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.