Ever mindful of his people and seeking always to promote their
welfare, Douglass was one of those who urged, in all his addresses at
this period, the abolition of slavery and the arming of the negroes
as the most effective means of crushing the rebellion. In 1862 he
delivered a series of lectures in New England under the auspices of
the recently formed Emancipation League, which contended for abolition
as a military necessity.
The first or conditional emancipation proclamation was issued in
September, 1862; and shortly afterward Douglass published a pamphlet
for circulation in Great Britain, entitled _The Slave's Appeal to
Great Britain_, in which he urged the English people to refuse
recognition of the independence of the Confederate States. He always
endeavored in his public utterances to remove the doubts and fears of
those who were tempted to leave the negroes in slavery because of the
difficulty of disposing of them after they became free. Douglass, with
the simple, direct, primitive sense of justice that had always marked
his mind, took the only true ground for the solution of the race
problems of that or any other epoch,-that the situation should be met
with equal and exact justice, and that his people should be allowed to
do as they pleased with themselves, "subject only to the same great
laws which apply to other men." He was a conspicuous figure at the
meeting in Tremont Temple, Boston, on January 1, 1863, when the
Emancipation Proclamation, hourly expected by an anxious gathering,
finally flashed over the wires. Douglass was among the first to
suggest the employment of colored troops in the Union army. In spite
of all assertions to the contrary, he foresaw in the war the end of
slavery. He perceived that by the enlistment of colored men not only
would the Northern arms be strengthened, but his people would win an
opportunity to exercise one of the highest rights of freemen, and by
valor on the field of battle to remove some of the stigma that slavery
had placed upon them. He strove through every channel at his command
to impress his views upon the country; and his efforts helped to
swell the current of opinion which found expression, after several
intermediate steps, in the enlistment of two colored regiments by
Governor Andrew, the famous war governor of Massachusetts, a State
foremost in all good works. When Mr. Lincoln had granted permission
for the recruiting of these regiments, Douglass issued through his
paper a stirring appeal, which was copied in the principal journals of
the Union States, exhorting his people to rally to this call, to seize
this opportunity to strike a blow at slavery and win the gratitude
of the country and the blessings of liberty for themselves and their
posterity.
Douglass exerted himself personally in procuring enlistments, his two
sons [his youngest and his oldest], Charles and Lewis, being [among]
the first in New York to enlist; for the two Massachusetts regiments
were recruited all over the North. Lewis H. Douglass, sergeant-major
in the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, was among the foremost on the
ramparts at Fort Wagner. Both these sons of Douglass survived the war,
and are now well known and respected citizens of Washington, D.C. The
Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, under the gallant but ill-fated Colonel
Shaw, won undying glory in the conflict; and the heroic deeds of the
officers and men of this regiment are fittingly commemorated in the
noble monument by St. Gaudens, recently erected on Boston Common, to
stand as an inspiration of freedom and patriotism for the future and
as testimony that a race which for generations had been deprived of
arms and liberty could worthily bear the one and defend the other.
Douglass was instrumental in persuading the government to put colored
soldiers on an equal footing with white soldiers, both as to pay and
protection. In the course of these efforts he was invited to visit
President Lincoln. He describes this memorable interview in detail in
his _Life and Times_. The President welcomed him with outstretched
hands, put him at once at his ease, and listened patiently and
attentively to all that he had to say. Douglass maintained that
colored soldiers should receive the same pay as white soldiers, should
be protected and exchanged as prisoners, and should be rewarded, by
promotion, for deeds of valor. The President suggested some of the
difficulties to be overcome; but both he and Secretary of War Stanton,
whom Douglass also visited, assured him that in the end his race
should be justly treated. Stanton, before the close of the interview
with him, promised Douglass a commission as assistant adjutant
to General Lorenzo Thomas, then recruiting colored troops in the
Mississippi Valley. But Stanton evidently changed his mind, since the
commission, somewhat to Douglass's chagrin, never came to hand.
When McClellan had been relieved by Grant, and the new leader of the
Union forces was fighting the stubbornly contested campaign of the
Wilderness, President Lincoln again sent for Douglass, to confer with
him with reference to bringing slaves in the rebel States within the
Union lines, so that in the event of premature peace as many slaves
as possible might be free. Douglass undertook, at the President's
suggestion, to organize a band of colored scouts to go among the
negroes and induce them to enter the Union lines. The plan was never
carried out, owing to the rapid success of the Union arms; but the
interview greatly impressed Douglass with the sincerity of the
President's conviction against slavery and his desire to see the war
result in its overthrow. What the colored race may have owed to the
services, in such a quarter, of such an advocate as Douglass, brave,
eloquent, high-principled, and an example to Lincoln of what the
enslaved race was capable of, can only be imagined. That Lincoln was
deeply impressed by these interviews is a matter of history.
Douglass supported vigorously the nomination of Lincoln for a second
term, and was present at his [March 4] inauguration. And a few days
later, while the inspired words of the inaugural address, long
bracketed with the noblest of human utterances, were still ringing in
his ears, he spoke at the meeting held in Rochester to mourn the death
of the martyred President, and made one of his most eloquent and
moving addresses. It was a time that wrung men's hearts, and none more
than the strong-hearted man's whose race had found its liberty through
him who lay dead at Washington, slain by the hand of an assassin whom
slavery had spawned.