through. There was not one foreign element in his bringing up; he was an
unmixed child of the Western plains, born in the South, reared in the
North. Most of the Presidents before him, being reared nearer the
Atlantic, had imbibed more or less of Eastern culture and had European
airs. This man Lincoln was so thoroughly democratic as to astonish both
Old and New England. He never acted "the President," and was always a
man among men, the honored servant of the people.
From a five-dollar fee before a justice of the peace, he had risen to a
five-thousand-dollar fee before the Supreme Court of Illinois. From a
study of "Dilworth's Spelling Book" in his seventh year, he had risen to
write, in his fifty-seventh year, his second Inaugural, which is the
greatest utterance of man, and yet all of his days in school added
together are less than one year. His pioneer life had given him a vein
of humor which became his "Life-preserver" in times of stress; it had
also given him a love for human liberty that was unaffected. He felt
that the enslavement of some men was but the advance guard, the miner
and sapper, of the enslavement of all men.
From a poor captain of volunteers in the scandalous little Black Hawk
War, where he jokingly said he "bled, died, and came away," although he
never had a skirmish nor saw an Indian, he had risen to the chief
command in a war that numbered three thousand battles and skirmishes and
cost three billion dollars. Having no ancestry himself, being able to
trace his line by rumor and tradition only as far back as his
grandfather, he became, like George Washington, the Father of his
Country. Born of a father who could not write his name, he himself had
written the Proclamation of Emancipation, the fourth great state paper
in the history of the Anglo-Saxon race,--the others being Magna Charta,
the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If we accept the
statement of Cicero that the days on which we are saved should be as
illustrious as the days on which we are born, then Lincoln the Savior
must always remain coordinate with Washington, the Father of his
country. Jackson was "Old Hickory," Taylor was "Old Rough," and there
have been various names given to the other Presidents, but Washington
and Lincoln were the only ones whom the American people styled "Father."
Child of the American soil, cradled and nursed in the very bosom of
nature, he loved his country with the passion with which most men love
their human mothers. He could not bear the thought of one iota of
detraction from her honor, her dignity or her welfare. Against her
dismemberment he was willing to fight to the end of his second
administration or till the end of time. He might tolerate anything else
except disunion,--even the right of some of his fellowmen to enslave
others. Of every concession which he made during his administration, to
friend or foe, the _sine qua non_ was Union. A house divided against
itself cannot stand.
In this he left us a great heritage; it is a lesson for both sections,
and all races of any section. White men of America, black men of
America, by the eternal God of heaven, there can be no division of
destiny on the same soil and in the bosom and in the lap of the same
natural mother. Men may attempt and accomplish discrimination in a small
way, but Almighty God and all-mothering nature are absolutely impartial.
They have woven the fabric of life so that the thread of each man's
existence is a part of the whole. He who sets fire to his neighbor's
house, endangers the existence of his own; he who degrades his
neighbor's children, undermines the future of his own. Together we rise
and together we fall is the plan of God and the rule of nature. We must
lean together in the common struggle of life: the syncline is stronger
than the anticline.
In a great nation with an increasing fame, the lesson of Lincoln's life
must grow in importance. As long as the human heart loves freedom his
name will be a word on the tongues of men. His name will be a watchword
wherever liberty in her struggles with tyranny lifts her embattled
banners. No man of the ancient or the modern world has a securer place
in the hearts and memories of men than this man Lincoln, who was born in
obscurity, who died in a halo, and who now rests in an aureole of
historic glory.
RONDEAU
JESSIE FAUSET
When April's here and meadows wide
Once more with spring's sweet growths are pied,
I close each book, drop each pursuit,
And past the brook, no longer mute,
I joyous roam the countryside.
Look, here the violets shy abide
And there the mating robins hide--
How keen my senses, how acute,
When April's here!
And list! down where the shimmering tide
Hard by that farthest hill doth glide,
Rise faint sweet strains from shepherd's flute,
Pan's pipes and Berecynthian lute.
Each sight, each sound fresh joys provide
When April's here.
HOW I ESCAPED
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Although slavery was a delicate subject, and very cautiously talked
about among grown-up people in Maryland, I frequently talked about it,
and that very freely, with the white boys. I would sometimes say to
them, while seated on a curbstone or a cellar door, "I wish I could be
free, as you will be when you get to be men. You will be free, you know,
as soon as you are twenty-one, and can go where you like, but I am a
slave for life. Have I not as good a right to be free as you have?"
Words like these, I observed, always troubled them; and I had no small
satisfaction in drawing out from them, as I occasionally did, that fresh
and bitter condemnation of slavery which ever springs from natures
unseared and unperverted. Of all consciences, let me have those to deal
with, which have not been seared and bewildered with the cares and
perplexities of life.
I do not remember ever to have met with a boy while I was in slavery,
who defended the system, but I do remember many times, when I was
consoled by them, and by them encouraged to hope that something would
yet occur by which I would be made free. Over and over again, they have
told me that "they believed I had as good a right to be free as they
had," and that "they did not believe God ever made any one to be a
slave."
On Monday, the third day of September, 1838, in accordance with my
resolution, I bade farewell to the city of Baltimore, and to slavery.
My success was due to address rather than courage; to good luck rather
than bravery. My means of escape were provided for me by the very men
who were making laws to hold and bind me more securely in slavery. It
was the custom in the State of Maryland to require of the free colored
people to have what were called free papers. This instrument they were
required to renew very often, and by charging a fee for this writing,
considerable sums from time to time were collected by the State. In
these papers the name, age, color, height, and form of the free man were
described, together with any scars or other marks upon his person.
Now more than one man could be found to answer the same general
description. Hence many slaves could escape by impersonating the owner
of one set of papers; and this was often done as follows: A slave nearly
or sufficiently answering the description set forth in the papers, would
borrow or hire them till he could by their means escape to a free state,
and then, by mail or otherwise, return them to the owner. The operation
was a hazardous one for the lender as well as the borrower.
A failure on the part of the fugitive to send back the papers would
imperil his benefactor, and the discovery of the papers in possession of
the wrong man would imperil both the fugitive and his friend. It was
therefore an act of supreme trust on the part of a freeman of color thus
to put in jeopardy his own liberty that another might be free. It was,
however, not infrequently bravely done, and was seldom discovered. I was
not so fortunate as to sufficiently resemble any of my free
acquaintances to answer the description of their papers.
But I had one friend--a sailor--who owned a sailor's protection, which
answered somewhat the purpose of free papers--describing his person, and
certifying to the fact that he was a free American sailor. The
instrument had at its head the American eagle, which gave it the
appearance at once of an authorized document. This protection did not,
when in my hands, describe its bearer very accurately. Indeed, it called
for a man much darker than myself, and close examination of it would
have caused my arrest at the start.
In order to avoid this fatal scrutiny I had arranged with a hackman to
bring my baggage to the train just on the moment of starting, and jumped
upon the car myself when the train was already in motion. Had I gone
into the station and offered to purchase a ticket, I should have been
instantly and carefully examined, and undoubtedly arrested.
In choosing this plan upon which to act, I considered the jostle of the
train, and the natural haste of the conductor, in a train crowded with
passengers, and relied upon my skill and address in playing the sailor
as described in my protection, to do the rest. One element in my favor
was the kind feeling which prevailed in Baltimore, and other seaports at
the time, towards "those who go down to the sea in ships." "Free trade
and sailors' rights" expressed the sentiment of the country just then.
In my clothing I was rigged out in sailor style. I had on a red shirt
and a tarpaulin hat and black cravat, tied in sailor fashion, carelessly
and loosely about my neck. My knowledge of ships and sailor's talk came
much to my assistance, for I knew a ship from stem to stern, and from
keelson to cross-trees, and could talk sailor like an "old salt."
On sped the train, and I was well on the way to Havre de Grace before
the conductor came into the Negro car to collect tickets and examine the
papers of his black passengers. This was a critical moment in the drama.
My whole future depended upon the decision of this conductor. Agitated I
was while this ceremony was proceeding, but still externally, at least,
I was apparently calm and self-possessed. He went on with his
duty--examining several colored passengers before reaching me. He was
somewhat harsh in tone, and peremptory in manner until he reached me,
when, strangely enough, and to my surprise and relief, his whole manner
changed.
Seeing that I did not readily produce my free papers, as the other
colored persons in the car had done, he said to me in a friendly
contrast with that observed towards the others: "I suppose you have your
free papers?" To which I answered: "No, sir; I never carry my free
papers to sea with me." "But you have something to show that you are a
free man, have you not?" "Yes, sir," I answered; "I have a paper with
the American eagle on it, that will carry me around the world." With
this I drew from my deep sailor's pocket my seaman's protection, as
before described. The merest glance at the paper satisfied him, and he
took my fare and went on about his business.
This moment of time was one of the most anxious I ever experienced. Had
the conductor looked closely at the paper, he could not have failed to
discover that it called for a very different looking person from myself,
and in that case it would have been his duty to arrest me on the
instant, and send me back to Baltimore from the first station.
When he left me with the assurance that I was all right, though much
relieved, I realized that I was still in great danger: I was still in
Maryland, and subject to arrest at any moment. I saw on the train
several persons who would have known me in any other clothes, and I
feared they might recognize me, even in my sailor "rig," and report me
to the conductor, who would then subject me to a closer examination,
which I knew well would be fatal to me.
Though I was not a murderer fleeing from justice, I felt, perhaps, quite
miserable as such a criminal. The train was moving at a very high rate
of speed for that time of railroad travel, but to my anxious mind, it
was moving far too slowly. Minutes were hours, and hours were days
during this part of my flight. After Maryland I was to pass through
Delaware--another slave State. The border lines between slavery and
freedom were the dangerous ones, for the fugitives. The heart of no fox
or deer, with hungry hounds on his trail, in full chase, could have
beaten more anxiously or noisily than did mine, from the time I left
Baltimore till I reached Philadelphia.
The passage of the Susquehanna river at Havre de Grace was made by
ferry-boat at that time, on board of which I met a young colored man by
the name of Nichols, who came very near betraying me. He was a "hand" on
the boat, but instead of minding his business, he insisted upon knowing
me, and asking me dangerous questions as to where I was going, and when
I was coming back, etc. I got away from my old and inconvenient
acquaintance as soon as I could decently do so, and went to another part
of the boat.
Once across the river I encountered a new danger. Only a few days before
I had been at work on a revenue cutter, in Mr. Price's ship-yard, under
the care of Captain McGowan. On the meeting at this point of the two
trains, the one going south stopped on the track just opposite to the
one going north, and it so happened that this Captain McGowan sat at a
window where he could see me very distinctly, and would certainly have
recognized me had he looked at me but for a second. Fortunately, in the
hurry of the moment, he did not see me; and the trains soon passed each
other on their respective ways.
But this was not the only hair-breadth escape. A German blacksmith, whom
I knew well, was on the train with me, and looked at me very intently,
as if he thought he had seen me somewhere before in his travels. I
really believe he knew me, but had no heart to betray me. At any rate he
saw me escaping and held his peace.
The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded most, was
Wilmington. Here we left the train and took the steamboat for
Philadelphia. In making the change here I again apprehended arrest, but
no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and beautiful Delaware,
speeding away to the Quaker City. On reaching Philadelphia in the
afternoon I inquired of a colored man how I could get on to New York? He
directed me to the Willow street depot, and thither I went, taking the
train that night. I reached New York Tuesday morning, having completed
the journey in less than twenty-four hours. Such is briefly the manner
of my escape from slavery--and the end of my experience as a slave.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
W. H. CROGMAN
Frederick Douglass is dead! How strange that sounds to those of us who
from earliest boyhood have been accustomed to hear him spoken of as the
living exponent of all that is noblest and best in the race. The mind
reluctantly accepts the unwelcome truth. And yet it is a truth--a
serious, a solemn truth. Frederick Douglass is no more. The grand old
hero of a thousand battles has at last fallen before the shaft of the
common destroyer, and upon his well-battered shield loving hands have
tenderly borne that stalwart form to its last, long resting place. Earth
to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes!
This country will never again see another Douglass; this world will
never again see another Douglass, for in all probability there will
never again exist that peculiar combination of circumstances to produce
exactly such a type of manhood. Man is, in a measure, the product of
environment. Yet it would be injustice to Frederick Douglass to say that
he was great simply because of environment. He was great in spite of
environment. Born a slave, subjected in his youth and early manhood to
all the degrading, stultifying, demoralizing influences of slavery, he
has left behind him, after a public life long and varied and stormy, a
name as clean and spotless as driven snow. Take notice of this, young
men, you who have ambitions, you who are aspiring to public place,
position, and power. Take notice that a public life need not be
separated from unsullied honor.
I said Frederick Douglass was great in spite of environment. Had there
been no slavery to fight, no freedom to win, he would still have been a
great man. Greatness was inherent in his being, and circumstances simply
evoked it. He was one of those choice spirits whom the Almighty sends
into this world with the stamp of a great mission on their very form and
features. Said Sam Johnson with reference to Edmund Burke: "Burke, sir,
is such a man that if you met him for the first time in the street,
where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and he stepped aside
to take shelter but for five minutes, he'd talk to you in such a manner
that when you parted you would say, 'This is an extraordinary man.'"
The same could doubtless have been said of Douglass; but it was not
necessary to hear him talk, to discover his unusual ability and
surpassing intelligence. There was in his very presence something that
instantly indicated these. An eminent divine said some years ago that
Douglass's escape from slavery was a very fortunate thing for the South,
as in any uprising of slaves he must have proved a very formidable
leader. "He had," said he, "the mind to plan, the heart to dare, and the
hand to execute," and added, "If you were to see him sitting in Exeter
Hall in the midst of a sea of faces, you would instantly recognize in
him a man of extraordinary force of character."
Such was the impression that Douglass commonly made on people, and such
was the impression he made on me at my first sight of him. It was in
Faneuil Hall, in the summer of 1872. The colored people of New England
were assembled in political convention. Entering the hall in the midst
of one of their morning sessions, the first object that met my eyes was
the old hero himself on the rostrum. There he stood, over six feet in
height, erect, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, with massive, well-formed
head, covered with thick, bushy hair, about half gray. I judged him then
to be midway in his fifties. His face, strongly leonine, was clean
shaven, except moustache, while those eyes, that even in the seventies
could flash fire, lighted up the whole countenance, and made the general
effect such as not to be easily forgotten by a young man. There stood
the orator and the man, and never since have I seen the two in such
exquisite combination. The old Greek sculptor would have delighted to
immortalize such a form in marble.
Whispering to a tall white brother beside me (the audience was half
white) I asked: "Who, sir, is that man speaking?" "That man? That man is
Frederick Douglass." Then looking down upon me with an expression of
mingled pity and surprise in his face, he said: "Why, don't you know
Fred Douglass?" I need not say that that question brought to my mind
feelings of pride not altogether unmixed with humiliation.
As the old orator swept on, however, in his own inimitable style,
sprinkling his remarks with genuine original wit I forgot everything
else around me. His voice, a heavy barytone, or rendered a little
heavier than usual by a slight hoarseness contracted in previous
speaking, could be distinctly heard in that historic but most wretched
of auditoriums. I was particularly struck with his perfect ease and
naturalness, a seemingly childlike unconsciousness of his surroundings,
while, like a master of his art, as he was, he swayed the feelings of
that surging multitude. In the most impassioned portions of his speech,
however, it was evident to the thoughtful observer that there was in the
man immense reserved force which on momentous occasions might be used
with startling effect.
At first I had entered the hall to remain but a few minutes, and,
consequently, had taken my stand just inside the door. How long I did
remain I cannot tell, but it was until the speaker finished, at which
time I found myself half way up towards the rostrum in the midst of
that thickly standing audience. Such was my first sight and impression
of one of the world's great orators, and beyond comparison the greatest
man of the race yet produced on this continent.
His splendid physique, so often admired, was well in keeping with the
strength and grasp of his masterly mind. Without the privilege of a
day's instruction in the schoolroom, he acquired a fund of useful
knowledge that would put to shame the meager attainments of many a
college graduate. His speeches and writing are models of a pure English
style, and are characterized by simplicity, clearness, directness,
force, and elegance.
Many of the interesting facts and incidents in the life of this great
man are already well known--his escape from slavery, his arrival in the
North, his early marriage, his settling down to work at his trade in New
Bedford, his first speech in an anti-slavery convention, that drew
attention to his wonderful powers of oratory, and led to his employment
by the Anti-slavery Bureau to lecture through the North on the most
unpopular question that up to that time had been presented to the
American people, his rise as an orator, his trip to England and its
magical effects on the English people, his return to this country, and
the purchase of his freedom, to relieve him of the apprehension of being
seized and taken back into slavery, his editorship of the North Star,
his services to the government during the war in the raising of troops,
his securing of pay for the black soldiers equal to that of the whites,
the editorship immediately after the war of the New National Era, his
popularity as a lyceum lecturer, his mission to San Domingo under Grant,
his marshalship of the District of Columbia under Hayes, his ministry to
Santo Domingo. These are some of the experiences which came into that
eventful life.
If I were asked to sum up in a word what made Frederick Douglass great,
I should say a noble purpose, fixed and unchangeable, a purpose to
render to mankind the largest possible service. Verily he has served us
well, faithfully, unselfishly, and now, full of years and full of
honors, loaded with such distinctions as this poor world has to give, he
dies, dies as he lived, a brave, strong, good man. No more shall we
behold that manly form. No more shall we listen to those eloquent lips
upon which for over fifty years so many thousands have hung with
rapture, those eloquent lips that made his name famous in two
hemispheres, and will surely keep it so long as freedom has a history.
God grant that the mantle of this old hero may fall upon a worthy
successor! God grant that our young men, contemplating his life and
emulating his example, may be lifted up to a higher conception of life,
of duty, of responsibility, of usefulness!
INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Long after the Civil War, Mr. Douglass once told the following story of
his life to the pupils of a colored school in Talbot County, Maryland,
the county in which he was born:
"I once knew a little colored boy whose father and mother died when he
was six years old. He was a slave and had no one to care for him. He
slept on a dirt floor in a hovel and in cold weather would crawl into a
meal bag, headforemost, and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them
warm. Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his
hunger, and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and
secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat.
"This boy did not wear pants as you do, only a tow linen shirt. Schools
were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's
spelling book, and to read and write from posters on cellars and barn
doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and
speak, and soon became well known. He finally held several high
positions and accumulated some wealth. He wore broadcloth and did not
have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table. That boy was
Frederick Douglass.
"What was possible for me is possible for you. Do not think because you
are colored you can not accomplish anything. Strive earnestly to add to
your knowledge. So long as you remain in ignorance, so long will you
fail to command the respect of your fellow men."
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE CONGO
WILLIAM HENRY SHEPPARD
At daybreak Monday morning we had finished our breakfast by candle light
and with staff in hand we marched northeast for Lukunga.