
was apparently the most popular man in the procession.
A very pleasing incident occurred on the line of march that day which
served to call special attention to him. As his eyes caught a glimpse of
a beautiful young woman among the spectators, he was seen suddenly to
leave his place and fervently greet her. She was a member of the Auld
family, and Mr. Douglass, recognizing her at once, paid her homage
publicly. It appears that she had come to Philadelphia from her home in
Baltimore when she heard that the ex-slave was to be there and walk in
the procession as one of the great men of the occasion, and had been
following the line for over an hour with the hope of catching a view of
the man who, but for his desire for freedom, might still have been a
servant in her family. The newspapers made much of the incident, and
described it as one of the most dramatic features of the day.
By the time the marchers had reached the hall, the fear of Mr.
Douglass’s presence, as a delegate, had given way to a feeling of
respect, pride, and comradeship. He threw off all restraint, and went in
to win from this body a resolution in favor of the franchise for his
people. He delivered one of those powerful and convincing addresses that
he was well able to make when aroused. As a result, he quite captured
and controlled the sentiment of the convention in favor of his
resolution, and when it adjourned Mr. Douglass was congratulated for
having achieved a personal triumph that was remarkable for its
completeness.
After the adoption of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
Amendments, there was some curious speculation as to what place
Frederick Douglass would take in this larger world of citizenship that
he had helped to create. A number of his friends and admirers thought
that he had led his people so successfully out of the wilderness of
slavery that he should now put himself into a position where he could
guide them further in the proper use of their rights and privileges as
citizens of the republic. Many urged that the South was the right place
for one of his power and standing. No colored man in this country had
such training for large responsibilities as Mr. Douglass had had, during
the previous thirty years of service. It was also feared that, without
such leadership as he could bring to the South, small men, of mere
political training and of partisan methods and ambitions, would assume
the direction of the newly-made citizens, and, by their selfishness and
greed, bring down upon these poor people more miseries than could be
cured in many generations. Everything seemed to invite Frederick
Douglass to these new duties and new responsibilities. It was pointed
out to him how easily he could become a pioneer by being elected to the
House of Representatives, or even to the Senate, from some of the
reconstructed states of the South.
He thought long and seriously over the project, but finally concluded
not to change his habitation for the sake of gaining political power. He
expressed his conclusions on the matter as follows:
“That I did not yield to this temptation was not entirely due to my
age, but the idea did not entirely square well with my better judgment
and sense of propriety. The thought of going to live among a people in
order to gain their votes and acquire official honors was repugnant to
my sense of self-respect, and I had not lived long enough in the
political atmosphere of Washington to have this feeling blunted so as
to make me indifferent to its suggestions.... I had small faith in my
aptitude as a politician, and could not hope to cope with rival
aspirants. My life and labors in the North had in a measure unfitted
me for such work, and I could not have readily adapted myself to that
peculiar oratory found to be most effective with the newly
enfranchised class. Upon the whole, I have never regretted that I did
not enter the arena of Congressional honors to which I was invited.
Outside of mere personal considerations, I saw, or thought I saw,
that, in the nature of the case, the sceptre of power had passed from
the old slave-states to the free and loyal states, and that hereafter,
at least for some time to come, the loyal North, with its advanced
civilization, must dictate the policy and control the destiny of the
republic. I had an audience ready made in the free-states, one which
the labors of thirty years had prepared for me, and before this
audience the freedmen needed an advocate as much as they needed a
member in Congress. I think that in this I was right, for thus far our
colored members in Congress have not largely made themselves felt in
the legislation of this country, and I have little reason to think
that I could have done better than they.”
CHAPTER XIV
SHARING THE RESPONSIBILITIES AND HONORS OF FREEDOM
The course of events in the succeeding thirty years proved that
Frederick Douglass was wholly right in his determination not to take up
his residence in one of the Southern states for political purposes. Had
he followed the advice of some of his friends, his career would have
been considerably marred by the exigencies of party and sectional
politics, and his character as a natural leader of his people would, in
all probability, have shrunken to that of a state politician. He did the
wise thing, however, in changing his residence from Rochester to
Washington. This brought him in closer touch with his people, as well as
near to the law-making forces of the nation.
After he became settled in his new home, he soon found his heart and
hands full of occupations that tried his soul. He was fairly overwhelmed
with all kinds of schemes and propositions that were carried to him,
urging him to do this or that for the protection and elevation of the
race. It required a mind of more than ordinary shrewdness to
discriminate between the practical and impractical. Many of the Negroes
seemed to think him capable of performing miracles in the way of undoing
the effects of slavery. It required a stout spirit to listen unmoved to
the wail that came from the hearts of his sadly distracted people. Those
of us who are living forty years after the close of the war, can little
appreciate to what an extent the glory of emancipation was shadowed by
the miseries of a whole race suddenly set free with no preparation for
freedom. When one studies the history of the years that followed
emancipation, and learns of the many sins and errors of the time, and
the retribution that they brought upon the bewildered people in whose
name they were committed, it must seem strange that the Negro race could
survive and make the progress it has made. Through all the confusion and
clamor of wants, sorrows, sufferings and disappointments, Mr. Douglass
kept his head, and was at all times philosophical, certain that the good
accomplished was more important than the seeming failures; that the
hindrances to progress were transitory, the forces of progress
permanent. After he had settled in Washington, two things at once
engaged his attention: the publication of another paper, _The New
National Era_, and the Freedmen’s Bank.
There was apparently a pressing need for a national organ to advance the
cause of the Negro, and it was believed that the name of Frederick
Douglass at its head would surely bring it a wide circulation, as well
as a commanding influence. He took hold of the project with
characteristic vigor and invested a large amount of his savings in the
venture. With the assistance of his two sons, both practical printers,
the paper proved to be one of the greatest helps of the hour. Some of
Mr. Douglass’s best utterances are to be found in the _New Era_. Its
columns were open to the leading colored men and women of that time and
it exerted a wide and salutary influence. However, it failed of support.
The enterprise cost Mr. Douglass between nine and ten thousand dollars.
He seems to have anticipated its financial misfortunes, but said of it
afterward: “The journal was valuable, while it lasted, and the
experiment was to me full of instruction which has to some extent been
heeded, for I have kept well out of newspaper undertakings since, so I
have no tears to shed.”
When Mr. Douglass went to Washington, he found established there the
Freedmen’s Bank. It was chartered by Congress and was run and managed in
connection with the Freedmen’s Bureau. “It was,” as Mr. Douglass says,
“more than a bank. There was something missionary in its composition.”
Its managers were men of character and religion, and were interested in
everything that could point the way of true living to the ex-slave. To
teach the important lesson of thrift was its main object.
For a time this bank flourished very well. Branches were established in
various parts of the South. The poor freedmen in the bottom lands of
Mississippi and other isolated places quickly learned the use and
meaning of the institution; and eagerly and gratefully committed to its
keeping their small earnings. Thousands of these depositors first came
to know and realize their relationship to the government at Washington
through it. The owners of United States bonds did not feel more secure
than did these trusting new citizens of the republic.
The bank and its purposes appealed to Mr. Douglass. He felt it his duty
to do anything in his power to help the benevolent enterprise. It was
not long before he was elected one of its trustees. He accepted the post
and, as an earnest of his interest and confidence in it, placed several
thousand dollars in its keeping. He says: “It seemed fitting to cast in
my lot with my brother freedmen and help build up an institution which
represented the thrift and economy of my people to so striking an
advantage, for the more millions accumulated there, I thought, the more
consideration and respect would be shown to the colored people by the
whole country.”
At first he was not active in his new office. He seldom attended the
board meetings. The men in charge were of so high a character and had
brought the bank up to such rank that his faith in it was well-nigh
absolute. He was surprised when soon notified that he had been elected
president. Before assuming this post, in 1871, he asked for a statement
of the bank’s affairs, not because he was suspicious, but that he might
the more intelligently take hold of his new duties. He received
assurances from the officers that everything was in excellent condition
but he at once began a wholesale policy of retrenchment in the expenses
of management. From the showing made by those in a position to know and
to be believed, Mr. Douglass felt so confident that everything was as it
appeared to be that he loaned the bank $10,000 of his own money, until
it could realize on a part of its securities. Soon afterward several
things connected with the bank’s management excited his distrust. The
money loaned by him was not repaid so promptly as it should have been;
some of the trustees had removed their own deposits and opened accounts
with other banks; and the new president discovered that through
dishonest agents, heavy losses were sustained in the South; that there
was a discrepancy in the accounts amounting to about $40,000; that the
“reserve” which the bank by its charter was obliged to maintain was
entirely exhausted. All this Mr. Douglass learned after he had been
president for only three months. Being convinced that things were
rapidly going from bad to worse, he immediately reported the condition
of the bank to the Finance Committee of the United States Senate. The
trustees upon whose figures and reports Mr. Douglass relied for his
action, now tried to retract their statements and did their utmost to
stay the hand of the government, but the Senate committee accepted his
representations and immediately proceeded to bring the bank to the end
of its remarkable career.
Mr. Douglass did not take advantage of his private knowledge of its
insolvency to remove his $2,000 on deposit, as some trustees had done.
In this, as in other things, he acted with perfect openness and absolute
honesty. Nevertheless the bank’s troubles brought to him no end of
bitter criticism. The number of open accounts at the time of failure was
over 60,000 and the total amount deposited during the period of its
existence was about $57,000,000.
Bad management may truthfully be written on the face of this greatest
single setback to the Negro’s progress. Viewed in the light of the
condition of these people, striving by might and main to promote their
own interests, the failure of the Freedmen’s Bank was little less than a
crime. The mischief had all been done before Mr. Douglass took charge of
the institution. As he says: “Not a dollar of its millions was loaned by
me or with my approval. The fact is, and all investigation will show,
that I was married to a corpse. When I became connected with the bank I
had a tolerably fair name for honest dealing. I had expended in the
publication of my paper in Rochester thousands of dollars annually and
had often to depend upon my credit to bridge over immediate wants. But
no man here or elsewhere can say that I ever wronged him out of one
cent.”
This miserable failure distressed Mr. Douglass more than any other man
in the country, because he saw how wide-spread would be the loss of
confidence in him and in his people. The mere fact that his own
conscience was clear and that his prompt action prevented further losses
did not soften his disappointment. On the contrary, the subject
continued to be a source of public bitterness and suspicion for many
years, but he was large enough to grow out of and beyond any evil
effects arising from it, so far as his own standing and reputation were
concerned.
Important as was the Freedmen’s Bank, both as a success and as a
failure, it was but a small part of the many evidences that the black
race was everywhere awake to the fact that it was living in a new era.
The transformation of the Negro’s status from that of a quasi-denizen to
that of a full-fledged citizen of America was a revolution of
far-reaching import, but it was accompanied by little demonstration. The
only proof that a great change had been brought about was the eagerness
with which the colored people attempted to realize all the benefits
belonging to full citizenship. Up to this time, of course, they had
never had any part in politics, but it did not take them long to learn
the game. Educated Negroes and those who had but little education, very
quickly mastered its tricks and made the most of their opportunities. In
every Southern state colored men were easily elected to the state
legislatures and to other high offices.
In Louisiana, Oscar J. Dunn, P. B. S. Pinchback, and C. C. Antoine; in
South Carolina, Alonzo J. Ransier and Robert H. Gleaves; and in
Mississippi, Alexander Davis, were elected Lieutenant-Governors. Colored
men were also chosen for important county and town offices;—there were
Negro sheriffs, county clerks, justices of the peace. To this period
also belongs the election of the only two colored men ever given seats
in the United States Senate, Hiram R. Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, of
Mississippi. In the lower house of Congress, nearly every state in the
South was represented by Negroes. In addition to these elective offices
of honor and distinction, a large number of the leaders of the race held
appointive Federal offices, as postmasters, and as collectors of customs
and internal revenue, and for the first time in the history of the
United States, colored men were appointed to diplomatic positions.
In recent years, students and writers of the Reconstruction period, have
indulged in a good deal of unmerited abuse of the colored men who, for a
brief season, and without previous training, under the leadership of
white politicians, held political posts. It is a deplorable fact that
too many inferior persons were elected to fill important state and
county offices in the reconstructed states. It is quite true that the
colored citizen voted for unfit men of his own race because there was no
one else to vote for. This same freedman would more willingly have used
his franchise for a white man of character and ability, if he had had
the opportunity. The fact is that democracy does not stand still for
want of fit men, whether in the Bowery district in New York or in the
Black Belt of South Carolina. The Negroes who were elected to Congress,
however, were, with but few exceptions, men of character and superior
intelligence. B. K. Bruce of Mississippi, John R. Lynch, Robert Brown
Elliot, A. J. Ransier, and Robert Smalls were highly creditable
representatives of a race that had just emerged from the night of
slavery. In fact, it is surprising that there were any colored men in
the South who had enough spirit and intelligence even to aspire to the
things that but yesterday were beyond their reach. It is also worthy of
note that among the Negroes holding positions of dignity and trust,
there were only a few cases in which that trust was knowingly betrayed.
The eagerness with which colored men, of any ability at all, sought
public posts was largely due to the fact that there were few places open
to honorable ambitions, outside of public office, to which they could
aspire. Not many at that time had any training for school-teaching or
the professions. Politics was the one door that opened most widely to
Negroes of ability. The people at large seemed to enjoy the novelty of
seeing these new citizens of the country so quickly take their places in
the civil service of the government, and wear whatever honors they could
win. The same sentiment that forced the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments into the Constitution of the United States, was gratified
when educated and eloquent ex-slaves took their seats in both branches
of Congress.
While it lasted, this was all very pleasing, hopeful, and interesting,
but a reaction was bound to come. The constituency behind these
representative leaders lacked the necessary intelligence, knowledge, and
business experience. By such an electorate men may be chosen to power,
but they cannot long be held in power.
It was an unfortunate thing, too, that the freedmen learned their first
lessons in politics when public morals were at so low an ebb. Many sins
were committed and tolerated in the interest of party success. Many
desperate men in a spirit at once predatory and partisan, invaded the
South and attempted to instruct the colored people in ways that were
dark, but ways that led to party victory. These men were bad models for
a learning race to follow. Although it was unreasonable to expect these
newly emancipated people to be superior to their white leaders, yet, by
recent writers, they have been held accountable for whatever sins were
committed in this office-holding era.
Mr. Douglass, in the midst of the political prosperity of his race, was
not misled as to the outcome. No one saw more clearly than he the
uncertainty of the position to which it had been elevated by recent
events. While it is true he was at no time a political power in the
South, the colored men who came into office looked to him for counsel
and advice. He rejoiced in the many evidences of personal worth and
talent displayed by Negroes who, for the first time in American history,
were having some real part in the government of the country. Yet
experience made him feel and declare that, after all, “the true basis of
rights is the capacity of the individual.” He urgently pleaded that the
government should give the freedman education that he might have
knowledge to use his suffrage in such a manner as to preserve his own
liberty, and contribute to the public welfare.
Mr. Douglass enjoyed a full share of the honors and responsibilities of
office-holding. In each succeeding administration after the war, posts
and places came to him almost as a matter of course, because of his
prominence as a representative of the enfranchised race. During the
administration of President Grant, he was appointed one of the
councilmen of the District of Columbia, and afterward was elected a
member of the legislature of the District. He soon resigned the last
position to accept the secretaryship of the commission appointed by
Grant to visit San Domingo for the purpose of negotiating a treaty for
the annexation of that island to the United States. The commission was
composed of Senator B. F. Wade, Dr. S. G. Howe, and Andrew D. White,
President of Cornell University. The country was somewhat startled by
the innovation of placing a colored man in a position to represent the
government on so important a mission. Its purpose failed. Opposition on
the part of Senator Sumner and other influential Republicans was of the
most bitter and uncompromising sort.
The political feud that arose from General Grant’s San Domingan policy
carried many men out of the Republican party. Mr. Douglass was placed in
an awkward position in accepting the appointment, because his great
friend, Senator Sumner, was the leader of the opposition to the
President’s plan of annexation. He admired and was personally attached
to both because of their heroic services in the cause of freedom and
citizenship for his people. Explaining his attitude, he said: “I am free
to say that, had I been guided only by the promptings of my heart, I
should, in this controversy, have followed Charles Sumner. He was not
only the most clear-sighted, brave, and uncompromising friend of my race
who had ever stood upon the floor of the Senate, but he was to me a
loved, honored, and precious personal friend.”
After Senator Sumner had arraigned President Grant in a notable speech
in the Senate, Mr. Douglass happened to be a caller at the White House
and was asked by the President what he now thought of his friend from
Massachusetts. True to his feelings, Douglass frankly replied that, in
his opinion, the Senator was sincere in his position, believing that in
opposing annexation he defended the cause of the colored race, as he had
always done. “I saw that my reply was not satisfactory,” Douglass
observes, “and I said, ‘What do you think, Mr. President, of Senator
Sumner?’ He replied with some feeling, ‘I think he is mad.’”
By his perfect frankness, Mr. Douglass was able to retain the respect
and confidence of both men. He agreed with President Grant in his
annexation policy and had, at the same time, a special fondness for the
Massachusetts Senator. He frequently dined with the latter and they were
often seen walking arm in arm in the corridors of the Capitol, while
Douglass embraced every opportunity to sound the praises of his friend.
In an address delivered at New Orleans before a convention of colored
men, during this Grant-Sumner feud, he said: “There is now at Washington
a man who represents the future and is a majority in himself,—a man at
whose feet Grant learns wisdom. That man is Charles Sumner. I know them
both; they are great men, but Sumner is as steady as the north star; he
is no flickering light. For twenty-five years he has worked for the
Republican party and I hope I may cease forever, if I cease to give all
honor to Charles Sumner.” And later he said: “As a man of integrity and
truth, Charles Sumner was high above suspicion, and not all the Grants
in Christendom will rob him of his well-earned character.”
Notwithstanding his repeatedly declared loyalty to the Senator, Mr.
Douglass was found in the ranks doing valiant service for the reëlection
of General Grant for a second term. His coöperation was needed in some
quarters, because the colored voters were not a little confused when
such stalwart friends as Sumner, Senator Trumbull, of Illinois; Carl
Schurz, of Missouri; and Horace Greeley, of New York, were found in the
“camp of the enemy,” fighting the Republican party. The National
Convention of Colored Men, held in New Orleans in April, 1872, affords
an interesting example of how puzzling was the split in the Republican
organization to the average Negro voter. This was a very large and
representative body. The members were in a state of grave apprehension,
on account of the division in the ranks of the black man’s party. Many
of the leading delegates in attendance were uncertain to whom their
allegiance should be given. It was difficult for a colored man in those
days not to be with Sumner, right or wrong.
It was here that Mr. Douglass demonstrated his power as a political
leader. His speech as president of the convention was a notable effort.
It was telegraphed in full to the New York _Herald_, and throughout the
country it was widely circulated and read, as a campaign document. It
did more than any other one thing to hold the colored people in party
lines. In addition to this, Douglass took an active part in the ensuing
struggle, and no orator in the Grant-Greeley contest was more popular
than he. To the black voter, who wanted to follow the Liberal
Republicans led by Senator Sumner, he urged that there was “no path out
of the Republican party that did not lead directly into the camp of the
Democratic party—away from our friends, directly to our enemies.” It was
in this campaign, too, that he made use of the well-known party
aphorism, “The Republican party is the ship, and all else is the sea.”
What was more important and interesting than any other thing in this
contest, so far as Mr. Douglass was concerned, was the singular
recognition shown him by the Republicans of New York, who placed his
name on the ticket as one of the electors of that state. No other
colored man in the history of the country had ever been so honored. When
the electoral college met in Albany, he was commissioned to carry the
New York vote to the capital of the nation.
Though he had done valiant service for the reëlection of General Grant,
Mr. Douglass neither asked nor received any reward in the form of an
office. At that time there were but few honors in the gift of the
President that could be considered within the reach of a colored man.
The one diplomatic post which he could have obtained for the asking—as
minister to Hayti—he made no effort to get, but generously supported his
friend E. D. Bassett, of Philadelphia, for it. Mr. Bassett was a man of
fine attainments and exceptionally well qualified for the office. This
act of deference to the claims of others was characteristic of Mr.
Douglass in all of his relationships to the prominent Negroes of his
generation.
In 1877, and after the election and inauguration of President Hayes, the
whole country was more or less startled by the announcement that
Frederick Douglass had been appointed Marshal of the District of
Columbia. This office was one of much political and social
responsibility, and the appointment of an ex-slave produced a sensation
in Washington. As Mr. Douglass says, “It came upon the people of the
District as a great surprise and almost a punishment, and provoked
something like a scream, I will not say a yell, of popular displeasure.”
This was not an exaggerated statement of the public feeling directed
against the appointment. Plans were set on foot to secure the defeat of
his nomination in the United States Senate. It seemed impossible for the
people at the capital to view the President’s action in any other way
than as the degradation of an exalted office. They were sure that Mr.
Douglass would use his place to “Africanize the District courts”; and
the great social functions of the White House, with a Negro as “Lord
High Chamberlain,” would become the laughing-stock of the enlightened
world.
If Mr. Douglass had been a man of less tact and intelligence, and had
not occupied so high a place in popular esteem, he could not have
withstood the strength and bitterness of the opposition. His good
standing, in spite of his color, saved him and the Hayes administration
from a humiliating surrender to popular prejudice. When his name reached
the Senate, it was confirmed without serious discussion. Senator
Conkling had charge of the matter, and swept away all opposition in a
perfect storm of eloquent ridicule of the reasons presented for
rejection. Unfortunately, the Senate’s action did not wholly end the
agitation. Every word and act of Mr. Douglass’s was scrutinized for some
proof of his unfitness. Shortly after the confirmation of his
appointment, he delivered an address in the city of Baltimore, taking as
his theme “Our National Capital.” It was an interesting mixture of
praise and criticism, though in no way the result of recent occurrences,
for he had delivered the same speech in Washington some months before
and it provoked no discussion. He was, therefore, greatly surprised to
find, when he returned to the capital, that the old animosity which had
spent itself in attempting to defeat his appointment, was again aroused.
The objectionable portions of his Baltimore lecture were quoted and
commented upon in terms of unqualified bitterness. An effort was made to
induce the sureties on his bond to withdraw, and in this way disqualify
him to act in his official capacity. Strong pressure was brought to bear
on the President to relieve the capital of the nation of the
insufferable offense of an official who had so little sense of the
proprieties as to hold up Washington and its citizens to public
ridicule. All this, however, proved to be of no effect. His bondsmen,
one of whom was a wealthy and prominent Democrat of the District, could
not be persuaded to embarrass the Negro marshal by withdrawing their
names. Hayes was likewise firm in resisting all efforts to remove Mr.
Douglass, who refers gratefully to the President as follows: “When all
Washington was in an uproar, and a wild clamor rent the air for my
removal from the office of marshal, on account of the lecture delivered
by me in Baltimore, and when petitions were flowing in upon him
demanding my degradation, he nobly rebuked the mad spirit of persecution
by openly declaring his purpose to retain me in my place.”
Douglass’s successful fight in retaining his position of honor was
interesting, not so much because of his personal standing, as because it
was typical of the whole struggle of his race, since emancipation, to
win their way into the confidences of the American people by proving
themselves capable of using their liberty and their citizenship in a
proper manner.
If Mr. Douglass had been sacrificed to the demands of popular prejudice,
it would have served as a disqualifying precedent in the matter of
future opportunities of colored men with honorable ambitions. In a short
while, all opposition was quieted, and the new marshal pursued the
routine of his duties without hindrance or serious embarrassment. The
judges and attorneys of the District soon learned to treat the Negro
official with respect and courtesy. None of the awful things predicted
came to pass, and the powers that stood behind him and were responsible
for him were wholly vindicated.
During the trying ordeal from which he had so successfully emerged, Mr.
Douglass complained somewhat petulantly that “no colored man in the city
uttered one public word in defense or extenuation of me or my Baltimore
speech, except Dr. Charles B. Purvis.” He was always sensitive to the
least evidence of opposition or slight on the part of his own people.
For a man who had done so much for his race at a time when it was unable
to do anything for itself, it was, perhaps, quite natural for him to
feel as he did, now that so many voices were lifted against him.
Whatever hostility or indifference the colored people in the District
exhibited toward Mr. Douglass, was probably due to jealousy of his
leadership and a professed chagrin on account of the alleged willingness
on his part to accept the office with the abridgment of the social
privileges enjoyed by previous marshals.
His answer to these complaints was such as to satisfy any reasonable
person that it meant no surrender of principle. All the functions that
legally belonged to his office he performed. The ornamental duties that
had grown up by custom and usage, he willingly left to others. He had
enjoyed more social opportunities than any colored man in the country
and he possessed infinite tact and a fine sense of discrimination as to
rights and privileges. Frequently while he was marshal, he was called
upon to introduce distinguished strangers to the President. He said: “I
was ever a welcome visitor at the Executive Mansion on state occasions
and on all others while Rutherford B. Hayes was President of the United
States.”
As time passed, his own people, as well as other men in Washington, came
to admire Douglass’s good sense as well as his fine bearing on all
occasions. The proudest event in his official life was associated with
the inauguration of General James A. Garfield as President of the United
States. The Marshal of the District of Columbia was called upon to act
an important part in the greatest of all national ceremonies. He was
brought into touch with the retiring as well as the incoming President.
He had the honor of escorting them both from the chamber of the United
States Senate to the east front of the Capitol where the oath of office
was to be taken by President Garfield and where he delivered his
inaugural address to a vast concourse of people.
In speaking of that experience, Douglass says with pardonable pride:
“I felt myself standing on new ground, on a height never before trodden
by any of my people, one heretofore occupied only by members of the
Caucasian race.... I deemed the event highly important as a new
circumstance in my career, as a new recognition of my class, and as a
new step in the progress of the nation. Personally, it was a striking
contrast to my early condition. Yonder I was an unlettered slave,
toiling under the ‘Negro breaker’; here I was the United States Marshal
of the capital of the nation, having under my care and guidance the
sacred persons of an ex-President and the President-elect of a nation of
sixty millions of people, and was armed with a nation’s power to arrest
any arm raised against them. While I was not insensible or indifferent
to the fact that I was treading the high places of the land, I was not
conscious of any unsteadiness of head or heart. I was a United States
Marshal by accident. I was no less Frederick Douglass, identified with a
proscribed class, whose perfect and practical equality with other
American citizens, was yet far down the steps of time. Yet I was not
sorry to have this brief authority for I rejoiced in the fact that a
colored man could occupy this height and that the precedent was
valuable.”
Thus it was that Mr. Douglass esteemed every honor or favor earned and
received by him, to mean some fresh recognition of the worth of the
Negro race. He sustained a very close and cordial relationship to Mr.
Garfield. He had done effective service in the campaign that resulted in
the election of the new President, whose fine abilities and robust
Americanism he greatly admired. Shortly after the inauguration, Mr.
Douglass was summoned to the White House. Garfield wished to discuss
with this acknowledged leader of the Negro race his policy in reference
to appointments of colored men to office. He assured Mr. Douglass of his
intention to place capable colored men in a higher grade of positions in
the diplomatic service, and he asked if, in Douglass’s opinion, nations
composed of white people would object to receiving colored men as
representatives of the American government. He also assured Douglass
that Senator Conkling’s wish for his (Douglass’s) reappointment as
Marshal of the District of Columbia would be granted with pleasure. The
Negro leader found the position thoroughly congenial to him, and it was
a matter of satisfaction to realize that he had so successfully lived
down past objections that no one now raised a voice against him. But for
reasons that were never divulged to him, he was displaced, and another
was appointed to the post.
Though he was keenly disappointed and chagrined, Douglass believed in
Mr. Garfield and was not inclined to censure him because of his broken
promise. He had strong faith that the President was about to carry out a
policy of recognition of the colored race which would be more liberal
than that of any of his predecessors. He felt that the colored people at
this time needed a firm friend. He clearly saw that his race in respect
to its rights of citizenship was slipping back from the high position
occupied by it ten years prior to this time. He feared that the reaction
which began to set in after the withdrawal of Federal troops from the
South in 1876 would carry his people to something like political serfdom
unless some strong hand would come to their aid.
The assurances now given to him by President Garfield that the Negro and
his cause would receive fair and honest treatment relieved his anxiety
despite his own displacement, and he confidently expected that the
administration of General Garfield would mean much to Negro progress in
all directions.
Alas for human hopes! Before the big-hearted man could put his good
intentions into effect, the assassin had done his evil work. Mr.
Douglass, like every one else close to the President, was overwhelmed
with grief. He said: “Few men in this country felt more keenly than I
the shock created by the assassination of President Garfield and few men
had better reason for this feeling.”
When Vice-President Arthur succeeded to the presidency, Mr. Douglass was
appointed Recorder of Deeds of the District of Columbia. This was a
lucrative office and a good deal of patronage was attached to it. Being
the first colored man to be appointed to the post, he had to face the
opposition that usually attaches to an innovation; but the objections
were not of a serious nature and soon subsided.
He continued in this place for five years. When Mr. Cleveland came to
the presidency he rather expected to be removed summarily; but the
Democratic chief magistrate proved to be less of a party man than either
the Recorder or the average Republican expected. The new President was
too high-minded to be a mere partisan, and to Mr. Douglass’s surprise,
he was treated with much respect and kindness. He and his wife were
invited to all public functions given at the White House and Mr.
Cleveland in every way showed that he shared the public esteem in which
the great Negro was so universally held. He was allowed to occupy the
position for quite a year under the Democratic administration. Then
instead of removing or asking for his resignation in the usually abrupt
way, the President graciously wrote to know when it would be convenient
for him to give up the post.
Mr. Cleveland further indicated his kindly regard for the colored people
of the country by promising them that his election would not mean a
curtailment of their liberties, as some of them feared. For this
assurance Mr. Douglass made public acknowledgment. The statements of the
President were timely and quieting, because for the first time in twenty
years, the more ignorant of the Negroes were somewhat panic-stricken.
Speaking of their fears, Douglass testified “to the painful apprehension
and distress felt by my people in the South from the return to power of
the old Democratic and slavery party. To many of them, it seemed that
they were left naked to their enemies, in fact, lost; that Mr.
Cleveland’s election meant the revival of the slave-power and that they
would now again be reduced to slavery and the lash. The misery brought
to the South by this wide-spread alarm can hardly be described or
measured. The wail of despair for a time from the late bondsmen was
deep, bitter and heart-rending.... It was well for the poor people in
this condition that Mr. Cleveland himself sent word South to allay their
fear and remove their agony.”
Mr. Douglass always cherished a very sincere admiration for President
Cleveland, for this and other reasons, and regarded it as highly
fortunate that a man so just and non-partisan should be elected as the
first Democratic President after emancipation. As a result of his fair
treatment, the American Negroes first learned that the term Democratic
did not necessarily mean for them loss of rights and citizenship. In
fact, his liberal policy caused a great many of the more intelligent
colored men very seriously to consider the advisability of a division of
the Negro vote between the two great parties. Men of the high standing
of Archibald H. Grimké, of Boston, Mass., and W. M. E. Matthews, of New
York, argued with great plausibility that one way to convince the
American people of his qualifications for citizenship, would be for the
Negro to learn to vote for principles rather than for party leaders.
They insisted that to take the pith out of the Democratic opposition to
his appearance in politics, a goodly portion of the voters should join
themselves to that party. It was unfortunate that this tendency to
political independence on the part of the enlightened colored men could
not have been encouraged. However natural and human it may be for the
Negro people to be allied wholly to one of two political parties, it is
nevertheless a serious hindrance to the colored man’s political freedom
that he must continue to regard the Republican party as composed wholly
of his friends and the Democratic party as composed wholly of his
enemies. Mr. Douglass openly confessed his inability to take this new
stand in politics, notwithstanding his admiration for Mr. Cleveland and
his respect for the motives of the few colored men in the country who
were independent enough to break away from party control. Though he
personally could not join the movement he regarded it as a sign of
progress for colored men of character and intellect to say that they
cared more for their race than for party, and more for their country
than for their race.
The last public office held by Mr. Douglass under the United States
government was that of Minister Resident and Consul General to the
Republic of Hayti. This seemed a fitting climax to the long list of
honors that came to him, not so much as a reward of party service as for
his own high deserving. The appointment was made by President Harrison
and was wholly unsought. Douglass had, of course, and as usual, taken an
active part in the campaign of 1888. The tariff was the main subject of
contention and it was more than hinted to him that he was expected to
make the most of this issue. He nevertheless had his own way, and
everywhere he insisted that the paramount issue was the rights of men.
On the stump he was as popular as ever; on all sides he found the people
deeply interested in his fervent pleas for justice to his race. Speaking
of his efforts in the last political campaign in which he took a
prominent part, he said: “I held that the soul of the nation was in this
question and that the gain of all the gold in the world would not
compensate for the loss of the national soul. National honor is the soul
of the nation and when this is lost all is lost.... As with an
individual, so with a nation. There is a time when it may be properly
asked, What does it profit a nation to gain the whole world and lose its
own soul?”
In accepting the honor of representing this country in Hayti Frederick
Douglass was about to realize a long cherished wish,—an opportunity to
see and study the only republic established and carried on by black men
in the Western world. In some respects his appointment at another time
would have been more agreeable. Very much to his surprise and chagrin,
and for causes of which he was wholly innocent, it was bitterly opposed.
Antagonism to him came almost wholly from the East and was confined to
interests that were bent upon obtaining valuable concessions from Hayti.
Certain New York newspapers tried to make it appear that he was unfitted
for the place, and insisted that the people wanted a white man to
represent the United States, although every representative from this
government to Hayti since 1869 had been a colored man. It was also urged
that Douglass would not be well received, because at one time he favored
the annexation of San Domingo.
Even after his appointment was confirmed by the United States Senate,
the opposition still pursued him. For example, it was said that the
captain of the ship designated by the government to convey the new
minister to Port-au-Prince, refused to take him on board because of his
complexion; that after he arrived at the capital of Hayti he was snubbed
by the officials for the same reason; and that it was found he had not
been duly accredited.
In these statements there was scarcely a grain of truth. There was no
insult to Mr. Douglass by the captain of the boat; there was no lack of
cordiality and respect on the part of the Haytians on account of his
color; and there was no embarrassment of any kind to warrant the
peculiar and insistent opposition that followed him from the moment his
appointment was announced. There were two issues of commanding interest
at this time which made the position of our Minister to Port-au-Prince a
trying one. First in importance was a desire on the part of the United
States to secure by treaty, Môle St. Nicolas as a naval station; and,
second, a desperate determination by the Clyde Steamship Company to
obtain from the Haytian government a subsidy of a half-million dollars
to ply a line of steamers between New York and Hayti.
As an evidence of the mean spirit of Mr. Douglass’s enemies, he was
grossly misrepresented as being the cause of the failure of the United
States to obtain the Môle. The great perversion of the real facts
surrounding the diplomatic efforts on the part of the government to
procure from Hayti the use of this port, led Mr. Douglass to publish in
the _North American Review_ for September and October, 1891, a full
history of his connection with the affair. In this interesting account
of the negotiations carried on during his official residence in Hayti,
it will be seen that he was in no way responsible for the result. In the
first place, he was not vested with authority to arrange with Hayti for
a United States naval station. He had been there as a representative of
this government over one year before the matter was taken up. When the
United States got ready to negotiate a treaty, the subject was entrusted
wholly to a special agent in the person of Rear-Admiral Gherardi. Mr.
Douglass’s only instructions were to coöperate with and assist the
Admiral in every possible way. The news of the appointment of a special
commissioner by the United States government was viewed by Mr. Douglass
as “sudden and far from flattering.” It placed him in an unenviable
light, both before the community of Port-au-Prince and the government of
Hayti, and made his position very humble, secondary, and subordinate. He
said: “The situation suggested the resignation of my office as due to my
honor, but reflection soon convinced me that such a course would subject
me to misconstruction more hurtful than any which, in the circumstances,
could justly arise from remaining at my post.”
He cordially and energetically assisted Admiral Gherardi. He secured
audiences with the President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Hayti, and did not allow anything like offended dignity to diminish his
zeal and alacrity in carrying out his instructions.
In the conference, Mr. Douglass supplemented the arguments of the
commissioner in an earnest appeal in behalf of the United States. He
urged that the concession asked for by his government, “was in line with
good neighborhood, and advanced civilization, and in every way
consistent with Haytian autonomy; that such a concession would be a
source of strength to Hayti; that national isolation was a worn-out
policy, and that the true policy of Hayti ought to be to touch the world
at all points that make for civilization and commerce.”
All arguments, however, failed to overcome the deep-seated suspicion of
the Haytian people of any proposition to yield even one inch of their
national dominion. While in Mr. Douglass’s opinion, the negotiations
were ill-timed, being prejudiced by the previous demands of the agents
of the Clyde Company, and by the apparent threat in the presence of a
part of the United States Navy in the Haytian harbor, he yet gave it as
his deliberate opinion that no earthly power outside of absolute force
could have obtained for the American government a naval station at Môle
St. Nicolas.
He also found that Hayti was somewhat suspicious of the United States on
account of the national prejudice against the color of its citizens.
While loyal to his own government, Mr. Douglass scarcely blamed them for
this feeling. He believed in the future of the little republic, and
said: “Whatever may happen of peace or war, Hayti will remain in the
firmament of nations and like the north star will shine on, and shine
forever.”
CHAPTER XV
FURTHER EVIDENCES OF POPULAR ESTEEM, WITH GLIMPSES INTO THE PAST
The foregoing chapters contain the important incidents and events in the
life of Frederick Douglass. He lived in a great transitional period,
and, in his struggle to gain his own freedom, he personified the
historic events which took place during that time. His life was so
wholly under the public eye, and what he did and stood for during more
than fifty years, were so much an integral portion of these years, that
it is impossible to obtain an estimate of the man apart from the history
of slavery. Frederick Douglass and Anti-slavery, are almost
interchangeable terms. In himself he was both the argument and
demonstration of the things that gave interest and meaning to his life
and times. Yet he had another side not exhibited in the history of which
he was a part and which he helped to make. Much of a personal nature
that would add interest to his life and partly explain the sources of
his strength as a leader of men, can be added to the portrait.
The limitations of this volume will permit only a brief outline of some
of the things that Frederick Douglass said and did during the last
thirty years of his life, which chronologically belonged to previous
chapters, but which for the sake of their peculiar significance are
reserved for this.
As may be inferred from what has appeared in the course of this
narrative, Frederick Douglass was a more than ordinarily interesting
personality. He was a figure to attract attention anywhere, and
especially so during the last twenty-five years of his life. He was over
six feet in height, broad-shouldered, well-proportioned, and his
movements had all the directness and grace of a man who had been bred a
prince rather than a slave. His features were broad, strong, and
impressive. His complexion was that of a mulatto. His head was
strikingly large, and crowned with an abundant crop of white hair of
almost silken fineness. His eyes were brown and mildly animated. His
voice was strong, but of mellow tone. When he was aroused, however, it
would fairly thunder with the passionate earnestness of the man. In
conversation he was delightful. His manner was graceful and wholly free
from personal mannerisms. His mental and moral faculties were well
balanced. He was a man without technical education, yet he had more than
ordinary learning. All that he knew was acquired outside of schoolrooms
and without school teachers. His great library bore witness to his love
of books. In the history of governments and of races, and in mental
philosophy and poetry, he found special delight. No trained elocutionist
could recite verse with better effect. He was especially fond of Byron,
Burns, Coleridge, and Pierpont.
He was always quick to recognize ability in one of his race, and so had
a peculiar fondness and interest in Paul Laurence Dunbar, who, at his
death, was just beginning to be known as a poet, and who received his
first real encouragement from Frederick Douglass.
He had an unfailing memory, and consequently a good command of
everything he ever saw, heard, or read. He was liked and honored by men
and women, not only because he was interesting, but also because he was
singularly free from crotchets, idiosyncrasies, and ill-temper. He was
of a lovable disposition, and especially so in the latter days of his
life. The all too common character blemishes of selfishness, envy, and
jealousy were never charged against him. His whole nature was keyed to
high, generous impulses. He loved the right, and hated wrong in any
form.
No man of his prominence was freer from vices: he was of temperate
habits, clean speech, and personal rectitude. His sense of honor was not
partial, but a controlling force in all of his relationships to men and
things.
He was also fortunately free from family troubles, except the loss by
death of a beloved little daughter, whose few gentle and beautiful years
had been his delight, a sorrow which deeply shadowed the earlier period
of his public career. His wife, who had helped him to gain his freedom,
devoted her life to his comfort and to the happiness of his home. His
three stalwart sons, Lewis, Charles, and Frederick, Jr., honored him by
lives of usefulness, and there was always the closest intimacy between
him and them. His oldest girl, named Rosa, was very dear to him. She
grew up by his side as a faithful helper in his work as well as a
devoted daughter. She is widely known and loved for her culture and
unselfish disposition. In short, Frederick Douglass’s family was worthy
of him. If by his deeds he brought to them honor and opportunity, he
lived long enough to see his example and precepts honored again in them.
His home in Cedar Hill, overlooking the Capitol, was a delightful spot.
Everything about it bespoke the character of the man. The broad grounds,
shaded with trees, the well-cultivated garden, all told of his love of
nature. Within the ample house there was a quiet, restful refinement,
revealing the taste and habits of the scholar. Books, busts, and
pictures all bore witness to that instinctive thirst for culture which
no one who knew him well could fail to recognize. He had an
extraordinary passion for the violin, and, although he did not place a
very high estimate upon his own ability, yet he, as well as his nearest
friends, received much enjoyment from his knowledge of the use of this
instrument.
In later years he found a special delight in the fact that his grandson,
Joseph Douglass, exhibited a decided taste and a real genius for the
violin. A more affecting picture of the power of music could scarcely be
imagined than that of the old man sitting and listening with rapt and
tearful attention when this boy played for him some of his favorite
tunes.
But perhaps these glimpses of the personality of Frederick Douglass are
sufficient to suggest that, behind the great orator, the active
politician, the anxious leader in a critical period, there was a real
man, whose domestic tastes and disciplined heart give an added value to
his public life. It is not at all surprising that one thus gifted should
have had many intimates among the best people of his generation. The
leading statesmen, educators, and literary men were counted as his close
and personal friends. Behind the respect that was felt for his natural
talents and his unusual achievements was a sincere admiration and even
fondness for the large and warmhearted nature which could laugh and cry
and be touched by the social delights of home and fireside. He was a man
of opinions, of ideals, of imagination, and had the gift of adequate
expression for every thought and emotion.
After the death of his first wife, Mr. Douglass married again, in 1884,
and for this step he was severely criticised. The fact that his second
wife, Miss Helen Pitts, was a white woman caused something like a
revulsion of feeling throughout the entire country. His own race
especially condemned him, and the notion seemed to be quite general that
he had made the most serious mistake of his life. Just how deep-seated
was the sentiment of white and black people alike against amalgamation
has never been so clearly demonstrated as in this case. Douglass was
sorely hurt by the many unkind things said about his marriage by members
of his own race.
The woman whom he married he had known and admired for many years. She
had helped him in various ways in his literary work. She belonged to one
of the best families in western New York, and in following the natural
impulse of his attachment, he failed to take into consideration the
offense his act might give to public feeling. The resentment felt by the
people because of his disregard of its unwritten law never entirely died
out in his lifetime, but he himself got over the personal discomfiture
of it. In addressing a large audience of white and colored people in
Springfield, Mo., in the fall of 1893, he referred to this incident in
the following words: “I am strongly of the opinion that you will want me
to say something concerning my second marriage. I will tell you: My
first wife, you see, was the color of my mother, and my second wife the
color of my father; you see I wanted to be perfectly fair to both
races.” This clever bit of raillery on a very delicate subject put him
on good terms with his audience and if any were inclined to think the
less of him because of his marriage the fact did not then appear.
In the period from 1865 to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago, in 1893,
Mr. Douglass was interested in many things. He made various addresses
outside of the range of politics, and was busy to the limit of his
waning strength. What he wrote found ready acceptance in important
publications, and his absence from any great national gathering was a
matter of regret.
Among the many tokens of respect that continued to come to him from all
parts of the country, he cherished none so much as the tribute paid to
him by the city of Rochester, his home during the twenty-five formative
years of his career. In the name of the city, some of its leading
citizens caused to be placed in Sibley’s Hall, at Rochester University,
a noble bust of Frederick Douglass. It was a gracious recognition of the
esteem in which he was held by the people who had had the best
opportunity of knowing him. The Rochester _Democrat and Chronicle_
expressed the sentiment of the city in the following eulogy written at
the time:
“Frederick Douglass can hardly be said to have risen to greatness on
account of the opportunities which the republic offers to self-made
men, and concerning which we are apt to talk with an abundance of
self-gratulation. It sought to fetter his mind equally with his body.
For him it builded no schoolhouse, and for him it erected no church.
So far as he was concerned, freedom was mockery, and law was the
instrument of tyranny. In spite of law and gospel, despite of statutes
which enthralled him and opportunities which jeered at him, he made
himself, by trampling on the laws and breaking through the thick
darkness that encompassed him. There is no sadder commentary upon
human slavery than the life of Frederick Douglass. He put it under his
feet and stood erect in the majesty of his intellect; but how many
intellects, brilliant and powerful as his, it stamped upon and
crushed, no mortal can tell until the secret of its terrible despotism
is fully revealed. Thanks to the conquering might of American freedom,
such sad beginnings of such illustrious lives as that of Frederick
Douglass are no longer possible; and that they are no longer possible,
is largely due to him, who when his lips were unlocked, became a
deliverer of his people. Not alone did his voice proclaim
emancipation. Eloquent as was that voice, his life in its pathos and
in its grandeur, was more deeply eloquent still; and where shall be
found, in the annals of humanity, a sweeter rendering of poetic
justice than that he, who has passed through such vicissitudes of
degradation and exaltation, has been permitted to behold the
redemption of his race?
“Rochester is proud to remember that Frederick Douglass was, for many
years, one of her citizens. He who pointed out the house where
Douglass lived, hardly exaggerated when he called it the residence of
the greatest of our citizens, for Douglass must rank as among the
greatest men, not only of this city, but of the nation as well—great
in gifts, greater in utilizing them, great in the persuasion of his
speech, greater in the purpose that informed it.
“Rochester could do nothing more graceful than to perpetuate in marble
the features of this citizen in her hall of learning; and it is
pleasant for her to know that he so well appreciates the esteem in
which he is held here. It was a thoughtful thing for Rochester to do,
and the response is as heartfelt as the tribute is appropriate.”
Among his notable addresses during the period under review was one
delivered on Decoration Day in 1871 at Arlington. His theme was “The
Unknown Loyal Dead.” President Grant, the members of the Cabinet, and a
large number of the most prominent people of Washington were present,
and the occasion was unusually impressive. He rose grandly to the need
of the hour. The oration was in his best vein and is in part as
follows:—
“Friends and Fellow Citizens:—Tarry here for a moment. My words shall
be few and simple. The solemn rites of this hour and place call for no
lengthened speech. There is, in the very air of this resting-ground of
the unknown dead, a silent, subtle and all-pervading eloquence, far
more touching, impressive, and thrilling, than living lips have ever
uttered. Into the measureless depths of every loyal soul it is now
whispering lessons of all that is precious, priceless, holiest and
most enduring in human existence.
“Dark and sad will be the hour to this nation when it forgets to pay
grateful homage to its greatest benefactors. The offering we bring
to-day is due alike to the patriot soldiers, dead, and their noble
comrades who still live; for, whether living or dead, whether in time
or in eternity, the loyal soldiers who imperiled all for country and
freedom are one and inseparable.
“These unknown heroes whose whitened bones have been piously gathered
here, and whose green graves we now strew with sweet and beautiful
flowers, choice emblems alike of pure hearts and brave spirits,
reached in their glorious career that last highest point of nobleness
beyond which human power cannot go. They died for their country.
“No loftier tribute can be paid to the most illustrious of all the
benefactors of mankind than we pay to these unrecognized soldiers when
we write above their graves this shining epitaph.
“When the dark and vengeful spirit of slavery, always ambitious,
preferring ‘to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven’ fired the
southern heart and stirred all the malign elements of discord; when
our great republic, the hope of freedom and self-government throughout
the world, had reached the point of supreme peril; when the union of
the states was torn and rent asunder at the centre, and the armies of
a gigantic rebellion came forth with broad blades and bloody hands to
destroy the very foundation of American society, the unknown braves
who flung themselves into the yawning chasm, where cannon roared and
bullets whistled, fought and fell. They died for their country.
“We are sometimes asked, in the name of patriotism, to forget the
merits of this fearful struggle, and to remember with equal admiration
those who struck at the nation’s life and those who struck to save it;
those who fought for slavery and those who fought for liberty and
justice.
“I am no minister of malice. I would not strike the fallen. I would
not repel the repentant; but may my right hand forget her cunning and
my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I forget the difference
between the parties to that terrible, protracted and bloody conflict.
“If we ought to forget a war which has filled our land with widows and
orphans; which has made stumps of men of the very flower of our youth;
which has sent them on the journey of life armless, legless, maimed
and mutilated; which has piled up a debt heavier than a mountain of
gold, swept uncounted thousands of men into bloody graves and planted
agony at a million hearthstones—I say, if this war is to be forgotten,
I ask in the name of things sacred, what shall men remember?”
Five years later Mr. Douglass was again honored with an invitation to
deliver the address in memory of Abraham Lincoln, at Lincoln Park, in
Washington. The occasion and the man were happily blended. No orator
ever had a more inspiring theme. The rulers of the nation in the persons
of President Grant and his Cabinet advisers, members of the United
States Senate, Justices of the Supreme Court, and a great many high
officials were present to evidence the importance of the day; and in
such a company of distinguished people Douglass delivered what many call
his supreme effort as an orator. The speech later was printed as a
pamphlet, and extensively read throughout the country.
His closing words addressed to his own people, prescient, as they seemed
to be of days and dangers as yet but vaguely understood, made an
ineffaceable impression upon men of his color who heard him:
“We have done a great work for our race to-day. In doing honor to the
memory of our friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honor to
ourselves and those who are to come after us. We have been attaching to
ourselves a name and fame imperishable and immortal. We have also been
defending ourselves from a blighting scandal, when now it shall be said
that the colored man is soulless, that he has no appreciation of
benefits or benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled
at us, and it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human
brotherhood, we may calmly point to this monument we have this day
erected to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.”
In his address before the Tennessee Colored Agricultural and Mechanical
Association at Nashville, September 18, 1873, he furnished the country
new evidence of his ability to give instruction, to inspire hope and
ambition, and to encourage thrift. Though not an agriculturist by
occupation, his speech can still be used as a manual for the young
farmer. It, like his other addresses, is full of practical and useful
maxims. His quotation from Theodore Parker, “All the space between man’s
mind and God’s mind is crowded with truths which wait to be discovered
and organized into law for the practice of men,” indicates the tone of
high hopefulness that ran through all his appeals to the people. “If we
look abroad over our country and observe the condition of the colored
people,” he said, “we shall find their greatest want to be regular and
lucrative employment for their energies. They have secured their
freedom, it is true, but not the friendship and favor of the people
around them.... On account of bad treatment, great numbers are driven
from the country to the larger cities where they quickly learn to
imitate the vices and follies of the least exemplary whites. Under these
circumstances, I hail agriculture as a refuge for the oppressed.”
Insisting that the condition of the Negro in this country is
exceptional, he reminded his hearers that “the farm is our last resort,
and if we fail here, I do not see how we can succeed elsewhere. We are
not like the Irish, an organized political power; we are not shrewd like
the Hebrews, capable of making fortunes by buying and selling old
clothes.”
The address is rich with maxims that are good to remember and to use as
rules of conduct; such as:
“Emancipation has liberated the land as well as the people.”
“It is not fertility, but liberty that cultivates a country.”
“The state of Tennessee is now to be cultivated by liberty, by
knowledge which comes of liberty, by the respectability of labor.”
“Neither the slave nor his master can abandon all at once the deeply
entrenched errors and habits of centuries.”
“There is no work that men are required to do, which they cannot
better and more economically do with education than without it.”
“Muscle is mighty but mind is mightier, and there is no field for the
exercise of mind other than is found in the cultivation of the soul.”
“As a race we have suffered from two very opposite causes,
disparagement on the one hand and undue praise on the other.”
“An important question to be answered by evidences of our progress is:
Whether the black man will prove a better master to himself than the
white master was to him.”
“Accumulate property. This may sound to you like a new gospel. No
people can ever make any social and mental improvement whose exertions
are limited. Poverty is our greatest calamity.... On the other hand,
property, money, if you please, will produce for us the only condition
upon which any people can rise to the dignity of genuine manhood.”
“Without property there can be no leisure. Without leisure there can
be no invention, without invention there can be no progress.”
“We can work, and by this means we can retrieve all our losses.”
“Knowledge, wisdom, culture, refinement, manners, are all founded on
work and the wealth which work brings.”
“In nine cases out of ten a man’s condition is worse by changing his
location. You would better endeavor to remove the evil from your door
than to move and leave it there.”
“If you have a few acres, stick to them.”
“Life is too short, time is too valuable, to waste in the experiment
of seeking new homes. People are about as good in your neighborhood as
anywhere else in the world, and may need you to make them better.”
The foregoing extracts sufficiently indicate the character and
importance of this Nashville address. It was quite unlike speeches that
had been made by most of the colored leaders to their people. While
emphasizing the importance of hard work, of duties, and patience, he
indulged in no false hopes and made no extravagant claims. The every-day
facts, needs, and responsibilities of the people on the soil were, he
held, the paramount things for men who were beginning their social
development. In short, it was a strong and stirring call to the Negroes
to look about them, and not afar, for the instruments and forces that
must be utilized for their salvation.
Belonging to this latter period of his life, another address, in
character quite different from the one just referred to, illustrates how
the colored people have been carried from one extreme of hopefulness to
the other of despair and uncertainty by the changes in public sentiment
concerning them.
In 1883 the Supreme Court of the United States rendered a decision
declaring unconstitutional what was known as the “Civil Rights Bill.”
This was one of the Reconstruction measures, championed by Senator
Sumner, and, when brought forward it was regarded by the colored people
and their friends as a sort of charter of liberty. It undertook to
prevent discriminations against Negroes in hotels, restaurants, and
other places of public accommodation. At the time of its enactment it
was considered a necessary appendage to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Amendments, and the colored people everywhere felt a strong sense of
protection in its provisions.
When the Supreme Court’s opinion declaring the law, outside of the
District of Columbia and other national territory, to be null and void,
was made known, it produced a sensation of alarm and almost despair
among Negroes everywhere. They saw in this decision a complete reversal
of the public sentiment that a few years before was so strongly
favorable to them. They began to lose faith in the potency of the letter
of the law, either to define or protect their rights. It was a sort of
rude reminder that, if they would be secure in their rights, they must
rely upon something else than mere statutes. Here was an apt
illustration of the maxim that what the law gives, the law can take
away. In relying upon only this for his salvation, the Negro had been
suspended between hope and despair, until it seemed to him that there
was no such thing as stability of sentiment toward him. The first
impulse was to protest, in the name of all the colored people, not only
against the letter of the decision, but also against haunting
implications that they had no rights which the law of the land was bound
to respect.
The spirit of resentment found adequate expression in a great
mass-meeting arranged for and held in the city of Washington in 1883.
Frederick Douglass was selected, as a matter of course, as the one
colored man in the country who could best voice the feelings of the
people affected by the decision. The other speaker was the eloquent
Robert G. Ingersoll. The meeting was a notable one in every respect. The
most distinguished leaders of the race were there, and the audience was
large and earnest. There were present, too, a great number of prominent
white people who sympathized with the colored race. The address of Mr.
Douglass was one of the most interesting ever made by him. In it he
showed his ability to put into the most telling form the arguments with
which it seemed possible at that time to counteract, to some extent, the
moral effect of the decision upon the colored and the white communities.
His speech showed a wide acquaintance with the principles of the law and
more than usually profound knowledge of the philosophy of democracy. The
following extracts will indicate its character, and reflect, no doubt,
the opinions and sentiments of the meeting and the time:
“It makes us feel as if some one was stamping on the graves of our
mothers, or desecrating our sacred temples.”
“We have been, as a class, grievously wounded in the house of our
friends.”
“This decision has swept over the land like a cyclone, leaving moral
desolation in its track.”
“Inasmuch as the law in question is in favor of liberty and justice,
it ought to have had the benefit of any doubt which could arise as to
its strict constitutionality.”
“If any man has come in here with his breast heaving with passion and
expecting to hear violent denunciation of the Supreme Court on account
of this decision, he has mistaken the object of this meeting. Its
judges live, and ought to live, an eagle’s flight beyond the reach of
fear or favor, praise or blame, profit or loss.”
“In humiliating the colored people of this country, this decision has
humbled this nation.”
“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow-men without at
least finding the other end of it about his own neck.”
“Prejudice is a spirit infernal, against which enlightened men should
wage perpetual war.”
“We want no black Ireland in America. We want no aggrieved class in
America. Strong as we are without the Negro, we are stronger with him
than without him.”
“Our legislators, our President, and the judges should have a care
lest by forcing these people outside the law, they destroy that love
of country, which in the day of trouble is needful to the nation’s
defense.”
“Oh, for a Supreme Court of the United States which shall be as true
to the claims of humanity as the Supreme Court formerly was to the
demand of slavery.”
“What is a state in the absence of the people who compose it?”
“Land, air, and water do not discriminate. What does it matter to the
colored citizen that a state may not insult him if the citizen of the
state may? The decision is a concession to race pride, selfishness,
and meanness, and will be received with joy by every upholder of caste
in the land, and for this I deplore and denounce the decision.”
The few addresses just referred to are, in point of the subject-matter
and the occasions that called them forth, the most important and able
made by Frederick Douglass after emancipation. On each occasion there
was a call for the supreme man of the Negro race and there were few,
except a small group of colored people, to question his right to be so
regarded.
Frederick Douglass, however, was something more than a “race leader”; he
was always an eminent citizen of the republic, and as such his interests
were not wholly rimmed about by the sorrows and aspirations of his own
people. He was a careful student of his times and had an intelligent
concern in all the great questions that arose and called for an opinion.
It was quite in keeping with his cosmopolitan spirit that he should be
opposed to the policy of our government in excluding the Chinese from
American shores because, as he said, “I know of no rights of race
superior to the rights of humanity.” His views on the question, which
twenty-five years ago was an urgent one, are more fully expressed in the
following extract from one of his addresses on the subject of the
“Composite Nation”:—
“Our republic itself is a strong argument in favor of cosmopolitan
nationality.... Let the Chinaman come; he will help to augment the
national wealth. He will help to develop our boundless resources; he
will help to pay off our national debt. He will help to lighten the
burden of our national taxation. He will give us the benefit of his
skill as a manufacturer, and as a tiller of the soil in which he is
unsurpassed. Even the matter of religious liberty, which has cost the
world more tears, more blood, and more agony than any other interest,
will be helped by his presence. I know of no church more tolerant, of no
priesthood, however enlightened, which could safely be trusted with the
tremendous power which universal conformity would confer. We should
welcome all men of every shade of religious opinion, as among the best
means of checking the arrogance and intolerance which are the almost
inevitable concomitants of general conformity. Liberty always flourishes
best amid the clash and competition of rival religious creeds.”
Reference has already been made to Douglass’s services to the cause of
female suffrage. His presence at nearly all of the anniversaries and
other important gatherings of those who advocated the enfranchisement of
women was expected and his utterances were warmly received.
In the matter of religion, Mr. Douglass was not strictly orthodox in his
beliefs, although it will be remembered that during his enslavement he
found much consolation in the Bible, and was for a time a Methodist
exhorter. His religious views, as he grew older, underwent a radical
change. He had no patience with hypocrites. He had seen and heard so
much that was cruel, unjust, and almost fiendish under the name of
religion, that his faith in sectarianism was badly shaken. In his early
anti-slavery addresses, he indulged in many absurd parodies of the pious
frauds whom he had known. However, he was not an atheist. He had a deep
religious sense, but was more fully under the influence of the
theological opinions of Theodore Parker than of any other school of
religious thought. His best friends and associates were among the
Unitarians, the Quakers, and others of liberal faith. His views on
religion are finely expressed in a bit of correspondence published by
Mr. Holland in his biography. In response to a cordial invitation to
speak before the “Free Religious Association” in Boston, in 1874, he
wrote:
“I cannot be present at your Free Religious Convention in Boston. This
is, of course, of smaller consequence to others than to myself, for I
should come more to hear than to be heard. Freedom is a word of
charming sound, not only to the tasked and tortured slaves, who toil
for an earthly master, but for those who would break the galling
chains of darkness and superstition. Regarding the Free Religious
movement as one for light, love, and liberty, limited only by reason
and human welfare, and opposed to those who convert life and death
into enemies of human happiness, who people the invisible world with
ghastly taskmasters, I give it hearty welcome. Only the truth can make
men free, and I trust that your convention will be guided in all its
utterances by its light and feel its power. I know many of its good
men and women, who are likely to assemble with you, and I would gladly
share with them the burden of reproach which their attacks upon
popular error will be sure to bring upon them.”
Extracts from letters to friends indicate still more clearly the deeper
currents of his thought.
“I once had a large stock of hope on hand, but like the sand in the
glass, it has about run out. My present solace is in the cultivation
of religious submission to the inevitable, in teaching myself that I
am but a breath of the infinite, perhaps not so much. I was very sorry
not to be able to attend the Free Religious Convention. I shall,
hereafter, try to know more of these people.... I sometimes, at long
intervals, try my old violin; but after all the music of the past and
of imagination is sweeter than any my unpracticed and unskilled bow
can produce. So I lay my dear old fiddle aside, and listen to the
soft, silent, distant music of other days which, in the hush of my
spirit, I still find lingering somewhere in the mysterious depths of
my soul.”
“I do not know that I am an evolutionist, but to this extent, I am
one. I certainly have more patience with those who trace mankind
upward from a low condition, even from the lower animals, than with
those who start him at a point of perfection and conduct him to a
level with the brutes. I have no sympathy with a theory that starts
man in Heaven, and stops him in Hell.... An irrepressible conflict,
grander than that described by the late William H. Seward, is
perpetually going on. Two hostile and irreconcilable tendencies, broad
as the world of man, are in the open field; good and evil, truth and
error, enlightenment and superstition.”
One of the stirring incidents of this post-slavery period was the
“exodus movement.” In the summer of 1879, great numbers of Negroes, as
if by concerted action, began to emigrate from the South and the
southwestern states toward the North and West. This movement was the
first manifestation of discontent ever made by the colored people on a
large scale. It was in no way due to politics, but was rather an effort
to free themselves from the conditions under which they were compelled
to work and live. Their economic state was bad, and there seemed to be
little hope of improvement. The exodus grew to such an extent that it
produced something like national alarm and there were grave
apprehensions that much suffering would attend the efforts of the
Negroes to escape from poverty and dependence. Mr. Douglass has given
the following reasons for the dissatisfaction:
“Work as hard, faithfully, and constantly as they may, live as plainly
and as sparingly as they may, they are no better off at the end of the
year than at the beginning. They say that they are the dupes and victims
of cunning and fraud in signing contracts which they cannot read and
cannot fully understand; that they are compelled to trade at stores
owned in whole or in part, by their employers; and that they are paid
with orders and not with money. They say that they have to pay double
the value of nearly everything they buy; that they are compelled to pay
a rental of ten dollars a year for an acre of ground that will not bring
thirty dollars under the hammer; that land-owners are in league to
prevent land owning by Negroes; that when they work the land on shares,
they barely make a living; that outside the towns and cities no
provision is made for education, and, ground down as they are, they
cannot themselves employ teachers to instruct their children.”
As a general rule, the colored people in the North looked upon the
exodus hopefully. To them it was a sign of courage on the part of their
Southern brethren, and a protest against bad treatment. Frederick
Douglass, however, who was always expected to have an opinion and
express it, deplored the “unintelligent and somewhat aimless running
away from the ills they have to others they know not of.” He could see
no salvation for the Negro in the Northern states. “For him, as a
Southern laborer,” he said, “there is no competition or substitute,” and
he insisted that the freedman is always to be “the arbiter” of Southern
“destiny.” He held that the best place for the Negro to work out his
salvation was at home. His arguments are condensed in the following
extracts from his published views:
“It may well enough be said that the Negro question is not so
desperate as the advocates of this exodus would have the public
believe; that there is still hope that the Negro will ultimately have
his rights as a man, and be fully protected in the South; that in
several of the old slave-states his citizenship and his right to vote
are already respected and protected; that the same, in time, will be
secured by the Negro in other states.... The Fourteenth Amendment
makes him a citizen, and the Fifteenth Amendment makes him a voter.
With power behind him, at work for him, and which cannot be taken from
him, the Negro, at the South may wisely bide his time.
“As an assertion of power hitherto held in bitter contempt; as an
emphatic and stinging protest against high-handed, greedy, and
shameless injustice to the weak and defenseless; as a means of opening
the blind eyes of oppressors to their folly and peril, the exodus has
done valuable service. Whether it has accomplished all of which it is
capable in this particular direction for the present, is a question
which may well be considered. With a moderate degree of intelligent
leadership among the laboring classes at the South, properly handling
the justice of their cause, and wisely using the exodus example, they
can easily exact better terms for their labor than ever before. Exodus
is medicine, not food; it is for disease, not health; it is not to be
taken from choice, but necessity. In anything like a normal condition
of things, the South is the best place for the Negro. Nowhere else is
there for him a promise of a happier future.
“Let him stay there if he can, and save both the South and himself to
civilization. The American people are bound, if they are or can be
bound to anything, to keep the north gate of the South open to black
and white and to all people. The time to assert a right, Webster says,
is when it is called into question. If it is attempted by force or
fraud, to compel the colored people to stay, then they should by all
means go; go quickly and die if need be in the attempt. Thus far and
to this extent any man may be an ‘emigrationist.’ In no case must the
Negro be bottled up or caged up. He must be left free like any other
American citizen, to choose his own habitation, and to go where he
shall like. Though it may not be for his interest to leave the South,
his right and power to leave it may be his best means of making it
possible for him to stay there in peace. Woe to the oppressed and
destitute of all countries and races, if the rich and powerful are to
decide when and where they shall go or stay.”
These sentiments of Mr. Douglass are interesting, not only as having a
bearing on a question still vital to the South, but also as showing the
orator’s secret affection for the land of his birth and early struggles.
In spite of his fifty years of life and triumphs in the North, he was
still a Southerner in spirit and in his primary attachments. His
imagination and memory still traveled back to the associations that
contained more of bitterness than joy,—yet some joy. There seemed to be
in the depths of his soul a living sympathy for those who were enslaved
with himself, and who were still wearing the scars of servitude. The
land that was worked by the toil and sweat of generation after
generation of his people, and the land in which they were still laboring
and hoping on, he loved in spite of himself. He believed in the race in
spite of its apparent helplessness, and he believed in the South in
spite of all that he had suffered. It pained him to see his people flee
from the land of their birth, of their sorrows, but also the land of
their better destiny. He would not have them abandon what would some day
be theirs if they could but endure, and work, and wait.
With this sort of attachment to the South, it is not strange that, even
after fifty years of complete separation, he still cherished the hope
and eagerly welcomed an opportunity when it was offered him, to return
to Talbot County, Md., his birthplace.
The time of his visit to the land upon which he had formerly been held
as a slave, was happily chosen so as to heighten the contrast between
the past and present, for he was now United States Marshal of the
District of Columbia. It required a vivid imagination to see anything in
common between the barefooted, half-naked, half-starved, and penniless
slave boy of fifty years ago and the stately-mannered gentleman and high
government official of this day.
The man whose misfortune it was at that time to have been Douglass’s
master, lay on a bed of sickness with little hope of recovery. Thomas
Auld had passed the allotted three score years and ten. When he learned
that Marshal Douglass was actually on his ground as a visitor, he at
once sent for him. The name of Thomas Auld was made noted all over the
land wherever Douglass had spoken concerning slavery and slave-holders,
and because of this he had for several years harbored a strong
resentment against his one-time runaway slave. Now all was wonderfully
changed, and each was in a mood to make amends for the wrongs he was
impelled to commit against the other. Mr. Douglass feelingly says:
“Had I been asked, in the days of slavery to visit this man ... it would
have been an invitation to the auction block; now he was to me no longer
a slave-holder, either in fact or spirit, and I regarded him as I did
myself, as a victim of circumstances of birth and education, law and
custom. Our courses had been determined for us and not by us. We had
both been flung by powers that did not ask our consent, upon a mighty
current of life which we could neither resist nor control.... Now as our
lives were verging toward a point where differences disappear, even the
constancy of hate breaks down and the clouds of pride, passion and
selfishness vanish before the brightness of infinite light.”
The meeting between the ex-master and ex-slave was impressive and
beautiful. They were both so overcome with emotion for some moments that
neither could speak. Tears dimmed their eyes and the silence was more
eloquent than words. As soon as he regained his power of speech, Mr.
Douglass, with that instinctive politeness which was characteristic of
him, made apology to his former master for the many harsh accusations
uttered in the days of slavery, when passion was in the ascendency. The
old master was equally frank and said: “I always thought, though, that
you were too smart to be a slave, and had I been in your place, I should
have done as you did.”
“Captain Auld,” replied Douglass, “I did not run away from you, but from
slavery. It was not that I loved Cæsar less, but Rome more.”
With this exchange of apologies and expressions of mutual good-will, the
visit came to an end. If Mr. Douglass had any lingering bitterness in
his soul, on account of the past, this face-to-face meeting, after so
many years and so many changes, had now forever removed it. The laws and
customs that so often made it impossible for good men, standing in the
intimate relation of master and slave, to understand and respect each
other, no longer existed.
Shortly after this interview Mr. Auld passed away, and the fact that the
Marshal of the District of Columbia had once been the property of the
dead man became a matter of wide comment.
Two years later, Mr. Douglass was again a visitor to Talbot County. He
now went on the private yacht of John L. Thomas, United States Collector
of Customs at the port of Baltimore. This time he returned to the scenes
of his early life on the Lloyd plantation. It will be remembered that it
was here the boy was separated from his grandmother, and left the only
home he ever had before he became free. His master, Captain Anthony,
lived on the Lloyd estate. It was at this place, too, that he was cuffed
and half-starved by the hated Aunt Katy, and saw his own loving mother
for the last time. Standing amid the scenes of his childhood miseries,
looking in vain for faces that he once saw or knew in the long ago, he
embodied in himself, perhaps, more changes than have been experienced in
the life of any other American.
Colonel Lloyd was away at the time, but every one on the estate was made
aware of the visit of Marshal Douglass. The place was rich in traditions
concerning this strange visitor, who had come out of a strange past, an
era known to but few now living, and he was treated with marked
deference by all.
He also visited Easton, which will be remembered as the county-seat of
Talbot County, where young Douglass, with his companions, was locked up
in jail on the charge of conspiracy to escape from slavery. The old
sheriff, who had placed him behind prison-bars, was still living, and
said that he was proud to shake hands across the chasm of nearly fifty
years. White and black crowded into the little court-house and listened
with profound interest to the address he was asked to deliver. The young
people, who belonged to the new era of freedom, wondered at his
eloquence, and the older ones heard with confused and bewildering
emotions.
There seemed to be more of romance than reality, more of apparition than
of real substance, in this man, for whom, at one time, the jail, and not
the court-house, would have been regarded as a more fitting place.
In the same year Frederick Douglass had another opportunity to revive
the memories of the days preceding the war. He was asked to deliver an
address on John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. He gladly accepted the
invitation, and spoke to an immense concourse of Virginians, white and
black, on the very spot where, less than twenty years before, he would,
very possibly, have been tried and hanged on the charge of high treason,
had he not escaped those who made efforts to arrest him. On the platform
close beside him sat the man who was the attorney for the commonwealth
of Virginia in the prosecution of Brown. Douglass spoke with boldness in
his eulogy of the old raider, and what he said was heartily cheered.
In 1859 Douglass had fled to England as a fugitive from justice because
of his presumed complicity in what was then called John Brown’s “crime.”
In less than twenty years he was honored by many of the same people who
had then hated his name and thirsted for his blood. He could rightly
claim to be a part both of the cause and the effect of this remarkable
revolution of public opinion. The possibilities of American life were,
perhaps, never better illustrated than in his person.
In the fall of 1886, Mr. Douglass, accompanied by his wife, made an
extensive tour of Europe and Egypt. He revisited some of the cities in
Italy, and crossed the Mediterranean to the land of the Pharaohs. He has
written most delightfully of his travels in his _Life and Times_.
Everything of historical value in Europe meant a great deal to him,
because he was so earnest a student of men and events. Of Victor Hugo,
he said, on seeing a memorial to him, that “he was a man whose heart was
broad enough to take in the whole world and to rank among the greatest
of the human race.”
Upon returning to this country, he had many pleasing evidences that he
was greatly missed in his absence, and that his opinions were as eagerly
sought as ever on any question that came within the range of his
interest.
One of the first public addresses made by him after his return from
abroad was in behalf of woman’s suffrage, in Washington, at a meeting of
the International Council of Women. He spoke ardently of the progress of
the human mind as evidenced by the unveiling of a statue to Galileo,
which he had witnessed in Rome. He said:
“Whatever revolutions may have in store for us, one thing is certain:
the new revolution in human thought will never go backward. When a great
truth once gets abroad in the world, no power on earth can imprison or
proscribe its limits, or suppress it. It is bound to go on until it
becomes the thought of the world. Such a truth is woman’s right to equal
liberty with man. She was born with it, it was hers before she
comprehended it. It is inscribed upon all powers and faculties of her
soul, and no custom, law, or usage can ever destroy it. Now that it has
got fairly fixed in the minds of the few, it is bound to become fixed in
the minds of the many, and be supported at last by a great cloud of
witnesses which no man can number and no power can withstand.”
In the same year, addressing a suffrage association in Boston, he said:
“If the whole is greater than a part; if the sense and sum of human
goodness in man and woman combined are greater than that of either alone
and separate, then this government that excludes women from all
participation in its creation, administration, and perpetuation demeans
itself.”
In the matter of the education of his people, Mr. Douglass had a deep
and abiding interest. It will be remembered that he believed in the
broadest and best possible schooling of the masses. He regarded it as
important to consider the Negro’s opportunity in planning for his
education. Hence it was that, in addressing the students of Tuskegee in
1892 on the subject of “Self-Made Men,” he laid special stress on the
necessity of the learning of trades in connection with other training.
Hence his saying that “the earth has no prejudice against color; crops
yield as readily to the touch of the black man’s hand as to that of his
white brother.”
“Go on,” he continued; “I shall not be with you long; you have heights
to ascend and breadths to fill such as I never could and never can. Go
on. When you are working with your hands they grow larger; the same is
true of your heads.... Seek to acquire knowledge as well as property,
and in time you may have the honor of going to Congress. Congress ought
to be able to stand a Negro, if the Negro can stand Congress.”
In these addresses before students in college or trade-schools, he took
pains to urge that the man with a trade, as well as the man with a
profession should be respected and honored, according to the amount of
character and intelligence he puts into his work. He insisted that there
was no such thing as servility or degradation for one who made his way
through the world with an honest heart and skilled hands.
His earnestness in this conviction is further evidenced by one of his
last acts in behalf of his people, when he helped to found the
Industrial School at Manassas, Va.
CHAPTER XVI
FINAL HONORS TO THE LIVING AND TRIBUTES TO THE DEAD
The last public office held by Frederick Douglass was that of
Commissioner for the Haytian Republic at the World’s Columbian
Exposition in Chicago, in the summer of 1893. The government of Hayti
erected an artistic pavilion on the Fair grounds, and here from May 1st
to November 1st, he was stationed, dispensing the hospitalities demanded
by his position and the occasion.
Interesting as was the Haytian display, it did not attract as much
public attention as did the Commissioner. No person or exhibit at the
Exposition so illustrated and exemplified human progress as did
Frederick Douglass. In him it was personified. Everywhere his presence
excited interest and admiration. In his movements through the grounds he
was ever a striking figure. His form, towering far above the average
man, and his snow-white hair, hanging in waves about his massive head,
commanded instant attention. People, young and old, crowded about him,
wherever he went. But not all were curiosity seekers. Thousands knew Mr.
Douglass personally, had heard him speak, or were familiar with his
history. Parents brought their children, that they might shake hands
with him. He was sometimes quite embarrassed by these manifestations of
admiration and interest.
The Exposition officials appreciated the importance of the man, as well
as his position as the Haytian Commissioner. No honors were unshared by
him on account of his race. Whenever the representative men of the
civilized governments met in administrative councils, Frederick Douglass
was an honored guest and participant. His old-time eloquence was aroused
on many interesting occasions, and especially when the cause of the
Negro needed a champion. An official of the Exposition was reported as
saying that Frederick Douglass, more than any other orator there, voiced
the sentiment of the brotherhood of man. While various representatives
would extol the people of this or that government or nationality, this
self-made and self-educated man of a belated race, was always insisting
that the man himself, as God made him, was greater than any geographical
or national label could possibly render him.
He was constantly sought for addresses on all kinds of occasions, and he
generously responded, whether the call came from some obscure religious
organization, literary society, or one of the great international
parliaments, convened in connection with the Exposition.
There were two very notable addresses by him in the summer of 1893, that
almost excel the best of his many great speeches. One of these was made
on what was known as “Negro Day” at the Exposition in the month of
August. The vast auditorium in Music Hall was filled by an audience that
was more thoroughly international in the variety of races represented,
than any other gathering assembled during the progress of the Fair. In
voice, gesture, and spirit, he seemed like some great prophet, bearing a
message to the civilized world. No one who listened to this masterful
plea for justice for the Negro race, can ever forget the inspiration of
that hour.
The other speech was delivered before one of the parliaments on the
subject of “good government.” There were present students of civil
government, sociologists, judges of courts, representatives of the
woman’s suffrage movement, like Susan B. Anthony, and others. Some
striking addresses followed Douglass’s, but he had left the audience
completely under his spell.
With the closing of the Exposition in the autumn of 1893, ended the last
chapter in his life as a public official. As office-holding, however,
was by no means the most important part of his career, it did not
require an office to keep him in view of the people. His prominence
outlasted that of many of his contemporaries who were more favored than
he in the matter of public service. He remained, up to the very last
hour of his life, one of the few men of the nation of whom it never
tired. This was so, largely because he was more a part of the present
than of the past. Though he compassed in his life over a half-century of
national history, he never got out of touch with current events,
retaining to the end his influence on public opinion in all those
matters in which he was peculiarly interested, and in regard to which
his views had special authority.
When he closed his official business with the World’s Fair, he yielded
to a strong pressure from the people of the West for a limited course of
lectures. The one thing which induced him to undertake this arduous
task, after the months of exhausting duties at the Exposition, was the
opportunity it would offer him to speak his word of protest and
condemnation of the crime of lynching. Nothing in his long life of
anxiety and struggle for his race so depressed him as did this new
manifestation of contempt for his people. His first itinerary included
Des Moines, Omaha, and other cities. He was cordially received
everywhere and his denunciation of mob law made a deep impression. These
addresses were in the nature of his last message and warning to the
American people against the unchecked lawlessness that spent itself on
those who were not strong enough to protect themselves.
He returned to his restful and delightful home in Washington with some
apparent fatigue, but no permanent harm in consequence of his long
journey.
The last two years of his life seem to have been more free from care and
active duties than any previous period. He merited a rest and he had
everything about him to contribute to his ease and enjoyment. Among the
trees and flowers of his ample grounds on Cedar Hill, and surrounded by
his books and the comforts of his classic home, life went on serenely
and happily.
One of the interesting sights here was the procession of people of all
kinds making pilgrimages every day to the home of “the Sage of
Anacostia,”[6] as he was fondly called by his friends and neighbors.
Thousands of colored persons visited him to pay their respects to the
man whose life had been consecrated to the cause of their emancipation
and citizenship. To all he was kindly and considerate. His mind was as
alert and keen as ever, and thoroughly alive to passing events. He had a
special fondness for the young men of his race, and particularly those
who were educated and progressive. It was always an inspiration to him
to see the numbers of young colored men, who were fitting themselves by
study and application to pass civil service examinations, and gain for
themselves positions of importance in all departments of the government.
He frequently invited them to his home to dine with him, and would
discuss with them the possibilities for their advancement in all lines
of endeavor. He was always hopeful regarding the progress of these young
men in business and in the professions.
Footnote 6:
Anacostia is a suburb of Washington, and was Frederick Douglass’s home
so long as he lived in the District of Columbia.
He was generous, almost to a fault, with his time, money, and services
in behalf of any cause that meant a step forward for his people. His
health was uniformly good. Every day he was either riding or walking
about the streets of Washington, or in conference with those who needed
his advice and assistance in all kinds of helpful enterprises. He had a
part in every civic event of any importance in the District of Columbia.
No one colored man before or since his death has wielded so much
influence in all directions. He had not only won the esteem of the
people of Washington, but he knew how to deserve and retain it. In the
District government, in the public schools, and at Howard University,
his influence was felt and respected.
What he himself was, he had gained by hard work, consecration, temperate
habits, and God-fearing conduct toward all his fellows. His life and
achievements spoke eloquently to the young men about him and pointed the
way to progress. Mr. Douglass had richly earned everything that he had,
and those who took him as a model were made to realize that success
comes not as a gift, but must be deserved and won as a reward for right
thinking and high living. Poor as were his people in all things,
Frederick Douglass found enough to be proud of in them and urged
continuously upon the younger generation the necessity of cultivating a
spirit of race pride,—of setting before themselves and the race of which
they were members clear and definite ideals.
In nothing else was the life of Mr. Douglass so important as in the
uplifting influence he exerted, directly and indirectly, upon the young
men of his time. There were many good leaders worthy of emulation, but
none who exercised the authority that he did over the opinions of the
other members of his race. His life was an open book. Naturally there
were those of his color who envied him; who sought to discredit his
worth and work; who felt that so long as he lived and spoke, none other
could be known or heard. The young men of force and intelligence,
however, who had it in them to do something large and important looked
up to and were inspired by the “old man eloquent” of the Negro race.
It is easily possible to extend observations of this kind concerning the
personality and influence of this great man during those restful years
when he was happily free from care and public responsibilities. How
little he thought of death! Sound of body and sane of mind, and always
thinking and planning for what should come after, he lived as if there
was no claim upon his future existence which he could not adjust. When
death did come on the second day of February, 1895, it found him with no
preparation, in the ordinary sense, for its message. And yet it had
always been his expressed wish that he should go as he did—“to fall as
the leaf in the autumn of life.”
On that day he had been attending the Council of Women which was meeting
in Metzerott’s Hall in the city of Washington, and was much interested
in the proceedings. He was an honorary member of that body. They were in
quest of larger liberties for themselves, as he so long had been for
himself and his people. When Frederick Douglass appeared at the
convention in the morning, he was greeted with applause and escorted to
the platform by a committee. He remained there nearly the entire day.
When he returned to his home on Cedar Hill for dinner, he was in the
best of spirits, and with a great deal of animation and pleasure,
discussed with Mrs. Douglass the incidents of the meeting.
After the meal he prepared himself to deliver an address in a colored
Baptist church near by. His carriage was at the door. While passing
through the hall from the dining-room, he seemed to drop slowly upon his
knees, but in such a way that the movement did not excite any alarm in
his wife. His face wore a look of surprise as he exclaimed, “Why, what
does this mean?” Then, straightening his body upon the floor, he was
gone. The men who responded to Mrs. Douglass’s agonized cries for help,
came hurriedly with physicians, but it was too late. Douglass was
dead—without pain, without warning, without fear, and at a time when
life was sweet, full, and complete. His last moment of enthusiasm, like
his first hours of aspiration when a slave-child, was for liberty; if
not for himself, then for some one else.
The announcement that Frederick Douglass was dead came like a shock to
every one, especially to those who had seen him about the city during
the day, full of animation and apparent physical vigor. The sad news
spread rapidly and produced a profound sense of bereavement among all
classes of people.
The scene at the Women’s Council, where he had been during the day an
honored guest, was an affecting one. The president, Mrs. May Wright
Sewall, in attempting to voice the sentiment of the members, said:
“A report, as unwelcome as sad and solemn, has come to us of the
sudden and most unexpected death of Frederick Douglass. The news
cannot be received in silence by the Council. That historic figure
which individually and intellectually was the symbol of the wonderful
transition through which this generation has lived has been with us in
our Council during both of our sessions to-day. When he arrived, an
escort was directed to conduct him to the platform. We felt that this
platform was honored by his presence. I am sure there was no divided
sentiment on this subject, although we have here women whose families
are related to all political parties of our country, and connected by
ancestry with both sides of the great question. It is surely to be
regarded as a historic coincidence that this man, who embodied a
century of struggle between freedom and oppression, spent his last
hours a witness of the united efforts of those who have come from so
many different places and along such various avenues to formulate some
plan for a new expression of freedom in the relation of woman to the
world, society, and the state.”
The mortuary arrangements at Washington were on the scale and of the
dignity of a state funeral. Throngs of people lined the streets through
which the _cortège_ passed to the Metropolitan Church where the
ceremonies were held. Delegations of prominent colored men and women,
from almost every part of the Union, came to pay their last respects to
the dead statesman.
Within the spacious church, the scene was such as perhaps had never
before been witnessed in this country. All colors and nationalities were
present, moved by a common sorrow. Men like Senators Hoar and Sherman;
members of the Supreme Court like Justice Harlan; members of the House
of Representatives, officials of the District of Columbia, members of
the National Council of Women, the faculty of Howard University, several
Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and other
distinguished men and women were present and gave to the sad occasion
the character of a national bereavement.
Floral tributes in profusion were sent by organizations of all kinds as
well as by individuals. There were two that had special significance;
the one sent by the Haytian government, and the other by Colonel B. F.
Auld of Baltimore, the son of Frederick Douglass’s former owner. Fervent
words of appreciation were spoken by Dr. J. T. Jenifer, pastor of the
Metropolitan Church, Rev. F. J. Grimké, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. May
Wright Sewall, John S. Durham, Bishop W. B. Derrick, and M. J. N.
Nichols, representing Hayti. The city of Washington, where Mr. Douglass
lived so long and was so much esteemed, paid every possible tribute of
respect to his memory in these impressive ceremonies.
While the fallen Douglass was thus being honored at the national
capital, the city of Rochester was sorrow-stricken at the loss of its
“foremost citizen” and at once set about making “suitable arrangements
to give his remains according to the desire he so often expressed,—a
resting-place in beautiful Mount Hope, the city of the dead.” Rochester
always claimed Frederick Douglass as her son by right of adoption, and
that at a time when many other Northern cities would not have tolerated
his presence. By order of the mayor, a special meeting of the city
council was convened “for the purpose of taking such action as might be
necessary and appropriate in connection with the funeral of Hon.
Frederick Douglass, for many years a respected and beloved citizen of
this city.”
At the meeting thus called, a memorial, couched in terms at once
touching and flattering, was read and spread upon the records. The
council also passed a resolution that the members attend the funeral in
a body, and it was arranged that the remains should lie in state in the
city hall, and that on the day of the funeral the public schools be
closed, so as to give the pupils an opportunity to view the face of a
man whose life and character were worthy of their remembrance and
emulation.
Thus all the proceedings partook of a civic nature and were impressive
beyond anything ever witnessed in honor of a Negro citizen. The services
in Rochester were held in the Central Presbyterian Church. The Douglass
League acted as a guard of honor in conducting the remains to the city
hall and to the church. Rev. W. C. Gannett, of the Unitarian Church,
delivered the funeral oration. No other in the United States was better
qualified by natural disposition and breadth of mind to give adequate
estimate of Douglass as a man. The portion of the address here quoted
will afford some notion of the character of the eulogies uttered in all
parts of this country and in England in recognition of the worth of
Frederick Douglass and his work. Mr. Gannett said in part:
“This is an impressive moment in our city history. There was a man who
lived in one of its humbler homes, whose name barred him from the
doors of the wealthiest mansions of our city. This man has come home
to a little circle of his best beloved ones. He has come, as it were,
alone, and our city has gone forth to meet him at its gates. He has
been welcomed for once in the most impressive way. His remains have
laid in our city hall. Our school children have looked upon his face,
that they may in the future tell their children that they have looked
on the face of Frederick Douglass. What a difference! What a contrast!
What does it all mean? It means two things. It is a personal tribute
and it is an impersonal tribute. It is a personal tribute to the man
who has exemplified before the eyes of all America the inspiring
example of a man who made himself. America is the land of
opportunities. But not all men in this land can use their
opportunities. Here was a man who used to the uttermost all the
opportunities that America held forth to him, and when opportunities
were not at hand he made them. Nature gave him birth, nature deprived
him of father and almost mother. He was born seventy-eight years ago,
forty years before anti-slavery was heard of as a watchword.
“He is not simply a self-made man, although he was one of the
greatest. A man self-made but large-hearted. Who ever had better
opportunity to be a greater-hearted man than Frederick Douglass? Think
of the results for which he labored almost to the end of his life.
Notwithstanding that the lash had been lifted from his back, still he
encountered shrugs of the shoulders, lifting of the eyebrows, and an
edging away of his fellow-men when he approached them, always under
that opportunity of insult.
“But that was not all. It is not a simple tribute to the man. The
personal tribute rises and loses itself in a grander and nobler
thought. It becomes transfigured into an impersonal thought. We are in
an era of change on a great subject. White people are here honoring a
black people. An exception? Yes. Great men are always exceptions. An
exception? Yes, but an instance as well, an example of how the world’s
feeling is changing. I like to think over our 140,000 people of
Rochester and pick out the two or three who will be called our first
citizens twenty or thirty years hence. Very few in Rochester are
famous through the North, very few are famous throughout the world.
Yet the papers of two continents had editorials about the man whose
remains lie before us. We have but one bronze monument in our streets.
Will the next be that of Frederick Douglass, the black man, the
ex-slave, the renowned orator, the distinguished American citizen? I
think it will be. In and around our soldiers’ monument we group the
history of the war. It is not only the monument of Lincoln, although
Lincoln’s figure is represented there. It is the monument of the war.
“The nation to-day, thank God, is not only celebrating the
emancipation of slavery, but also its emancipation from the slavery of
prejudice and from the slavery of caste and color.
“Let me end with one word. There are but six words in the sentence,
and it is one of the great sentences worthy to be painted on the
church walls and worthy to be included in such a book as the Bible. It
is his word. It is: ‘One with God is a majority.’”
The vast audience that listened to these words of praise sadly followed
Douglass’s remains to their resting-place in Mount Hope Cemetery, beside
the graves of his little daughter Anna, and his beloved wife, the mother
of his children. Few great citizens of the state of New York were ever
more signally honored than was he in these last funeral rites by the
citizens of Rochester. And this was not all. The suggestion of a
monument by Mr. Gannett in his funeral address found quick and hearty
response from the people of the city in an effort led by John W.
Thompson without regard to race or color. Not only in that place, but
throughout the country, the idea of erecting a bronze statue of
Douglass, at his home, was taken up and acted upon. Generous
contributions began to pour in from every direction. The great state of
New York, that had honored him in so many ways during his lifetime,
appropriated out of the public treasury, the sum of $3,000 for this
purpose.
The whole amount was soon raised. The ceremonies attending the unveiling
of the monument partook of the character of a state event. Special
excursions brought multitudes of people from all parts of New York. The
Governor, Theodore Roosevelt, and many other state officials, were in
attendance. His address, so impressively delivered, was the climax of
the splendid ceremonies. His tribute to the great Negro was inspired by
a sympathetic appreciation of the man and a profound sense of the
significance of his life. He reminded the vast concourse of people that
the lesson taught by the colored statesman was “the lesson of truth, of
honesty, of fearless courage, of striving for the right; the lesson of
distinguished and fearless performance of civic duty.” The bronze figure
of the great Negro stands in a conspicuous site in the heart of
Rochester, and is as much a monument to the generous spirit of its
citizens, as to the worth and achievements of him whose career it
commemorates.
Douglass lived long enough to see the triumph of the cause for which he
had dreamed, hoped, and labored. But he had lived long enough, also, to
realize that what slavery had been two hundred years and more in doing
could not be wholly undone in thirty or forty years; could, in fact,
hardly be wholly undone since the Future is always built out of the
materials of the Past.
In his later years he came to understand that the problem, on the work
of solving which he and others had entered with such high hopes in the
Reconstruction period, was larger and more complicated than it at that
time seemed. If the realization of this fact was a disappointment to
him, it did not cause him to lose courage. His faith in the future
remained unshaken. He was sane and sanguine to the end. Least of all did
he allow himself to feel aggrieved or become embittered by any personal
inconvenience that he encountered because of the color of his skin. At
the conclusion of his Autobiography he says:
“It may possibly be inferred from what I have said of the prevalence of
prejudice, and the practice of proscription, that I have had a very
miserable sort of life, or that I must be remarkably insensible to
public aversion. Neither inference is true. I have neither been
miserable because of the ill-feeling of those about me, nor indifferent
to popular approval; and I think, upon the whole, I have passed a
tolerably cheerful and even joyful life. I have never felt myself
isolated since I entered the field to plead the cause of the slave, and
demand equal rights for all. In every town and city where it has been my
lot to speak, there have been raised up for me friends of both colors to
cheer and strengthen me in my work. I have always felt, too, that I had
on my side all the invisible forces of the moral government of the
universe.”
Frederick Douglass’s life fell in the period of war, of controversy, and
of fierce party strife. The task which was assigned to him was, on the
whole, one of destruction and liberation, rather than construction and
reconciliation. Circumstances and his own temperament made him the
aggressive champion of his people, and of all others to whom custom or
law denied the privileges which he had learned to regard as the
inalienable possessions of men. He was for liberty, at all times, and in
all shapes. Seeking the ballot for the Negro, he was ardently in favor
of granting the same privilege to woman. Holding, as he did, that there
were certain rights and dignities that belong to man as man, he was
opposed to discrimination in our immigration laws in favor of the white
races of Europe and against the yellow races of Asia. In religion, also,
he was disposed to unite himself with the extreme liberal movement. In
all this he was at once an American, and a man of his time.
But Mr. Douglass was not merely an American, sharing the convictions and
aspirations of the most progressive men of his day. He was also a Negro,
and the lesson of his life is addressed in the most particular way to
the members of his own race: “To those who have suffered in slavery, I
can say, I, too, have suffered. To those who have taken some risks and
encountered hardships in the flight from bondage, I can say, I, too,
have endured and risked. To those who have battled for liberty,
brotherhood, and citizenship, I can say, I, too, have battled. And to
those who have lived to enjoy the fruits of liberty I can say, I, too,
live and rejoice. If I have pushed my example too far, I beg them to
remember that I have written in part for the encouragement of a class
whose aspirations need the stimulus of success.”
And then he ends: “I have aimed to assure them that knowledge may be
obtained under difficulties; that poverty may give place to competency;
that obscurity is not an absolute bar to distinction; and that a way is
open to welfare and happiness to all who will resolutely and wisely
pursue that way; that neither slavery, stripes, imprisonment, nor
proscription need extinguish self-respect, crush manly ambition, or
paralyze effort; that no power outside of himself can prevent a man from
sustaining an honorable character and a useful relation to his day and
generation; that neither institutions nor friends can make a race to
stand unless it has strength in its own legs; that there is no power in
the world which can be relied on to help the weak against the strong, or
the simple against the wise; that races, like individuals, must stand or
fall by their own merits.”
As has been already indicated in the course of this narrative, Frederick
Douglass never formulated any definite religious creed. But no one who
reads the story of his life and work can doubt that he was guided and
inspired through his whole career by the highest moral and religious
motives. The evidence of this is not merely his steadfast optimism and
faith in the future, but in the sense in which he regarded his personal
mission. From his own point of view, the work he did for his race was
not merely a duty, it was a high privilege:
“Forty years of my life have been given to the cause of my people, and
if I had forty years more they should all be sacredly given to the same
great cause. If I have done something for that cause, I am, after all,
more a debtor to it than it is a debtor to me.”
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—— My Escape from Slavery. _Century Magazine_, November, 1881.
—— Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, 1882.
HOLLAND, FREDERICK MAY. Frederick Douglass, the Colored Orator, 1891.
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_Our Day_, August, 1894.
MAY, SAMUEL J. Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, 1869.
JOHNSON, OLIVER. William Lloyd Garrison and His Times, 1881.
AUSTIN, GEORGE LOWELL. The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips, 1899.
LIFE AND TIMES OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. By his children, 1889.
SIEBERT, WILLIAM H. The Underground Railroad, 1898.
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GOODELL, W. Slavery and Anti-Slavery, A History of the Struggle in
Both Hemispheres; with a View of the Slavery Question in the
United States, third edition, 1855.
STILL, WILLIAM. The Underground Railroad, 1872.
—— Underground Railway Records, New and revised edition with life of
author, 1883.
GREELEY, HORACE. The American Conflict: Its Causes, Incidents, and
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WILSON, JOSEPH T. The Black Phalanx; a History of the Negro Soldiers
of the United States in the Wars of 1775, 1812, and
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RHODES, JAMES FORD. History of the United States from the Compromise
of 1850, 1893.
WILLIAMS, G. W. Negro Troops in the Rebellion, 1888.
INDEX
Abolition circulars, held up by Southern postmasters, 88.
Abolition, sweet singers of, 100.
Abolitionists, resent attitude of government to slavery, 219.
“Anacostia, the Sage of,” 338.
Andrew, John A., Governor of Massachusetts, enlists Negro regiments,
222.
Anthony, Asa, friend of Douglass, 138.
Anthony, H. B., favors policy of conciliation toward South, 213.
Anthony, Lucretia, 19;
her kindness to Douglass, 23.
Anthony, Susan B., address at Douglass’s funeral, 343.
Anti-Slavery conventions, 70, 78, 96.
Anti-Slavery societies;
Massachusetts Society employs Douglass as agent, 72;
New England society organized, 96;
New York society organized, 96;
National society formed, 96;
British and Foreign, presents Douglass with Bible, 102.
_Anti-Slavery Standard, The_, anti-slavery newspaper, 124.
Antoine, C. C., Lieutenant-Governor of Louisiana, 279.
“Aunt Katy,” cruelty of, 19.
Auld, Colonel B. F., sends floral tribute, Douglass’s funeral, 343.
Auld, Hugh, apprentices Douglass to a ship-calker, 51;
sells Douglass his own time, 55;
sells Douglass into freedom, 113.
Auld, Mrs. Sophia, teaches Douglass to read, 24.
Auld, Thomas, 35;
his fondness for Douglass, 49;
sells Douglass, 113.
Bailey, Frederick Augustus Washington, 16.
Bailey, “Grandmother,” character and influence of, 17.
Barrier, Anthony, agent for the Underground Railway, 161.
Bearman, Amos G., assists Douglass at Buffalo anti-slavery meeting, 80.
Bible societies, effect upon anti-slavery agitation, 91.
Birney, James G., Abolitionist, printing press destroyed by mob at
Cincinnati, 89.
Blackall, B. F., Douglass’s telegram to, 192.
“Black Laws,” in Illinois, 142.
Bliss, William C., friend of Douglass, 138.
Breckinridge, John C., leader Southern Wing of the Democracy, 201.
Bright, John, Douglass guest of, 115.
Brougham, Lord, Douglass meets, 101.
Brown, Box, fugitive slave, 163.
Brown, John, 182;
at Chambersburg, 189;
effect of execution on anti-slavery movement, 197.
Brown, John M., representative Negro, one of delegation to President
Johnson, 260.
Brown, William Wells, at Boston celebration Emancipation Proclamation,
239.
Browne, Hugh M., head of “Institute for Colored Youth,” 152.
Bruce, Blanche K., United States Senator from Mississippi, 279.
Buffum, James N., accompanies Douglass to England, 100;
in Scotland, 104.
Bullock, Judge, favors colonization, 146.
Burns, Anthony, fugitive slave, 169.
Burnside, General A. E., issues proclamation to Southern people, 218.
Butler, General Benjamin F., declares fugitive slaves “contraband,”
222;
at National Loyalists’ Convention, 268.
Canada, end of the Underground Railway, 160.
Carey, Mary Ann Shadd, Negro educator, 153.
Cedar Hill, Douglass’s home, 337.
Chambersburg, Pa., place of last meeting of Douglass and John Brown,
189.
Chase, Salmon P., contributes to support of _North Star_, 125;
encourages Douglass to visit President Lincoln, 228.
Christiana, Pa., bloody resistance of slave-catchers at, 171.
Churches, colored, 149.
Civil War, causes of, 217.
Clark, Peter H., efforts to establish ante-bellum Negro education, 151.
Clarkson, Thomas, Douglass’s meeting with, 102.
Clay, Henry, member of the Colonization Society, 146;
favors Fugitive Slave Law, 166.
Cobden, Richard, Douglass meets, 101.
Collins, John A., general agent of Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society,
72;
associated with Douglass in the “one hundred anti-slavery
conventions,” 79.
Colonization Society, American, objects of, 145.
Combe, George, Douglass entertained by, 102.
Constitution of the United States, a “pro-slavery instrument,” 127.
Cook, John F., efforts to establish ante-bellum Negro education, 151;
representative Negro, one of delegation to President Johnson, 260.
Coppin, Fannie Jackson, efforts for ante-bellum Negro education, 151.
Coppin, Thomas, efforts for ante-bellum Negro education, 151.
Covey, Edward, the “negro breaker,” 38.
Cox, A. L., delegate National Anti-Slavery Society, 96.
Crafts, William, fugitive slave, 163.
Crandall, Prudence, Abolitionist, imprisoned for teaching colored
children, 88, 141.
Crandall, Doctor Reuben, Abolitionist, imprisoned for circulating
Anti-slavery literature, 88.
Crofts, Mrs. Julia Griffith, takes business management of _North Star_,
125.
Dallas, George M., Minister to England, refuses Douglass passport, 194.
Dana, Charles A., Assistant Secretary of War, encourages Douglass to
visit President Lincoln, 228.
Davis, Alexander, Lieutenant-Governor of Mississippi, 279.
Davis, Richard A., aids in rescue of Anthony Burns, fugitive slave,
169.
Day, J. Howard, colored anti-slavery orator, 155.
Delaney, Martin R., colored anti-slavery orator, 155.
Derrick, Bishop W. B., address at Douglass’s funeral, 343.
Dickinson, Anna, at Boston celebration of Emancipation Proclamation,
239.
Discrimination against Negroes at public lectures done away with, 66.
Disraeli, Benjamin, Douglass meets, 101.
Dix, General John A., proclamation to Southern people, 218.
Dorr, Thomas W., leader of pro-slavery forces in Rhode Island contest
over new constitution, 76.
Dorsey, Thomas L., agent for the Underground Railway, 161.
Douglass, Charles R., son of Frederick, enlists in army, 223.
Douglass, Frederick, born at Tuckahoe, 15;
transferred to the Lloyd plantation, 19;
starved by “Aunt Katy,” 20;
sees his mother for the last time, 20;
sees a slave killed by an overseer, 23;
goes to Baltimore to live, 24;
is taught to read, 24;
gains possession of a speller, 26;
buys a copy of the _Columbian Orator_, 26;
learns to write, 27;
thoughts turned to religion, 28;
sent back to the plantation, 31;
justifies pilfering by slaves, 34;
Sunday-school broken up, 36;
sent to a negro breaker, 37;
starts a second Sunday-school, 42;
plans to escape, 44;
plot discovered, 48;
sent back to Baltimore, 50;
apprenticed as a shipcalker, 51;
buys his own time, 56;
makes his escape from Baltimore, 58;
marries in New York, 62;
seeks refuge in New Bedford, Mass., 63;
changes his name, 63;
denied opportunity to work at his trade, 65;
attends anti-slavery convention at Nantucket, 70;
invited to become a speaker for the anti-slavery cause, 72;
takes part in political contest in Rhode Island, 76;
speaks on the common at Grafton, Mass., 78;
takes part in the “one hundred anti-slavery conventions,” 78;
addresses 5,000 people at Buffalo, N. Y., 80;
is mobbed at Richmond, Ind., 81;
publishes “Narrative,” 99;
sails for Europe, 100;
is refused cabin passage on the steamer _Cambria_, 100;
meets Thomas Clarkson, English Abolitionist, 102;
makes a tour through Ireland, 102;
presented with a Bible by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery
Society, 102;
takes part in the anti-slavery agitation in Scotland, 103;
addresses the World’s Temperance Convention at Covent Garden, 106;
speaks at the Peace Convention in London, 110;
freedom purchased, 112;
receives a gift of $2,500 to found an anti-slavery journal, 114;
returns from England to America, 116;
attacked by newspapers, 117;
presides at colored convention in Cleveland, 118;
reasons for founding an independent newspaper, 120;
removes to Rochester, N. Y., 124;
publishes the _North Star_, 125;
parts company with the Garrisonians, 128;
grounds for change of views, 129;
tribute to the anti-slavery society, 132;
personal relations with Garrison, 133;
speaks in behalf of the rights of women, 136;
difficulties in securing an education for children, 138;
connection with the Underground Railway, 158, 161;
describes effects of the Fugitive Slave Law, 168;
shelters fugitive slaves from Christiana, Pa., 172;
reflections upon the Dred Scott Decision, 173;
meeting with Harriet Beecher Stowe, 176;
outlines plan for an industrial school for Free Negroes, 178;
visits John Brown at Springfield, Mass., 183;
visits John Brown at Chambersburg, 189;
opposes John Brown’s plan for capture of Harper’s Ferry, 191;
flees to Canada, 192;
takes passage for England, 193;
recalled to America by death of daughter, 194;
on the effect of John Brown’s death, 197;
supports Lincoln against Douglas, 203;
address in Chicago in 1854, 204;
welcomes the impending conflict, 216;
urges the enlistment of Negro soldiers, 220;
assists in organization of Negro regiments, 222;
issues an appeal to the colored people, 224;
first interview with President Lincoln, 229;
promised position of adjutant, 232;
Lincoln seeks aid to encourage escape of slaves from Southern states,
236;
invited to take tea with the President, 238;
description of reception of Emancipation Proclamation in Boston, 239;
attends President’s reception, 240;
speaks at Rochester on Lincoln’s assassination, 243;
opposes dissolution of Anti-Slavery Society, 245;
becomes Lyceum lecturer, 256;
favors citizenship for Negro, 258;
interviews President Johnson, 260;
replies to President’s arguments against Negro suffrage, 261;
writes address to Senate, 264;
elected delegate to National Loyalists’ Convention, 265;
removes to Washington, D. C., 273;
publishes _The New National Era_, 274;
becomes President of Freedman’s Bank, 276;
councilman of District of Columbia, 283;
member of legislature of District of Columbia, 283;
member of the San Domingan annexation commission, 283;
addresses colored convention at New Orleans, 284;
marshal of District of Columbia, 1877, 287;
Baltimore address on “Our National Capital,” 288;
Recorder of Deeds, District of Columbia, 294;
Minister to Hayti, 297;
manners and personal character, 303;
marries Miss Helen Pitts, 306;
Decoration Day address at Arlington, 309;
address at Washington, D. C., on Lincoln, 311;
address before Tennessee Colored Agricultural and Mechanical
Association at Nashville, 312;
speech on Supreme Court Decision on Civil Rights Bill, 316;
opposes Chinese exclusion, 320;
views on religion, 321;
opposes the Kansas exodus, 323;
visits Thomas Auld, 327;
visits the Lloyd estate, 329;
address on John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, 330;
address at Tuskegee, 1892, 333;
aids in foundation of Industrial School at Manassas, Va., 333;
Haytian Commissioner at World’s Fair, 1893, 334;
address on Negro Day, World’s Fair, 335;
protests against lynching, 337;
death, 1895, 340;
funeral services, 342;
memorial services at Rochester, 344.
Douglass, H. Ford, colored anti-slavery orator, 155.
Douglass, Lewis H., son of Frederick, enlists in army, 223;
visits President Andrew Johnson, 260.
Douglas, Stephen A., policy in Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 198;
debate with Lincoln, 199;
position of, defined, 202.
Downing, George T., visits President Johnson, 260.
Downing, Thomas, agent for Underground Railway, 161.
Dred Scott Decision, influence on anti-slavery agitation, 173, 195.
Dunlop, Alexander, representative Negro, one of delegation to visit
President Johnson, 261.
Dunn, Oscar J., Lieutenant-Governor of Louisiana, 279.
Durham, John S., address at Douglass’s funeral, 343.
Education, Negro, early efforts of, 151.
Elliott, Robert Brown, Negro member of Congress, 280.
Ellis, Charles M., aids in rescue of Anthony Burns, fugitive slave,
169.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, uses influence to open public lectures to
Negroes, 66.
Everett, Edward, Governor of Massachusetts, favors law to prevent
printing of Abolition literature, 87.
Fish, Benjamin, friend of Douglass, 138.
Fortin, Charlotte L., Negro educator, 153.
Foster, George, anti-slavery speaker, 73;
associated with Douglass in the “one hundred anti-slavery
conventions,” 79.
Foster, Stephen S., takes part in the Rhode Island contest over new
constitution, 76.
“Free Church,” of Scotland, anti-slavery agitation in, 104.
Freeland, William, hires Douglass, 41.
Free Soil Democrats, rally to support the Union, 215.
Fugitive Slave Law, 166;
arouses resentment in North, 168.
Ganes, John F., efforts to establish ante-bellum Negro education, 151.
Gannett, Rev. W. C., delivers Douglass’s funeral oration, 344.
Garnett, Henry Highland, assists Douglass at Buffalo anti-slavery
meeting, 80;
agent for the Underground Railway, 161.
Garrison, William Lloyd, address at anti-slavery convention at
Nantucket, 71;
assaulted in Baltimore, 88;
delegate National Anti-Slavery Society, 96;
in Scotland, 103;
attacked by papers in Cleveland, 118;
opposes Douglass’s anti-slavery paper, 121;
conception of slavery, 122;
and the slave-holder, 128;
relation to Douglass, 132;
comment on Shadrach case, 170.
Gay, Sidney Howard, takes part in the “one hundred anti-slavery
conventions,” 79.
Gibbs, Mifflin W., colored anti-slavery orator, 155.
Giddings, Joshua R., contributes to support of _North Star_, 125;
favors policy of conciliation to South, 213.
Gleaves, Robert H., Lieutenant-Governor of South Carolina, 279.
Goodell, William, delegate National Anti-Slavery Society, 96.
Gray, John A., friend of Douglass, 138.
Greeley, Horace, letter to President Lincoln, 219;
protests against treatment of Negro soldiers, 227.
Green, Beriah, delegate National Anti-Slavery Society, 96.
Grimké, Rev. F. J., address at Douglass’s funeral, 343.
Hale, John P., criticised by Douglass, 134.
Hall, Primus, ante-bellum Negro teacher, 151.
Hallowell, William, friend of Douglass, 138.
Hardy, Mrs. Neal, binds Douglass’s wounds at Richmond, Indiana, 82.
Harlan, John Marshall, Associate Justice United States Supreme Court,
attends Douglass’s funeral, 343.
Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins, Negro educator, 153.
Harper’s Ferry, John Brown’s preparations for assault upon, 189.
Hayti, at World’s Fair, Chicago, 334.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, aids in rescue of Anthony Burns, fugitive
slave, 169.
Hoar, Senator George Frisbie, at Douglass’s funeral, 343.
Holland, Frederick May, describes effect of Fugitive Slave Law, 167;
“Life” of Douglass quoted, 204.
Holley, Myron, friend of Douglass, 138.
Howard, General O. O., head of Freedmen’s Bureau, 251.
Howard University, influence of Douglass at, 339.
Howitt, William, remarks concerning Douglass, 110.
Humphrey, Richard, bequeaths funds for Negro education, 152.
Hutchinson family, lends Douglass support on voyage to England, 100.
Improvement Society, East Baltimore, for free colored people, 52.
Industrial school, Douglass’s plan for, 178.
Jackson, President Andrew, proposes Congressional legislation to
prevent circulation of Abolition literature through mails, 88;
address to colored troops, 149.
Jenifer, Rev. J. T., sermon at Douglass’s funeral, 343.
Johnson, Andrew, President United States opposes Negro suffrage, 261.
Johnson, Nathan, gives Douglass a refuge, 63.
Jones, John, representative Negro, one of delegation to President
Johnson, 260.
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, effect on anti-slavery sentiment, 173.
Kelley, Abby, takes part in contest in Rhode Island over new
constitution, 76.
Lafayette, General, member of the Colonization Society, 146.
Langston, John M., colored anti-slavery orator, 155.
Lawson, “Uncle,” 29.
Lecture platform, effect upon anti-slavery agitation, 92.
_Liberator, The_, Garrison’s paper, 124, 128.
Lincoln, Abraham, debate with Douglass, 199.
Lloyd, Colonel Edward, vast estate of, 18.
Lloyd, Daniel, kindness to Douglass, 23.
Loguen, Rev. J. W., agent for the Underground Railway, 161.
Lovejoy, Rev. Elijah P., Abolitionist, killed at Alton, Ill., 89.
Lundy, Benjamin, Abolitionist, assaulted in Baltimore, 88;
work for emancipation, 97.
Lynch, John R., member of Congress from Louisiana, 280.
Madison, James, member of the Colonization Society, 146.
Mann, Horace, uses influence to open public lectures to Negroes, 66;
contributes to support of _North Star_, 125.
Marcy, William L., Governor of New York, favors law to suppress
printing of Abolition literature, 87.
Marshall, John, Chief Justice, member of the Colonization Society, 146.
Martin, J. Sella, at Boston celebration Emancipation Proclamation, 239.
Matthews, William E., visits President Andrew Johnson, 260.
May, Samuel J., letter to Garrison concerning Douglass, 133.
McClellan, General George B., warns slaves not to seek protection with
Northern armies, 217.
Metzerott’s Hall, Douglass’s address at, 340.
Missionary movement, effect upon anti-slavery agitation, 91.
Missouri Compromise, puts question of slavery before people, 93.
Mob, destroys printing press of _The Philanthropist_, 89;
interrupts Rev. O. Scott’s lecture, 89;
demolishes Academy for Negroes at Canaan, N. H., 89;
disperses meeting of female anti-slavery society at Boston, 89;
breaks up an anti-slavery meeting at Syracuse, 89;
of Yale students, 89;
burns Pennsylvania Hall, Philadelphia, 89;
indulges in two days’ riot at Philadelphia, 90.
Monroe, James, takes part in Rhode Island contest over new
constitution, 76;
associated with Douglass in the “one hundred anti-slavery
conventions,” 79.
Mott, Lucretia, connection with anti-slavery and woman’s suffrage, 136.
Myers, Stephen J., agent for the Underground Railway, 161.
“Narrative,” Frederick Douglass’s, 99.
Negroes, free, Douglass’s call to arms of, 223.
“Negro Pews,” at Hartford, Conn., 142.
Negro soldiers, at Port Royal, 221;
at Fort Wagner, 222;
proclamation of Confederate Government concerning, 227;
Douglass’s remarks on treatment of, 228;
number enlisted, 233.
Negro Volunteers, Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Regiments,
222.
Newspapers, colored, _Ram’s Horn_, _The Mystery_, _The Disfranchised
American_, _The Northern Star_, _The Colored Farmer_, 124.
Nichols, M. J. N., address at Douglass’s funeral, 343.
_North Star_, Douglass’s anti-slavery paper, 125;
Douglass’s early experiences with, 137.
O’Connell, Daniel, relation to Douglass, 102.
_Orator, Columbian_, Douglass’s first book, 26, 42.
Otis, Joseph E., representative Negro, one of delegation to President
Johnson, 260.
Palfrey, John G., contributes to support of _The North Star_, 125.
Parker, Theodore, aids in rescue of Anthony Burns, fugitive slave, 169.
Peabody, Ephraim, gives Douglass his first job, 64.
Peace Convention, London, addressed by Douglass, 107.
Peel, Sir Robert, Douglass meets, 101.
Pennington, Rev. J. W. C., 62.
Peterson, John, efforts to establish ante-bellum Negro education, 151.
Phillips, Wendell, advises Douglass to throw his “Narrative” in the
fire, 75;
aids in rescue of Anthony Burns, fugitive slave, 169.
Pillsbury, Parker, takes part in Rhode Island contest over new
constitution, 76.
Pinchback, P. B. S., Lieutenant-Governor of Louisiana, 279.
Pomeroy, S. C., United States Senator, introduces Douglass to President
Lincoln, 228.
Port Royal, proclamation of T. W. Sherman at, 218.
Porter, Samuel D., friend of Douglass, 138.
Post, Isaac, friend of Douglass, 138.
Press, its effect upon anti-slavery agitation, 92.
Prichard, his _Natural History of Man_, 17.
“Prigg Case,” in regard to runaway slaves, 166.
“Protection, Sailor’s,” character of, 59.
Purvis, Robert, Vice-President of National Anti-Slavery Society, 155.
Quincy, Edmund, praises _The North Star_, 126.
Raid, John Brown, intensifies hatred of Negro, 195.
Railroads, regulations enforced against free colored people, 54.
Railway, Underground, 158;
Western and Southwestern branches, 162.
_Ram’s Horn_, colored newspaper, 123.
Ransier, Alonzo J., Lieutenant-Governor of South Carolina, 279.
Ray, Charles M., assists Douglass at Buffalo anti-slavery meeting, 80.
Revels, Hiram, United States Senator from Mississippi, 279.
Remond, Charles Lennox, takes part in the “one hundred anti-slavery
conventions,” 79;
assists at Buffalo anti-slavery meetings, 80;
agent for the Underground Railway, 161.
Rich, William, agent for the Underground Railway, 161.
Richardson, Mrs. Ellen, purchases Douglass’s freedom, 112.
Richardson, Mrs. Henry, purchases Douglass’s freedom, 112.
Ross, A. W., representative Negro, one of the delegation to President
Johnson, 260.
Russell, Lord John, 101.
Russell, Thomas, at Boston celebration of Emancipation Proclamation,
239.
Schurz, Carl, report on Southern conditions, 248.
Scott, Rev. O., Abolitionist, prevented from delivering Abolitionist
lecture at Worcester, Mass., 1835, 89.
Sewall, Mrs. May Wright, 341;
address at Douglass’s funeral, 343.
Seward, William H., contributes to support of _North Star_, 125;
favors policy of conciliation to South, 213;
declaration defining issues of the war, 217.
Shadrach, fugitive slave, the case of, 171.
Shaw, Colonel Robert Gould, commands first Negro regiment, 222.
Sherman, General T. W. proclamation at Port Royal, 218.
Sherman, Senator, John, at Douglass’s funeral, 343.
Slavery and anti-slavery, issues defined, 94.
Smalls, Robert, Negro member of Congress, 280.
Smith, Gerrit, distinguished from Garrison, 122;
contributes to support the _North Star_, 125;
member of the Colonization Society, 146.
Smith, Doctor James McCune, colored anti-slavery orator, 155;
agent for the Underground Railway, 161.
Stanton, Edwin M., Secretary of War, offers Douglass commission in
army, 232.
Stearns, Major George L., writes to Douglass in behalf of Negro
soldiers, 227.
St. Michaels, Douglass’s early home, 35.
Still, William, anti-slavery author, 155;
agent for the Underground Railway, 161.
Story, Joseph, Justice Supreme Court, decision in the “Prigg Case,”
166.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 174.
Sumner, Charles, uses influence to open public lectures for Negroes,
66;
contributes to support of _North Star_, 125.
Tappan, Arthur, 61;
chosen President National Anti-Slavery Society, 96.
Tappan, Lewis, 61.
Temperance Convention, World’s, addressed by Douglass, 106.
Thompson, George, Abolitionist, in Scotland, 104.
Thompson, John W., plans erection of Douglass statue, 347.
Tilton, Theodore, marches with Douglass at National Loyalists’
Convention, 269.
Tracy Seminary, Douglass’s daughter compelled to leave, 138.
Tract Society, effect upon anti-slavery agitation, 91.
Tuskegee, Douglass visits, 333.
“Vigilance Committee,” of anti-slavery society, work of in
Pennsylvania, 163.
Ward, Samuel R., colored anti-slavery orator, 155.
Webster, Daniel, remarks on growth of cotton industry, 84;
member of the Colonization Society, 146;
favors Fugitive Slave Law, 166.
Wells, Nelson, efforts to establish ante-bellum Negro education, 151.
Whipper, William, agent for the Underground Railway, 161;
one of delegation to President Johnson, 260.
Whittier, John G., delegate National Anti-Slavery Society, 96.
Winthrop, Senator Robert C., at Faneuil Hall after fall of Richmond,
242.
Wise, Henry A., Governor of Virginia, letter to President Buchanan,
192.
Wright, Elizur, delegate National Anti-Slavery Society, 96.
Wright, Frances, connection with anti-slavery and woman’s suffrage,
136.
Wright, Theodore S., assists Douglass at Buffalo anti-slavery meeting,
80.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.
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