In 1842 I was sent by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to hold

a Sunday meeting in Pittsfield, N. H., and was given the name of Mr.

Hilles, a subscriber to the _Liberator_. It was supposed that any man

who had the courage to take and read the _Liberator_, edited by Wm.

Lloyd Garrison, or the _Herald of Freedom_, edited by Nathaniel P.

Rodgers, would gladly receive and give food and shelter to any colored

brother laboring in the cause of the slave. As a general rule this was

very true.

There were no railroads in New Hampshire in those days, so I reached

Pittsfield by stage, glad to be permitted to ride upon the top thereof,

for no colored person could be allowed inside. This was many years

before the days of civil rights bills, black Congressmen, colored

United States Marshals, and such like.

Arriving at Pittsfield, I was asked by the driver where I would stop.

I gave him the name of my subscriber to the _Liberator_. “That is two

miles beyond,” he said. So after landing his other passengers, he took

me on to the house of Mr. Hilles.

I confess I did not seem a very desirable visitor. The day had been

warm, and the road dusty. I was covered with dust, and then I was not

of the color fashionable in that neighborhood, for colored people were

scarce in that part of the old Granite State. I saw in an instant, that

though the weather was warm, I was to have a cool reception; but cool

or warm, there was no alternative left me but to stay and take what I

could get.

Mr. Hilles scarcely spoke to me, and from the moment he saw me jump

down from the top of the stage, carpet-bag in hand, his face wore a

troubled look. His good wife took the matter more philosophically,

and evidently thought my presence there for a day or two could do

the family no especial harm; but her manner was restrained, silent,

and formal, wholly unlike that of anti-slavery ladies I had met in

Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

When tea time came, I found that Mr. Hilles had lost his appetite, and

could not come to the table. I suspected his trouble was colorphobia,

and though I regretted his malady, I knew his case was not necessarily

dangerous; and I was not without some confidence in my skill and

ability in healing diseases of that type. I was, however, so affected

by his condition that I could not eat much of the pie and cake before

me, and felt so little in harmony with things about me that I was, for

me, remarkably reticent during the evening, both before and after the

family worship, for Mr. Hilles was a pious man.

Sunday morning came, and in due season the hour for meeting. I had

arranged a good supply of work for the day. I was to speak four times:

at ten o’clock A. M., at one P. M., at five, and again at half-past

seven in the evening.

When meeting time came, Mr. Hilles brought his fine phaeton to the

door, assisted his wife in, and, although there were two vacant seats

in his carriage, there was no room in it for me. On driving off from

his door, he merely said, addressing me, “You can find your way to the

town hall, I suppose?” “I suppose I can,” I replied, and started along

behind his carriage on the dusty road toward the village. I found the

hall, and was very glad to see in my small audience the face of good

Mrs. Hilles. Her husband was not there, but had gone to his church.

There was no one to introduce me, and I proceeded with my discourse

without introduction. I held my audience till twelve o’clock--noon--

and then took the usual recess of Sunday meetings in country towns, to

allow the people to take their lunch. No one invited me to lunch, so

I remained in the town hall till the audience assembled again, when I

spoke till nearly three o’clock, when the people again dispersed and

left me as before. By this time I began to be hungry, and seeing a

small hotel near, I went into it, and offered to buy a meal; but I was

told “they did not entertain niggers there.” I went back to the old

town hall hungry and chilled, for an infant “New England northeaster”

was beginning to chill the air, and a drizzling rain to fall. I saw

that my movements were being observed, from the comfortable homes

around, with apparently something of the feeling that children might

experience in seeing a bear prowling about town. There was a grave-yard

near the town hall, and attracted thither, I felt some relief in

contemplating the resting places of the dead, where there was an end to

all distinctions between rich and poor, white and colored, high and low.

While thus meditating on the vanities of the world and my own

loneliness and destitution, and recalling the sublime pathos of the

saying of Jesus, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have

nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head,” I was

approached rather hesitatingly by a gentleman, who inquired my name.

“My name is Douglass,” I replied. “You do not seem to have any place

to stay while in town?” I told him I had not. “Well,” said he, “I am

no abolitionist, but if you will go with me I will take care of you.”

I thanked him, and turned with him towards his fine residence. On the

way I asked him his name. “Moses Norris,” he said. “What! Hon. Moses

Norris?” I asked. “Yes,” he answered. I did not for a moment know what

to do, for I had read that this same man had literally dragged the

Reverend George Storrs from the pulpit, for preaching abolitionism. I,

however, walked along with him and was invited into his house, when I

heard the children running and screaming “Mother, mother, there is a

nigger in the house, there’s a nigger in the house”; and it was with

some difficulty that Mr. Norris succeeded in quieting the tumult. I

saw that Mrs. Norris, too, was much disturbed by my presence, and I

thought for a moment of beating a retreat, but the kind assurances of

Mr. Norris decided me to stay. When quiet was restored, I ventured the

experiment of asking Mrs. Norris to do me a kindness. I said, “Mrs.

Norris, I have taken cold, and am hoarse from speaking, and I have

found that nothing relieves me so readily as a little loaf sugar and

cold water.” The lady’s manner changed, and with her own hands she

brought me the water and sugar. I thanked her with genuine earnestness,

and from that moment I could see that her prejudices were more than

half gone, and that I was more than half welcome at the fireside of

this Democratic Senator. I spoke again in the evening, and at the close

of the meeting there was quite a contest between Mrs. Norris and Mrs.

Hilles, as to which I should go home with. I considered Mrs. Hilles’

kindness to me, though her manner had been formal; I knew the cause,

and I thought, especially as my carpet-bag was there, I would go with

her. So giving Mr. and Mrs. Norris many thanks, I bade them good-bye,

and went home with Mr. and Mrs. Hilles, where I found the atmosphere

wondrously and most agreeably changed. Next day, Mr. Hilles took me

in the same carriage in which I did _not ride_ on Sunday, to my next

appointment, and on the way told me he felt more honored by having

me in it, than he would be if he had the President of the United

States. This compliment would have been a little more flattering to my

self-esteem, had not John Tyler then occupied the Presidential chair.

In those unhappy days of the Republic, when all presumptions were in

favor of slavery, and a colored man as a slave met less resistance

in the use of public conveyances than a colored man as a freeman, I

happened to be in Philadelphia, and was afforded an opportunity to

witness this preference. I took a seat in a street car by the side of

my friend Mrs. Amy Post, of Rochester, New York, who, like myself, had

come to Philadelphia to attend an anti-slavery meeting. I had no sooner

seated myself when the conductor hastened to remove me from the car.

My friend remonstrated, and the amazed conductor said, “Lady, does he

belong to you?” “He does,” said Mrs. Post, and there the matter ended.

I was allowed to ride in peace, not because I was a man, and had paid

my fare, but because I belonged to somebody? My color was no longer

offensive when it was supposed that I was not a person, but a piece of

property.

Another time, in the same city, I took a seat, unobserved, far up

in the street car, among the white passengers. All at once I heard

the conductor, in an angry tone, order another colored man, who was

modestly standing on the platform of the rear end of the car, to get

off, and actually stopped the car to push him off, when I, from within,

with all the emphasis I could throw into my voice, in imitation of

my chivalrous friend Marshall of Kentucky, sung out, “Go on! let the

gentleman alone; no one here objects to his riding!” Unhappily the

fellow saw where the voice came from, and turned his wrathful attention

to me, and said, “You shall get out also!” I told him I would do no

such thing, and if he attempted to remove me by force he would do it at

his peril. Whether the young man was afraid to tackle me, or did not

wish to disturb the passengers, I do not know. At any rate he did not

attempt to execute his threat, and I rode on in peace till I reached

Chestnut street, when I got off and went about my business.

On my way down the Hudson river, from Albany to New York, at one time,

on the steamer Alida, in company with some English ladies who had seen

me in their own country, received and treated me as a gentleman, I

ventured, like any other passenger, to go, at the call of the dinner

bell, into the cabin and take a seat at the table; but I was forcibly

taken from it and compelled to leave the cabin. My friends, who wished

to enjoy a day’s trip on the beautiful Hudson, left the table with me,

and went to New York hungry and not a little indignant and disgusted at

such barbarism. There were influential persons on board the Alida, on

this occasion, a word from whom might have spared me this indignity;

but there was no Edward Marshall among them to defend the weak and

rebuke the strong.

When Miss Sarah Jane Clark, one of America’s brilliant literary ladies,

known to the world under the _nom de plume_ of Grace Greenwood, was

young, and as brave as she was beautiful, I encountered a similar

experience to that on the Alida on one of the Ohio river steamers; and

that lady, being on board, arose from her seat at the table, expressed

her disapprobation, and moved majestically away with her sister to the

upper deck. Her conduct seemed to amaze the lookers on, but it filled

me with grateful admiration.

When on my way to attend the great Free Soil Convention at Pittsburg,

in 1852, which nominated John P. Hale for President, and George W.

Julian for Vice-President, the train stopped for dinner at Alliance,

Ohio, and I attempted to enter the hotel with the other delegates, but

was rudely repulsed, when many of them, learning of it, rose from the

table, and denounced the outrage, and refused to finish their dinners.

In anticipation of our return, at the close of the Convention, Mr. Sam.

Beck, the proprietor of the hotel, prepared dinner for three hundred

guests, but when the train arrived, not one of the large company went

into his place, and his dinner was left to spoil.

A dozen years ago, or more, on one of the frostiest and coldest nights

I ever experienced, I delivered a lecture in the town of Elmwood,

Illinois, twenty miles distant from Peoria. It was one of those bleak

and flinty nights, when prairie winds pierce like needles, and a step

on the snow sounds like a file on the steel teeth of a saw. My next

appointment after Elmwood was on Monday night, and in order to reach

it in time, it was necessary to go to Peoria the night previous, so as

to take an early morning train, and I could only accomplish this by

leaving Elmwood after my lecture at midnight, for there was no Sunday

train. So a little before the hour at which my train was expected

at Elmwood, I started for the station with my friend Mr. Brown, the

gentleman who had kindly entertained me during my stay. On the way I

said to him, “I am going to Peoria with something like a real dread

of the place. I expect to be compelled to walk the streets of that

city all night to keep from freezing.” I told him “that the last time

I was there I could obtain no shelter at any hotel, and that I feared

I should meet a similar exclusion to-night.” Mr. Brown was visibly

affected by the statement, and for some time was silent. At last, as

if suddenly discovering a way out of a painful situation, he said, “I

know a man in Peoria, should the hotels be closed against you there,

who would gladly open his doors to you--a man who will receive you

at any hour of the night, and in any weather, and that man is Robert

J. Ingersoll.” “Why,” said I, “it would not do to disturb a family at

such a time as I shall arrive there, on a night so cold as this.” “No

matter about the hour,” he said; “neither he nor his family would be

happy if they thought you were shelterless on such a night. I know

Mr. Ingersoll, and that he will be glad to welcome you at midnight or

at cock-crow.” I became much interested by this description of Mr.

Ingersoll. Fortunately I had no occasion for disturbing him or his

family. I found quarters at the best hotel in the city for the night.

In the morning I resolved to know more of this now famous and noted

“infidel.” I gave him an early call, for I was not so abundant in

cash as to refuse hospitality in a strange city when on a mission of

“good will to men.” The experiment worked admirably. Mr. Ingersoll was

at home, and if I have ever met a man with real living human sunshine

in his face, and honest, manly kindness in his voice, I met one who

possessed these qualities that morning. I received a welcome from Mr.

Ingersoll and his family which would have been a cordial to the bruised

heart of any proscribed and storm-beaten stranger, and one which I

can never forget or fail to appreciate. Perhaps there were Christian

ministers and Christian families in Peoria at that time by whom I might

have been received in the same gracious manner. In charity I am bound

to say there probably were such ministers and such families, but I

am equally bound to say that in my former visits to this place I had

failed to find them. Incidents of this character have greatly tended

to liberalize my views as to the value of creeds in estimating the

character of men. They have brought me to the conclusion that genuine

goodness is the same, whether found inside or outside the church, and

that to be an “infidel” no more proves a man to be selfish, mean, and

wicked, than to be evangelical proves him to be honest, just, and

humane.

It may possibly be inferred from what I have said of the prevalence

of prejudice, and the practice of proscription, that I have had a

very miserable sort of life, or that I must be remarkably insensible

to public aversion. Neither inference is true. I have neither been

miserable because of the ill-feeling of those about me, nor indifferent

to popular approval; and I think, upon the whole, I have passed a

tolerably cheerful and even joyful life. I have never felt myself

isolated since I entered the field to plead the cause of the slave,

and demand equal rights for all. In every town and city where it has

been my lot to speak, there have been raised up for me friends of both

colors to cheer and strengthen me in my work. I have always felt, too,

that I had on my side all the invisible forces of the moral government

of the universe. Happily for me I have had the wit to distinguish

between what is merely artificial and transient and what is fundamental

and permanent; and resting on the latter, I could cheerfully encounter

the former. “How do you feel,” said a friend to me, “when you are

hooted and jeered on the street on account of your color?” “I feel as

if an ass had kicked but had hit nobody,” was my answer.

I have been greatly helped to bear up under unfriendly conditions,

too, by a constitutional tendency to see the funny sides of things

which has enabled me to laugh at follies that others would soberly

resent. Besides, there were compensations as well as drawbacks in my

relations to the white race. A passenger on the deck of a Hudson River

steamer, covered with a shawl, well-worn and dingy, I was addressed by

a remarkably-religiously-missionary-looking man in black coat and white

cravat, who took me for one of the noble red men of the far West, with

“From away back?” I was silent, and he added, “Indian, Indian?” “No,

no,” I said; “I am a negro.” The dear man seemed to have no missionary

work with me, and retreated with evident marks of disgust.

On another occasion, traveling by a night train on the New York Central

railroad, when the cars were crowded and seats were scarce, and I

was occupying a whole seat, the only luxury my color afforded me in

traveling, I had laid down with my head partly covered, thinking myself

secure in my possession, when a well dressed man approached and wished

to share the seat with me. Slightly rising, I said, “Don’t sit down

here, my friend, I am a nigger.” “I don’t care who the devil you are,”

he said, “I mean to sit with you.” “Well, if it must be so,” I said,

“I can stand it if you can,” and we at once fell into a very pleasant

conversation, and passed the hours on the road very happily together.

These two incidents illustrate my career in respect of popular

prejudice. If I have had kicks, I have also had kindness. If cast down,

I have been exalted; and the latter experience has, after all, far

exceeded the former.

During a quarter of a century I resided in the city of Rochester,

N. Y. When I removed from there, my friends caused a marble bust to

be made from me, and have since honored it with a place in Sibley

Hall, of Rochester University. Less in a spirit of vanity than that

of gratitude, I copy here the remarks of the Rochester _Democrat and

Chronicle_ on the occasion, and on my letter of thanks for the honor

done me by my friends and fellow-citizens of that beautiful city:

ROCHESTER, June 28, 1879.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

“It will be remembered that a bust of Frederick Douglass was

recently placed in Sibley Hall of the University of Rochester.

The ceremonies were quite informal, too informal, we think, as

commemorating a deserved tribute from the people of Rochester

to one who will always rank as among her most distinguished

citizens. Mr. Douglass himself was not notified officially of the

event, and therefore could, in no public manner, take notice of

it. He was, however, informed privately of it by the gentleman

whose address is given below, and responded to it most happily,

as will be seen by the following letter which we are permitted

to publish.” Then follows the letter which I omit, and add the

further comments of the _Chronicle_. “It were alone worth all the

efforts of the gentlemen who united in the fitting recognition of

the public services and the private worth of Frederick Douglass,

to have inspired a letter thus tender in its sentiment, and so

suggestive of the various phases of a career than which the

republic has witnessed none more strange or more noble. Frederick

Douglass can hardly be said to have risen to greatness on account

of the opportunities which the republic offers to self-made men,

and concerning which we are apt to talk with an abundance of

self-gratulation. It sought to fetter his mind equally with his

body. For him it builded no school-house, and for him it erected

no church. So far as he was concerned freedom was a mockery, and

law was the instrument of tyranny. In spite of law and gospel,

despite of statutes which thralled him and opportunities which

jeered at him, he made himself by trampling on the law and

breaking through the thick darkness that encompassed him. There

is no sadder commentary upon American slavery than the life of

Frederick Douglass. He put it under his feet and stood erect in

the majesty of his intellect; but how many intellects as brilliant

and as powerful as his it stamped upon and crushed, no mortal

can tell until the secrets of its terrible despotism are fully

revealed. Thanks to the conquering might of American freemen, such

sad beginnings of such illustrious lives as that of Frederick

Douglass are no longer possible; and that they are no longer

possible, is largely due to him who, when his lips were unlocked,

became a deliverer of his people. Not alone did his voice proclaim

emancipation. Eloquent as was that voice, his life in its pathos

and in its grandeur, was more eloquent still; and where shall be

found, in the annals of humanity, a sweeter rendering of poetic

justice than that he, who has passed through such vicissitudes

of degradation and exaltation, has been permitted to behold the

redemption of his race?

“Rochester is proud to remember that Frederick Douglass was, for

many years, one of her citizens. He who pointed out the house

where Douglass lived, hardly exaggerated when he called it the

residence of the greatest of our citizens; for Douglass must rank

as among the greatest men, not only of this city, but of the nation

as well--great in gifts, greater in utilizing them, great in his

inspiration, greater in his efforts for humanity, great in the

persuasion of his speech, greater in the purpose that informed it.

“Rochester could do nothing more graceful than to perpetuate in

marble the features of this citizen in her hall of learning; and

it is pleasant for her to know that he so well appreciates the

esteem in which he is held here. It was a thoughtful thing for

Rochester to do, and the response is as heartfelt as the tribute is

appropriate.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

“HONOR TO WHOM HONOR.”

Grateful recognition--Friends in need--Lucretia Mott--Lydia Maria

Child--Sarah and Angelina Grimke--Abby Kelly--H. Beecher Stowe--

Other Friends--Woman Suffrage.

Gratitude to benefactors is a well recognized virtue, and to express

it in some form or other, however imperfectly, is a duty to ourselves

as well as to those who have helped us. Never reluctant or tardy, I

trust, in the discharge of this duty, I have seldom been satisfied

with the manner of its performance. When I have made my best effort in

this line, my words have done small justice to my feelings. And now,

in mentioning my obligations to my special friends, and acknowledging

the help I received from them in the days of my need, I can hope

to do no better than give a faint hint of my sense of the value of

their friendship and assistance. I have sometimes been credited with

having been the architect of my own fortune, and have pretty generally

received the title of a “self-made man;” and while I cannot altogether

disclaim this title, when I look back over the facts of my life, and

consider the helpful influences exerted upon me, by friends more

fortunately born and educated than myself, I am compelled to give them

at least an equal measure of credit, with myself, for the success

which has attended my labors in life. The little energy, industry, and

perseverance which have been mine, would hardly have availed me, in

the absence of thoughtful friends, and highly favoring circumstances.

Without these, the last forty years of my life might have been spent

on the wharves of New Bedford, rolling oil casks, loading ships for

whaling voyages, sawing wood, putting in coal, picking up a job here

and there, wherever I could find one, holding my own with difficulty

against gauntsided poverty, in the race for life and bread. I never

see one of my old companions of the lower strata, begrimed by toil,

hard handed, and dust covered, receiving for wages scarcely enough to

keep the “wolf” at a respectful distance from his door and hearthstone,

without a fellow feeling and the thought that I have been separated

from him only by circumstances other than those of my own making. Much

to be thankful for, but little room for boasting here. It was mine to

take the “Tide at its flood.” It was my good fortune to get out of

slavery at the right time, and to be speedily brought into contact with

that circle of highly cultivated men and women, banded together for the

overthrow of slavery, of which Wm. Lloyd Garrison was the acknowledged

leader. To these friends, earnest, courageous, inflexible, ready to own

me as a man and brother, against all the scorn, contempt, and derision

of a slavery-polluted atmosphere, I owe my success in life. The story

is simple, and the truth plain. They thought that I possessed qualities

that might be made useful to my race, and through them I was brought to

the notice of the world, and gained a hold upon the attention of the

American people, which I hope remains unbroken to this day. The list of

these friends is too long certainly to be inserted here, but I cannot

forbear to recall in this connection the names of Francis Jackson,

Joseph Southwick, Samuel E. Sewell, Samuel J. May, John Pierpont,

Henry I. Bowditch, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy,

Isaac T. Hopper, James N. Buffum, Ellis Gray Loring, Andrew Robeson,

Seth Hunt, Arnold Buffum, Nathaniel B. Borden, Boone Spooner, William

Thomas, John Milton Earle, John Curtis, George Foster, Clother Gifford,

John Bailey, Nathaniel P. Rodgers, Stephen S. Foster, Parker Pillsbury,

the Hutchinson family, Dr. Peleg Clark, the Burleigh brothers, William

Chase, Samuel and Harvey Chase, John Brown, C. C. Eldredge, Daniel

Mitchell, William Adams, Isaac Kenyon, Joseph Sisson, Daniel Goold,

Kelton brothers, Geo. James Adams, Martin Cheeney, Edward Harris,

Robert Shove, Alpheus Jones, Asa Fairbanks, Gen. Sam’l Fessenden,

William Aplin, John Clark, Thomas Davis, George L. Clark; these all

took me to their hearts and homes, and inspired me with an incentive

which a confiding and helpful friendship can alone impart.

Nor were my influential friends all of the Caucasian race. While many

of my own people thought me unwise and somewhat fanatical in announcing

myself a fugitive slave, and in practically asserting the rights of

my people, on all occasions, in season and out of season, there were

brave and intelligent men of color all over the United States who gave

me their cordial sympathy and support. Among these, and foremost, I

place the name of Doctor James McCune Smith; educated in Scotland, and

breathing the free air of that country, he came back to his native land

with ideas of liberty which placed him in advance of most of his fellow

citizens of African descent. He was not only a learned and skillful

physician, but an effective speaker, and a keen and polished writer.

In my newspaper enterprise, I found in him an earnest and effective

helper. The cause of his people lost an able advocate when he died. He

was never among the timid who thought me too aggressive and wished me

to tone down my testimony to suit the times. A brave man himself, he

knew how to esteem courage in others.

Of David Ruggles I have already spoken. He gave me my send off from

New York to New Bedford, and when I came into public life, he was

among the first with words of cheer. Jehial C. Beman too, a noble man,

kindly took me by the hand. Thomas Van Rauselear was among my fast

friends. No young man, starting in an untried field of usefulness,

and needing support, could find that support in larger measure than

I found it, in William Whipper, Robert Purvis, William P. Powell,

Nathan Johnson, Charles B. Ray, Thomas Downing, Theodore S. Wright,

Charles L. Reason. Notwithstanding what I have said of my treatment,

at times, by people of my own color, when traveling, I am bound to say

that there is another and brighter side to that picture. Among the

waiters and attendants on public conveyances, I have often found real

gentlemen; intelligent, aspiring, and those who fully appreciated all

my efforts in behalf of our common cause. Especially have I found this

to be the case in the East. A more gentlemanly and self-respecting

class of men it would be difficult to find, than those to be met on the

various lines between New York and Boston. I have never wanted for kind

attention, or any effort they could make to render my journeying with

them smooth and pleasant. I owe this solely to my work in our common

cause, and to their intelligent estimate of the value of that work.

Republics are said to be ungrateful, but ingratitude is not among the

weaknesses of my people. No people ever had a more lively sense of the

value of faithful endeavor to serve their interests than they. But for

this feeling towards me on their part, I might have passed many nights

hungry and cold, and without any place to lay my head. I need not name

my colored friends to whom I am thus indebted. They do not desire such

mention, but I wish any who have shown me kindness, even so much as to

give me a cup of cold water, to feel themselves included in my thanks.

It is also due to myself, to make some more emphatic mention than I

have yet done, of the honorable women, who have not only assisted me,

but who according to their opportunity and ability, have generously

contributed to the abolition of slavery and the recognition of the

equal manhood of the colored race. When the true history of the

anti-slavery cause shall be written, woman will occupy a large

space in its pages; for the cause of the slave has been peculiarly

woman’s cause. Her heart and her conscience have supplied in large

degree its motive and mainspring. Her skill, industry, patience, and

perseverance have been wonderfully manifest in every trial hour. Not

only did her feet run on “willing errands,” and her fingers do the work

which in large degree supplied the sinews of war, but her deep moral

convictions, and her tender human sensibilities, found convincing and

persuasive expression by her pen and her voice. Foremost among these

notable American women, who in point of clearness of vision, breadth of

understanding, fullness of knowledge, catholicity of spirit, weight of

character, and widespread influence, was Lucretia Mott of Philadelphia.

Great as this woman was in speech, and persuasive as she was in her

writings, she was incomparably greater in her presence. She spoke to

the world through every line of her countenance. In her there was

no lack of symmetry--no contradiction between her thought and act.

Seated in an anti-slavery meeting, looking benignantly around upon the

assembly, her silent presence made others eloquent, and carried the

argument home to the heart of the audience.

The known approval of such a woman of any cause, went far to commend it.

I shall never forget the first time I ever saw and heard Lucretia

Mott. It was in the town of Lynn, Massachusetts. It was not in a

magnificent hall, where such as she seemed to belong, but in a little

hall over Jonathan Buffum’s store, the only place then open, even in

that so-called radical anti-slavery town, for an anti-slavery meeting

on Sunday. But in this day of small things, the smallness of the place

was no matter of complaint or murmuring. It was a cause of rejoicing

that any kind of place could be had for such a purpose. But Jonathan

Buffum’s courage was equal to this and more.

The speaker was attired in the usual Quaker dress, free from startling

colors, plain, rich, elegant, and without superfluity--the very sight

of her a sermon. In a few moments after she began to speak, I saw

before me no more a woman, but a glorified presence, bearing a message

of light and love from the Infinite to a benighted and strangely

wandering world, straying away from the paths of truth and justice

into the wilderness of pride and selfishness, where peace is lost and

true happiness is sought in vain. I heard Mrs. Mott thus, when she

was comparatively young. I have often heard her since, sometimes in

the solemn temple, and sometimes under the open sky, but whenever and

wherever I have listened to her, my heart was always made better, and

my spirit raised by her words; and in speaking thus for myself I am

sure I am expressing the experience of thousands.

Kindred in spirit with Mrs. Mott was Lydia Maria Child. They both

exerted an influence with a class of the American people which neither

Garrison, Phillips, nor Gerrit Smith could reach. Sympathetic in her

nature, it was easy for her to “remember those in bonds as bound with

them;” and her “appeal for that class of Americans called Africans,”

issued, as it was, at an early stage in the anti-slavery conflict,

was one of the most effective agencies in arousing attention to the

cruelty and injustice of slavery. When with her husband, David Lee

Child, she edited the _National Anti-Slavery Standard_, that paper was

made attractive to a broad circle of readers, from the circumstance

that each issue contained a “Letter from New York,” written by her on

some passing subject of the day, in which she always managed to infuse

a spirit of brotherly love and good will, with an abhorrence of all

that was unjust, selfish, and mean, and in this way won many hearts to

anti-slavery who else would have remained cold and indifferent.

Of Sarah and Angelina Grimke I knew but little personally. These brave

sisters from Charleston, South Carolina, had inherited slaves, but

in their conversion from Episcopacy to Quakerism, in 1828, became

convinced that they had no right to such inheritance. They emancipated

their slaves and came North and entered at once upon the pioneer work

in the advancing education of woman, though they saw then in their

course only their duty to the slave. They had “fought the good fight”

before I came into the ranks, but by their unflinching testimony and

unwavering courage, they had opened the way and made it possible, if

not easy, for other women to follow their example.

It is memorable of them that their public advocacy of anti-slavery

was made the occasion of the issuing of a papal bull in the form of a

“Pastoral letter,” by the Evangelical clergy of Boston, in which the

churches and all God-fearing people were warned against their influence.

For solid, persistent, indefatigable work for the slave, Abby Kelley

was without rival. In the “History of Woman Suffrage,” just published

by Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, and Mrs. Goslin Gage, there is this

fitting tribute to her: “Abby Kelley was the most untiring and most

persecuted of all the women who labored throughout the anti-slavery

struggle. She traveled up and down, alike in winter’s cold and

summer’s heat, with scorn, ridicule, violence, and mobs accompanying

her, suffering all kinds of persecutions, still speaking whenever and

wherever she gained an audience,--in the open air, in school-house,

barn, depot, church, or public hall, on weekday or Sunday, as she found

opportunity.” And, incredible as it will soon seem, if it does not

appear so already, “for listening to her on Sunday many men and women

were expelled from their churches.”

When the abolitionists of Rhode Island were seeking to defeat the

restricted constitution of the Dorr party, already referred to in this

volume, Abby Kelley was more than once mobbed in the old Town Hall in

the city of Providence, and pelted with bad eggs.

And what can be said of the gifted authoress of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,”

Harriet Beecher Stowe? Happy woman must she be, that to her was given

the power, in such unstinted measure, to touch and move the popular

heart! More than to reason or religion are we indebted to the influence

which this wonderful delineation of American chattel slavery produced

on the public mind.

Nor must I omit to name the daughter of the excellent Myron Holley,

who in her youth and beauty espoused the cause of the slave; nor of

Lucy Stone, and Antoinette Brown; for when the slave had few friends

and advocates they were noble enough to speak their best word in his

behalf.

Others there were, who, though they were not known on the platform,

were none the less earnest and effective for anti-slavery in their more

retired lives. There were many such to greet me, and welcome me to my

newly found heritage of freedom. They met me as a brother, and by their

kind consideration did much to make endurable the rebuffs I encountered

elsewhere. At the anti-slavery office in Providence, Rhode Island, I

remember with a peculiar interest Lucinda Wilmarth, whose acceptance

of life’s duties and labors, and whose heroic struggle with sickness

and death, taught me more than one lesson; and Amorancy Paine, never

weary in performing any service, however arduous, which fidelity to the

slave demanded of her. Then there was Phebe Jackson, Elizabeth Chace,

the Sisson sisters, the Chases, the Greenes, the Browns, the Goolds,

the Shoves, the Anthonys, the Roses, the Fayerweathers, the Motts,

the Earles, the Spooners, the Southwicks, the Buffums, the Fords, the

Wilburs, the Henshaws, the Burgesses, and others whose names are lost,

but whose deeds are living yet in the regenerated life of our new

Republic, cleansed from the curse and sin of slavery.

Observing woman’s agency, devotion, and efficiency in pleading the

cause of the slave, gratitude for this high service early moved me to

give favorable attention to the subject of what is called “Woman’s

Rights,” and caused me to be denominated a woman’s-rights-man. I

am glad to say I have never been ashamed to be thus designated.

Recognizing not sex, nor physical strength, but moral intelligence and

the ability to discern right from wrong, good from evil, and the power

to choose between them, as the true basis of Republican government, to

which all are alike subject, and bound alike to obey, I was not long

in reaching the conclusion that there was no foundation in reason or

justice for woman’s exclusion from the right of choice in the selection

of the persons who should frame the laws, and thus shape the destiny of

all the people, irrespective of sex.

In a conversation with Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, when she was yet

a young lady, and an earnest abolitionist, she was at the pains of

setting before me, in a very strong light, the wrong and injustice of

this exclusion. I could not meet her arguments except with the shallow

plea of “custom,” “natural division of duties,” “indelicacy of woman’s

taking part in politics,” the common talk of “woman’s sphere,” and

the like, all of which that able woman, who was then no less logical

than now, brushed away by those arguments which she has so often and

effectively used since, and which no man has yet successfully refuted.

If intelligence is the only true and rational basis of government,

it follows that that is the best government which draws its life and

power from the largest sources of wisdom, energy, and goodness at its

command. The force of this reasoning would be easily comprehended and

readily assented to in any case involving the employment of physical

strength. We should all see the folly and madness of attempting to

accomplish with a part what could only be done with the united strength

of the whole. Though this folly may be less apparent, it is just as

real, when one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the world

is excluded from any voice or vote in civil government. In this denial

of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation

of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the

maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power

for the government of the world. Thus far all human governments have

been failures, for none have secured, except in a partial degree, the

ends for which governments are instituted.

War, slavery, injustice, and oppression, and the idea that might makes

right, have been uppermost in all such governments; and the weak,

for whose protection governments are ostensibly created, have had

practically no rights which the strong have felt bound to respect.

The slayers of thousands have been exalted into heroes, and the

worship of mere physical force has been considered glorious. Nations

have been and still are but armed camps, expending their wealth and

strength and ingenuity in forging weapons of destruction against each

other; and while it may not be contended that the introduction of the

feminine element in government would entirely cure this tendency to

exalt might over right, many reasons can be given to show that woman’s

influence would greatly tend to check and modify this barbarous and

destructive tendency. At any rate, seeing that the male governments of

the world have failed, it can do no harm to try the experiment of a

government by man and woman united. But it is not my purpose to argue

the question here, but simply to state, in a brief way, the ground

of my espousal of the cause of woman’s suffrage. I believed that the

exclusion of my race from participation in government was not only a

wrong, but a great mistake, because it took from that race motives

for high thought and endeavor, and degraded them in the eyes of the

world around them. Man derives a sense of his consequence in the world

not merely subjectively, but objectively. If from the cradle through

life the outside world brands a class as unfit for this or that work,

the character of the class will come to resemble and conform to the

character described. To find valuable qualities in our fellows, such

qualities must be presumed and expected. I would give woman a vote,

give her a motive to qualify herself to vote, precisely as I insisted

upon giving the colored man the right to vote, in order that he should

have the same motives for making himself a useful citizen as those in

force in the case of other citizens. In a word, I have never yet been

able to find one consideration, one argument, or suggestion in favor of

man’s right to participate in civil government which did not equally

apply to the right of woman.

CHAPTER XIX.

RETROSPECTION.

Meeting of colored citizens in Washington to express their sympathy at

the great national bereavement, the death of President Garfield--

Concluding reflections and convictions.

On the day of the interment of the late James A. Garfield, at Lake View

Cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio, a day of gloom long to be remembered as

the closing scene in one of the most tragic and startling dramas ever

witnessed in this, or in any other country, the colored people of the

District of Columbia assembled in the Fifteenth street Presbyterian

church, and expressed by appropriate addresses and resolutions, their

respect for the character and memory of the illustrious deceased. On

that occasion I was called on to preside, and by way of introducing

the subsequent proceedings, (leaving to others the grateful office of

delivering eulogies) made the following brief reference to the solemn

and touching event.

“_Friends and fellow citizens_:

To-day our common mother Earth has closed over the mortal remains of

James A. Garfield, at Cleveland, Ohio. The light of no day in our

national history has brought to the American people a more intense

bereavement, a deeper sorrow, or a more profound sense of humiliation.

It seems only as yesterday, that in my quality as United States Marshal

of the District of Columbia, it was made my duty and privilege to walk

at the head of the column in advance of this our President-elect,

from the crowded Senate Chamber of the National Capitol, through the

long corridors, and the grand rotunda, beneath the majestic dome, to

the platform on the portico, where amid a sea of transcendent pomp

and glory, he who is now dead, was hailed with tumultuous applause

from uncounted thousands of his fellow citizens, and was inaugurated

Chief Magistrate of the United States. The scene was one never to be

forgotten by those who beheld it. It was a great day for the nation,

glad and proud to do honor to their chosen ruler. It was a glad day

for James A. Garfield. It was a glad day for me, that I--one of the

proscribed race, was permitted to bear so prominent a part in its

august ceremonies. Mr. Garfield was then in the midst of his years, in

the fullness and vigor of his manhood, covered with honors beyond the

reach of princes, entering upon a career more abundant in promise than

ever invited president or potentate before.

Alas, what a contrast, as he lay in state under the same broad dome,

viewed by sorrowful thousands day after day! What is the life of man?

What are all his plans, purposes, and hopes? What are the shouts

of the multitude, the pride and pomp of this world? How vain and

unsubstantial, in the light of this sad and shocking experience, do

they all appear! Who can tell what a day or an hour will bring forth?

Such reflections inevitably present themselves, as most natural and

fitting on an occasion like this.

Fellow citizens, we are here to take suitable notice of the sad and

appalling event of the hour. We are here, not merely as American

citizens, but as colored American citizens. Although our hearts have

gone along with those of the nation at large, with every expression,

with every token and demonstration of honor to the dead, sympathy with

the living, and abhorrence for the horrible deed which has at last done

its final work; though we have watched with beating hearts, the long

and heroic struggle for life, and endured all the agony of suspense and

fear; we have felt that something more, something more specific and

distinctive, was due from us. Our relation to the American people makes

us in some sense a peculiar class, and unless we speak separately, our

voice is not heard. We therefore propose to put on record to-night our

sense of the worth of President Garfield, and of the calamity involved

in his death. Called to preside on this occasion, my part in the

speaking shall be brief. I cannot claim to have been on intimate terms

with the late President. There are other gentlemen here, who are better

qualified to speak of his character than myself. I may say, however,

that soon after he came to Washington, I had a conversation with him

of much interest to the colored people, since it indicated his just and

generous intentions towards them, and goes far to present him in the

light of a wise and patriotic statesman, and a friend of our race.

I called at the Executive Mansion, and was received very kindly by Mr.

Garfield, who, in the course of the conversation said, that he felt the

time had come when a step should be taken in advance, in recognition of

the claims of colored citizens, and expressed his intention of sending

some colored representatives abroad to other than colored nations. He

enquired of me how I thought such representations would be received?

I assured him that I thought they would be well received; that in my

own experience abroad, I had observed that the higher we go in the

gradations of human society, the farther we get from prejudice of race

or color. I was greatly pleased with the assurance of his liberal

policy towards us. I remarked to him, that no part of the American

people would be treated with respect, if systematically ignored by the

government, and denied all participation in its honors and emoluments.

To this he assented, and went so far as to propose my going in a

representative capacity to an important post abroad--a compliment

which I gratefully acknowledged, but respectfully declined. To say the

truth, I wished to remain at home, and retain the office of United

States Marshal of the District of Columbia.

It is a great thing for Hon. John Mercer Langston to represent this

republic at Port au Prince, and for Henry Highland Garnet to represent

us in Liberia, but it would be indeed a step in advance, to have some

colored men sent to represent us in white nationalities, and we have

reason for profound regret that Mr. Garfield could not have lived to

carry out his just and wise intentions towards us. I might say more

of this conversation, but I will not detain you except to say, that

America has had many great men, but no man among them all has had

better things said of him, than he who has been reverently committed to

the dust in Cleveland to-day.”

Mr. Douglass then called upon Professor Greener, who read a series of

resolutions eloquently expressive of their sense of the great loss that

had been sustained, and their sympathy with the family of the late

President. Prof. Greener then spoke briefly and was followed by Prof.

John M. Langston and Rev. W. W. Hicks. All the speakers expressed their

confidence in President Arthur and in his ability to give the country a

wise and beneficial administration.

CONCLUSION.

As far as this volume can reach that point I have now brought my

readers to the end of my story. What may remain of life to me, through

what experiences I may pass, what heights I may attain, into what

depths I may fall, what good or ill may come to me, or proceed from

me in this breathing world, where all is change, uncertainty, and

largely at the mercy of powers over which the individual man has no

absolute control, if thought worthy and useful, will probably be told

by others when I have passed from the busy stage of life. I am not

looking for any great changes in my fortunes or achievements in the

future. The most of the space of life is behind me, and the sun of my

day is nearing the horizon. Notwithstanding all that is contained in

this book my day has been a pleasant one. My joys have far exceeded

my sorrows, and my friends have brought me far more than my enemies

have taken from me. I have written out my experience here, not to

exhibit my wounds and bruises to awaken and attract sympathy to myself

personally, but as a part of the history of a profoundly interesting

period in American life and progress. I have meant it to be a small

individual contribution to the sum of knowledge of this special period,

to be handed down to after-coming generations which may want to know

what things were allowed and what prohibited; what moral, social, and

political relations subsisted between the different varieties of the

American people down to the last quarter of the nineteenth century;

and by what means they were modified and changed. The time is at hand

when the last American slave, and the last American slaveholder will

disappear behind the curtain which separates the living from the dead,

and when neither master nor slave will be left to tell the story of

their respective relations, and what happened in those relations to

either. My part has been to tell the story of the slave. The story of

the master never wanted for narrators. They have had all the talent

and genius that wealth and influence could command to tell their

story. They have had their full day in court. Literature, theology,

philosophy, law, and learning, have come willingly to their service,

and if condemned they have not been condemned unheard.

It will be seen in these pages that I have lived several lives in one.

First, the life of slavery; secondly, the life of a fugitive from

slavery; thirdly, the life of comparative freedom; fourthly, the life

of conflict and battle; and, fifthly, the life of victory, if not

complete, at least assured. To those who have suffered in slavery, I

can say I too have suffered. To those who have taken some risks and

encountered hardships in the flight from bondage, I can say I too have

endured and risked. To those who have battled for liberty, brotherhood,

and citizenship, I can say I too have battled; and to those who have

lived to enjoy the fruits of victory, I can say I too live and rejoice.

If I have pushed my example too prominently for the good taste of my

Caucasian readers I beg them to remember that I have written in part

for the encouragement of a class whose aspirations need the stimulus of

success.

I have aimed to assure them that knowledge can be obtained under

difficulties; that poverty may give place to competency; that obscurity

is not an absolute bar to distinction, and that a way is open to

welfare and happiness to all who will resolutely and wisely pursue that

way; that neither slavery, stripes, imprisonment, or proscription, need

extinguish self-respect, crush manly ambition, or paralyze effort;

that no power outside of himself can prevent a man from sustaining an

honorable character and a useful relation to his day and generation;

that neither institutions nor friends can make a race to stand unless

it has strength in its own legs; that there is no power in the world

which can be relied upon to help the weak against the strong--the

simple against the wise; that races like individuals must stand or fall

by their own merits; that all the prayers of Christendom cannot stop

the force of a single bullet, divest arsenic of poison, or suspend

any law of nature. In my communication with the colored people I have

endeavored to deliver them from the power of superstition, bigotry,

and priest-craft. In theology I have found them strutting about in the

old clothes of the masters, just as the masters strut about in the old

clothes of the past. The falling power remains among them long since

it has ceased to be the religious fashion of our refined and elegant

white churches. I have taught that the “fault is not in our stars

but in ourselves that we are underlings,” that “who would be free,

themselves must strike the blow.” I have urged upon them self-reliance,

self-respect, industry, perseverance, and economy--to make the best

of both worlds--but to make the best of this world first because it

comes first, and that he who does not improve himself by the motives

and opportunities afforded by this world gives the best evidence that

he would not improve in any other world. Schooled as I have been among

the abolitionists of New England, I recognize that the universe is

governed by laws which are unchangeable and eternal, that what men sow

they will reap, and that there is no way to dodge or circumvent the

consequences of any act or deed. My views at this point receive but

limited endorsement among my people. They for the most part think they

have means of procuring special favor and help from the Almighty, and

as their “faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence

of things not seen,” they find much in this expression which is true to

faith but utterly false to fact. But I meant here only to say a word in

conclusion. Forty years of my life have been given to the cause of my

people, and if I had forty years more they should all be sacredly given

to the great cause. If I have done something for that cause, I am after

all more a debtor to it than it is debtor to me.

APPENDIX.

ORATION BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS, DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF THE

UNVEILING OF THE FREEDMEN’S MONUMENT, IN MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

IN LINCOLN PARK, WASHINGTON, D. C., APRIL 14, 1876.

_Friends and fellow citizens_:

I warmly congratulate you upon the highly interesting object which has

caused you to assemble in such numbers and spirit as you have to-day.

This occasion is in some respects remarkable. Wise and thoughtful men

of our race, who shall come after us, and study the lesson of our

history in the United States; who shall survey the long and dreary

spaces over which we have traveled; who shall count the links in the

great chain of events by which we have reached our present position,

will make a note of this occasion; they will think of it and speak of

it with a sense of manly pride and complacency.

I congratulate you, also, upon the very favorable circumstances in

which we meet to-day. They are high, inspiring, and uncommon. They

lend grace, glory, and significance to the object for which we have

met. Nowhere else in this great country, with its uncounted towns and

cities, unlimited wealth, and immeasurable territory extending from sea

to sea, could conditions be found more favorable to the success of this

occasion than here.

We stand to-day at the national center to perform something like a

national act--an act which is to go into history; and we are here

where every pulsation of the national heart can be heard, felt, and

reciprocated. A thousand wires, fed with thought and winged with

lightning, put us in instantaneous communication with the loyal and

true men all over this country.

Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which

has taken place in our condition as a people, than the fact of our

assembling here for the purpose we have to-day. Harmless, beautiful,

proper, and praiseworthy as this demonstration is, I cannot forget that

no such demonstration would have been tolerated here twenty years ago.

The spirit of slavery and barbarism, which still lingers to blight and

destroy in some dark and distant parts of our country, would have made

our assembling here the signal and excuse for opening upon us all the

flood-gates of wrath and violence. That we are here in peace to-day

is a compliment and a credit to American civilization, and a prophecy

of still greater national enlightenment and progress in the future. I

refer to the past not in malice, for this is no day for malice; but

simply to place more distinctly in front the gratifying and glorious

change which has come both to our white fellow-citizens and ourselves,

and to congratulate all upon the contrast between now and then; the

new dispensation of freedom with its thousand blessings to both races,

and the old dispensation of slavery with its ten thousand evils to

both races--white and black. In view, then, of the past, the present,

and the future, with the long and dark history of our bondage behind

us, and with liberty, progress, and enlightenment before us, I again

congratulate you upon this auspicious day and hour.

Friends and fellow citizens, the story of our presence here is soon and

easily told. We are here in the District of Columbia, here in the city

of Washington, the most luminous point of American territory; a city

recently transformed and made beautiful in its body and in its spirit;

we are here in the place where the ablest and best men of the country

are sent to devise the policy, enact the laws, and shape the destiny of

the Republic; we are here, with the stately pillars and majestic dome

of the Capitol of the nation looking down upon us; we are here, with

the broad earth freshly adorned with the foliage and flowers of spring

for our church, and all races, colors, and conditions of men for our

congregation--in a word, we are here to express, as best we may, by

appropriate forms and ceremonies, our grateful sense of the vast, high,

and preëminent services rendered to ourselves, to our race, to our

country, and to the whole world by Abraham Lincoln.

The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that

can stir and thrill the human heart. It has crowned and made glorious

the high places of all civilized nations with the grandest and most

enduring works of art, designed to illustrate the characters and

perpetuate the memories of great public men. It is the sentiment which

from year to year adorns with fragrant and beautiful flowers the graves

of our loyal, brave, and patriotic soldiers who fell in defence of the

Union and liberty. It is the sentiment of gratitude and appreciation,

which often, in the presence of many who hear me, has filled yonder

heights of Arlington with the eloquence of eulogy and the sublime

enthusiasm of poetry and song; a sentiment which can never die while

the Republic lives.

For the first time in the history of our people, and in the history

of the whole American people, we join in this high worship, and march

conspicuously in the line of this time-honored custom. First things

are always interesting, and this is one of our first things. It is

the first time that, in this form and manner, we have sought to do

honor to an American great man, however deserving and illustrious.

I commend the fact to notice; let it be told in every part of the

Republic; let men of all parties and opinions hear it; let those who

despise us, not less than those who respect us, know that now and

here, in the spirit of liberty, loyalty, and gratitude, let it be

known everywhere, and by everybody who takes an interest in human

progress and in the amelioration of the condition of mankind, that,

in the presence and with the approval of the members of the American

House of Representatives, reflecting the general sentiment of the

country: that in the presence of that august body, the American Senate,

representing the highest intelligence and the calmest judgment in the

country; in presence of the Supreme Court and Chief-Justice of the

United States, to whose decisions we all patriotically bow; in the

presence and under the steady eye of the honored and trusted President

of the United States, with the members of his wise and patriotic

Cabinet, we, the colored people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our

blood-bought freedom, near the close of the first century in the life

of this Republic, have now and here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated

a monument of enduring granite and bronze, in every line, feature,

and figure of which the men of this generation may read, and those of

after-coming generations may read, something of the exalted character

and great works of Abraham Lincoln, the first martyr President of the

United States.

Fellow citizens, in what we have said and done to-day, and in what

we may say and do hereafter, we disclaim everything like arrogance

and assumption. We claim for ourselves no superior devotion to the

character, history, and memory of the illustrious name whose monument

we have here dedicated to-day. We fully comprehend the relation of

Abraham Lincoln both to ourselves and to the white people of the

United States. Truth is proper and beautiful at all times and in all

places, and it is never more proper and beautiful in any case than when

speaking of a great public man whose example is likely to be commended

for honor and imitation long after his departure to the solemn

shades,--the silent continents of eternity. It must be admitted, truth

compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have

erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense

of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his

associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a

white man.

He was preëminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to

the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during

the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice

the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare

of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling

he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential

chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of

slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive

and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own

race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the States where

it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President

to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the

supposed constitutional guarantees of the United States Constitution

in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave States. He was

willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his

master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty

master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which

we belong were not the special objects of his consideration. Knowing

this, I concede to you, my white fellow citizens, a preëminence in

this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and

yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest

solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best

only his step-children; children by adoption, children by force of

circumstances and necessity. To you it especially belongs to sound

his praises, to preserve and perpetuate his memory, to multiply his

statues, to hang his pictures high upon your walls, and commend his

example, for to you he was a great and glorious friend and benefactor.

Instead of supplanting you at this altar, we would exhort you to build

high his monuments; let them be of the most costly material, of the

most cunning workmanship; let their forms be symmetrical, beautiful,

and perfect; let their bases be upon solid rocks, and their summits

lean against the unchanging blue, overhanging sky, and let them endure

forever! But while in the abundance of your wealth, and in the fullness

of your just and patriotic devotion, you do all this, we entreat you

to despise not the humble offering we this day unveil to view; for

while Abraham Lincoln saved for you a country, he delivered us from a

bondage, according to Jefferson, one hour of which was worse than ages

of the oppression your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose.

Fellow citizens, ours is no new-born zeal and devotion--merely a thing

of this moment. The name of Abraham Lincoln was near and dear to our

hearts in the darkest and most perilous hours of the Republic. We were

no more ashamed of him when shrouded in clouds of darkness, of doubt,

and defeat than when we saw him crowned with victory, honor, and glory.

Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it

never failed. When he tarried long in the mountain; when he strangely

told us that we were the cause of the war; when he still more strangely

told us to leave the land in which we were born; when he refused to

employ our arms in defence of the Union; when, after accepting our

services as colored soldiers, he refused to retaliate our murder

and torture as colored prisoners; when he told us he would save the

Union if he could with slavery; when he revoked the Proclamation of

Emancipation of General Frémont; when he refused to remove the popular

commander of the Army of the Potomac, in the days of its inaction

and defeat, who was more zealous in his efforts to protect slavery

than to suppress rebellion; when we saw all this, and more, we were

at times grieved, stunned, and greatly bewildered; but our hearts

believed while they ached and bled. Nor was this, even at that time,

a blind and unreasoning superstition. Despite the mist and haze that

surround him; despite the tumult, the hurry, and confusion of the hour,

we were able to take a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to

make reasonable allowance for the circumstances of his position. We

saw him, measured him, and estimated him; not by stray utterances to

injudicious and tedious delegations, who often tried his patience;

not by isolated facts torn from their connection; not by any partial

and imperfect glimpses, caught at inopportune moments; but by a broad

survey, in the light of the stern logic of great events, and in view

of that “divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will,”

we came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption

had somehow met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. It mattered little

to us what language he might employ on special occasions; it mattered

little to us, when we fully knew him, whether he was swift or slow in

his movements; it was enough for us that Abraham Lincoln was at the

head of a great movement, and was in living and earnest sympathy with

that movement, which, in the nature of things, must go on until slavery

should be utterly and forever abolished in the United States.

When, therefore, it shall be asked what we have to do with the memory

of Abraham Lincoln, or what Abraham Lincoln had to do with us, the

answer is ready, full, and complete. Though he loved Cæsar less than

Rome, though the Union was more to him than our freedom or our future,

under his wise and beneficent rule we saw ourselves gradually lifted

from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood; under

his wise and beneficent rule, and by measures approved and vigorously

pressed by him, we saw that the handwriting of ages, in the form of

prejudice and proscription, was rapidly fading away from the face of

our whole country; under his rule, and in due time, about as soon

after all as the country could tolerate the strange spectacle, we

saw our brave sons and brothers laying off the rags of bondage, and

being clothed all over in the blue uniforms of the soldiers of the

United States; under his rule we saw two hundred thousand of our dark

and dusky people responding to the call of Abraham Lincoln, and with

muskets on their shoulders, and eagles on their buttons, timing their

high footsteps to liberty and union under the national flag; under

his rule we saw the independence of the black republic of Hayti, the

special object of slaveholding aversion and horror, fully recognized,

and her minister, a colored gentleman, duly received here in the city

of Washington; under his rule we saw the internal slave-trade, which

so long disgraced the nation, abolished, and slavery abolished in the

District of Columbia; under his rule we saw for the first time the law

enforced against the foreign slave-trade, and the first slave-trader

hanged like any other pirate or murderer; under his rule, assisted

by the greatest captain of our age, and his inspiration, we saw the

Confederate States, based upon the idea that our race must be slaves,

and slaves forever, battered to pieces and scattered to the four winds;

under his rule, and in the fullness of time, we saw Abraham Lincoln,

after giving the slaveholders three months’ grace in which to save

their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper, which, though

special in its language, was general in its principles and effect,

making slavery forever impossible in the United States. Though we

waited long, we saw all this and more.

Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all

men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January,

1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to

be as good as his word? I shall never forget that memorable night,

when in a distant city I waited and watched at a public meeting, with

three thousand others not less anxious than myself, for the word

of deliverance which we have heard read to-day. Nor shall I ever

forget the outburst of joy and thanksgiving that rent the air when

the lightning brought to us the emancipation proclamation. In that

happy hour we forgot all delay, and forgot all tardiness, forgot

that the President had bribed the rebels to lay down their arms by a

promise to withhold the bolt which would smite the slave-system with

destruction; and we were thenceforward willing to allow the President

all the latitude of time, phraseology, and every honorable device

that statesmanship might require for the achievement of a great and

beneficent measure of liberty and progress.

Fellow citizens, there is little necessity on this occasion to speak

at length and critically of this great and good man, and of his

high mission in the world. That ground has been fully occupied and

completely covered both here and elsewhere. The whole field of fact

and fancy has been gleaned and garnered. Any man can say things that

are true of Abraham Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new

of Abraham Lincoln. His personal traits and public acts are better

known to the American people than are those of any other man of his

age. He was a mystery to no man who saw him and heard him. Though high

in position, the humblest could approach him and feel at home in his

presence. Though deep he was transparent; though strong, he was gentle;

though decided and pronounced in his convictions, he was tolerant

towards those who differed from him, and patient under reproaches.

Even those who only knew him through his public utterances obtained a

tolerably clear idea of his character and his personality. The image of

the man went out with his words, and those who read them, knew him.

I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the

prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking

back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled

to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set

down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal

American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing

them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish

two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin;

and second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To

do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and

the powerful coöperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen. Without this

primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been

vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before

the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him

a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to

rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr.

Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by

the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman

to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.

Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow countrymen

against the negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of

hearts he loathed and hated slavery.[E] The man who could say, “Fondly

do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war shall

soon pass away, yet if God wills it continue till all the wealth piled

by two hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and each drop

of blood drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one drawn by the

sword, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether,”

gives all needed proof of his feeling on the subject of slavery. He was

willing, while the South was loyal, that it should have its pound of

flesh, because he thought it was so nominated in the bond; but farther

than this no earthly power could make him go.

[E] “I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong,

nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think

and feel.”--_Letter of Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Hodges, of

Kentucky, April 4, 1864._

Fellow citizens, whatever else in the world may be partial, unjust,

and uncertain, time, time! is impartial, just, and certain in its

action. In the realm of mind, as well as in the realm of matter, it is

a great worker, and often works wonders. The honest and comprehensive

statesman, clearly discerning the needs of his country, and earnestly

endeavoring to do his whole duty, though covered and blistered with

reproaches, may safely leave his course to the silent judgment of time.

Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation

than Abraham Lincoln was during his administration. He was often

wounded in the house of his friends. Reproaches came thick and fast

upon him from within and from without, and from opposite quarters. He

was assailed by abolitionists; he was assailed by slaveholders; he was

assailed by the men who were for peace at any price; he was assailed

by those who were for a more vigorous prosecution of the war; he was

assailed for not making the war an abolition war; and he was most

bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war.

But now behold the change: the judgment of the present hour is, that

taking him for all in all, measuring the tremendous magnitude of the

work before him, considering the necessary means to ends, and surveying

the end from the beginning, infinite wisdom has seldom sent any man

into the world better fitted for his mission than Abraham Lincoln.

His birth, his training, and his natural endowments, both mental and

physical, were strongly in his favor. Born and reared among the lowly,

a stranger to wealth and luxury, compelled to grapple single-handed

with the flintiest hardships of life, from tender youth to sturdy

manhood, he grew strong in the manly and heroic qualities demanded

by the great mission to which he was called by the votes of his

countrymen. The hard condition of his early life, which would have

depressed and broken down weaker men, only gave greater life, vigor,

and buoyancy to the heroic spirit of Abraham Lincoln. He was ready for

any kind and quality of work. What other young men dreaded in the shape

of toil, he took hold of with the utmost cheerfulness.

A spade, a rake, a hoe,

A pick-axe, or a bill;

A hook to reap, a scythe to mow,

A flail, or what you will.

All day long he could split heavy rails in the woods, and half the

night long he could study his English Grammar by the uncertain flare

and glare of the light made by a pine-knot. He was at home on the

land with his axe, with his maul, with gluts, and his wedges; and he

was equally at home on water, with his oars, with his poles, with

his planks, and with his boat-hooks. And whether in his flat-boat on

the Mississipi river, or on the fireside of his frontier cabin, he

was a man of work. A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly

sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.

This very fact gave him tremendous power with the American people, and

materially contributed not only to selecting him to the Presidency, but

in sustaining his administration of the government.

Upon his inauguration as President of the United States, an office,

even where assumed under the most favorable conditions, fitted to

tax and strain the largest abilities, Abraham Lincoln was met by a

tremendous crisis. He was called upon not merely to administer the

government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of

the Republic.

A formidable rebellion rose in his path before him; the Union was

practically dissolved; his country was torn and rent asunder at the

center. Hostile armies were already organized against the republic,

armed with the munitions of war which the republic had provided for

its own defence. The tremendous question for him to decide was whether

his country should survive the crisis and flourish, or be dismembered

and perish. His predecessor in office had already decided the question

in favor of national dismemberment, by denying to it the right of

self-defence and self-preservation--a right which belongs to the

meanest insect.

Happily for the country, happily for you and for me, the judgment of

James Buchanan, the patrician, was not the judgment of Abraham Lincoln,

the plebeian. He brought his strong common sense, sharpened in the

school of adversity, to bear upon the question. He did not hesitate,

he did not doubt, he did not falter; but at once resolved at whatever

peril, at whatever cost, the union of the States should be preserved. A

patriot himself, his faith was strong and unwavering in the patriotism

of his countrymen. Timid men said before Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration,

that we had seen the last President of the United States. A voice in

influential quarters said “Let the Union slide.” Some said that a

Union maintained by the sword was worthless. Others said a rebellion

of 8,000,000 cannot be suppressed; but in the midst of all this tumult

and timidity, and against all this, Abraham Lincoln was clear in his

duty, and had an oath in heaven. He calmly and bravely heard the

voice of doubt and fear all around him; but he had an oath in heaven,

and there was not power enough on earth to make this honest boatman,

backwoodsman, and broad-handed splitter of rails evade or violate

that sacred oath. He had not been schooled in the ethics of slavery;

his plain life had favored his love of truth. He had not been taught

that treason and perjury were the proof of honor and honesty. His

moral training was against his saying one thing when he meant another.

The trust which Abraham Lincoln had in himself and in the people was

surprising and grand, but it was also enlightened and well-founded.

He knew the American people better than they knew themselves, and his

truth was based upon this knowledge.

Fellow citizens, the fourteenth day of April, 1865, of which this is

the eleventh anniversary, is now and will ever remain a memorable day

in the annals of this republic. It was on the evening of this day,

while a fierce and sanguinary rebellion was in the last stages of its

desolating power; while its armies were broken and scattered before the

invincible armies of Grant and Sherman; while a great nation, torn and

rent by war, was already beginning to raise to the skies loud anthems

of joy at the dawn of peace, it was startled, amazed, and overwhelmed

by the crowning crime of slavery--the assassination of Abraham

Lincoln. It was a new crime, a pure act of malice. No purpose of the

rebellion was to be served by it. It was the simple gratification of a

hell-black spirit of revenge. But it has done good after all. It has

filled the country with a deeper abhorrence of slavery and a deeper

love for the great liberator.

Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh

is heir; had he reached that good old age of which his vigorous

constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been

permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain

of death come down but gradually--we should still have been smitten

with a heavy grief, and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he

did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off

without warning, not because of personal hate--for no man who knew

Abraham Lincoln could hate him--but because of his fidelity to union

and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious

forever.

Fellow citizens, I end as I begun, with congratulations. We have done

a good work for our race to-day. In doing honor to the memory of our

friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honors to ourselves

and those who come after us; we have been fastening ourselves to a

name and fame imperishable and immortal; we have also been defending

ourselves from a blighting scandal. When now it shall be said that the

colored man is soulless, that he has no appreciation of benefits or

benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and

it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human brotherhood, we

may calmly point to the monument we have this day erected to the memory

of Abraham Lincoln.

WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION.

Extract from a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass in Elmira, N. Y.,

August 1, 1880, at a great meeting of colored people, met to celebrate

West India emancipation, and where he was received with marked respect

and approval by the president of the day and the immense crowd there

assembled. It is placed in this book partly as a grateful tribute to

the noble transatlantic men and women through whose unwearied exertions

the system of negro slavery was finally abolished in all the British

Isles.

[Illustration: _A. Lincoln_]

_Mr. President_:--I thank you very sincerely for this cordial

greeting. I hear in your speech something like a welcome home after

a long absence. More years of my life and labors have been spent in

this than in any other State of the Union. Anywhere within a hundred

miles of the goodly city of Rochester, I feel myself at home and among

friends. Within that circumference, there resides a people which have

no superiors in point of enlightenment, liberality, and civilization.

Allow me to thank you also, for your generous words of sympathy and

approval. In respect to this important support to a public man, I have

been unusually fortunate. My forty years of work in the cause of the

oppressed and enslaved, has been well noted, well appreciated, and well

rewarded. All classes and colors of men, at home and abroad, have in

this way assisted in holding up my hands. Looking back through these

long years of toil and conflict, during which I have had blows to

take as well as blows to give, and have sometimes received wounds and

bruises, both in body and in mind, my only regret is that I have been

enabled to do so little to lift up and strengthen our long enslaved

and still oppressed people. My apology for these remarks personal to

myself, is in the fact that I am now standing mainly in the presence

of a new generation. Most of the men with whom I lived and labored

in the early years of the abolition movement, have passed beyond the

borders of this life. Scarcely any of the colored men who advocated our

cause, and who started when I did, are now numbered among the living,

and I begin to feel somewhat lonely. But while I have the sympathy and

approval of men and women like these before me, I shall give with joy

my latest breath in support of your claim to justice, liberty, and

equality among men. The day we celebrate is preëminently the colored

man’s day. The great event by which it is distinguished, and by which

it will forever be distinguished from all other days of the year,

has justly claimed thoughtful attention among statesmen and social

reformers throughout the world. While to them it is a luminous point in

human history, and worthy of thought in the colored man, it addresses

not merely the intelligence, but the feeling. The emancipation of our

brothers in the West Indies comes home to us and stirs our hearts and

fills our souls with those grateful sentiments which link mankind in a

common brotherhood.

In the history of the American conflict with slavery, the day we

celebrate has played an important part. Emancipation in the West Indies

was the first bright star in a stormy sky; the first smile after a long

providential frown; the first ray of hope; the first tangible fact

demonstrating the possibility of a peaceable transition from slavery to

freedom of the negro race. Whoever else may forget or slight the claims

of this day, it can never be other to us than memorable and glorious.

The story of it shall be brief and soon told. Six-and-forty years ago,

on the day we now celebrate, there went forth over the blue waters of

the Carribean sea a great message from the British throne, hailed with

startling shouts of joy and thrilling songs of praise. That message

liberated, set free, and brought within the pale of civilization eight

hundred thousand people, who, till then, had been esteemed as beasts

of burden. How vast, sudden, and startling was this transformation! In

one moment, a mere tick of a watch, the twinkle of an eye, the glance

of the morning sun, saw a bondage which had resisted the humanity of

ages, defied earth and heaven, instantly ended; saw the slave-whip

burnt to ashes; saw the slave’s chains melted; saw his fetters broken,

and the irresponsible power of the slave-master over his victim forever

destroyed.

I have been told by eye-witnesses of the scene, that, in the first

moment of it, the emancipated hesitated to accept it for what it was.

They did not know whether to receive it as a reality, a dream, or a

vision of the fancy.

No wonder they were thus amazed, and doubtful, after their terrible

years of darkness and sorrow, which seemed to have no end. Like much

other good news, it was thought too good to be true. But the silence

and hesitation they observed was only momentary. When fully assured the

good tidings which had come across the sea to them, were not only good

but true; that they were indeed no longer slaves, but free; that the

lash of the slave-driver was no longer in the air, but buried in the

earth; that their limbs were no longer chained, but subject to their

own will, the manifestations of their joy and gratitude knew no bounds,

and sought expression in the loudest and wildest possible forms. They

ran about, they danced, they sang, they gazed into the blue sky,

bounded into the air, kneeled, prayed, shouted, rolled upon the ground,

embraced each other. They laughed and wept for joy. Those who witnessed

the scene say they never saw anything like it before.

We are sometimes asked why we American citizens annually celebrate West

India emancipation when we might celebrate American emancipation. Why

go abroad, say they, when we might as well stay at home?

The answer is easily given. Human liberty excludes all idea of home and

abroad. It is universal and spurns localization.

“When a deed is done for freedom,

Through the broad earth’s aching breast

Runs a thrill of joy prophetic,

Trembling on from East to West.”

It is bounded by no geographical lines and knows no national

limitations. Like the glorious sun of the heavens, its light shines

for all. But besides this general consideration, this boundless power

and glory of liberty, West India Emancipation has claims upon us as

an event in this nineteenth century in which we live, for rich as

this century is in moral and material achievements, in progress and

civilization, it can claim nothing for itself greater and grander than

this act of West India Emancipation.

Whether we consider the matter or the manner of it, the tree or its

fruit, it is noteworthy, memorable, and sublime. Especially is the

manner of its accomplishment worthy of consideration. Its best lesson

to the world, its most encouraging word to all who toil and trust in

the cause of justice and liberty, to all who oppose oppression and

slavery, is a word of sublime faith and courage--faith in the truth

and courage in the expression.

Great and valuable concessions have in different ages been made to the

liberties of mankind. They have, however, come not at the command of

reason and persuasion, but by the sharp and terrible edge of the sword.

To this rule West India Emancipation is a splendid exception. It came,

not by the sword, but by the word; not by the brute force of numbers,

but by the still small voice of truth; not by barricades, bayonets,

and bloody revolution, but by peaceful agitation; not by divine

interference, but by the exercise of simple, human reason and feeling.

I repeat, that, in this peculiarity, we have what is most valuable to

the human race generally.

It is a revelation of a power inherent in human society. It shows what

can be done against wrong in the world, without the aid of armies on

the earth or of angels in the sky. It shows that men have in their

own hands the peaceful means of putting all their moral and political

enemies under their feet, and of making this world a healthy and happy

dwelling-place, if they will faithfully and courageously use them.

The world needed just such a revelation of the power of conscience and

of human brotherhood, one that overleaped the accident of color and

of race, and set at naught the whisperings of prejudice. The friends

of freedom in England saw in the negro a man, a moral and responsible

being. Having settled this in their own minds, they, in the name of

humanity, denounced the crime of his enslavement. It was the faithful,

persistent, and enduring enthusiasm of Thomas Clarkson, William

Wilberforce, Granville Sharpe, William Knibb, Henry Brougham, Thomas

Fowell Buxton, Daniel O’Connell, George Thompson, and their noble

co-workers that finally thawed the British heart into sympathy for the

slave, and moved the strong arm of that Government in mercy to put an

end to his bondage.

Let no American, especially no colored American, withhold a generous

recognition of this stupendous achievement. What though it was

not American, but British; what though it was not Republican, but

Monarchical; what though it was not from the American Congress, but

from the British Parliament; what though it was not from the chair of

a President, but from the throne of a Queen, it was none the less a

triumph of right over wrong, of good over evil, and a victory for the

whole human race.

Besides: We may properly celebrate this day because of its special

relation to our American Emancipation. In doing this we do not

sacrifice the general to the special, the universal to the local. The

cause of human liberty is one the whole world over. The downfall of

slavery under British power meant the downfall of slavery, ultimately,

under American power, and the downfall of negro slavery everywhere. But

the effect of this great and philanthropic measure, naturally enough,

was greater here than elsewhere. Outside the British Empire no other

nation was in a position to feel it so much as we. The stimulus it gave

to the American anti-slavery movement was immediate, pronounced, and

powerful. British example became a tremendous lever in the hands of

American abolitionists. It did much to shame and discourage the spirit

of caste and the advocacy of slavery in church and state. It could not

well have been otherwise. No man liveth unto himself.

What is true in this respect of individual men, is equally true of

nations. Both impart good or ill to their age and generation. But

putting aside this consideration, so worthy of thought, we have

special reasons for claiming the First of August as the birthday of

negro emancipation, not only in the West Indies, but in the United

States. Spite of our national Independence, a common language, a

common literature, a common history, and a common civilization makes

us and keeps us still a part of the British nation, if not a part of

the British Empire. England can take no step forward in the pathway

of a higher civilization without drawing us in the same direction.

She is still the mother country, and the mother, too, of our abolition

movement. Though her emancipation came in peace, and ours in war;

though hers cost treasure, and ours blood; though hers was the result

of a sacred preference, and ours resulted in part from necessity, the

motive and mainspring of the respective measures were the same in both.

The abolitionists of this country have been charged with bringing on

the war between the North and South, and in one sense this is true.

Had there been no anti-slavery agitation at the North, there would

have been no active anti-slavery anywhere to resist the demands of the

slave-power at the South, and where there is no resistance there can

be no war. Slavery would then have been nationalized, and the whole

country would then have been subjected to its power. Resistance to

slavery and the extension of slavery invited and provoked secession and

war to perpetuate and extend the slave system. Thus in the same sense,

England is responsible for our civil war. The abolition of slavery

in the West Indies gave life and vigor to the abolition movement in

America. Clarkson of England gave us Garrison of America; Granville

Sharpe of England gave us our Wendell Phillips; and Wilberforce of

England gave us our peerless Charles Sumner.

These grand men and their brave co-workers here, took up the moral

thunder-bolts which had struck down slavery in the West Indies, and

hurled them with increased zeal and power against the gigantic system

of slavery here, till, goaded to madness, the trafficers in the souls

and bodies of men flew to arms, rent asunder the Union at the center,

and filled the land with hostile armies and the ten thousand horrors of

war. Out of this tempest, out of this whirlwind and earthquake of war,

came the abolition of slavery, came the employment of colored troops,

came colored citizens, came colored jurymen, came colored congressmen,

came colored schools in the South, and came the great amendments of our

national constitution.

We celebrate this day, too, for the very good reason that we have

no other to celebrate. English emancipation has one advantage over

American emancipation. Hers has a definite anniversary. Ours has none.

Like our slaves, the freedom of the negro has no birthday. No man can

tell the day of the month, or the month of the year, upon which slavery

was abolished in the United States. We cannot even tell when it began

to be abolished. Like the movement of the sea, no man can tell where

one wave begins and another ends. The chains of slavery with us were

loosened by degrees. First, we had the struggle in Kansas with border

ruffians; next, we had John Brown at Harper’s Ferry; next, the firing

upon Fort Sumter; a little while after, we had Fremont’s order, freeing

the slaves of the rebels in Missouri. Then we had General Butler

declaring and treating the slaves of rebels as contraband of war; next

we had the proposition to arm colored men and make them soldiers for

the Union. In 1862 we had the conditional promise of a proclamation

of emancipation from President Lincoln, and, finally, on the 1st of

January, 1863, we had the proclamation itself--and still the end was

not yet. Slavery was bleeding and dying, but it was not dead, and no

man can tell just when its foul spirit departed from our land, if,

indeed, it has yet departed, and hence we do not know what day we may

properly celebrate as coupled with this great American event.

When England behaved so badly during our late civil war, I, for one,

felt like giving up these 1st of August celebrations. But I remembered

that during that war, there were two Englands, as there were two

Americas, and that one was true to liberty while the other was true to

slavery. It was not the England which gave us West India emancipation

that took sides with the slaveholder’s rebellion. It was not the

England of John Bright and William Edward Forster, that permitted

Alabamas to escape from British ports, and prey upon our commerce,

or that otherwise favored slaveholding in the South, but it was the

England which had done what it could to prevent West India emancipation.

It was the tory party in England that fought the abolition party

at home, and the same party it was, that favored our slaveholding

rebellion.

Under a different name, we had the same, or a similar party, here; a

party which despised the negro and consigned him to perpetual slavery;

a party which was willing to allow the American Union to be shivered

into fragments, rather than that one hair of the head of slavery should

be injured.

But, fellow-citizens, I should but very imperfectly fulfil the duty of

this hour if I confined myself to a merely historical or philosophical

discussion of West India emancipation. The story of the 1st of August

has been told a thousand times over, and may be told a thousand times

more. The cause of freedom and humanity has a history and destiny

nearer home.

How stands the case with the recently emancipated millions of colored

people in our own country? What is their condition to-day? What is

their relation to the people who formerly held them as slaves? These

are important questions, and they are such as trouble the minds

of thoughtful men of all colors, at home and abroad. By law, by

the constitution of the United States, slavery has no existence in

our country. The legal form has been abolished. By the law and the

constitution, the negro is a man and a citizen, and has all the rights

and liberties guaranteed to any other variety of the human family,

residing in the United States.

He has a country, a flag, and a government, and may legally claim

full and complete protection under the laws. It was the ruling wish,

intention, and purpose of the loyal people after rebellion was

suppressed, to have an end to the entire cause of that calamity by

forever putting away the system of slavery and all its incidents.

In pursuance of this idea, the negro was made free, made a citizen,

made eligible to hold office, to be a juryman, a legislator, and a

magistrate. To this end, several amendments to the constitution were

proposed, recommended, and adopted. They are now a part of the supreme

law of the land, binding alike upon every State and Territory of

the United States, North and South. Briefly, this is our legal and

theoretical condition. This is our condition on paper and parchment.

If only from the national statute book we were left to learn the

true condition of the colored race, the result would be altogether

creditable to the American people. It would give them a clear title to

a place among the most enlightened and liberal nations of the world. We

could say of our country, as Curran once said of England, “The spirit

of British law makes liberty commensurate with and inseparable from the

British soil.” Now I say that this eloquent tribute to England, if only

we looked into our constitution, might apply to us. In that instrument

we have laid down the law, now and forever, that there shall be no

slavery or involuntary servitude in this republic, except for crime.

We have gone still further. We have laid the heavy hand of the

constitution upon the matchless meanness of caste, as well as the

hell-black crime of slavery. We have declared before all the world

that there shall be no denial of rights on account of race, color, or

previous condition of servitude. The advantage gained in this respect

is immense.

It is a great thing to have the supreme law of the land on the side of

justice and liberty. It is the line up to which the nation is destined

to march--the law to which the nation’s life must ultimately conform.

It is a great principle, up to which we may educate the people, and to

this extent its value exceeds all speech.

But to-day, in most of the Southern States, the fourteenth and

fifteenth amendments are virtually nullified.

The rights which they were intended to guarantee are denied and held

in contempt. The citizenship granted in the fourteenth amendment is

practically a mockery, and the right to vote, provided for in the

fifteenth amendment, is literally stamped out in face of government.

The old master class is to-day triumphant, and the newly enfranchised

class in a condition but little above that in which they were found

before the rebellion.

Do you ask me how, after all that has been done, this state of things

has been made possible? I will tell you. Our reconstruction measures

were radically defective. They left the former slave completely in the

power of the old master, the loyal citizen in the hands of the disloyal

rebel against the government. Wise, grand, and comprehensive in scope

and design, as were the reconstruction measures, high and honorable

as were the intentions of the statesmen by whom they were framed and

adopted, time and experience, which try all things, have demonstrated

that they did not successfully meet the case.

In the hurry and confusion of the hour, and the eager desire to have

the Union restored, there was more care for sublime superstructure of

the republic than for the solid foundation upon which it could alone be

upheld. They gave freedmen the machinery of liberty, but denied them

the steam to put it in motion. They gave them the uniform of soldiers,

but no arms; they called them citizens, and left them subjects; they

called them free, and almost left them slaves. They did not deprive

the old master class of the power of life and death which was the soul

of the relation of master and slave. They could not of course sell

them, but they retained the power to starve them to death, and wherever

this power is held, there is the power of slavery. He who can say to

his fellow-man, “You shall serve me or starve,” is a master, and his

subject is a slave. This was seen and felt by Thaddeus Stevens, Charles

Sumner, and leading stalwart Republicans, and had their counsels

prevailed the terrible evils from which we now suffer would have been

averted. The negro to-day would not be on his knees, as he is, abjectly

supplicating the old master class to give him leave to toil. Nor would

he now be leaving the South as from a doomed city and seeking a home

in the uncongenial North, but tilling his native soil in comparative

independence. Though no longer a slave, he is in a thraldom grievous

and intolerable, compelled to work for whatever his employer is pleased

to pay him, swindled out of his hard earnings by money orders redeemed

in stores, compelled to pay the price of an acre of ground for its use

during a single year, to pay four times more than a fair price for a

pound of bacon, and be kept upon the narrowest margin between life and

starvation. Much complaint has been made that the freedmen have shown

so little ability to take care of themselves since their emancipation.

Men have marvelled that they have made so little progress. I question

the justice of this complaint. It is neither reasonable, nor in any

sense just. To me, the wonder is, not that the freedmen have made so

little progress, but, rather, that they have made so much; not that

they have been standing still, but that they have been able to stand at

all.

We have only to reflect for a moment upon the situation in which these

people found themselves when liberated: consider their ignorance, their

poverty, their destitution, and their absolute dependence upon the very

class by which they had been held in bondage for centuries, a class

whose every sentiment was averse to their freedom, and we shall be

prepared to marvel that they have under the circumstances done so well.

History does not furnish an example of emancipation under conditions

less friendly to the emancipated class, than this American example.

Liberty came to the freedmen of the United States, not in mercy but

in wrath; not by moral choice but by military necessity; not by the

generous action of the people among whom they were to live, and

whose good will was essential to the success of the measure, but by

strangers, foreigners, invaders, trespassers, aliens, and enemies.

The very manner of their emancipation invited to the heads of the

freedmen the bitterest hostility of race and class. They were hated

because they had been slaves, hated because they were now free, and

hated because of those who had freed them. Nothing was to have been

expected other than what has happened, and he is a poor student of the

human heart who does not see that the old master class would naturally

employ every power and means in their reach to make the great measure

of emancipation unsuccessful and utterly odious. It was born in the

tempest and whirlwind of war, and has lived in a storm of violence and

blood. When the Hebrews were emancipated, they were told to take spoil

from the Egyptians. When the serfs of Russia were emancipated, they

were given three acres of ground upon which they could live and make

a living. But not so when our slaves were emancipated. They were sent

away empty-handed, without money, without friends, and without a foot

of land to stand upon. Old and young, sick and well, were turned loose

to the open sky, naked to their enemies. The old slave quarter that had

before sheltered them, and the fields that had yielded them corn, were

now denied them. The old master class in its wrath said, “Clear out!

The Yankees have freed you, now let them feed and shelter you!”

Inhuman as was this treatment, it was the natural result of the bitter

resentment felt by the old master class, and in view of it, the wonder

is, not that the colored people of the South have done so little in the

way of acquiring a comfortable living, but that they live at all.

Taking all the circumstances into consideration, the colored people

have no reason to despair. We still live, and while there is life there

is hope. The fact that we have endured wrongs and hardships, which

would have destroyed any other race, and have increased in numbers and

public consideration, ought to strengthen our faith in ourselves and

our future. Let us then, wherever we are, whether at the North or at

the South, resolutely struggle on in the belief that there is a better

day coming, and that we by patience, industry, uprightness, and economy

may hasten that better day. I will not listen, myself, and I would not

have you listen to the nonsense, that no people can succeed in life

among a people by whom they have been despised and oppressed.

The statement is erroneous and contradicted by the whole history

of human progress. A few centuries ago, all Europe was cursed with

serfdom, or slavery. Traces of this bondage still remain but are not

easily visible.

The Jews, only a century ago were despised, hated, and oppressed, but

they have defied, met, and vanquished the hard conditions imposed upon

them, and are now opulent and powerful, and compel respect in all

countries.

Take courage from the example of all religious denominations that have

sprung up since Martin Luther. Each in its turn, has been oppressed and

persecuted.

Methodists, Baptists, and Quakers, have all been compelled to feel the

lash and sting of popular disfavor--yet all in turn have conquered the

prejudice and hate of their surroundings.

Greatness does not come to any people on flowery beds of ease. We must

fight to win the prize. No people to whom liberty is given, can hold it

as firmly and wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from

the iron hand of the tyrant. The hardships and dangers involved in the

struggle give strength and toughness to the character, and enable it to

stand firm in storm as well as in sunshine.

One thought more before I leave this subject, and it is a thought I

wish you all to lay to heart. Practice it yourselves and teach it to

your children. It is this, neither we, nor any other people, will ever

be respected till we respect ourselves, and we will never respect

ourselves till we have the means to live respectably. An exceptionally

poor and dependent people will be despised by the opulent and despise

themselves.

You cannot make an empty sack stand on end. A race which cannot save

its earnings, which spends all it makes and goes in debt when it is

sick, can never rise in the scale of civilization, no matter under what

laws it may chance to be. Put us in Kansas or in Africa, and until we

learn to save more than we spend, we are sure to sink and perish. It

is not in the nature of things that we should be equally rich in this

world’s goods. Some will be more successful than others, and poverty,

in many cases, is the result of misfortune rather than of crime; but no

race can afford to have all its members the victims of this misfortune,

without being considered a worthless race. Pardon me, therefore, for

urging upon you, my people, the importance of saving your earnings; of

denying yourselves in the present, that you may have something in the

future, of consuming less for yourselves that your children may have a

start in life when you are gone.

With money and property comes the means of knowledge and power. A

poverty-stricken class will be an ignorant and despised class, and no

amount of sentiment can make it otherwise. This part of our destiny

is in our own hands. Every dollar you lay up, represents one day’s

independence, one day of rest and security in the future. If the time

shall ever come when we shall possess in the colored people of the

United States, a class of men noted for enterprise, industry, economy,

and success, we shall no longer have any trouble in the matter of civil

and political rights. The battle against popular prejudice will have

been fought and won, and in common with all other races and colors, we

shall have an equal chance in the race of life.

Do I hear you ask in a tone of despair if this time will ever come to

our people in America? The question is not new to me. I have tried to

answer it many times and in many places, when the outlook was less

encouraging than now. There was a time when we were compelled to walk

by faith in this matter, but now, I think, we may walk by sight.

Notwithstanding the great and all-abounding darkness of our past, the

clouds that still overhang us in the moral and social sky, the defects

inherited from a bygone condition of servitude, it is the faith of my

soul that this brighter and better day will yet come. But whether it

shall come late or come soon will depend mainly upon ourselves.

The laws which determine the destinies of individuals and nations are

impartial and eternal. We shall reap as we sow. There is no escape. The

conditions of success are universal and unchangeable. The nation or

people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate

them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether. No power beneath

the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or

a licentious people happy.

One ground of hope for my people is founded upon the returns of the

last census. One of the most disheartening ethnological speculations

concerning us has been that we shall die out; that, like the Indian, we

shall perish in the blaze of Caucasian civilization. The census sets

that heresy concerning us to rest. We are more than holding our own in

all the southern states. We are no longer four millions of slaves, but

six millions of freemen.

Another ground of hope for our race is in the progress of education.

Everywhere in the south the colored man is learning to read. None now

denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything

which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters. Our

colored schools in the city of Washington compare favorably with the

white schools, and what is true of Washington is equally true of other

cities and towns of the south. Still another ground of hope I find in

the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors,

and firm in their political convictions. They cannot be coaxed or

driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.

Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from

voting their convictions. Then another ground of hope is that as a

general rule we are an industrious people. I have traveled extensively

over the south, and almost the only people I saw at work there were the

colored people. In any fair condition of things the men who till the

soil will become proprietors of the soil. Only arbitrary conditions

can prevent this. To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes

upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana. Not less

encouraging than this is the political situation at the south.

The vote of the colored man, formerly beaten down and stamped out by

intimidation, is now revived, sought, and defended by powerful allies,

and this from no transient sentiment of the moment, but from the

permanent laws controlling the action of political parties.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a

predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they

were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation

marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left

unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs

and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support

hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to

the corresponding illustrations.

Pages 410 and 413: “See Note” was printed at the bottom of page 409,

but wasn’t referenced on any page. The note on page 413 was not

referenced on that page. Both of these omissions were corrected in a

later printing of the same edition of this book, and Transcriber has

adjusted both notes to be consistent with those corrections.