“It is evident that there is in this country a purely slavery

party, a party which exists for no other earthly purpose but to

promote the interest of slavery. It is known by no particular

name, and has assumed no definite shape, but its branches reach

far and wide in church and state. This shapeless and nameless

party is not intangible in other and more important respects.

It has a fixed, definite, and comprehensive policy towards the

whole free colored population of the United States. I understand

that policy to comprehend: First, the complete suppression of all

anti-slavery discussion; second, the expulsion of the entire free

people of the United States; third, the nationalization of slavery;

fourth, guarantees for the endless perpetuation of slavery and its

extension over Mexico and Central America. Sir, these objects are

forcibly presented to us in the stern logic of passing events, and

in all the facts that have been before us during the last three

years. The country has been and is dividing on these grand issues.

Old party ties are broken. Like is finding its like on both sides

of these issues, and the great battle is at hand. For the present

the best representative of the slavery party is the Democratic

party. Its great head for the present is President Pierce, whose

boast it was before his election, that his whole life had been

consistent with the interests of slavery--that he is above

reproach on that score. In his inaugural address he reassures the

South on this point, so there shall be no misapprehension. Well,

the head of the slave power being in power it is natural that the

pro-slavery elements should cluster around his administration, and

that is rapidly being done. The stringent protectionist and the

free-trader strike hands. The supporters of Fillmore are becoming

the supporters of Pierce. Silver Gray Whigs shake-hands with

Hunker Democrats, the former only differing from the latter in

name. They are in fact of one heart and one mind, and the union is

natural and perhaps inevitable. Pilate and Herod made friends. The

key-stone to the arch of this grand union of forces of the slave

party is the so-called Compromise of 1850. In that measure we have

all the objects of our slaveholding policy specified. It is, sir,

favorable to this view of the situation, that the whig party and

the democratic party bent lower, sunk deeper, and strained harder

in their conventions, preparatory to the late presidential election

to meet the demands of slavery. Never did parties come before the

northern people with propositions of such undisguised contempt for

the moral sentiment and religious ideas of that people. They dared

to ask them to unite with them in a war upon free speech, upon

conscience, and to drive the Almighty presence from the councils

of the nation. Resting their platforms upon the fugitive slave

bill they have boldly asked this people for political power to

execute its horrible and hell-black provisions. The history of that

election reveals with great clearness, the extent to which slavery

has “shot its leprous distillment” through the lifeblood of the

nation. The party most thoroughly opposed to the cause of justice

and humanity triumphed, while the party only suspected of a leaning

toward those principles was overwhelmingly defeated, and some say

annihilated. But here is a still more important fact, and still

better discloses the designs of the slave power. It is a fact full

of meaning, that no sooner did the democratic party come into power

than a system of legislation was presented to all the legislatures

of the Northern States designed to put those States in harmony with

the fugitive slave law, and with the malignant spirit evinced by

the national government towards the free colored inhabitants of

the country. The whole movement on the part of the States bears

unmistakable evidence of having one origin, of emanating from one

head, and urged forward by one power. It was simultaneous, uniform,

and general, and looked only to one end. It was intended to put

thorns under feet already bleeding; to crush a people already bowed

down; to enslave a people already but half free; in a word, it was

intended and well calculated to discourage, dishearten, and if

possible to drive the whole free colored people out of the country.

In looking at the black law then recently enacted in the State of

Illinois one is struck dumb by its enormity. It would seem that the

men who passed that law, had not only successfully banished from

their minds all sense of justice, but all sense of shame as well;

these law codes propose to sell the bodies and souls of the blacks

to provide the means of intelligence and refinement for the whites;

to rob every black stranger who ventures among them to increase

their educational fund.

“While this kind of legislation is going on in the States, a

pro-slavery political board of health is being established at

Washington. Senators Hale, Chase, and Sumner are robbed of their

senatorial rights and dignity as representatives of sovereign

States, because they have refused to be inoculated with the

pro-slavery virus of the times. Among the services which a senator

is expected to perform, are many that can only be done efficiently

as members of important committees, and the slave power in the

Senate, in saying to these honorable senators, you shall not

serve on the committees of this body, took the responsibility of

insulting and robbing the States which has sent them there. It is

an attempt at Washington to decide for the States who the States

shall send to the Senate. Sir, it strikes me that this aggression

on the part of the slave power did not meet at the hands of the

proscribed and insulted senators the rebuke which we had a right to

expect from them. It seems to me that a great opportunity was lost,

that the great principle of senatorial equality was left undefended

at a time when its vindication was sternly demanded. But it is not

to the purpose of my present statement to criticize the conduct

of friends. Much should be left to the discretion of anti-slavery

men in Congress. Charges of recreancy should never be made but on

the most sufficient grounds. For of all places in the world where

an anti-slavery man needs the confidence and encouragement of his

friends, I take Washington--the citadel of slavery--to be that

place.

“Let attention now be called to the social influences operating and

coöperating with the slave power of the time, designed to promote

all its malign objects. We see here the black man attacked in his

most vital interests: prejudice and hate are systematically excited

against him. The wrath of other laborers is stirred up against him.

The Irish, who, at home, readily sympathize with the oppressed

everywhere, are instantly taught when they step upon our soil to

hate and despise the negro. They are taught to believe that he eats

the bread that belongs to them. The cruel lie is told them, that we

deprive them of labor and receive the money which would otherwise

make its way into their pockets. Sir, the Irish-American will

find out his mistake one day. He will find that in assuming our

avocation, he has also assumed our degradation. But for the present

we are the sufferers. Our old employments by which we have been

accustomed to gain a livelihood are gradually slipping from our

hands: every hour sees us elbowed out of some employment to make

room for some newly arrived emigrant from the Emerald Isle, whose

hunger and color entitle him to special favor. These white men are

becoming house-servants, cooks, stewards, waiters, and flunkies.

For aught I see they adjust themselves to their stations with all

proper humility. If they cannot rise to the dignity of white men,

they show that they can fall to the degradation of black men.

But now, sir, look once more! While the colored people are thus

elbowed out of employment; while a ceaseless enmity in the Irish

is excited against us; while State after State enacts laws against

us; while we are being hunted down like wild beasts; while we are

oppressed with a sense of increasing insecurity, the American

Colonization Society, with hypocrisy written on its brow, comes to

the front, awakens to new life, and vigorously presses its scheme

for our expatriation upon the attention of the American people.

Papers have been started in the North and the South to promote

this long cherished object--to get rid of the negro, who is

presumed to be a standing menace to slavery. Each of these papers

is adapted to the latitude in which it is published, but each and

all are united in calling upon the government for appropriations

to enable the Colonization Society to send us out of the country

by steam. Evidently this society looks upon our extremity as their

opportunity, and whenever the elements are stirred against us,

they are stimulated to unusual activity. They do not deplore our

misfortunes, but rather rejoice in them, since they prove that

the two races cannot flourish on the same soil. But, sir, I must

hasten. I have thus briefly given my view of one aspect of the

present condition and future prospects of the colored people of

the United States. And what I have said is far from encouraging to

my afflicted people. I have seen the cloud gather upon the sable

brows of some who hear me. I confess the case looks bad enough.

Sir, I am not a hopeful man. I think I am apt to undercalculate the

benefits of the future. Yet, sir, in this seemingly desperate case,

I do not despair for my people. There is a bright side to almost

every picture, and ours is no exception to the general rule. If the

influences against us are strong, those for us are also strong.

To the inquiry, will our enemies prevail in the execution of their

designs--in my God, and in my soul, I believe they _will not_.

Let us look at the first object sought for by the slavery party of

the country, viz., the suppression of the anti-slavery discussion.

They desire to suppress discussion on this subject, with a view to

the peace of the slaveholder and the security of slavery. Now, sir,

neither the principle nor the subordinate objects, here declared,

can be at all gained by the slave power, and for this reason: it

involves the proposition to padlock the lips of the whites, in

order to secure the fetters on the limbs of the blacks. The right

of speech, precious and priceless, _cannot_--_will not_--be

surrendered to slavery. Its suppression is asked for, as I have

said, to give peace and security to slaveholders. Sir, that thing

cannot be done. God has interposed an insuperable obstacle to

any such result. “There can be _no peace_, saith my God, to the

wicked.” Suppose it were possible to put down this discussion,

what would it avail the guilty slaveholder, pillowed as he is upon

the heaving bosoms of ruined souls? He could not have a peaceful

spirit. If every anti-slavery tongue in the nation were silent--

every anti-slavery organization dissolved--every anti-slavery

periodical, paper, pamphlet, book, or what not, searched out,

burned to ashes, and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven,

still, still the slaveholder could have _no peace_. In every

pulsation of his heart, in every throb of his life, in every glance

of his eye, in the breeze that soothes, and in the thunder that

startles, would be waked up an accuser, whose cause is, ‘thou art

verily guilty concerning thy brother.’”

This is no fancy sketch of the times indicated. The situation during

all the administration of President Pierce was only less threatening

and stormy than that under the administration of James Buchanan. One

sowed, the other reaped. One was the wind, the other was the whirlwind.

Intoxicated by their success in repealing the Missouri compromise--

in divesting the native-born colored man of American citizenship--in

harnessing both the Whig and Democratic parties to the car of slavery,

and in holding continued possession of the national government, the

propagandists of slavery threw off all disguises, abandoned all

semblance of moderation, and very naturally and inevitably proceeded

under Mr. Buchanan, to avail themselves of all the advantages of their

victories. Having legislated out of existence the great national wall,

erected in the better days of the republic, against the spread of

slavery, and against the increase of its power--having blotted out

all distinction, as they thought, between freedom and slavery in the

law, theretofore, governing the Territories of the United States, and

having left the whole question of the legislation or prohibition of

slavery to be decided by the people of a Territory, the next thing in

order was to fill up the Territory of Kansas--the one likely to be

first organized--with a people friendly to slavery, and to keep out

all such as were opposed to making that Territory a free State. Here

was an open invitation to a fierce and bitter strife; and the history

of the times shows how promptly that invitation was accepted by both

classes to which it was given, and the scenes of lawless violence and

blood that followed.

All advantages were at first on the side of those who were for making

Kansas a slave State. The moral force of the repeal of the Missouri

compromise was with them; the strength of the triumphant Democratic

party was with them; the power and patronage of the federal government

was with them; the various governors, sent out under the Territorial

government, was with them; and, above all, the proximity of the

Territory to the slave State of Missouri favored them and all their

designs. Those who opposed the making Kansas a slave State, for the

most part were far away from the battleground, residing chiefly in

New England, more than a thousand miles from the eastern border of

the Territory, and their direct way of entering it was through a

country violently hostile to them. With such odds against them, and

only an idea--though a grand one--to support them, it will ever be

a wonder that they succeeded in making Kansas a free State. It is not

my purpose to write particularly of this or of any other phase of

the conflict with slavery, but simply to indicate the nature of the

struggle, and the successive steps, leading to the final result. The

important point to me, as one desiring to see the slave power crippled,

slavery limited and abolished, was the effect of this Kansas battle

upon the moral sentiment of the North: how it made abolitionists

before they themselves became aware of it, and how it rekindled the

zeal, stimulated the activity, and strengthened the faith of our

old anti-slavery forces. “Draw on me for $1,000 per month while the

conflict lasts,” said the great-hearted Gerrit Smith. George L. Stearns

poured out his thousands, and anti-slavery men of smaller means were

proportionally liberal. H. W. Beecher shouted the right word at the

head of a mighty column; Sumner in the Senate spoke as no man had ever

spoken there before. Lewis Tappan representing one class of the old

opponents of slavery, and William L. Garrison the other, lost sight of

their former differences, and bent all their energies to the freedom

of Kansas. But these and others were merely generators of anti-slavery

force. The men who _went_ to Kansas with the purpose of making it a

free State, were the heroes and martyrs. One of the leaders in this

holy crusade for freedom, with whom I was brought into near relations,

was John Brown, whose person, house, and purposes I have already

described. This brave old man and his sons were amongst the first to

hear and heed the trumpet of freedom calling them to battle. What they

did and suffered, what they sought and gained, and by what means, are

matters of history, and need not be repeated here.

When it became evident, as it soon did, that the war for and against

slavery in Kansas was not to be decided by the peaceful means of words

and ballots, but that swords and bullets were to be employed on both

sides, Captain John Brown felt that now, after long years of waiting,

his hour had come, and never did man meet the perilous requirements of

any occasion more cheerfully, courageously, and disinterestedly than

he. I met him often during this struggle, and saw deeper into his soul

than when I met him in Springfield seven or eight years before, and

all I saw of him gave me a more favorable impression of the man, and

inspired me with a higher respect for his character. In his repeated

visits to the East to obtain necessary arms and supplies, he often

did me the honor of spending hours and days with me at Rochester. On

more than one occasion I got up meetings and solicited aid to be

used by him for the cause, and I may say without boasting that my

efforts in this respect were not entirely fruitless. Deeply interested

as “Ossawatamie Brown” was in Kansas he never lost sight of what he

called his greater work--the liberation of all the slaves in the

United States. But for the then present he saw his way to the great end

through Kansas. It would be a grateful task to tell of his exploits

in the border struggle, how he met persecution with persecution, war

with war, strategy with strategy, assassination and house-burning

with signal and terrible retaliation, till even the blood-thirsty

propagandists of slavery were compelled to cry for quarter. The horrors

wrought by his iron hand cannot be contemplated without a shudder,

but it is the shudder which one feels at the execution of a murderer.

The amputation of a limb is a severe trial to feeling, but necessity

is a full justification of it to reason. To call out a murderer at

midnight, and without note or warning, judge or jury, run him through

with a sword, was a terrible remedy for a terrible malady. The question

was not merely which class should prevail in Kansas, but whether

free-state men should live there at all. The border ruffians from

Missouri had openly declared their purpose not only to make Kansas a

slave state, but that they would make it impossible for free-state men

to live there. They burned their towns, burned their farm-houses, and

by assassination spread terror among them until many of the free-state

settlers were compelled to escape for their lives. John Brown was

therefore the logical result of slaveholding persecutions. Until the

lives of tyrants and murderers shall become more precious in the sight

of men than justice and liberty, John Brown will need no defender. In

dealing with the ferocious enemies of the free-state cause in Kansas he

not only showed boundless courage but eminent military skill. With men

so few and odds against him so great, few captains ever surpassed him

in achievements, some of which seem too disproportionate for belief,

and yet no voice has yet called them in question. With only eight men

he met, fought, whipped, and captured Henry Clay Pate with twenty-five

well-armed and well-mounted men. In this battle he selected his ground

so wisely, handled his men so skillfully, and attacked his enemies so

vigorously, that they could neither run nor fight, and were therefore

compelled to surrender to a force less than one-third their own. With

just thirty men on another memorable occasion he met and vanquished

400 Missourians under the command of General Read. These men had come

into the territory under an oath never to return to their homes in

Missouri till they had stamped out the last vestige of the free-state

spirit in Kansas. But a brush with old Brown instantly took this high

conceit out of them, and they were glad to get home upon any terms,

without stopping to stipulate. With less than 100 men to defend the

town of Lawrence, he offered to lead them and give battle to 1,400

men on the banks of the Waukerusia river, and was much vexed when his

offer was refused by General Jim Lane and others, to whom the defense

of the place was committed. Before leaving Kansas he went into the

border of Missouri and liberated a dozen slaves in a single night, and

despite of slave laws and marshals, he brought these people through

a half dozen States and landed them safe in Canada. The successful

efforts of the North in making Kansas a free State, despite all the

sophistical doctrines, and the sanguinary measures of the South to

make it a slave State, exercised a potent influence upon subsequent

political forces and events in the then near future. It is interesting

to note the facility with which the statesmanship of a section of the

country adapted its convictions to changed conditions. When it was

found that the doctrine of popular sovereignty (first I think invented

by General Cass, and afterwards adopted by Stephen A. Douglas) failed

to make Kansas a slave State, and could not be safely trusted in other

emergencies, southern statesmen promptly abandoned and reprobated that

doctrine, and took what they considered firmer ground. They lost faith

in the rights, powers, and wisdom of the people and took refuge in

the Constitution. Henceforth the favorite doctrine of the South was

that the people of a territory had no voice in the matter of slavery

whatever; that the Constitution of the United States, of its own

force and effect, carried slavery safely into any territory of the

United States and protected the system there until it ceased to be a

territory and became a State. The practical operation of this doctrine

would be to make all the future new States slaveholding States, for

slavery once planted and nursed for years in a territory would easily

strengthen itself against the evil day and defy eradication. This

doctrine was in some sense supported by Chief Justice Taney, in the

infamous Dred Scott decision. This new ground, however, was destined

to bring misfortune to its inventors, for it divided for a time the

democratic party, one faction of it going with John C. Breckenridge

and the other espousing the cause of Stephen A. Douglas; the one held

firmly to the doctrine that the United States Constitution, without

any legislation, territorial, national, or otherwise, by its own force

and effect, carried slavery into all the territories of the United

States; the other held that the people of a territory had the right

to admit slavery or reject slavery, as in their judgment they might

deem best. Now, while this war of words--this conflict of doctrines--

was in progress, the portentous shadow of a stupendous civil war

became more and more visible. Bitter complaints were raised by the

slaveholders that they were about to be despoiled of their proper share

in territory won by a common valor, or bought by a common treasure. The

North, on the other hand, or rather a large and growing party at the

North, insisted that the complaint was unreasonable and groundless;

that nothing properly considered as property was excluded or meant to

be excluded from the territories; that southern men could settle in

any territory of the United States with some kinds of property, and

on the same footing and with the same protection as citizens of the

North; that men and women are not property in the same sense as houses,

lands, horses, sheep, and swine are property, and that the fathers of

the Republic neither intended the extension nor the perpetuity of

slavery; that liberty is national, and slavery is sectional. From 1856

to 1860 the whole land rocked with this great controversy. When the

explosive force of this controversy had already weakened the bolts of

the American Union; when the agitation of the public mind was at its

topmost height; when the two sections were at their extreme points of

difference; when comprehending the perilous situation, such statesmen

of the North as William H. Seward sought to allay the rising storm by

soft, persuasive speech, and when all hope of compromise had nearly

vanished, as if to banish even the last glimmer of hope for peace

between the sections, John Brown came upon the scene. On the night

of the 16th of October, 1859, there appeared near the confluence of

the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, a party of 19 men--14 white and 5

colored. They were not only armed themselves, but they brought with

them a large supply of arms for such persons as might join them. These

men invaded the town of Harper’s Ferry, disarmed the watchman, took

possession of the arsenal, rifle factory, armory, and other government

property at that place, arrested and made prisoners of nearly all the

prominent citizens in the neighborhood, collected about 50 slaves, put

bayonets into the hands of such as were able and willing to fight for

their liberty, killed 3 men, proclaimed general emancipation, held the

ground more than thirty hours, were subsequently overpowered and nearly

all killed, wounded, or captured by a body of United States troops

under command of Col. Robert E. Lee, since famous as the rebel General

Lee. Three out of the nineteen invaders were captured while fighting,

and one of them was Capt. John Brown--the man who originated, planned,

and commanded the expedition. At the time of his capture Capt. Brown

was supposed to be mortally wounded, as he had several ugly gashes and

bayonet wounds on his head and body, and apprehending that he might

speedily die, or that he might be rescued by his friends, and thus the

opportunity to make him a signal example of slaveholding vengeance,

would be lost, his captors hurried him to Charlestown, 10 miles

further within the border of Virginia, placed him in prison strongly

guarded by troops, and before his wounds were healed he was brought

into court, subjected to a nominal trial, convicted of high-treason and

inciting slaves to insurrection, and was executed.

His corpse was given up to his woe-stricken widow, and she, assisted

by anti-slavery friends, caused it to be borne to North Elba, Essex

county, N. Y., and there his dust now reposes amid the silent, solemn,

and snowy grandeurs of the Adirondacks. This raid upon Harper’s Ferry

was as the last straw to the camel’s back. What in the tone of southern

sentiment had been fierce before became furious and uncontrollable now.

A scream for vengeance came up from all sections of the slave States

and from great multitudes in the North. All who were supposed to have

been any way connected with John Brown were to be hunted down and

surrendered to the tender mercies of slaveholding and panic-stricken

Virginia, and there to be tried after the fashion of John Brown’s

trial, and of course to be summarily executed.

On the evening when the news came that John Brown had taken and was

then holding the town of Harper’s Ferry, it so happened that I was

speaking to a large audience in National Hall, Philadelphia. The

announcement came upon us with the startling effect of an earthquake.

It was something to make the boldest hold his breath. I saw at once

that my old friend had attempted what he had long ago resolved to do,

and I felt certain that the result must be his capture and destruction.

As I expected, the next day brought the news that with two or three

men he had fortified and was holding a small engine house, but that

he was surrounded by a body of Virginia militia, who thus far had not

ventured to capture the insurgents, but that escape was impossible.

A few hours later and word came that Colonel Robert E. Lee with a

company of United States troops had made a breach in Capt. Brown’s

fort, and had captured him alive though mortally wounded. His carpet

bag had been secured by Governor Wise, and that it was found to contain

numerous letters and documents which directly implicated Gerritt Smith,

Joshua R. Giddings, Samuel G. Howe, Frank P. Sanborn, and myself. This

intelligence was soon followed by a telegram saying that we were all to

be arrested. Knowing that I was then in Philadelphia, stopping with my

friend, Thomas J. Dorsey, Mr. John Hern, the telegraph operator, came

to me and with others urged me to leave the city by the first train, as

it was known through the newspapers that I was then in Philadelphia,

and officers might even then be on my track. To me there was nothing

improbable in all this. My friends for the most part were appalled at

the thought of my being arrested then or there, or while on my way

across the ferry from Walnut street wharf to Camden, for there was

where I felt sure the arrest would be made, and asked some of them to

go so far as this with me merely to see what might occur, but upon

one ground or another they all thought it best not to be found in my

company at such a time, except dear old Franklin Turner--a true man.

The truth is, that in the excitement which prevailed my friends had

reason to fear that the very fact that they were with me would be a

sufficient reason for their arrest with me. The delay in the departure

of the steamer seemed unusually long to me, for I confess I was seized

with a desire to reach a more northern latitude. My friend Frank did

not leave my side till “all ashore” was ordered and the paddles began

to move. I reached New York at night, still under the apprehension of

arrest at any moment, but no signs of such event being made, I went

at once to the Barclay street ferry, took the boat across the river

and went direct to Washington street, Hoboken, the home of Mrs. Marks,

where I spent the night, and I may add without undue profession of

timidity, an _anxious_ night. The morning papers brought no relief, for

they announced that the government would spare no pains in ferretting

out and bringing to punishment all who were connected with the Harper’s

Ferry outrage, and that papers as well as persons would be searched

for. I was now somewhat uneasy from the fact that sundry letters and

a constitution written by John Brown were locked up in my desk in

Rochester. In order to prevent these papers from falling into the hands

of the government of Virginia, I got my friend Miss Ottilia Assing to

write at my dictation the following telegram to B. F. Blackall, the

telegraph operator in Rochester, a friend and frequent visitor at my

house, who would readily understand the meaning of the dispatch:

“B. F. BLACKALL, Esq.,

“Tell Lewis (my oldest son) to secure all the important papers in

my high desk.”

I did not sign my name, and the result showed that I had rightly judged

that Mr. Blackall would understand and promptly attend to the request.

The mark of the chisel with which the desk was opened is still on

the drawer, and is one of the traces of the John Brown raid. Having

taken measures to secure my papers the trouble was to know just what

to do with myself. To stay in Hoboken was out of the question, and

to go to Rochester was to all appearance to go into the hands of the

hunters, for they would naturally seek me at my home if they sought

me at all. I, however, resolved to go home and risk my safety there.

I felt sure that once in the city I could not be easily taken from

there without a preliminary hearing upon the requisition, and not then

if the people could be made aware of what was in progress. But how to

get to Rochester became a serious question. It would not do to go to

New York city and take the train, for that city was not less incensed

against the John Brown conspirators than many parts of the South. The

course hit upon by my friends, Mr. Johnston and Miss Assing, was to

take me at night in a private conveyance from Hoboken to Paterson,

where I could take the Erie railroad for home. This plan was carried

out and I reached home in safety, but had been there but a few moments

when I was called upon by Samuel D. Porter, Esq., and my neighbor,

Lieutenant-Governor Selden, who informed me that the governor of the

State would certainly surrender me on a proper requisition from the

governor of Virginia, and that while the people of Rochester would

not permit me to be taken South, yet in order to avoid collision with

the government and consequent bloodshed, they advised me to quit the

country, which I did--going to Canada. Governor Wise in the meantime,

being advised that I had left Rochester for the State of Michigan, made

requisition on the governor of that State for my surrender to Virginia.

The following letter from Governor Wise to President James Buchanan

(which since the war was sent me by B. J. Lossing, the historian,)

will show by what means the governor of Virginia meant to get me in

his power, and that my apprehensions of arrest were not altogether

groundless:

[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 be very secretive in

this matter, and some pretext for traveling through the dangerous

section for the execution of the laws in this behalf, and some

protection against obtrusive, unruly, or lawless violence. If it be

proper so to do, 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.

There is no reason to doubt that James Buchanan afforded Governor

Wise all the aid and coöperation for which he was asked. I have been

informed that several United States marshals were in Rochester in

search of me within six hours after my departure. I do not know that I

can do better at this stage of my story than to insert the following

letter, written by me to the Rochester _Democrat and American_:

CANADA WEST, Oct 31st, 1859.

MR. EDITOR:

I notice that the telegraph makes Mr. Cook (one of the unfortunate

insurgents at Harper’s Ferry, and now a prisoner in the hands of

the thing calling itself the Government of Virginia, but which

in fact is but an organized conspiracy by one part of the people

against another and weaker) denounce me as a coward, and assert

that I promised to be present in person at the Harper’s Ferry

insurrection. This is certainly a very grave impeachment whether

viewed in its bearings upon friends or upon foes, and you will not

think it strange that I should take a somewhat serious notice of

it. Having no acquaintance whatever with Mr. Cook, and never having

exchanged a word with him about Harper’s Ferry insurrection, I am

disposed to doubt if he could have used the language concerning

me, which the wires attribute to him. The lightning when speaking

for itself, is among the most direct, reliable, and truthful of

things; but when speaking of the terror-stricken slaveholders at

Harper’s Ferry, it has been made the swiftest of liars. Under its

nimble and trembling fingers it magnifies 17 men into 700 and

has since filled the columns of the New York _Herald_ for days

with its interminable contradictions. But assuming that it has

told only the simple truth as to the sayings of Mr. Cook in this

instance, I have this answer to make to my accuser: Mr. Cook may be

perfectly right in denouncing me as a coward; I have not one word

to say in defense or vindication of my character for courage; I

have always been more distinguished for running than fighting, and

tried by the Harper’s-Ferry-insurrection-test, I am most miserably

deficient in courage, even more so than Cook when he deserted his

brave old captain and fled to the mountains. To this extent Mr.

Cook is entirely right, and will meet no contradiction from me, or

from anybody else. But wholly, grievously and most unaccountably

wrong is Mr. Cook when he asserts that I promised to be present

in person at the Harper’s Ferry insurrection. Of whatever other

imprudence and indiscretion I may have been guilty, I have never

made a promise so rash and wild as this. The taking of Harper’s

Ferry was a measure never encouraged by my word or by my vote. At

any time or place, my wisdom or my cowardice, has not only kept

me from Harper’s Ferry, but has equally kept me from making any

promise to go there. I desire to be quite emphatic here, for of

all guilty men, he is the guiltiest who lures his fellowmen to an

undertaking of this sort, under promise of assistance which he

afterwards fails to render. I therefore declare that there is no

man living, and no man dead, who if living, could truthfully say

that I ever promised him, or anybody else, either conditionally, or

otherwise, that I would be present in person at the Harper’s Ferry

insurrection. My field of labor for the abolition of slavery has

not extended to an attack upon the United States arsenal. In the

teeth of the documents already published and of those which may

hereafter be published, I affirm that no man connected with that

insurrection, from its noble and heroic leader down, can connect

my name with a single broken promise of any sort whatever. So much

I deem it proper to say negatively. The time for a full statement

of what I know and of ALL I know of this desperate but sublimely

disinterested effort to emancipate the slaves of Maryland and

Virginia from their cruel taskmasters, has not yet come, and may

never come. In the denial which I have now made, my motive is more

a respectful consideration for the opinions of the slave’s friends

than from my fear of being made an accomplice in the general

conspiracy against slavery, when there is a reasonable hope for

success. Men who live by robbing their fellowmen of their labor

and liberty have forfeited their right to know anything of the

thoughts, feelings, or purposes of those whom they rob and plunder.

They have by the single act of slaveholding, voluntarily placed

themselves beyond the laws of justice and honor, and have become

only fitted for companionship with thieves and pirates--the common

enemies of God and of all mankind. While it shall be considered

right to protect oneself against thieves, burglars, robbery, and

assassins, and to slay a wild beast in the act of devouring his

human prey, it can never be wrong for the imbruted and whip-scarred

slaves, or their friends, to hunt, harass, and even strike down the

traffickers in human flesh. If any body is disposed to think less

of me on account of this sentiment, or because I may have had a

knowledge of what was about to occur, and did not assume the base

and detestable character of an informer, he is a man whose good or

bad opinion of me may be equally repugnant and despicable.

Entertaining these sentiments, I may be asked why I did not join

John Brown--the noble old hero whose one right hand has shaken

the foundation of the American Union, and whose ghost will haunt

the bed-chambers of all the born and unborn slaveholders of

Virginia through all their generations, filling them with alarm and

consternation. My answer to this has already been given; at least

impliedly given--“The tools to those who can use them!” Let every

man work for the abolition of slavery in his own way. I would help

all and hinder none. My position in regard to the Harper’s Ferry

insurrection may be easily inferred from these remarks, and I shall

be glad if those papers which have spoken of me in connection with

it, would find room for this brief statement. I have no apology

for keeping out of the way of those gentlemanly United States

marshals, who are said to have paid Rochester a somewhat protracted

visit lately, with a view to an interview with me. A government

recognizing the validity of the _Dred Scott_ decision at such a

time as this, is not likely to have any very charitable feelings

towards me, and if I am to meet its representatives I prefer to

do so at least upon equal terms. If I have committed any offense

against society I have done so on the soil of the State of New

York, and I should be perfectly willing to be arraigned there

before an impartial jury; but I have quite insuperable objections

to being caught by the hounds of Mr. Buchanan, and “_bagged_”

by Gov. Wise. For this appears to be the arangement. Buchanan

does the fighting and hunting, and Wise “_bags_” the game. Some

reflections may be made upon my leaving on a tour to England just

at this time. I have only to say that my going to that country has

been rather delayed than hastened by the insurrection at Harper’s

Ferry. All know that I had intended to leave here in the first week

of November.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.”

CHAPTER X.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

My connection with John Brown--To and from England--Presidential

contest--Election of Abraham Lincoln.

What was my connection with John Brown, and what I knew of his scheme

for the capture of Harper’s Ferry, I may now proceed to state. From the

time of my visit to him in Springfield, Mass., in 1847, our relations

were friendly and confidential. I never passed through Springfield

without calling on him, and he never came to Rochester without calling

on me. He often stopped over night with me, when we talked over the

feasibility of his plan for destroying the value of slave property,

and the motive for holding slaves in the border States. That plan, as

already intimated elsewhere, was to take twenty or twenty-five discreet

and trustworthy men into the mountains of Virginia and Maryland, and

station them in squads of five, about five miles apart, on a line of

twenty-five miles; each squad to co-operate with all, and all with

each. They were to have selected for them, secure and comfortable

retreats in the fastnesses of the mountains, where they could easily

defend themselves in case of attack. They were to subsist upon the

country roundabout. They were to be well armed, but were to avoid

battle or violence, unless compelled by pursuit or in self-defense. In

that case, they were to make it as costly as possible to the assailing

party, whether that party should be soldiers or citizens. He further

proposed to have a number of stations from the line of Pennsylvania

to the Canada border, where such slaves as he might, through his men,

induce to run away, should be supplied with food and shelter and be

forwarded from one station to another till they should reach a place

of safety either in Canada or the Northern States. He proposed to add

to his force in the mountains any courageous and intelligent fugitives

who might be willing to remain and endure the hardships and brave the

dangers of this mountain life. These, he thought, if properly selected,

on account of their knowledge of the surrounding country, could be made

valuable auxiliaries. The work of going into the valley of Virginia and

persuading the slaves to flee to the mountains, was to be committed to

the most courageous and judicious man connected with each squad.

Hating slavery as I did, and making its abolition the object of my

life, I was ready to welcome any new mode of attack upon the slave

system which gave any promise of success. I readily saw that this plan

could be made very effective in rendering slave property in Maryland

and Virginia valueless by rendering it insecure. Men do not like to

buy runaway horses, nor to invest their money in a species of property

likely to take legs and walk off with itself. In the worse case, too,

if the plan should fail, and John Brown should be driven from the

mountains, a new fact would be developed by which the nation would be

kept awake to the existence of slavery. Hence, I assented to this, John

Brown’s scheme or plan for running off slaves.

To set this plan in operation, money and men, arms and ammunition,

food and clothing, were needed; and these, from the nature of the

enterprise, were not easily obtained, and nothing was immediately done.

Captain Brown, too, notwithstanding his rigid economy, was poor, and

was unable to arm and equip men for the dangerous life he had mapped

out. So the work lingered till after the Kansas trouble was over, and

freedom was a fact accomplished in that Territory. This left him with

arms and men, for the men who had been with him in Kansas, believed in

him, and would follow him in any humane but dangerous enterprise he

might undertake.

After the close of his Kansas work, Captain Brown came to my house in

Rochester, and said he desired to stop with me several weeks; “but,”

he added, “I will not stay unless you will allow me to pay board.”

Knowing that he was no trifler and meant all he said, and desirous of

retaining him under my roof, I charged three dollars a week. While

here, he spent most of his time in correspondence. He wrote often to

George L. Stearns of Boston, Gerrit Smith of Peterboro, N. Y., and many

others, and received many letters in return. When he was not writing

letters, he was writing and revising a constitution which he meant to

put in operation by the men who should go with him in the mountains. He

said that to avoid anarchy and confusion, there should be a regularly

constituted government, to which each man who came with him should

be sworn to honor and support. I have a copy of this constitution in

Captain Brown’s own handwriting, as prepared by himself at my house.

He called his friends from Chatham (Canada) to come together that

he might lay his constitution before them, for their approval and

adoption. His whole time and thought were given to this subject. It

was the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, till I

confess it began to be something of a bore to me. Once in a while he

would say he could, with a few resolute men, capture Harper’s Ferry,

and supply himself with arms belonging to the government at that place,

but he never announced his intention to do so. It was however, very

evidently passing in his mind as a thing he might do. I paid but little

attention to such remarks, though I never doubted that he thought just

what he said. Soon after his coming to me, he asked me to get for him

two smoothly planed boards, upon which he could illustrate, with a pair

of dividers, by a drawing, the plan of fortification which he meant to

adopt in the mountains.

These forts were to be so arranged as to connect one with the other,

by secret passages, so that if one was carried, another could easily

be fallen back upon, and be the means of dealing death to the enemy

at the very moment when he might think himself victorious. I was less

interested in these drawings than my children were, but they showed

that the old man had an eye to the means as well as to the end, and was

giving his best thought to the work he was about to take in hand.

It was his intention to begin this work in ’58 instead of ’59. Why he

did not will appear from the following circumstances.

While in Kansas, he made the acquaintance of one Colonel Forbes, an

Englishman, who had figured somewhat in revolutionary movements in

Europe, and, as it turned out, had become an adventurer--a soldier

of fortune in this country. This Forbes professed to be an expert in

military matters, and easily fastened upon John Brown, and, becoming

master of his scheme of liberation, professed great interest in it, and

offered his services to him in the preparation of his men for the work

before them. After remaining with Brown a short time, he came to me

in Rochester, with a letter from him, asking me to receive and assist

him. I was not favorably impressed with Colonel Forbes at first, but I

“conquered my prejudice,” took him to a hotel and paid his board while

he remained. Just before leaving, he spoke of his family in Europe as

in destitute circumstances, and of his desire to send them some money.

I gave him a little--I forget how much--and through Miss Assing,

a German lady, deeply interested in the John Brown scheme, he was

introduced to several of my German friends in New York. But he soon

wore them out by his endless begging; and when he could make no more

money by professing to advance the John Brown project, he threatened

to expose it, and all connected with it. I think I was the first to be

informed of his tactics, and I promptly communicated them to Captain

Brown. Through my friend Miss Assing, I found that Forbes had told of

Brown’s designs to Horace Greeley, and to the government officials at

Washington, of which I informed Captain Brown, and this led to the

postponement of the enterprise another year. It was hoped that by this

delay, the story of Forbes would be discredited, and this calculation

was correct, for nobody believed the scoundrel, though in this he told

the truth.

While at my house, John Brown made the acquaintance of a colored man

who called himself by different names--sometimes “Emperor,” at other

times, “Shields Green.” He was a fugitive slave, who had made his

escape from Charleston, South Carolina, a State from which a slave

found it no easy matter to run away. But Shields Green was not one to

shrink from hardships or dangers. He was a man of few words, and his

speech was singularly broken; but his courage and self-respect made him

quite a dignified character. John Brown saw at once what “stuff” Green

“was made of,” and confided to him his plans and purposes. Green easily

believed in Brown, and promised to go with him whenever he should be

ready to move. About three weeks before the raid on Harper’s Ferry,

John Brown wrote to me, informing me that a beginning in his work would

soon be made, and that before going forward he wanted to see me, and

appointed an old stone quarry near Chambersburg, Penn., as our place of

meeting. Mr. Kagi, his secretary, would be there, and they wished me to

bring any money I could command, and Shields Green along with me. In

the same letter, he said that his “mining tools” and stores were then

at Chambersburg, and that he would be there to remove them. I obeyed

the old man’s summons. Taking Shields, we passed through New York city,

where we called upon Rev. James Glocester and his wife, and told them

where and for what we were going, and that our old friend needed money.

Mrs. Glocester gave me ten dollars, and asked me to hand the same to

John Brown, with her best wishes.

When I reached Chambersburg, a good deal of surprise was expressed (for

I was instantly recognized) that I should come there unannounced, and I

was pressed to make a speech to them, with which invitation I readily

complied. Meanwhile, I called upon Mr. Henry Watson, a simple-minded

and warm-hearted man, to whom Capt. Brown had imparted the secret of

my visit, to show me the road to the appointed rendezvous. Watson was

very busy in his barber’s shop, but he dropped all and put me on the

right track. I approached the old quarry very cautiously, for John

Brown was generally well armed, and regarded strangers with suspicion.

He was there under the ban of the government, and heavy rewards were

offered for his arrest, for offenses said to have been committed in

Kansas. He was passing under the name of John Smith. As I came near, he

regarded me rather suspiciously, but soon recognized me, and received

me cordially. He had in his hand when I met him, a fishing-tackle, with

which he had apparently been fishing in a stream hard by; but I saw

no fish, and did not suppose that he cared much for his “fisherman’s

luck.” The fishing was simply a disguise, and was certainly a good one.

He looked 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 stone quarry itself--his

then present dwelling-place.

His face wore an anxious expression, and he was much worn by thought

and exposure. I felt that I was on a dangerous mission, and was as

little desirous of discovery as himself, though no reward had been

offered for me.

We--Mr. Kagi, Captain Brown, Shields Green, and myself, sat down

among the rocks and talked over the enterprise which was about to be

undertaken. The taking of Harper’s Ferry, of which Captain Brown had

merely hinted before, was now declared as his settled purpose, and he

wanted to know what I thought of it. I at once opposed the measure

with all the arguments at my command. To me, such a measure would be

fatal to running off slaves (as was the original plan), and fatal

to all engaged in doing so. It would be an attack upon the federal

government, and would array the whole country against us. Captain Brown

did most of the talking on the other side of the question. He did not

at all object to rousing the nation; it seemed to him that something

startling was just what the nation needed. He had completely renounced

his old plan, and thought that the capture of Harper’s Ferry would

serve as notice to the slaves that their friends had come, and as a

trumpet to rally them to his standard. He described the place as to its

means of defense, and how impossible it would be to dislodge him if

once in possession. Of course I was no match for him in such matters,

but I told him, and these were my words, that all his arguments, and

all his descriptions of the place, convinced me that he was going into

a perfect steel-trap, and that once in he would never get out alive;

that he would be surrounded at once and escape would be impossible.

He was not to be shaken by anything I could say, but treated my views

respectfully, replying that even if surrounded he would find means for

cutting his way out; but that would not be forced upon him; he should

have a number of the best citizens of the neighborhood as his prisoners

at the start, and that holding them as hostages, he should be able if

worse came to worse, to dictate terms of egress from the town. I looked

at him with some astonishment, that he could rest upon a reed so weak

and broken, and told him that Virginia would blow him and his hostages

sky-high, rather than that he should hold Harper’s Ferry an hour. Our

talk was long and earnest; we spent the most of Saturday and a part of

Sunday in this debate--Brown for Harper’s Ferry, and I against it; he

for striking a blow which should instantly rouse the country, and I for

the policy of gradually and unaccountably drawing off the slaves to the

mountains, as at first suggested and proposed by him. When I found that

he had fully made up his mind and could not be dissuaded, I turned to

Shields Green and told him he heard what Captain Brown had said; his

old plan was changed, and that I should return home, and if he wished

to go with me he could do so. Captain Brown urged us both to go with

him, but I could not do so, and could but feel that he was about to

rivet the fetters more firmly than ever on the limbs of the enslaved.

In parting he put his arms around me in a manner more than friendly,

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.” But my discretion or my

cowardice made me proof against the dear old man’s eloquence--perhaps

it was something of both which determined my course. When about to

leave I asked Green what he had decided to do, and was surprised by his

coolly saying in his broken way, “I b’leve I’ll go wid de ole man.”

Here we separated; they to go to Harper’s Ferry, I to Rochester. There

has been some difference of opinion as to the propriety of my course

in thus leaving my friend. Some have thought that I ought to have gone

with him, but I have no reproaches for myself at this point, and since

I have been assailed only by colored men who kept even farther from

this brave and heroic man than I did, I shall not trouble myself much

about their criticisms. They compliment me in assuming that I should

perform greater deeds than themselves.

Such then was my connection with John Brown, and it may be asked if

this is all, why should I have objected to being sent to Virginia to

be tried for the offence charged. The explanation is not difficult. I

knew if my enemies could not prove me guilty of the offence of being

with John Brown they could prove that I was Frederick Douglass; they

could prove that I was in correspondence and conspiracy with Brown

against slavery; they could prove that I brought Shields Green, one

of the bravest of his soldiers, all the way from Rochester to him at

Chambersburg; they could prove that I brought money to aid him, and in

what was then the state of the public mind I could not hope to make a

jury of Virginia believe I did not go the whole length which he went,

or that I was not one of his supporters, and I knew that all Virginia,

were I once in her clutches, would say “let him be hanged.” Before I

had left Canada for England Jeremiah Anderson, one of Brown’s men, who

was present and took part in the raid, but escaped by the mountains,

joined me, and he told me that he and Shields Green were sent out on

special duty as soon as the capture of the arsenal, etc., was effected.

Their business was to bring in the slaves from the surrounding country,

and hence they were on the outside when Brown was surrounded. I said to

him, “Why then did not Shields come with you?” “Well,” he said, “I told

him to come; that we could do nothing more, but he simply said he must

go down to de ole man.” Anderson further told me that Captain Brown

was careful to keep his plans from his men, and that there was much

opposition among them when they found what were the precise movements

determined upon; but they were an oath-bound company and like good

soldiers were agreed to follow their captain wherever he might lead.

On the 12th of November, 1859, I took passage from Quebec on board

the steamer Scotia, Captain Thompson, of the Allan line. My going to

England was not at first suggested by my connection with John Brown,

but the fact that I was now in danger of arrest on the ground of

complicity with him, made what I had intended a pleasure a necessity,

for though in Canada, and under British law, it was not impossible

that I might be kidnapped and taken to Virginia. England had given me

shelter and protection when the slavehounds were on my track fourteen

years before, and her gates were still open to me now that I was

pursued in the name of Virginia justice. I could but feel that I was

going into exile, perhaps for life. Slavery seemed to be at the very

top of its power; the national government with all its powers and

appliances were in its hands, and it bade fair to wield them for many

years to come. Nobody could then see that in the short space of four

years this power would be broken and the slave system destroyed. So

I started on my voyage with feelings far from cheerful. No one who

has not himself been compelled to leave his home and country and go

into permanent banishment, can well imagine the state of mind and

heart which such a condition brings. The voyage out was by the north

passage, and at this season, as usual, it was cold, dark, and stormy.

Before quitting the coast of Labrador, we had four degrees below zero.

Although I had crossed the Atlantic twice before, I had not experienced

such unfriendly weather as during the most of this voyage. Our great

ship was dashed about upon the surface of the sea, as though she had

been the smallest “dugout.” It seemed to tax all the seamanship of our

captain to keep her in manageable condition; but after battling with

the waves on an angry ocean during fourteen long days, I gratefully

found myself upon the soil of Great Britain, beyond the reach of

Buchanan’s power and Virginia’s prisons. On reaching Liverpool, I

learned that England was nearly as much alive to what had happened at

Harper’s Ferry as the United States, and I was immediately called upon

in different parts of the country to speak on the subject of slavery,

and especially to give some account of the men who had thus flung away

their lives in a desperate attempt to free the slaves. My own relation

to the affair was a subject of much interest, as was the fact of my

presence there being in some sense to elude the demands of Governor

Wise, who having learned that I was not in Michigan, but _was_ on a

British steamer bound for England, publicly declared that “could he

overtake that vessel, he would take me from her deck at any cost.”

While in England, and wishing to visit France, I wrote to Mr. George

M. Dallas, the American minister at the British court, to obtain a

passport. The attempt upon the life of Napoleon III about that time,

and the suspicion that the conspiracy against him had been hatched in

England, made the French government very strict in the enforcement of

its passport system. I might possibly have been permitted to visit

that country without a certificate of my citizenship, but wishing to

leave nothing to chance, I applied to the only competent authority;

but true to the traditions of the Democratic party--true to the

slaveholding policy of his country--true to the decision of the United

States supreme court, and true, perhaps, to the petty meanness of his

own nature, Mr. George M. Dallas, the Democratic American minister,

refused to grant me a passport, on the ground that I was not a citizen

of the United States. I did not beg or remonstrate with this dignitary

further, but simply addressed a note to the French minister at London,

asking for a permit to visit France, and that paper came without delay.

I mention this, not to belittle the civilization of my native country,

but as a part of the story of my life. I could have borne this denial

with more serenity, could I have foreseen what has since happened, but,

under the circumstances, it was a galling disappointment.

I had at this time been about six months out of the United States.

My time had been chiefly occupied in speaking on slavery, and other

subjects, in different parts of England and Scotland, meeting and

enjoying the while the society of many of the kind friends whose

acquaintance I had made during my visit to those countries fourteen

years before. Much of the excitement caused by the Harper’s Ferry

insurrection had subsided, both at home and abroad, and I should have

now gratified a long-cherished desire to visit France, and availed

myself, for that purpose, of the permit so promptly and civilly given

by the French minister, had not news reached me from home of the death

of my beloved daughter Annie, the light and life of my house. Deeply

distressed by this bereavement, and acting upon the impulse of the

moment, regardless of the peril, I at once resolved to return home,

and took the first outgoing steamer for Portland, Maine. After a

rough passage of seventeen days, I reached home by way of Canada, and

remained in my house nearly a month before the knowledge got abroad

that I was again in this country. Great changes had now taken place in

the public mind touching the John Brown raid. Virginia had satisfied

her thirst for blood. She had executed all the raiders who had fallen

into her hands. She had not given Captain Brown the benefit of a

reasonable doubt, but hurried him to the scaffold in panic-stricken

haste. She had made herself ridiculous by her fright, and despisable

by her fury. Emerson’s prediction that Brown’s gallows would become

like the cross, was already being fulfilled. The old hero, in the trial

hour, had behaved so grandly that men regarded him not as a murderer,

but as a martyr. All over the North men were singing the John Brown

song. His body was in the dust, but his soul was marching on. His

defeat was already assuming the form and pressure of victory, and

his death was giving new life and power to the principles of justice

and liberty. He had spoken great words in the face of death and the

champions of slavery. He had quailed before neither. What he had lost

by the sword, he had more than gained by the truth. Had he wavered, had

he retreated or apologized, the case had been different. He did not

even ask that the cup of death might pass from him. To his own soul

he was right, and neither “principalities nor powers, life nor death,

things present or things to come,” could shake his dauntless spirit,

or move him from his ground. He may not have stooped on his way to

the gallows to kiss a little colored child, as it is reported he did,

but the act would have been in keeping with the tender heart, as well

as with the heroic spirit of the man. Those who looked for confession

heard only the voice of rebuke and warning.

Early after the insurrection at Harper’s Ferry, an investigating

committee was appointed by Congress, and a “drag net” was spread

all over the country, in the hope of inculpating many distinguished

persons. They had imprisoned Thaddeus Hyatt, who denied their right

to interrogate him, and had called many witnesses before them, as if

the judicial power of the nation had been confided to their committee,

and not to the supreme court of the United States. But Captain Brown

implicated nobody. Upon his own head he invited all the bolts of

slaveholding vengeance. He said that he, and he alone, was responsible

for all that had happened. He had many friends, but no instigators. In

all their efforts, this committee signally failed, and soon after my

arrival home, they gave up the search, and asked to be discharged, not

having half fulfilled the duty for which they were appointed.

I have never been able to account satisfactorily for the sudden

abandonment of this investigation on any other ground than that the men

engaged in it expected soon to be in rebellion themselves, and that

not a rebellion for liberty like that of John Brown, but a rebellion

for slavery, and that they saw that by using their senatorial power in

search of rebels they might be whetting a knife for their own throats.

At any rate the country was soon relieved of the congressional drag-net

and was now engaged in the heat and turmoil of a presidential canvass--

a canvass which had no parallel, involving as it did the question of

peace or war, the integrity or the dismemberment of the Republic; and

I may add, the maintenance or destruction of slavery. In some of the

southern States the people were already organizing and arming to be

ready for an apprehended contest, and with this work on their hands

they had no time to spare to those they had wished to convict as

instigators of the raid, however desirous they might have been to do

so under other circumstances, for they had parted with none of their

hate. As showing their feeling toward me I may state that a colored

man appeared about this time in Knoxville, Tenn., and was beset by a

furious crowd with knives and bludgeons, because he was supposed to be

Fred. Douglass. But, however perilous it would have been for me to have

shown myself in any southern State, there was no especial danger for me

at the North.

Though disappointed in my tour on the Continent, and called home by

one of the saddest events that can afflict the domestic circle, my

presence here was fortunate, since it enabled me to participate in the

most important and memorable presidential canvass ever witnessed in

the United States, and to labor for the election of a man who in the

order of events was destined to do a greater service to his country and

to mankind, than any man who had gone before him in the presidential

office. It is something 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 thus far come to the American people. It

was a great thing to achieve American independence when we numbered

three millions, but it was a greater thing to save this country from

dismemberment and ruin when it numbered thirty millions. He alone of

all our Presidents was to have the opportunity to destroy slavery,

and to lift into manhood millions of his countrymen hitherto held as

chattels and numbered with the beasts of the field.

The presidential canvass of 1860 was three sided, and each side had

its distinctive doctrine as to the question of slavery and slavery

extension. We had three candidates in the field. Stephen A. Douglas

was the standard bearer of what may be called the western faction

of the old divided democratic party, and John C. Breckenridge was

the standard-bearer of the southern or slaveholding faction of that

party. Abraham Lincoln represented the then young, growing, and united

republican party. The lines between these parties and candidates were

about as distinctly and clearly drawn as political lines are capable of

being drawn. The name of Douglas stood for territorial sovereignty, or

in other words, for the right of the people of a territory to admit or

exclude, to establish or abolish, slavery, as to them might seem best.

The doctrine of Breckenridge was that slaveholders were entitled to

carry their slaves into any territory of the United States and to hold

them there, with or without the consent of the people of the territory;

that the Constitution of its own force carried slavery and protected

it into any territory open for settlement in the United States. To

both these parties, factions, and doctrines, Abraham Lincoln and the

republican party stood opposed. They held that the Federal Government

had the right and the power to exclude slavery from the territories of

the United States, and that that right and power ought to be exercised

to the extent of confining slavery inside the slave States, with a

view to its ultimate extinction. The position of Mr. Douglas gave him

a splendid pretext for the display of a species of oratory of which

he was a distinguished master. He alone of the three candidates took

the stump, as the preacher of popular sovereignty, called in derision

at the time “Squatter” Sovereignty. This doctrine, if not the times,

gave him a chance to play fast and loose, and blow hot and cold, as

occasion might require. In the South and among slaveholders he could

say, “My great principle of popular sovereignty does not and was not

intended by me to prevent the extension of slavery; on the contrary it

gives you the right to take your slaves into the territories and secure

legislation legalizing slavery; it denies to the Federal Government all

right of interference against you, and hence is eminently favorable to

your interests.” When among people known to be indifferent he could

say, “I do not care whether slavery is voted up or voted down in the

territory,” but when addressing the known opponents of the extension

of slavery, he could say that the people of the territories were in

no danger of having slavery forced upon them since they could keep

it out by adverse legislation. Had he made these representations

before railroads, electric wires, phonography, and newspapers had

become the powerful auxiliaries they have done Mr. Douglas might

have gained many votes, but they were of little avail now. The South

was too sagacious to leave slavery to the chance of defeat in a fair

vote by the people of a territory. Of all property none could less

afford to take such a risk, for no property can require more strongly

favoring conditions for its existence. Not only the intelligence of

the slave, but the instincts of humanity, must be barred by positive

law, hence Breckenridge and his friends erected the flinty walls of the

Constitution and the Supreme Court for the protection of slavery at the

outset. Against both Douglas and Breckenridge Abraham Lincoln proposed

his grand historic doctrine of the power and duty of the National

Government to prevent the spread and perpetuity of slavery. Into this

contest I threw myself, with firmer faith and more ardent hope than

ever before, and what I could do by pen or voice was done with a will.

The most remarkable and memorable feature of this canvass, was that it

was prosecuted under the portentous shadow of a threat: leading public

men of the South had with the vehemence of fiery purpose, given it

out in advance that in case of their failure to elect their candidate

(Mr. John C. Breckenridge) they would proceed to take the slaveholding

States out of the Union, and that in no event whatever would they

submit to the rule of Abraham Lincoln. To many of the peace-loving

friends of the Union, this was a fearful announcement, and it doubtless

cost the Republican candidates many votes. To many others, however, it

was deemed a mere bravado--sound and fury signifying nothing. With

a third class its effect was very different. They were tired of the

rule-or-ruin intimidation adopted by the South, and felt then, if never

before, that they had quailed before it too often and too long. It came

as an insult and a challenge in one, and imperatively called upon them

for independence, self-assertion, and resentment. Had Southern men

puzzled their brains to find the most effective means to array against

slavery and slaveholding manners the solid opposition of the North,

they could not have hit upon any expedient better suited to that end,

than was this threat. It was not only unfair, but insolent, and more

like an address to cowardly slaves than to independent freemen; it

had in it the meanness of the horse-jockey, who, on entering a race,

proposes, if beaten, to run off with the stakes. In all my speeches

made during this canvass, I did not fail to take advantage of this

southern bluster and bullying.

As I have said, this southern threat lost many votes, but it gained

more than would cover the lost. It frightened the timid, but stimulated

the brave; and the result was--the triumphant election of Abraham

Lincoln.

Then came the question, what will the South do about it? Will she eat

her bold words, and submit to the verdict of the people, or proceed to

the execution of the programme she had marked out for herself prior

to the election? The inquiry was an anxious one, and the blood of

the North stood still, waiting for the response. It had not to wait

long, for the trumpet of war was soon sounded, and the tramp of armed

men was heard in that region. During all the winter of 1860 notes of

preparation for a tremendous conflict came to us from that quarter on

every wind. Still the warning was not taken. Few of the North could

really believe that this insolent display of arms would end in anything

more substantial than dust and smoke.

The shameful and shocking course of President Buchanan and his Cabinet

towards this rising rebellion against the government which each and

all of them had solemnly sworn to “support, defend, and maintain”--

that the treasury was emptied, that the army was scattered, that our

ships of war were sent out of the way, that our forts and arsenals in

the South were weakened and crippled,--purposely left an easy prey to

the prospective insurgents,--that one after another the States were

allowed to secede, that these rebel measures were largely encouraged

by the doctrine of Mr. Buchanan, that he found no power in the

constitution to coerce a State, are all matters of history, and need

only the briefest mention here.

To arrest this tide of secession and revolution, which was sweeping

over the South, the southern papers, which still had some dread of

the consequences likely to ensue from the course marked out before

the election, proposed as a means for promoting conciliation and

satisfaction, that “each northern State, through her legislature, or

in convention assembled, should repeal all laws passed for the injury

of the constitutional rights of the South (meaning thereby all laws

passed for the protection of personal liberty); that they should pass

laws for the easy and prompt execution of the fugitive slave law; that

they should pass other laws imposing penalties on all malefactors who

should hereafter assist or encourage the escape of fugitive slaves;

also, laws declaring and protecting the right of slaveholders to travel

and sojourn in Northern States, accompanied by their slaves; also, that

they should instruct their 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.”

It may indeed be well regretted that there was a class of men in the

North willing to patch up a peace with this rampant spirit of disunion

by compliance with these offensive, scandalous, and humiliating

terms, and to do so without any guarantee that the South would then

be pacified; rather with the certainty, learned by past experience,

that it would by no means promote this end. I confess to a feeling

allied to satisfaction at the prospect of a conflict between the

North and the South. Standing outside the pale of American humanity,

denied citizenship, unable to call the land of my birth my country,

and adjudged by the supreme court of the United States to have no

rights which white men were bound to respect, and longing for the end

of the bondage of my people, I was ready for any political upheaval

which should bring about a change in the existing condition of things.

Whether the war of words would or would not end in blows was for a

time a matter of doubt; and when it became certain that the South was

wholly in earnest, and meant at all hazards to execute its threats of

disruption, a visible change in the sentiment of the North was apparent.

The reaction from the glorious assertion of freedom and independence

on the part of the North in the triumphant election of Abraham

Lincoln, was a painful and humiliating development of its weakness. It

seemed as if all that had been gained in the canvass was about to be

surrendered to the vanquished: that the South, though beaten at the

polls, were to be victorious and have every thing its own way in the

final result. During all the intervening months, from November to the

ensuing March, the drift of northern sentiment was towards compromise.

To smooth the way for this, most of the northern legislatures repealed

their personal liberty bills, as they were supposed to embarrass the

surrender of fugitive slaves to their claimants. The feeling everywhere

seemed to be that something must be done to convince the South that

the election of Mr. Lincoln meant no harm to slavery or the slave

power, and that the North was sound on the question of the right of

the master to hold and hunt his slave as long as he pleased, and that

even the right to hold slaves in the Territories should be submitted

to the supreme court, which would probably decide in favor of the

most extravagant demands of the slave States. The northern press

took on a more conservative tone towards the slavery propagandists,

and a corresponding tone of bitterness towards anti-slavery men and

measures. It came to be a no uncommon thing to hear men denouncing

South Carolina and Massachusetts in the same breath, and in the same

measure of disapproval. The old pro-slavery spirit which, in 1835,

mobbed anti-slavery prayer-meetings, and dragged William Lloyd Garrison

through the streets of Boston with a halter about his neck, was

revived. From Massachusetts to Missouri, anti-slavery meetings were

ruthlessly assailed and broken up. With others, I was roughly handled

by a mob in Tremont Temple, Boston, headed by one of the wealthiest men

of that city. The talk was that the blood of some abolitionist must

be shed to appease the wrath of the offended South, and to restore

peaceful relations between the two sections of the country. A howling

mob followed Wendell Phillips for three days whenever he appeared on

the pavements of his native city, because of his ability and prominence

in the propagation of anti-slavery opinions.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.]

While this humiliating reaction was going on at the North, various

devices were suggested and pressed at Washington, to bring about peace

and reconciliation. Committees were appointed to listen to southern

grievances, and, if possible, devise means of redress for such as might

be alleged. Some of these peace propositions would have been shocking

to the last degree to the moral sense of the North, had not fear for

the safety of the Union overwhelmed all moral conviction. Such men as

William H. Seward, Charles Francis Adams, Henry B. Anthony, Joshua

R. Giddings, and others--men whose courage had been equal to all

other emergencies--bent before this southern storm, and were ready to

purchase peace at any price. Those who had stimulated the courage of

the North before the election, and had shouted “Who’s afraid?” were now

shaking in their shoes with apprehension and dread. One was for passing

laws in the northern States for the better protection of slave hunters,

and for the greater efficiency of the fugitive slave bill. Another

was for enacting laws to punish the invasion of the slave States, and

others were for so altering the constitution of the United States that

the federal government should never abolish slavery while any one State

should object to such a measure.[B] Everything that could be demanded

by insatiable pride and selfishness on the part of the slaveholding

South, or could be surrendered by abject fear and servility on the part

of the North, had able and eloquent advocates.

[B] See History of American Conflict, Vol. II, by Horace Greeley.

Happily for the cause of human freedom, and for the final unity of the

American nation, the South was mad, and would listen to no concessions.

They would neither accept the terms offered, nor offer others to be

accepted. They had made up their minds that under a given contingency

they would secede from the Union and thus dismember the Republic.

That contingency had happened, and they should execute their threat.

Mr. Ireson of Georgia, expressed the ruling sentiment of his section

when he told the northern peacemakers that if the people of the South

were given a blank sheet of paper upon which to write their own terms

on which they would remain in the Union, they would not stay. They

had come to hate everything which had the prefix “Free”--free soil,

free states, free territories, free schools, free speech, and freedom

generally, and they would have no more such prefixes. This haughty and

unreasonable and unreasoning attitude of the imperious South saved the

slave and saved the nation. Had the South accepted our concessions and

remained in the Union the slave power would in all probability have

continued to rule; the north would have become utterly demoralized;

the hands on the dial-plate of American civilization would have been

reversed, and the slave would have been dragging his hateful chains

to-day wherever the American flag floats to the breeze. Those who may

wish to see to what depths of humility and self-abasement a noble

people can be brought under the sentiment of fear, will find no chapter

of history more instructive than that which treats of the events in

official circles in Washington during the space between the months of

November, 1859, and March, 1860.

CHAPTER XI.

SECESSION AND WAR

Recruiting of the 54th and 55th Colored Regiments--Visit to President

Lincoln and Secretary Stanton--Promised a Commission as Adjutant

General to General Thomas--Disappointment.

The cowardly and disgraceful reaction, from a courageous and manly

assertion of right principles, as described in the foregoing pages,

continued surprisingly long after secession and war were commenced.

The patience and forbearance of the loyal people of the North were

amazing. Speaking of this feature of the situation in Corinthian Hall,

Rochester, at the time, I said:

“We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in

the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best

construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren. We

hoped that all would yet go well. We thought that South Carolina

might secede; it was entirely like her to do so. She had talked

extravagantly about going out of the Union, and it was natural

that she should do something extravagant and startling if for

nothing else, to save a show of consistency. Georgia too, we

thought might possibly secede. But strangely enough we thought

and felt quite sure that these twin rebellious States would stand

alone and unsupported in their infamy and their impotency; that

they would soon tire of their isolation, repent of their folly and

come back to their places in the Union. Traitors withdrew from the

Cabinet, from the House of Representatives, and from the Senate,

and hastened to their several States to ‘fire the southern heart,’

and to fan the hot flames of treason at home. Still we doubted if

anything serious would come of it. We treated it as a bubble on the

wave--a nine days’ wonder. Calm and thoughtful men ourselves, we

relied upon the sober second thought of the southern people. Even

the capture of a fort, a shot at one of our ships--an insult to

the national flag--caused only a momentary feeling of indignation

and resentment. We could not but believe that there existed at the

South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert

itself at last. Though loyal soldiers had been fired upon in the

streets of Baltimore; though loyal blood had stained the pavements

of that beautiful city, and the national government was warned to

send no troops through Baltimore to the defense of the National

Capital, we could not be made to believe that the border States

would plunge madly into the bloody vortex of rebellion.

“But this confidence, patience, and forbearance could not last

forever. These blissful illusions of hope were in a measure

dispelled when the batteries of Charleston harbor were opened upon

the starving garrison at Fort Sumpter. For the moment the northern

lamb was transformed into a lion, and his roar was terrible. But

he only showed his teeth, and clearly had no wish to use them. We

preferred to fight with dollars and not daggers. ‘The fewer battles

the better,’ was the hopeful motto at Washington. ‘Peace in sixty

days,’ was held out by the astute Secretary of State. In fact,

there was at the North no disposition to fight; no spirit of hate;

no comprehension of the stupendous character and dimensions of the

rebellion, and no proper appreciation of its inherent wickedness.

Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its

death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had

covered. Thus while rebels were waging a barbarous war, marshaling

savage Indians to join them in the slaughter; while rifled cannon

balls were battering down the walls of our forts, and the iron-clad

hand of monarchical power was being invoked to assist in the

destruction of our government and the dismemberment of our country;

while a tremendous rebel ram was sinking our fleet and threatening

the cities of our coast, we were still dreaming of peace. This

infatuation, this blindness to the significance of passing events,

can only be accounted for by the rapid passage of these events, and

by the fact of the habitual leniency and good-will cherished by

the North towards the South. Our very lack of preparation for the

conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood

out of the difficulty. Treason had largely infected both army and

navy. Floyd had scattered our arms. Cobb had depleted our treasury,

and Buchanan had poisoned the political thought of the times by his

doctrines of anti-coercion. It was in such a condition of things

as this that Abraham Lincoln (compelled from fear of assassination

to enter the capital in disguise) was inaugurated and issued his

proclamation for the ‘repossession of the forts, places, and

property which had been seized from the Union,’ and his call upon

the militia of the several States to the number of 75,000 men--a

paper which showed how little even he comprehended the work then

before the loyal nation. It was perhaps better for the country

and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from

the beginning. Had he foreseen the thousands who must sink into

bloody graves; the mountains of debt to be laid on the breast of

the nation; the terrible hardships and sufferings involved in the

contest; and his own death by an assassin’s hand, he too might have

adopted the weak sentiment of those who said ‘erring sisters depart

in peace.’”

From the first, I, for one, saw in this war the end of slavery; and

truth requires me to say that my interest in the success of the North

was largely due to this belief. True it is that this faith was many

times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed. When Secretary

Seward instructed our ministers to say to the governments to which

they were accredited, that, “terminate however it might, the status

of no class of the 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”--when General McClellan and General

Butler warned the slaves in advance that if any attempt was made by

them to gain their freedom, it would be suppressed with an iron hand--

when the government persistently refused to employ colored troops--

when the emancipation proclamation of General John C. Fremont in

Missouri was withdrawn--when slaves were being returned from our

lines to their masters--when Union soldiers were stationed about the

farm houses of Virginia to guard and protect the master in holding his

slaves--when Union soldiers made themselves more active in kicking

colored men out of their camps than in shooting rebels--when even

Mr. Lincoln could tell the poor negro that “he was the cause of the

war,” I still believed, and spoke as I believed, all over the North,

that the mission of the war was the liberation of the slave, as well

as the salvation of the Union; and hence from the first I reproached

the North that they fought the rebels with only one hand, when they

might strike effectually with two--that they fought with their soft

white hand while they kept their black iron hand chained and helpless

behind them--that they fought the effect while they protected the

cause, and that the Union cause would never prosper till the war

assumed an anti-slavery attitude, and the negro was enlisted on the

loyal side. In every way possible, in the columns of my paper and on

the platform, by letters to friends, at home and abroad, I did all

that I could to impress this conviction upon this country. But nations

seldom listen to advice from individuals, however reasonable. They

are taught less by theories than by facts and events. There was much

that could be said against making the war an abolition war--much

that seemed wise and patriotic. “Make the war an abolition war,” we

were told, “and you drive the border States into the rebellion, and

thus add power to the enemy, and increase the number you will have to

meet on the battle-field. You will exasperate and intensify southern

feeling, making it more desperate, and put far away the day of peace

between the two sections.” “Employ the arm of the negro, and the loyal

men of the North will throw down their arms and go home.” “This is

the white man’s country, and the white man’s war.” “It would inflict

an intolerable wound upon the pride and spirit of white soldiers of

the Union, to see the negro in the United States uniform. Besides,

if you make the negro a soldier, you cannot depend on his courage: a

crack of his old master’s whip would send him scampering in terror

from the field.” And so it was that custom, pride, prejudice, and

the old-time respect for southern feeling, held back the government

from an anti-slavery policy, and from arming the negro. Meanwhile the

rebellion availed itself of the negro most effectively. He was not only

the stomach of the rebellion, by supplying its commissary department,

but he built its forts, and dug its intrenchments, and performed other

duties of its camp, which left the rebel soldier more free to fight

the loyal army than he could otherwise have been. It was the cotton

and corn of the negro that made the rebellion sack stand on end, and

caused a continuance of the war. “Destroy these,” was the burden of

all my utterances during this part of the struggle, “and you cripple

and destroy the rebellion.” It is surprising how long and bitterly

the government resisted and rejected this view of the situation. The

abolition heart of the North ached over the delay, and uttered its

bitter complaints, but the administration remained blind and dumb.

Bull Run, Ball’s Bluff, Big Bethel, Fredericksburg, and the Peninsula

disasters were the only teachers whose authority was of sufficient

importance to excite the attention or respect of our rulers, and they

were even slow in being taught by these. An important point was gained,

however, when General B. F. Butler, at Fortress Monroe, announced the

policy of treating the slaves as “contrabands,” to be made useful

to the Union cause, and was sustained therein at Washington, and

sentiments of a similar nature were expressed on the floor of Congress

by Hon. A. G. Riddle of Ohio. A grand accession was made to this view

of the case when Hon. Simon Cameron, then secretary of war, gave it

his earnest support, and General David Hunter put the measure into

practical operation in South Carolina. General Phelps from Vermont, in

command at Carrollton, La., also advocated the same plan though under

discouragements which cost him his command. And many and grievous

disasters on flood and field were needed to educate the loyal nation

and President Lincoln up to the realization of the necessity, not to

say justice, of this position, and many devices, intermediate steps,

and make-shifts were suggested to smooth the way to the ultimate policy

of freeing the slave, and arming the freedmen.

When at last the truth began to dawn upon the administration that the

negro might be made useful to loyalty, as well as to treason, to the

Union as well as to the Confederacy, it then considered in what way it

could employ him, which would in the least shock and offend the popular

prejudice against him. He was already in the army as a waiter, and in

that capacity there was no objection to him, and so it was thought that

as this was the case, the feeling which tolerated him as a waiter would

not seriously object if he should be admitted to the army as a laborer,

especially as no one under a southern sun cared to have a monopoly of

digging and toiling in trenches. This was the first step in employing

negroes in the United States service. The second step was to give them

a peculiar costume which should distinguish them from soldiers, and

yet mark them as a part of the loyal force. As the eyes of the loyal

administration still further opened, it was proposed to give these

laborers something better than spades and shovels with which to defend

themselves in cases of emergency. Still later it was proposed to make

them soldiers, but soldiers without the blue uniform. Soldiers with

a mark upon them to show that they were inferior to other soldiers;

soldiers with a badge of degradation upon them. However, once in the

army as a laborer, once there with a red shirt on his back and a

pistol in his belt, the negro was not long in appearing on the field

as a soldier. But still he was not to be a soldier in the sense, and

on an equal footing, with white soldiers. It was given out that he

was not to be employed in the open field with white troops, under

the inspiration of doing battle and winning victories for the Union

cause, and in the face and teeth of his old masters, but that he should

be made to garrison forts in yellow fever and otherwise unhealthy

localities of the South, to save the health of white soldiers, and

in order to keep up the distinction further the black soldiers were

to have only half the wages of the white soldiers, and were to be

commanded entirely by white commissioned officers. While of course I

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

to enlist; to get an eagle on his button, a musket on his shoulder,

and the star-spangled banner over his head. Hence, as soon as Governor

Andrew of Massachusetts received permission from Mr. Lincoln to raise

two colored regiments, the 54th and 55th, I made the following address

to the colored citizens of the North through my paper, then being

published in Rochester, which was copied in the leading journals:

“MEN OF COLOR, TO ARMS.

“When first the rebel cannon shattered the walls of Sumpter 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. A war undertaken and brazenly carried on

for the perpetual enslavement of colored men, calls logically and

loudly for colored men to help suppress it. Only a moderate share

of sagacity was needed to see that the arm of the slave was the

best defense against the arm of the slaveholder. Hence with every

reverse to the national arms, with every exulting shout of victory

raised by the slaveholding rebels, 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. It may or it may not

have been best that it should not. This is not the time to discuss

that question. Leave it to the future. When the war is over, the

country is saved, peace is 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.

There is no time to delay. The tide is at its flood that leads on

to fortune. From East to West, from North to South, the sky is

written all over, ‘NOW OR NEVER.’ Liberty won by white men would

lose half its luster. ‘Who would be free themselves must strike the

blow.’ ‘Better even 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 nations. We have them amongst us. They tell

you this is the ‘white man’s war’; that you will be no ‘better

off after than 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 brave 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 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 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 skillful officers, men who will take especial pride in your

efficiency and success. They will be quick to accord to you all the

honor you shall merit by your valor, and see that your rights and

feelings are respected by other soldiers. I have assured myself on

these points, and can speak with authority. 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 plane of common

equality with all other varieties of men. Remember Denmark Vesey of

Charleston; remember Nathaniel Turner of South Hampton; 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 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 any

time within the next two weeks.

“ROCHESTER, March 2, 1863.”

Immediately after authority had been given by President Lincoln to

Governor John A. Andrew of Massachusetts to raise and equip two

regiments of colored men for the war, I received a letter from George

L. Stearns of Boston, a noble worker for freedom in Kansas, and a warm

friend of John Brown, earnestly entreating me to assist in raising

the required number of men. It was presumed that by my labors in the

anti-slavery cause, I had gained some influence with the colored men of

the country, and that they would listen to me in this emergency; which

supposition, I am happy to say, was supported by the results. There

were fewer colored people in Massachusetts then than now, and it was

necessary in order to make up the full quota of these regiments, to

recruit for them in other northern States. The nominal conditions upon

which colored men were asked to enlist, were not satisfactory to me or

them; but assurances from Governor Andrew that they would in the end

be made just and equal, together with my faith in the logic of events,

and my conviction that the wise thing to do was for the colored man to

get into the army by any door open to him, no matter how narrow, made

me accept with alacrity the work to which I was invited. The raising of

these two regiments--the 54th and 55th--and their splendid behavior

in South and North Carolina was the beginning of great things for the

colored people of the whole country; and not the least satisfaction I

now have in contemplating my humble part in raising them, is the fact

that my two sons, Charles and Lewis, were the two first in the State

of New York to enlist in them. The 54th was not long in the field

before it proved itself gallant and strong, worthy to rank with the

most courageous of its white companions in arms. Its assault upon Fort

Wagner, in which it was so fearfully cut to pieces, and lost nearly

half its officers, including its beloved and trusted commander, Col.

Shaw, at once gave it a name and a fame throughout the country. In

that terrible battle, under the wing of night, more cavils in respect

of the quality of negro manhood were set at rest than could have been

during a century of ordinary life and observation. After that assault

we heard no more of sending negroes to garrison forts and arsenals, to

fight miasma, yellow fever, and small-pox. Talk of his ability to meet

the foe in the open field, and of his equal fitness with the white man

to stop a bullet, then began to prevail. From this time (and the fact

ought to be remembered) the colored troops were called upon to occupy

positions which required the courage, steadiness, and endurance of

veterans, and even their enemies were obliged to admit that they proved

themselves worthy the confidence reposed in them. After the 54th and

55th Massachusetts colored regiments were placed in the field, and one

of them had distinguished itself with so much credit in the hour of

trial, the desire to send more such troops to the front became pretty

general. Pennsylvania proposed to raise ten regiments. I was again

called by my friend Mr. Stearns to assist in raising these regiments,

and I set about the work with full purpose of heart, using every

argument of which I was capable, to persuade every colored man able

to bear arms to rally around the flag, and help to save the country

and save the race. It was during this time that the attitude of the

government at Washington caused me deep sadness and discouragement,

and forced me in a measure to suspend my efforts in that direction. I

had assured colored men that once in the Union army they would be put

upon an equal footing with other soldiers; that they would be paid,

promoted, and exchanged as prisoners of war, Jeff. Davis’ threats that

they would be treated as felons to the contrary notwithstanding. But

thus far, the government had not kept its promise, or the promise made

for it. The following letter which I find published in my paper of the

same date will show the course I felt it my duty to take under the

circumstances:

“ROCHESTER, August 1st, 1863.

“MAJOR GEORGE L. STEARNS:

“_My Dear Sir_--Having declined to attend the meeting to

promote enlistments, appointed for me at Pittsburgh, in present

circumstances, I owe you a word of explanation. I have hitherto

deemed it a duty, as it certainly has been a pleasure, to coöperate

with you in the work of raising colored troops in the free States

to fight the battles of the Republic against slaveholding rebels

and traitors. Upon the first call you gave me to this work I

responded with alacrity. I saw, or thought I saw a ray of light,

brightening the future of my whole race as well as that of our

war-troubled country, in arousing colored men to fight for the

nation’s life. I continue to believe in the black man’s arm, and

still have some hope in the integrity of our rulers. Nevertheless I

must for the present leave to others the work of persuading colored

men to join the Union army. I owe it to my long-abused people, and

especially to those already in the army, to expose their wrongs and

plead their cause. I cannot do that in connection with recruiting.

When I plead for recruits I want to do it with all my heart,

without qualification. I cannot do that now. The impression settles

upon me that colored men have much over-rated the enlightenment,

justice, and generosity of our rulers at Washington. In my humble

way I have contributed somewhat to that false estimate. You know

that when the idea of raising colored troops was first suggested,

the special duty to be assigned them, was the garrisoning of forts

and arsenals in certain warm, unhealthy, and miasmatic localities

in the South. They were thought to be better adapted to that

service than white troops. White troops trained to war, brave,

and daring, were to take fortifications, and the blacks were to

hold them from falling again into the hands of the rebels. Three

advantages were to arise out of this wise division of labor: 1st,

the spirit and pride of white troops was not to waste itself in

dull monotonous inactivity in fort life; their arms were to be kept

bright by constant use. 2d, The health of white troops was to be

preserved. 3d, Black troops were to have the advantage of sound

military training and to be otherwise useful, at the same time that

they should be tolerably secure from capture by the rebels, who

early avowed their determination to enslave and slaughter them in

defiance of the laws of war. Two out of the three advantages were

to accrue to the white troops. Thus far, however, I believe that no

such duty as holding fortifications has been committed to colored

troops. They have done far other and more important work than

holding fortifications. I have no special complaint to make at this

point, and I simply mention it to strengthen the statement, that

from the beginning of this business it was the confident belief

among both the colored and white friends of colored enlistments

that President Lincoln as commander-in-chief of the army and navy,

would certainly see to it that his colored troops should be so

handled and disposed of as to be but little exposed to capture

by the rebels, and that, if so exposed, as they have repeatedly

been from the first, the President possessed both the disposition

and the means for compelling the rebels to respect the rights of

such as might fall into their hands. The piratical proclamation of

Jefferson Davis, announcing slavery and assassination to colored

prisoners was before the country and the world. But men had faith

in Mr. Lincoln and his advisers. He was silent to be sure, but

charity suggested that being a man of action rather than words he

only waited for a case in which he should be required to act. This

faith in the man enabled us to speak with warmth and effect in

urging enlistments among colored men. That faith, my dear sir, is

now nearly gone. Various occasions have arisen during the last six

months for the exercise of his power in behalf of the colored men

in his service. But no word comes to us from the war department,

sternly assuring the rebel chief that inquisition shall yet be made

for innocent blood. No word of retaliation when a black man is

slain by a rebel in cold blood. No word was said when free men from

Massachusetts were caught and sold into slavery in Texas. No word

is said when brave black men who, according to the testimony of

both friend and foe, fought like heroes to plant the star-spangled

banner on the blazing parapets of Fort Wagner, and in doing so were

captured, some mutilated and killed, and others sold into slavery.

The same crushing silence reigns over this scandalous outrage as

over that of the slaughtered teamsters at Murfreesboro; the same

as over that at Milliken’s Bend and Vicksburg. I am free to say, my

dear sir, that the case looks as if the confiding colored soldiers

had been betrayed into bloody hands by the very government in whose

defence they were heroically fighting. I know what you will say to

this; you will say ‘wait a little longer, and after all the best

way to have justice done to your people is to get them into the

army as fast as you can.’ You may be right in this; my argument

has been the same, but have we not already waited, and have we

not already shown the highest qualities of soldiers, and on this

account deserve the protection of the government for which we are

fighting? Can any case stronger than that before Charleston ever

arise! 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

54th’s must be cut to pieces, its mutilated prisoners killed, and

its living sold into slavery, to be tortured to death by inches,

before Mr. Lincoln shall say, ‘Hold, enough!’

“You know the 54th. To you, more than to any one man belongs the

credit of raising that regiment. Think of its noble and brave

officers literally hacked to pieces, while many of its rank and

file have been sold into slavery worse than death, and pardon me,

if I hesitate about assisting in raising a fourth regiment until

the President shall give the same protection to them as to white

soldiers.

With warm and sincere regards,

FREDERICK DOUGLAS.”

“Since writing the foregoing letter, which we have now put upon

record, we have received assurances from Major Stearns that the

government of the United States is already taking measures which

will secure the captured colored soldiers at Charleston and

elsewhere the same protection against slavery and cruelty extended

to white soldiers. What ought to have been done at the beginning,

comes late, but it comes. The poor colored soldiers have purchased

interference dearly. It really seems that nothing of justice,

liberty, or humanity can come to us except through tears and blood.”

THE BLACK MAN AT THE WHITE HOUSE.

My efforts to secure just and fair treatment for the colored soldiers

did not stop at letters and speeches. At the suggestion of my friend,

Major Stearns, to whom the foregoing letter was addressed, I was

induced to go to Washington and lay the complaints of my people before

President Lincoln and the secretary of war; and to urge upon them

such action as should secure to the colored troops then fighting for

the country, a reasonable degree of fair play. I need not say that at

the time I undertook this mission it required much more nerve than a

similar one would require now. The distance then between the black man

and the white American citizen, was immeasurable. I was an ex-slave,

identified with a despised race; and yet I was to meet the most exalted

person in this great republic. It was altogether an unwelcome duty, and

one from which I would gladly have been excused. I could not know what

kind of a reception would be accorded me. I might be told to go home

and mind my business, and leave such questions as I had come to discuss

to be managed by the men wisely chosen by the American people to deal

with them. Or I might be refused an interview altogether. Nevertheless,

I felt bound to go; and my acquaintance with Senators Charles Sumner,

Henry Wilson, Samuel Pomeroy, Secretary Salmon P. Chase, Secretary

William H. Seward, and Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana,

encouraged me to hope at least for a civil reception. My confidence

was fully justified in the result. I shall never forget my first

interview with this great man. I was accompanied to the executive

mansion and introduced to President Lincoln by Senator Pomeroy.

The room in which he received visitors was the one now used by the

president’s secretaries. I entered it with a moderate estimate of my

own consequence, and yet there I was to talk with, and even to advise,

the head man of a great nation. Happily for me, there was no vain pomp

and ceremony about him. I was never more quickly or more completely

put at ease in the presence of a great man, than in that of Abraham

Lincoln. He was seated, when I entered, in a low arm chair, with his

feet extended on the floor, surrounded by a large number of documents,

and several busy secretaries. The room bore the marks of business,

and the persons in it, the president included, appeared to be much

over-worked and tired. Long lines of care were already deeply written

on Mr. Lincoln’s brow, and his strong face, full of earnestness,

lighted up as soon as my name was mentioned. As I approached and was

introduced to him, he rose and extended his hand, and bade me welcome.

I at once felt myself 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 all 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 deal fairly with them in several respects. 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 if Jefferson Davis should shoot or hang colored

soldiers in cold blood, the United States government should retaliate

in kind and degree without delay upon Confederate prisoners in its

hands. Third, when colored soldiers, seeking the “bauble-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 had

evidently thought himself before upon the same points. He impressed me

with the solid gravity of his character, by his silent listening not

less than by his earnest reply to my words.

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 any conditions; 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; one which 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, and less evil would be

done if retaliation were not resorted to. 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 appeared 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, I determined to go on with the recruiting.