FREDERICK DOUGLASS LINKS
What does he do to establish his relationship with the audience in the opening?
To what sentiments or ideals does he appeal in the body in order to get audience to accept his audience?
How does he close==what emotions does he fan, and why?
When calm and when emotional? When deferential, when insisting on equality? When speaking in practical images, when appealing to eternal verities?
(The following speech was delivered less than three months after Douglass had attended the Anti-Slavery Convention on Nantucket Island, at which he agreed to lecture for the Massachusetts Society; it is one of his first recorded anti-slavery speeches)
At the South I was a member of the Methodist Church. When I came north, I thought one Sunday I would attend communion, at one of the churches of my denomination, in the town I was staying. The white people gathered round the altar, the blacks clustered by the door. After the good minister had served out the bread and wine to one portion of those near him, he said, "These may withdraw, and others come forward;" thus he proceeded till all the white members had been served. Then he took a long breath, and looking out towards the door, exclaimed, "Come up, colored friends, come up! for you know God is no respecter of persons!" I haven't been there to see the sacraments taken since.
At New Bedford, where I live, there was a great revival of religion not long ago--many were converted and "received" as they said, "into the kingdom of heaven." But it seems, the kingdom of heaven is like a net; at least so it was according to the practice of these pious Christians; and when the net was drawn ashore, they had to set down and cull out the fish. Well, it happened now that some of the fish had rather black scales; so these were sorted out and packed by themselves. But among those who experienced religion at this time was a colored girl; she was baptized in the same water as the rest; so she thought she might sit at the Lord's table and partake of the same sacramental elements with the others. The deacon handed round the cup, and when he came to the black girl, he could not pass her, for there was the minister looking right at him, and as he was a kind of abolitionist, the deacon was rather afraid of giving him offense; so he handed the girl the cup, and she tasted. Now it so happened that next to her sat a young lady who had been converted at the same time, baptized in the same water, and put her trust in the same blessed Saviour; yet when the cup containing the precious blood which had been shed for all, came to her, she rose in disdain, and walked out of the church. Such was the religion she had experienced!
Another young lady fell into a trance. When she awoke, she declared she had been to heaven. Her friends were all anxious to know what and whom she had seen there; so she told the whole story. But there was one good old lady whose curiosity went beyond that of all the others--and she inquired of the girl that had the vision, if she saw any black folks in heaven? After some hesitation, the reply was, "Oh! I didn't go into the kitchen!"
A NATION IN THE MIDST OF A NATION: AN ADDRESS
DELIVERED IN NEW YORK, NEW YORK, ON II MAY 1853
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The resolution upon which I propose to
make a few remarks respects the present condition and the future prospects of
the whole colored people of the United States. I The subject is a great one,
and opens ample scope for thought and feeling. I feel a diffidence in undertaking
its consideration, for two causes: first, my own in- competence to do it justice-and
the second is, the peculiar relation subsisting between me and the audience
I am about to address. Sir, I am a colored man, and this is a white audience.
No colored man, with any nervous sensibility, can stand before an American audience
without an intense and painful sense of the immense disadvantage under which
he labors. He feels little borne up by that brotherly sympathy and generous
enthusiasm which give wings to the eloquence and strength to the hearts of abler
men engaged in other and more popular causes. The ground which a colored man
occupies in this country is every inch of it sternly disputed. Not by argument,
or any just appeal to the understanding; but by a cold, flinty-hearted, unreasoning
and unreasonable prejudice against him as a man and a member of the human family.
Sir, were I a white man, speaking before and for white men, I should in this
country have a smooth sea and a fair wind. It is, perhaps, creditable to the
American people, (and, Sir, I am not the man to detract from their credit),
that they listen eagerly to the report of wrongs endured by distant nations.
The Hungarian, the Italian, the Irishman, the Jew, and the Gentile, all find
in this land a home, and when any of them, or all of them desire to speak, they
find willing ears, warm hearts and open hands. For these people, the Americans,
have principles of justice, maxims of mercy, sentiments of religion, and feelings
of brotherhood in abundance. But for my poor people enslaved-blasted and ruined-it
would appear, that America had neither justice, mercy nor religion. She has
no scales in which to weigh our wrongs-she has no standard by which to measure
our rights.
Just here lies the difficulty of my cause. It is found in the fact that we may
not avail ourselves of admitted American principles. If I do not misinterpret
the feelings of my white countrymen generally, they wish us to understand distinctly
and fully, that they wish most of all to have nothing whatever to do with us,
unless it may be to coin dollars out of our blood. Our position here is anomalous,
unequal, and extraordinary. It is a position to which the most courageous of
us cannot look without deep concern. We are, Sir, a hopeful people, and in this
we are fortunate: but for this we should have long before the present seemingly
unpropitious hour, sunk down under a sense of despair. Look at it, Sir. Here,
upon the soil of our birth, in a country which has known us for centuries, among
a people who did not wait for us to seek them, but a people who sought us, and
who brought us to their own chosen land-a people for whom we have performed
the humblest services, and whose greatest comforts and luxuries have been won
from the earth by the strength of our sable and sinewy arms. I say, Sir, among
such a people and with such recommendations to favor, we are esteemed less than
strangers and sojourners-aliens are we in our native land. The fundamental principles
of the Republic to which the humblest white man, whether born here or elsewhere,
may appeal with confidence in the hope of awakening a favorable response, are
held to be inapplicable to us. The glorious doctrines of your revolutionary
fathers, and the still more glorious teachings of the Son of God, are construed
and applied against us. We are literally scourged beyond the beneficent range
of both authorities human and divine. We plead for our rights in the name of
the immortal Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution, and we are
answered by our countrymen with imprecations and curses. In the sacred name
of Jesus we beg for mercy, and the slave whip, red with blood, cracks over us
in mockery. We invoke the aid of the ministers of Him who came to preach deliverance
to the captives, and to set at liberty them that are bound; and from the loftiest
summits of this ministry comes the inhuman and blasphemous response, that if
one prayer would move the almighty arm in mercy to break our galling chains,
that prayer would be withheld! We cry for help to humanity, a common humanity,
and here too we are repulsed. American humanity hates us, scorns, disowns and
denies our personality. The outspread wing of American Christianity-apparently
broad enough to give shelter to a perishing world-refuses to cover us. To us
its bones are brass and its feathers iron. In running thither for shelter and
succor, we have only fled from the hungry bloodhound to the devouring wolf-from
a corrupt and selfish world to a hollow and hypocritical church; and may I not
add, from the agonies of earth to the flames of hell!
Sir, this is strong language. For the sake of my people, I would to God it were
extravagantly strong. But, Sir, I fear our fault here to-day will not be that
we have pleaded the cause of the slave too vehemently, but too tamely; that
we have not contemplated his wrongs with too much excitement, but with unnatural
calmness and composure. For my part, I cannot speak as I feel on this subject.
My language, though never so bitter, is less bitter than my experience. At best,
my poor speech is, to the facts in the case, but as the shadow to the substance.
Sir, it is known to you and to many who hear me, that I am alike familiar with
the whip and chain of slavery, and the lash and sting of public neglect and
scorn; that my back is marked with the one, and my soul is fretted with the
other. My neck is galled by both yokes-that imposed by one master, and that
imposed by many masters. More than twenty years of my life were passed in Slavery,
and nearly fifteen years have been passed in nominal freedom. Mine has been
the experience of the colored people of America, both slave and free. I was
born a slave. Even before I [was] made part of this breathing world the scourge
was platted for my back, and the fetters were forged for my limbs. My earliest
recollections are associated with the appalling thought that I was a slave-a
slave for life. How that crushing thought wrung my young heart I shall never
be able fully to tell. But of some things I can tell-some things which are incident
to the free and to the slave people of this country. Give me leave, then, in
my own language to speak freely all that can be uttered of the thoughts of my
heart in regard to the wrongs of the people with whom I thus stand associated
in the two conditions to which I have thus alluded- for when I have said all,
"the half will not then have been told. "
Sir, it was once said by that greatest of modem Irish orators, Daniel O'Connell-
(a man whose patriotism was equalled only by his love of universal freedom)-that
the history of the Irish people might be traced like a wounded man through a
crowd, by the blood. That is a most startling saying. I read it with a shudder
soon after it was said, and felt [that] if this were true in relation to the
Irish people it was still more true in relation to the colored people of the
United States. Our wrongs and outrages are as old as our country. They date
back to its earliest settlement, and extend through two hundred and thirty years-and
they are as numerous and as oft-repeated as the days of all these years. Even
now while I speak and you listen the work of blood and sorrow goes on. Methinks
I hear the noise of chains and the clang of the whip. There is not a day, not
an hour in any day-not a minute in any hour of the day, that the blood of my
people does not gush forth at the call of the scourge-that the tenderest ties
of humanity are not sundered-that parents are not tom from children, and husbands
are not tom from their wives for the convenience of those who gain fortune by
the blood of souls.
But I do not propose to confine your attention to the details of Slavery. They
are harrowing to think of and too shocking to fix the n-find upon for any length
of time. I rather wish to speak of the condition of the colored people of the
United States generally. This people, free and slave, are rapidly filling up
the number of four millions. They are becoming a nation, in the midst of a nation
which disowns them, and for weal or for woe this nation is united. The distinction
between the slave and the free is not great, and their destiny seems one and
the same. The black man is linked to his brother by indissoluble ties. The one
cannot be truly free while the other is a slave. The free colored man is reminded
by the ten thousand petty annoyances with which he meets every day, of his identity
with an enslaved people-and that with them he is destined to fall or flourish.
We are one nation then, if not one in immediate condition at least one in prospects.
I will not argue that we are men of like passions with the rest of mankind.
That is unnecessary. All know at any rate that we are capable in some sort of
love and hate, friendship and enmity. But whatever character or capacity you
ascribe to us, I am not ashamed to be numbered with this race. I am not ashamed
to speak here as a negro. Sir, I utterly abhor and spurn with all the contempt
possible that cowardly meanness, I will not call it pride, which leads any colored
man to repudiate his connection with his race. I cannot say, therefore, as was
said recently by a distinguished colored man at a Convention in Cincinnati,
that he did not speak as a colored man, for, Sir, as a colored man I do speak-as
a colored man I was invited here to speak-and as a colored man there are peculiar
reasons for my speaking. The man struck is the man to cry out. I would place
myself-nay, I am placed-among the victims of American oppression. I view this
subject from their stand-point-and scan the moral and political horizon of the
country with their hopes, their fears, and their intense solicitude. Standing
here, then, and judging from the events and indications of the past few years,
the black man must see that a crisis has arrived in his relations with the American
people. He is reminded that trials and hardships await him; that the times are
portentous of storms which will try the strength of his bark.
Sir, it is evident that there is in this country a purely Slavery party-a party
which exists for no other earthly purpose but to promote the interests of Slavery.
The presence of this party is felt everywhere in the Republic. It is known by
no particular name, and has assumed no definite shape; but its branches reach
far and wide in the Church and in the State. This shapeless and nameless party
is not intangible in other and more important respects. That party, Sir, has
determined upon a fixed, definite, and comprehensive policy toward the whole
colored population of the United States. What that policy is, it becomes us
as Abolitionists, and especially does it become the colored people themselves,
to consider and to understand fully. We ought to know who our enemies are, where
they are, and what are their objects and measures.
Well, Sir, here is my version of it-not original with me-but mine because I
hold it to be true. I understand this policy to comprehend five cardinal objects.
They are these: Ist. The complete suppression of all Anti-Slavery discussion.
2d. The expatriation of the entire free people of color from the United States.
3d. The unending perpetuation of Slavery in this Republic. 4th. The nationalization
of Slavery to the extent of making Slavery respected in every State of the Union.
5th. The extension of Slavery over Mexico and the entire South American States.
Sir, these objects are forcibly presented to us in the stem logic of passing
events-in the facts which are and have been passing around us during the last
three years. The country has been and is now dividing on these grand issues.
In their magnitude these issues cast all others into the shade, depriving them
of all life and vitality. Old party ties are broken. Like is finding its like
on either side of this great issues-and the great battle is at hand.
For the present, the best representative of the Slavery party in politics is
the Democratic party. Its great head for the present is President Pierce, whose
boast it was-before his election-that his whole life had been consistent with
the interests of Slavery, that he is above reproach, on that score. In his inaugural
address, he re-assures the South on this point. Well, the head of the slave
power being in power, it is natural that the pro-slavery elements should cluster
around the Administration, and this is rapidly being done. A fraternization
is going on. The stringent Protectionists and the Free Traders strike hands.
The supporters of Fillmore are becoming the supporters of Pierce. The Silver
Gray Whig shakes hands with the Hunker Democrat-the former only differing from
the latter in name. They are of one heart, one mind, and the union is natural
and perhaps inevitable. Both hate negroes, both hate progress, both hate the
"Higher Law, " both hate Wm. H. Seward, both hate the Free Democratic
party, and upon this hateful basis they are forming a union of hatred. "Pilate
and Herod are thus made friends. " Even the central organ of the Whig party
is extending its beggar hand for a morsel from the table of Slavery Democracy,
and when spurned from the feast by the more deserving, it pockets the insult;
when kicked on one side it turns the other, and perseveres in its importunities.
The fact is, that paper comprehends the demands of the times; it understands
the age and its issues; it wisely sees that Slavery and Freedom are the great
antagonistic forces in the country, and it goes to its own side. Silver Grays
and Hunkers all understand this. They are, therefore, rapidly sinking all other
questions to nothing, compared with the increasing demands of Slavery. They
are collecting, arranging, and consolidating their forces for the accomplishment
of their appointed work.
The key stone to the arch of this grand union of the Slavery party of the United
States is the Compromise of 1850. In that Compromise, we have all the objects
of our slaveholding policy specified. It is, Sir, favorable to this view of
the designs of the slave power, that both the Whig and the Democratic party
bent lower, sunk deeper, and strained harder, in their conventions, preparatory
to the late presidential election, to meet the demands of the Slavery party,
than at any previous time in their history. Never did parties come before the
northern people with propositions of such undisguised contempt for the moral
sentiment and the religious ideas of that people. They virtually asked them
to unite in a war upon free speech, upon conscience, and to drive the Almighty
presence from the councils of the nation. Resting their platforms upon the Fugitive
Slave bill, they boldly asked the people for political power to execute the
horrible and hell black provisions of that bill. The history of that election
reveals, with great clearness, the extent to which Slavery has shot its leprous
distillrnent through the lifeblood of the nation. The party most thoroughly
opposed to the cause of justice and humanity triumphed, while the party suspected
of a leaning towards Liberty was overwhelmingly defeated, some say annihilated.
But here is a still more important fact, illustrating the designs of the slave
power. It is a fact full of meaning, that no sooner did the Democratic slavery
party come into power, than a system of legislation was presented to the Legislatures
of the Northern States, designed to put the States in harmony with the Fugitive
Slave Law and the malignant bearing of the National Government towards the colored
inhabitants of the country. This whole movement on the part of the States bears
the evidence of having one origin, emanating from one head, and urged forward
by one power. It was simultaneous, uniform and general, and looked to one end.
It was intended to put thorns under feet already bleeding; to crush a people
already bowed down; to enslave a people already but half free; in a word, it
was intended to discourage, dishearten, and drive the free colored people out
of the country. In looking at the recent black law of Illinois, one is struck
dumb with its enormity. It would seem that the men who enacted that law, had
not only banished from their minds all sense of justice, but all sense of shame.
It coolly proposes to sell the bodies and souls of the black[s] to increase
the intelligence and refinement of the whites. To rob every black stranger who
ventures among them, to increase their literary fund.
While this is going on in the States, a Pro-Slavery, Political Board of Health
is established at Washington! Senators Hale, Chase and Sumner are robbed of
a part of their Senatorial dignity and consequence as representing sovereign
States, because they have refused to be inoculated with the Slavery virus. Among
the services which a Senator is expected by his State to perform, are many that
can only be done efficiently on Committees- and, in saying to these honorable
Senators, you shall not serve on the Committees of this body, the Slavery party
took the responsibility of robbing and insulting the States that sent them.
It is an attempt at Washington to decide for the States who shall be sent to
the Senate. Sir, it strikes me that this aggression on the part of the Slave
power did not meet at the hands of the proscribed Senators the rebuke which
we had a right to expect would be administered. It seems to me that an opportunity
was lost that the great principles of Senatorial equality were left undefended,
at a time when its vindication was sternly demanded. But it is not to the purpose
of my present statement to criticise the conduct of our friends. I am persuaded
that much ought to be left to the discretion of Anti-Slavery men in Congress,
and charges of recreancy should never be made but on the most sufficient grounds.
For, of all the places in the world where an Anti-Slavery man needs the confidence
and encouragement of friends, I take Washington to be that place.
Let me now call attention to the social influences which are operating and cooperating
with the Slavery party of the country, designed to con- tribute to one or all
of the grand objects aimed at by that party. We see here the black man attacked
in his vital interests-prejudice and hate are excited against him--enmity is
stirred up between him and other laborers. The Irish people, warm hearted, generous,
and sympathizing with the op- pressed everywhere when they stand upon their
own green island, are instantly taught on arriving in this Christian country
to hate and despise the colored people. They are taught to believe that we eat
the bread which of right belongs to them. The cruel lie is told the Irish that
our adversity is essential to their prosperity. Sir, the Irish American will
find out his mistake one day. He will find that in assuming our avocation he
also has assumed our degradation. But for the present we are sufferers. The
old employments by which we have heretofore gained our livelihood are gradually,
and it may be inevitably, passing into other hands. Every hour sees us elbowed
out of some employment to make room perhaps for some newly arrived emigrants,
whose hunger and color are thought to give them a title to especial favor. White
men are becoming house servants, cooks and stewards, common laborers and flunkeys
to our gentry; and, for aught I see, they adjust themselves to their stations
with all becoming obsequiousness. This fact proves that if we cannot rise to
the whites, the whites can fall to us.
Now, Sir, look once more. While the colored people are thus elbowed out of employment;
while the enmity of emigrants is being excited against us; while State after
State enacts laws against us; while we are hunted down, like wild game, and
oppressed with a general feeling of insecurity; the American Colonization Society-that
old offender against the best interests and slanderer of the colored people-awakens
to new life, and vigorously presses its scheme upon the consideration of the
people and the Government. New papers are started-some for the North and some
for the South-and each in its tone adapting itself to its latitude. Government,
[both] State and National, is called upon for appropriations to enable the Society
to send us out of the country by steam! They want steamers to carry letters
and negroes to Africa. Evidently this Society looks upon our "ex- tremity
as its opportunity, " and we may expect that it will use the occasion well,
that [it] does not deplore but glories in our misfortunes.
But, Sir, I must hasten. I have thus briefly given my view of one aspect of
the present condition and future prospects of the colored people of the United
States. And what I have said is far from encouraging to my afflicted people.
I have seen the cloud gather upon the sable brows of some who hear me. I confess
the case looks black enough. Sir, I am not a hopeful man. I think I am apt even
to undercalculate the benefits of the future. Yet, Sir, in this seemingly desperate
case, I do not despair for my people. There is a bright side to almost every
picture of this kind; and ours is no exception to the general rule. If the influences
against us are strong, those for us are also strong. To the inquiry, will our
enemies prevail in the execution of their designs, in my God and in my soul,
I believe they will not.
Let us look at the first object sought for by the Slavery party of the country, viz: the suppression of anti-slavery discussion. They desire to suppress discussion on this subject, with a view to the peace of the slaveholder and the security of slavery. Now, Sir, neither the principle nor the subordinate objects, here declared can be at all gained by the slave power, and for this reason: It involves the proposition to padlock the lips of the whites in order to secure the fetters on the limbs of the blacks. The right of speech, precious and priceless, cannot, will not, be surrendered to Slavery. Its suppression is asked for, as I have said, to give peace and security to slaveholders. Sir, that thing cannot be done. God has interposed an insuperable obstacle to any such result. "There can be no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." Suppose it were possible to put down this discussion, what would it avail the guilty slaveholder, pillowed as he is upon the heaving bosoms of ruined souls? He could not have a peaceful spirit. If every anti-slavery tongue in the nation were silent- every anti-slavery organization dissolved-every anti-slavery press demolished- every anti-slavery periodical, paper, book, pamphlet or what not were searched out, gathered together, deliberately burned to ashes, and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven, still, still the slaveholder could have "no peace. " In every pulsation of his heart, in every throb of his life, in every glance of his eye, in the breeze that soothes and in the thunder that startles, would be waked up an accuser, whose cause is, "Thou art, verily, guilty concerning thy brother." Oh! Sir, I can say with the poet Cowper-and I speak from observation-
"I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned, No: dear as freedom is, and in
my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him."
Again: The prospect, Sir, of putting down this discussion is anything but flattering
at the present moment. I am unable to detect any signs of the suppression of
this discussion. I certainly do not see it in this crowded assembly-nor upon
this platform-nor do I see it in any direction.
Why, Sir, look all over the North; look South-look at home-look abroad-look
at the whole civilized world-and what are all this vast multitude doing at this
moment? Why, Sir, they are reading " Uncle Tom's Cabin; " and when
they have read that, they will probably read "The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
"-a key not only to the Cabin, but, I believe to the slave's darkest dungeon.
A nation's hand, with that "key, " will unlock the slave prisons to
millions. Then look at the authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin. " There
is nothing in her reception abroad which indicates a declen- sion of interest
in the great subject which she has done so much to unfold and illustrate. The
landing of a Princess on the shores of England would not have produced the same
sensational
I take it, then, that the Slavery party will find this item of their pro- gramme
the most difficult of execution, since it is the voice of all experi- ence that
opposition to agitation is the most successful method of promot- ing it. Men
will write-men will read-men will think-men will feel- and the result of this
is, men will speak; and it were as well to chain the lightning as to repress
the moral convictions and humane promptings of enlightened human nature. Herein,
sirs, is our hope. Slavery cannot bear discussion: it is a monster of darkness:
and, as Junius said of the character of Lord Granby, "it can only pass
without censure, as it passes without observation. The second cardinal object
of this party, viz: The expatriation of the free colored people from the United
States, is a very desirable one to our enemies-and we read, in the vigorous
efforts making to accomplish it, an acknowledgment of our manhood, and the danger
to Slavery arising out of our presence. Despite the tremendous pressure brought
to bear against us, the colored people are gradually increasing in welalth,
in intelligence and in respectability. Here is the secret of the Colonization
scheme. It is easily seen that just in proportion to the intelligence and respectability
of the free colored race at the North is their power to endanger the stability
of Slavery. Hence the desire to get rid of us. But, Sir, the desire is not merely
to get us out of this country, but to get us at a convenient and harmless distance
from Slavery. And here, Sir, I think I can speak as if by authority for the
free colored people of the United States. The people of this Republic may commit
the audacious and high-handed atrocity of driving us out of the limits of their
borders. They may virtually confiscate our property; they may invade our civil
and personal liberty, and render our lives intolerable burdens, so that we may
be induced to leave the United States; but to compel us to go to Africa is quite
another thing.
Thank God, the alternative is not quite so desperate as that we must be slaves
here, or go to the pestilential shores of Africa. Other and more desirable lands
are open to us. We can plant ourselves at the very portals of Slavery. We can
hover about the Gulf of Mexico. Nearly all the isles of the Caribbean Sea bid
us welcome, while the broad and fertile valleys Of British Guiana, under the
sway of the emancipating Queen, invite us to their treasures, and to nationality.
With the Gulf of Mexico on the South, and Canada on the North, we may still
keep within hearing of the wails of our enslaved people in the United States.
From the isles of the sea, and from the mountain tops of South America we can
watch the meandering destiny of those we have left behind. Americans should
remember that there are already on this Continent, and in the adjacent islands,
all of 12,370,000 negroes, who only wait for the life-giving and organizing
power of intelligence to mould them into one body and into a powerful nation.
The following estimate of our numbers and localities is taken from one of the
able Reports of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, carefully drawn
up by its former Secretary, John Scoble, Esq.:
United States ................................... 3,650,000
Brazil: ................................…………....4,050,000
Spanish Colonies ..................………...1,470,000
South American Republics......................1,130,000
British Colonies .................................. 750,000
Hayti .........................................………..850,000
French Colonies ................................…...270,000
Dutch Colonies ..................................…..50,000
Danish Colonies .................................…..45,000
Mexico ........................................……...70,000
Canada .........................................………35,000
Total ...................................………….12,370,006
Now, Sir, it seems to me that the Slavery party will gain little by driving
us out of this country, unless it drives us off this Continent and the adjacent
islands. It seems to me that it would be after all of little advantage to Slavery
to have the intelligence and energy of the free colored people all concentrated
in the Gulf of Mexico! Sir, I am not for going anywhere. I am for staying precisely
where I am, in the land of my birth. But, Sir, if I must go from this country-if
it is impossible to stay here-I am then for doing the next best, and that will
be to go to wherever I can hope to be of most service to the colored people
of the United States.
Americans! there is a meaning in those figures I have read. God does not permit
12,000,000 of his creatures to live without the notice of His eye. That this
vast people are tending to one point on this Continent is not without significance.
All things are possible w-.th God. Let not the colored man despair then. Let
him remember that a home, a country, a nationality are all attainable this side
of Liberia. But for the present the colored people should stay just where they
are, unless where they are compelled to leave. I have faith left yet in the
wisdom and the justice of the country, and it may be that there are enough left
of these to save the nation.
But there is a third object sought by the Slavery party-namely, to render Slavery
a permanent system in this Republic, and to make the relation of master and
slave respected in every State in the Union. Neither part of this object can
be accomplished. Slavery has no means within itself of perpetuation or permanence.
It is a huge lie. It is of the devil, and will go to its place. It is against
nature, against progress, against improvement, and against the Government of
God. It cannot stand. It has an enemy in every bar of railroad iron, in every
electric wire, in every improvement in navigation, in the growing intercourse
of nations, in cheap postage, in the relaxation of tariffs, in common schools,
in the progress of education, the spread of knowledge, in the steam engine,
and in the World's Fair, now about to assemble in New York, and in everything
that will be exhibited there.
About making Slavery respectable in the North: laws have been made to accomplish
just that thing. The law of '50, and the law of '93. And those laws, instead
of getting respect for Slavery, have begot disgust and abhorrence. Congress
may pass slave laws every day in the year for all time, if each one should be
followed by such publications as "Uncle Tom " and the "Key. "
It is not in the power of human law to make men entirely forget that the slave
is a man. The freemen of the North can never be brought to look with the same
feelings upon a man, escaping from his claimants, as upon a horse running from
his owner. The slave is a man, and no law can take his manhood from him. His
right to be free is written on all the powers and faculties of his soul, and
is recorded in the great heart of God, and no human law can touch it.
Now, Sir, I had more to say on the encouraging aspects of the times, but the
time fails me. I will only say, in conclusion, greater is he that is for us,
than they that are against us; and though labor and peril beset the Anti-Slavery
movements, so sure as that a God of mercy and justice is enthroned above all
created things, so sure will that cause gloriously triumph. Sir, I have fully
spoken out the thoughts of my heart. I have spoken as a colored man, and not
as the representative of any Anti-Slavery society. There are many societies:
but there is but ONE CAUSE. That cause I desire to serve with my whole heart.
I have now spoken at the meeting of the "American A[nti-] S[laveryl Society,"
and at the "American and Foreign A[nti-] S[lavery] Society." The oppressed,
among whom I am numbered, should be grateful to both. I honor and respect Lewis
Tappan.I love and revere William Lloyd Garrison; and may God have mercy on me
when I refuse to strike a blow against Slavery, in connection with either of
these gentlemen. I will work with either; and if the one discards me because
I work with the other, the responsibility is not mine. (Great and repeated applause.)
RECEPTION SPEECH AT FINSBURY CHAPEL, MOORFIELDS, ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1846. See also: Audio of actor reading 1846 speech in London, entitled "An Appeal to the British People"
THE NATURE OF SLAVERY. EXTRACT FROM A LECTURE ON SLAVERY, AT ROCHESTER, DECEMBER 1, 1850.
The slave is a man, "the image of God," but "a little lower than the angels;" possessing a soul, eternal and indestructible; capable of endless happiness, or immeasurable woe; a creature of hopes and fears, of affections and passions, of joys and sorrows, and he is endowed with those mysterious powers by which man soars above the things of time and sense, and grasps, with undying tenacity, the elevating and sublimely glorious idea of a God. It is such a being that is smitten and blasted. The first work of slavery is to mar and deface those characteristics of its victims which distinguish men from things, and persons from property. Its first aim is to destroy all sense of high moral and religious responsibility. It reduces man to a mere machine. It cuts him off from his Maker, it hides from him the laws of God, and leaves him to grope his way from time to eternity in the dark, under the arbitrary and despotic control of a frail, depraved, and sinful fellow-man. As the serpent-charmer of India is compelled to extract the deadly teeth of his venomous prey before he is able to handle him with impunity, so the slaveholder must strike down the conscience of the slave before he can obtain the entire mastery over his victim.
INHUMANITY OF SLAVERY. EXTRACT FROM A LECTURE ON SLAVERY, AT ROCHESTER, DECEMBER 8, 1850.
Behold the practical operation of this internal slave trade--the American slave trade sustained by American politics and American religion! Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover! I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our southern states. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human-flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip, and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the cottonfield and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes, weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn. The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength. Suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul. The crack you heard was the sound of the slave whip; the scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains; that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me, citizens, where, under the sun, can you witness a spectacle more flendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave trade, as it exists at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States
THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE. EXTRACT FROM AN ORATION, AT ROCHESTER, JULY 5, 1852
SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE MASS FREE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION AT ITHACA, NEW YORK, OCT. I4TH, 1852
Mr. Chairman:---
I esteem it a very great privilege to address this Convention.
[p2]
I take you to represent the spirit of freedom and progress in Tompkins.
[p3]
Sir, I am not sensible of possessing any special aptitude or qualification,
to instruct you in minute political questions, which may affect your material
interests. I know little of banks or tariffs, of commerce or currency. Yet,
I have one great political idea, and so far as that can bear upon your political
relations and duties, I am willing to present it this evening.
[p4]
That idea is an old one. It is widely and generally assented to; nevertheless,
it is very generally trampled upon and disregarded. - The best expression of
it, I have found in the Bible. It is in substance, RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTETH A
NATION--SIN IS A REPROACH TO ANY PEOPLE.
If every anti-slavery tongue in the nation were silent--every antislavery organization dissolved--every anti-slavery press demolished--every anti-slavery periodical, paper, book, pamphlet, or what not, were searched out, gathered together, deliberately burned to ashes, and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven, still, still the slaveholder could have "no peace." In every pulsation of his heart, in every throb of his life, in every glance of his eye, in the breeze that soothes, and in the thunder that startles, would be waked up an accuser, whose cause is, "Thou art, verily, guilty concerning thy brother."
. If there be but one such man in the land, no matter what becomes of abolition societies and parties, there will be an anti-slavery cause, and an anti-slavery movement. Fortunately for that cause, and fortunately for him by whom it is espoused, it requires no extraordinary amount of talent to preach it or to receive it when preached. The grand secret of its power is, that each of its principles is easily rendered appreciable to the faculty of reason in man, and that the most unenlightened conscience has no difficulty in deciding on which side to register its testimony. It can call its preachers from among the fishermen, and raise them to power. In every human breast, it has an advocate which can be silent only when the heart is dead. It comes home to every man's understanding, and appeals directly to every man's conscience. A man that does not recognize and approve for himself the rights and privileges contended for, in behalf of the American slave, has not yet been found. In whatever else men may differ, they are alike in the apprehension of their natural and personal rights. The difference between abolitionists and those by whom they are opposed, is not as to principles. All are agreed in respect to these. The manner of applying them is the point of difference.
No Progress Without Struggle! (A very short excerpt from an address on West India Emancipation, August 4, 1857.)
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
A Plea for Free Speech in Boston Frederick Douglass, "A Plea for Free Speech in Boston," 1860 Occasion: As noted in the address, the speech was given Boston's Music Hall the week after an anti-slavery meeting had been broken up by a mob of "gentlemen." According to David J. Brewer, the speech was recorded in December 4, 1860 in William Garrison's Liberator. World's Best Orations (St. Louis: Ferd. P. Kaiser, 1899), vol. 5, p. 1906. See also: A Plea for Free Speech in Boston
BOSTON is a great city - and Music Hall has a fame almost as extensive as that of Boston. Nowhere more than here have the principles of human freedom been expounded. But for the circumstances already mentioned, it would seem almost presumption for me to say anything here about those principles. And yet, even here, in Boston, the moral atmosphere is dark and heavy. The principles of human liberty, even I correctly apprehended, find but limited support in this hour a trial. The world moves slowly, and Boston is much like the world. We thought the principle of free speech was an accomplished fact. Here, if nowhere else, we thought the right of the people to assemble and to express their opinion was secure. Dr. Channing had defended the right, Mr. Garrison had practically asserted the right, and Theodore Parker had maintained it with steadiness and fidelity to the last.
But here we are to-day contending for what we thought we gained years ago. The mortifying and disgraceful fact stares us in the face, that though Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill Monument stand, freedom of speech is struck down. No lengthy detail of facts is needed. They are already notorious; far more so than will be wished ten years hence.
Close:
The principle must rest upon its own proper basis. And until the right is accorded to the humblest as freely as to the most exalted citizen, the government of Boston is but an empty name, and its freedom a mockery. A man's right to speak does not depend upon where he was born or upon his color. The simple quality of manhood is the solid basis of the right - and there let it rest forever.
Addresses of the Hon. W. D. Kelley, Miss Anna E. Dickinson, and Mr. Frederick Douglass, at a mass meeting ... Philadelphia, July 6, 1863, for the promotion of colored enlistments. ADDRESSES OF THE HON. W. D. KELLEY, MISS ANNA E. DICKINSON, AND MR. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AT A MASS MEETING, HELD AT NATIONAL HALL, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 6, 1863, FOR THE PROMOTION OF COLORED ENLISTMENTS.
SPEECH OF MR. FREDERICK DOUGLASS. Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens--I shall not attempt to follow Judge Kelley and Miss Dickinson in their eloquent and thrilling appeals to colored men to enlist in the service of the United States. They have left nothing to be desired on that point. I propose to look at the subject in a plain and practical commonsense light. There are obviously two views to be taken of such enlistments--a broad view and a narrow view. I am willing to take both, and consider both. The narrow view of this subject is that which respects the matter of dollars and cents. There are those among us who say they are in favor of taking a hand in this tremendous war, but they add they wish to do so on terms of equality with white men. They say if they enter the service, endure all the hardships, perils and suffering--if they make bare their breasts, and with strong arms and courageous hearts confront rebel cannons, and wring victory from the jaws of death, they should have the same pay, the same rations, the same bounty, and the same favorable conditions every way afforded to other men. I shall not oppose this view. There is something deep down in the soul of every man present which assents to the justice of the claim thus made, and honors the manhood and self-respect which insists upon it. [Applause.] I say at once, in peace and in war, I am content with nothing for the black man short of equal and exact justice. The only question I have, and the point at which I differ from those who refuse to enlist, is whether the colored man is more likely to obtain justice and equality while refusing to assist in putting down this tremendous rebellion than he would be if he should promptly, generously and earnestly give his hand and heart to the salvation of the country in this its day of calamity and peril. Nothing can be more plain, nothing more certain than that the speediest and best possible way open to us to manhood, equal rights and elevation, is that we enter this service. For my own part, I hold that if the Government of the United States offered nothing more, as an inducement to colored men to enlist, than bare subsistence and arms, considering the moral effect of compliance upon ourselves, it would be the wisest and best thing for us to enlist. [Applause.] There is something ennobling in the possession of arms, and we of all other people in the world stand in need of their ennobling influence.
(At the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, April, 1865, Douglass delivered the following speech on the subject: The Equality of all men before the law; Note that this was given within days of the close of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln.) WHAT THE BLACK MAN WANTS
Middle:
It may be asked, "Why do you want it? Some men have got along very well without it. Women have not this right." Shall we justify one wrong by another? This is the sufficient answer. Shall we at this moment justify the deprivation of the Negro of the right to vote, because some one else is deprived of that privilege? I hold that women, as well as men, have the right to vote [applause], and my heart and voice go with the movement to extend suffrage to woman; but that question rests upon another basis than which our right rests. We may be asked, I say, why we want it. I will tell you why we want it. We want it because it is our right, first of all. No class of men can, without insulting their own nature, be content with any deprivation of their rights. We want it again, as a means for educating our race. Men are so constituted that they derive their conviction of their own possibilities largely by the estimate formed of them by others. If nothing is expected of a people, that people will find it difficult to contradict that expectation. By depriving us of suffrage, you affirm our incapacity to form an intelligent judgment respecting public men and public measures; you declare before the world that we are unfit to exercise the elective franchise, and by this means lead us to undervalue ourselves, to put a low estimate upon ourselves, and to feel that we have no possibilities like other men. Again, I want the elective franchise, for one, as a colored man, because ours is a peculiar government, based upon a peculiar idea, and that idea is universal suffrage. If I were in a monarchial government, or an autocratic or aristocratic government, where the few bore rule and the many were subject, there would be no special stigma resting upon me, because I did not exercise the elective franchise. It would do me no great violence. Mingling with the mass I should partake of the strength of the mass; I should be supported by the mass, and I should have the same incentives to endeavor with the mass of my fellow-men; it would be no particular burden, no particular deprivation; but here where universal suffrage is the rule, where that is the fundamental idea of the Government, to rule us out is to make us an exception, to brand us with the stigma of inferiority, and to invite to our heads the missiles of those about us; therefore, I want the franchise for the black man.
Close:
I ask my friends who are apologizing for not insisting upon this right, where can the black man look, in this country, for the assertion of his right, if he may not look to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society? Where under the whole heavens can he look for sympathy, in asserting this right, if he may not look to this platform? Have you lifted us up to a certain height to see that we are men, and then are any disposed to leave us there, without seeing that we are put in possession of all our rights? We look naturally to this platform for the assertion of all our rights, and for this one especially. I understand the anti-slavery societies of this country to be based on two principles,--first, the freedom of the blacks of this country; and, second, the elevation of them. Let me not be misunderstood here. I am not asking for sympathy at the hands of abolitionists, sympathy at the hands of any. I think the American people are disposed often to be generous rather than just. I look over this country at the present time, and I see Educational Societies, Sanitary Commissions, Freedmen's Associations, and the like,--all very good: but in regard to the colored people there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. [Applause.] The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. Gen. Banks was distressed with solicitude as to what he should do with the Negro. Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, "What shall we do with the Negro?" I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don't disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot- box, let him alone, don't disturb him! [Applause.] If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone,--your interference is doing him a positive injury. Gen. Banks' "preparation" is of a piece with this attempt to prop up the Negro. Let him fall if he cannot stand alone! If the Negro cannot live by the line of eternal justice, so beautifully pictured to you in the illustration used by Mr. Phillips, the fault will not be yours, it will be his who made the Negro, and established that line for his government. [Applause.] Let him live or die by that. If you will only untie his hands, and give him a chance, I think he will live. He will work as readily for himself as the white man. A great many delusions have been swept away by this war. One was, that the Negro would not work; he has proved his ability to work. Another was, that the Negro would not fight; that he possessed only the most sheepish attributes of humanity; was a perfect lamb, or an "Uncle Tom;" disposed to take off his coat whenever required, fold his hands, and be whipped by anybody who wanted to whip him. But the war has proved that there is a great deal of human nature in the Negro, and that "he will fight," as Mr. Quincy, our President, said, in earlier days than these, "when there is reasonable probability of his whipping anybody." [Laughter and applause.]
An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage, 1867
A very limited statement of the argument for impartial suffrage, and for including the negro in the body politic, would require more space than can be reasonably asked here. It is supported by reasons as broad as the nature of man, and as numerous as the wants of society. Man is the only government-making animal in the world. His right to a participation in the production and operation of government is an inference from his nature, as direct and self-evident as is his right to acquire property or education. It is no less a crime against the manhood of a man, to declare that he shall not share in the making and directing of the government under which he lives, than to say that he shall not acquire property and education. The fundamental and unanswerable argument in favor of the enfranchisement of the negro is found in the undisputed fact of his manhood. He is a man, and by every fact and argument by which any man can sustain his right to vote, the negro can sustain his right equally. It is plain that, if the right belongs to any, it belongs to all. The doctrine that some men have no rights that others are bound to respect, is a doctrine which we must banish as we have banished slavery, from which it emanated. If black men have no rights in the eyes of white men, of course the whites can have none in the eyes of the blacks. The result is a war of races, and the annihilation of all proper human relations.
Closing:
Such is the record of the great chieftain whose sword cleft the hydra-head of treason, and by whose true heart and good right arm you gained the ballot, that glorious insignia of your citizenship. Such is the record of the wise statesman for whom you trusted your first ballot for President; for no other than him can you trust your second. Rally, then, to his support with the resistless spirit in which you fought for your liberties, with that deep sincerity in which you mourned the foul death of your liberator--Lincoln--with the same exultant hope in which you made General Grant your first President, with your first votes, in 1863.
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 travelled; 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 centre 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.
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 pre-eminently 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 pre-eminence 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 alter, 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 fulness 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.
"THE SERFS OF RUSSIA...WERE GIVEN THREE ACRES OF LAND" Frederick Douglass assesses the meaning of emancipation in 1880.
When the serfs of Russia were emancipated, they were given three acres of ground upon which they could live and make a living. But no so when our slaves were emancipated. They were sent away empty- handed, without money, without friends and without a foot of land upon which to stand.... Greatness does not come on flowery beds of ease to any people. 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 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.
JOHN BROWN. AN ADDRESS BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS, AT THE FOURTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF STORER COLLEGE, HARPER'S FERRY, WEST VIRGINIA, MAY 30, 1881. DOVE
Not to fan the flame of sectional animosity now happily in the process of rapid and I hope permanent extinction; not to revive and keep alive a sense of shame and remorse for a great national crime, which has brought own punishment, in loss of treasure, tears and blood; not to recount the long list of wrongs, inflicted on my race during more than two hundred years of merciless bondage; nor yet to draw, from the labyrinths of far-off centuries, incidents and achievements wherewith to rouse your passions, and enkindle your enthusiasm, but to pay a just debt long due, to vindicate in some degree a great historical character, of our own time and country, one with whom I was myself well acquainted, and whose friendship and confidence it was my good fortune to share, and to give you such recollections, impressions and facts, as I can, of a grand, brave and good old man, and especially to promote a better understanding of the raid upon Harper's Ferry of which he was the chief, is the object of this address....
It certainly is not a story to please, but to pain. It is not a story to increase our sense of social safety and security, but to fill the imagination with wild and troubled fancies of doubt and danger. It was a sudden and startling surprise to the people of Harper's Ferry, and it is not easy to conceive of a situation more abundant in all the elements of horror and consternation.
Address to the Louisville Convention (1883)
Born on American soil in common with yourselves, deriving our bodies and our minds from its dust, centuries having passed away since our ancestors were torn from the shores of Africa, we, like yourselves, hold ourselves to be in every sense Americans, and that we may, therefore, venture to speak to you in a tone not lower than that which becomes earnest men and American citizens. Having watered your soil with our tears, enriched it with our blood, performed its roughest labor in time of peace, defended it against enemies in time of war, and at all times been loyal and true to its best interests, we deem it no arrogance or presumption to manifest now a common concern with you for its welfare, prosperity, honor and glory....
Close:
We hold it to be self-evident that no class or color should be the exclusive rulers of this country. If there is such a ruling class, there must of course be a subject class, and when this condition is once established this Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, will have perished from the earth.
From every view I have been able to take of the present situation in re- lation to the colored people of the United States, I am forced to the conclu- sion that the irrepressible conflict, of which we heard so much before the War of the Rebellion and during the war, is still in progress. It is still the battle between two opposite civilizationsthe one created and sustained by slavery, and the other framed and fashioned in the spirit of liberty and hu- inanity, and this conflict will not be ended until one or the other shall be completely adopted in every section of our common country.~~
THE RACE PROBLEM. Members and Friends of the Bethel Literary and Historical Association: I esteem it a great privilege to be with you and assist in this your first meeting since the close of your last winter's term. The organization of your association was an important step in the progress of the colored people in this city. It is an institution well fitted to improve the minds and elevate the sentiments not only of its members, but of the general public. Nowhere else outside of the courts of law and the Congress of the United States have I heard vital public questions more seriously discussed. The men selected to address you know very well that what they may utter is subjected to close scrutiny and severe discussion. Mere rant, bombast, and self-inflation may pass elsewhere, but not here. For this reason, and for my own self-respect, I shall endeavor to say only what I believe to be the truth upon what is popularly called "The Negro Problem."
Cleveland Gazette View Image Item Title: Douglass Speaks Author: Frederick Douglas Item Date: 11/26/1892 Item Location: Ohio Historical Center Archives Library Call Number: Newspaper Roll#4430 Vol.: 10 No.: 16 Page: 01 Medium: Newspaper No. of Pages: 7 Subject: Effects of Recent Election
Opening:
My subject is Haiti, the Black Republic; the only self-made Black Republic in the world. I am to speak to you of her character, her history, her importance and her struggle from slavery to freedom and to statehood. I am to speak to you of her progress in the line of civilization; of her relation with the United States; of her past and present; of her probable destiny; and of the bearing of her example as a free and independent Republic, upon what may be the destiny of the African race in our own country and elsewhere. If, by a true statement of facts and a fair deduction from them, I shall in any degree promote a better understanding of what Haiti is, and create a higher appreciation of her merits and services to the world; and especially, if I can promote a more friendly feeling for her in this country and at the same time give to Haiti herself a friendly hint as to what is hopefully and justly expected of her by her friends, and by the civilized world, my object and purpose will have been accomplished.
Closing:
THOUGH SHE IS STILL AN INFANT, she is out of the arms of her mother. Though she creeps, rather than walks; stumbles often and sometimes falls, her head is not broken, and she still lives and grows, and I predict, will yet be tall and strong. Her wealth is greater, her population is larger, her credit is higher, her currency is sounder, her progress is surer, her statesmen are abler, her patriotism is nobler, and her government is steadier and firmer than twenty years ago. I predict that out of civil strife, revolution and war, there will come a desire for peace. Out of division will come a desire for union; out of weakness a desire for strength, out of ignorance a desire for knowledge, and out of stagnation will come a desire for progress. [Applause.] Already I find in her a longing for peace. Already she feels that she has had enough and more than enough of war. Already she perceives the need of education, and is providing means to obtain it on a large scale. Already she has added five hundred schools to her forces of education, within the two years of Hyppolite's administration. [Applause,] In the face of such facts; in the face of the fact that Haiti still lives, after being boycotted by all the Christian world; in the face of the fact of her known progress within the last twenty years in the face of the fact that she has attached herself to the car of the world's civilization, I will not, I cannot believe that her star is to go out in darkness, but I will rather believe that whatever may happen of peace or war Haiti will remain in the firmament of nations, and, like the star of the north, will shine on and shine on forever. [Prolonged applause.]
Friends and Fellow Citizens:--
No man should come before an audience like the one by whose presence I am now honored, without a noble object and a fixed and earnest purpose. I think that, in whatever else I may be deficient, I have the qualifications indicated, to speak to you this evening. I am here to speak for, and to defend, so far as I can do so within the bounds of truth, a long-suffering people, and one just now subject to much misrepresentation and persecution. Charges are at this time preferred against them, more damaging and distressing than any which they have been called upon to meet since their emancipation.I propose to give you a colored man's view of the unhappy relations at present existing between the white and colored people of the Southern States of our union. We have had the Southern white man's view of the subject. It has been presented with abundant repetition and with startling emphasis, colored by his peculiar environments. We have also had the Northern white man's view tempered by time, distance from the scene, and his higher civilization.
This kind of evidence may be considered by some as all-sufficient upon which to found an intelligent judgment of the whole matter in controversy, and that therefore my testimony is not needed. But experience has taught us that it is sometimes wise and necessary to have more than the testimony of two witnesses to bring out the whole truth, especially is this the case where one of the witnesses has a powerful motive for concealing or distorting the facts in any given case. You must not, therefore, be surprised if my version of the Southern question shall widely differ from both the North and the South, and yet I shall fearlessly submit my testimony to the candid judgment of all who hear me. I shall do so in the firm belief that my testimony is true.
There is one thing, however, in which I think we shall all agree at the start. It is that the so-called, but mis-called, negro problem is one of the most important and urgent subjects that can now engage public attention.
Newspaper Description of Douglass Lecture (Late) on William the Silent
Frederick Douglass--A Debate on Colonization
Frederick Douglass, "The American Missionary," 1889 ???
Speeches by Douglass at the Library of Congress