Douglass

“ In Douglass you have a man, in whose soul the iron of oppression has far entered, and you feel it.
He tells the story of his wrongs, so that they stand out in all their naked ugliness.
In Ward, you have one with strong native powers,—I know of none stronger; superadded a careful and extensive cultivation; an understanding so matured, that fully enables him to successfully grapple with men or errors, and portray truth in a manner equalled by few. ”

“ Frederick Douglass, the "beast of burden," the portion of "goods and chattels," the representative of three millions of men, has been raised up! Shall I say the man? If there is a man on earth, he is a man. My blood boiled within me when I heard his address to-night, and thought that he had left behind him three millions of such men.
We must see more of this man; we must have more of this man. One would have taken a voyage round the globe some forty years back—especially since the introduction of steam—to have heard such an exposure of slavery from the lips of a slave. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was fine to see at the Congress on Africa the tall form and magnificent head of the grand old man, Frederick Douglass, now seventy-five years of age, perfectly erect, kindly, majestic, the ‘ancient fires of inspiration welling up through all his being yet’; affable to all; finding it still to be as natural to be eloquent as to speak at all ”

“ Douglass in that great gathering of the friends of freedom, at Pittsburgh, in 1852, where he towered among the highest, because, with abilities inferior to none, and moved more deeply than any, there was neither policy nor party to trammel the outpourings of his soul. Thus we find, opposed to all disadvantages which a black man in the United States labors and struggles under, is this one vantage ground—when the chance comes, and the audience where he may have a say, he stands forth the freest, most deeply moved and most earnest of all men. ”

“ Douglass lacked one aid to which so many men of mark have been deeply indebted—he had neither a mother’s care, nor a mother’s culture, save that which slavery grudgingly meted out to him. Bitter nurse! may not even her features relax with human feeling, when she gazes at such offspring! ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is no sadder commentary upon American 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 as brilliant and as powerful as his it stamped upon and crushed, no mortal can tell until the secrets of its terrible despotism are fully revealed. Thanks to the conquering might of American freemen, such sad beginnings of such illustrious lives as that of Frederick Douglass are no longer possible ”

“ Douglass had, by his eloquent appeals in behalf of the Abolition cause, created a wide spread sentiment, and he was known as an orator. While much of his time was spent on the rostrum in behalf of Abolition, yet many say his best and most effective work for freedom was as editor, in the publication of The Star at Rochester, New York.
Mr. Douglass was what is hard to find in any one man,—a good speaker, as well as an effective, able, and logical writer. There is no man to-day who is a Douglass with the quill and upon the rostrum. ”

“ Douglass has succeeded in rearing an intelligent and cultivated family, and in placing himself in the front rank among intelligent and cultivated men. Few orators among us surpass him, and his history from first to last, is a comment on the slavery system which speaks for itself. ”

“ 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 his inspiration, greater in his efforts for humanity, great in the persuasion of his speech, greater in the purpose that informed it. ”

“ Douglass was the son of a white father and a slave mother; he taught himself to read and write, made his escape into freedom, gained an education, and became an effective speaker for the anti-slavery cause. On this occasion he spoke with power and passion of the gloomy prospects of their people; government, wealth, social advantage, all were on the side of their oppressors; good people seemed indifferent to their wrongs ”

“ Douglass had lived through 258the 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Douglass among men and women of earnest souls and high culture, and who, moreover, had never drank of the bitter waters of American caste. For the first time in his life, he breathed an atmosphere congenial to the longings of his spirit, and felt his manhood free and unrestricted. ”

“ This Narrative contains many affecting incidents, many passages of great eloquence and power; but I think the most thrilling one of them all is the description Douglass gives of his feelings, as he stood soliloquizing respecting his fate, and the chances of his one day being a freeman, on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay—viewing the receding vessels as they flew with their white wings before the breeze, and apostrophizing them as animated by the living spirit of freedom. Who can read that passage, and be insensible to its pathos and sublimity? ”

“ For every other great character we can bring forward, Europe can produce another equally as great; when we bring forward Douglass, he cannot be matched.
Douglass was born a slave, he won his liberty; he is of negro extraction, and consequently was despised and outraged; he has by his own energy and force of character commanded the respect of the Nation; he was ignorant, he has, against law and by stealth and entirely unaided, educated himself; he was poor, he has by honest toil and industry become rich and independent, so to speak ”

“ 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. ”

“ Douglass enjoyed the high advantage of their assistance and counsel in the labor of self-culture, to which he now addressed himself with wonted energy. Yet, these gentlemen, although proud of Frederick Douglass, failed to fathom, and bring out to the light of day, the highest qualities of his mind; the force of their own education stood in their own way: they did not delve into the mind of a colored man for capacities which the pride of race led them to believe to be restricted to their own Saxon blood. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Frederick Douglass and his silly patrons are playing in England and in Scotland, and wherever they can find ‘some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ I came here his sympathizing friend; I am such no more, as I know him. My own opinion is increasingly that this spirit must be exorcised out of England and America before any substantial good can be effected for the cause of the slave. It is adapted only to make bad worse, and to inflame the passions of indignant millions to an incurable resentment. ”

“ 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 244moments ”

“ Douglass, “at least, so the guide-books say; but we can go to the best of53 them, and let the others alone. I find that the people (as I have told you) are more interesting to me than are most of the exhibits, and the Plaisance is always crowded.”
The party had finished dinner, and they went up to their rooms; Philip got out his camera, and looked it over, to be sure all was in working order. Harry laid out his sketch-book and an extra pencil. Mr. Douglass, as he usually did, read over his guide-books, and made up his accounts. ”

“ The odd proceedings in the purchase of his freedom after his escape from slavery; his movements in connection with the John Brown raid at Harper’s Ferry and his subsequent flight across the ocean are romantic as anything which took place among the crags and cliffs, the Roderick Dhus and Douglasses of the Lady of the Lake; while the pure life he has led and his spotless character are sweet by contrast with the lives of mere politicians and time serving statesmen. It is well to contemplate one like him, who has had “hair breadth escapes.” ”

“ Douglass, as soon as he saw what the Arabs were at, had climbed out of the car, and, more like a spider than a tutor, made his way to the axle, where he stood upright, walking backward upon the axle as the wheel ran forward. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A feeling of deep piety and humanity runs through the entire book. Mr. Douglass was of unmixed blood, gentlemanly in his manners, chaste in conversation, and social in private life. Though not active in public affairs, he was, nevertheless, interested in all that concerned the freedom and elevation of his race. He visited England and the West Indies some years ago, and had an extensive acquaintance beyond the limits of his own country. Mr. Douglass was respected and esteemed by the white clergy of Philadelphia, who were forced to acknowledge his splendid abilities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Let him inspire them with abhorrence of the man-stealer—the slaveholder. No slaveholding American shall ever my cross my door. No slaveholding or slavery-supporting minister shall ever pollute my pulpit. While I have a tongue to speak, or a hand to write, I will, to the utmost of my power, oppose these slaveholding men. We must have Douglass amongst us to aid in fostering public opinion.
The great conflict with slavery must now take place in America; and while they are adding other slave states to the Union, our business is to step forward and help the abolitionists there. ”