Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
    Ebook217 pages3 hours

    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

    By Frederick Douglass

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.

    You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

    Born into slavery during the early nineteenth century, Frederick Douglass escaped to freedom before he was twenty-one years old. From the moment he arrived in New York City, he felt a need to tell his story, one that mirrored so many people still enslaved in the South with no hope of escape.

    As an orator and preacher, Douglass was an abolitionist, supporter of women’s suffrage and staunch defender of equality for all. In his first autobiographical work, published in 1845, The Narrative of Frederick Douglass describes how he went from slave to a free man.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateSep 17, 2020
    ISBN9780008403447
    Author

    Frederick Douglass

    Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818. He was separated from his mother as a baby and lived with his grandmother up to the age of eight, when he was sent to live as a house servant, a field hand and then a ship caulker. He escaped to New York in 1838 and seven years later published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an autobiography of his life as a slave, which became an instant bestseller. Douglass rose to fame as a powerful orator and spent the rest of his life campaigning for equality. He became a national leader of the abolitionist movement, a consultant to Abraham Lincoln in the civil rights movement and a passionate supporter of the women’s rights movement. He died in 1895.

    Read more from Frederick Douglass

    Related to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

    Related ebooks

    Personal Memoirs For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Pick Up A Tool

      May 14, 2021

      Pick Up A Tool
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Classroom Culture War

      Sep 30, 2021

      TEN YEARS AGO, THIS MOTHER’S STORY would likely be considered a joke; a parody of the culture wars that were starting to simmer across the Atlantic. But a lot can happen in a decade: the child whose mother recently reported the above attends an acade

      5 min read

    • Article

      Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

      Nov 3, 2022

      An autobiography that has lost none of its potency with time Author: Frederick Douglass Publisher: Folio Society Price: £44.95 Released: Out now Discover seasonal stories, holy history and festive folklore. Learn about the nativity as recorded in the

      2 min read

    • Article

      Liberty Befits All: Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin

      Nov 1, 2020

      Upon finishing reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life among the Lowly (hereafter UTC),1 Lord Cockburn claimed that it “has done more for humanity than was ever before accomplished by any single book of fiction” (qtd. in R. R. 1896). It has more work to d

      18 min read

    • Article

      Tom’s Curious Heirs

      Jan 27, 2022

      AMONG THE MOST TREASURED POSSESSIONS in my study, gathering dust but re-read from time to time, are my bound volumes of The Captain magazine. They are a good selection, amounting to about a quarter of the total, of the output of the magazine during i

      8 min read

    • Article

      The New Radicals

      Dec 21, 2023

      The New Radicals
      9 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Dec 23, 2020

      Q&A
      3 min read

    • Article

      Finding the WORDS

      Jan 1, 2024

      Finding the WORDS
      4 min read

    • Article

      Holding A Mirror Up To Local Stories

      Dec 4, 2018

      Every year we see the publication of more diverse books about British Columbia’s history, reflecting the expectations of readers and the interests of authors and historians. My eyes are drawn to titles on bookstore shelves that amplify underrepresent

      15 min read

    • Article

      Bloomsberries At War PAUL BAILEY Writing In The Dark: Bloomsbury, The Blitz, And Horizon Magazine

      Jul 28, 2021

      Bloomsbury £20 The subtitle of Will Loxley’s first book does not sound especially adventurous or challenging. Haven’t we, both readers and writers, been here before? It’s not entirely fanciful to imagine a bookshop that sells nothing but biographies,

      3 min read

    • Article

      The King Of Westminster

      May 24, 2023

      The King Of Westminster
      5 min read

    • Article

      State Of The State 200

      Jul 27, 2021

      State Of The State 200
      21 min read

    • Article

      How We Came Together

      Jun 1, 2020

      How We Came Together
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

    4/5

    2,978 ratings76 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This book was a tricky one to get my hands on. It was hiding in a box in my basement. Now its up in my room comfortably now that its been read. its was the story of an inventor from Britain, who teamed up with his faithful servant to circumnavigate the globe.I thought it was a great story line. Lots of change happens to the characters throughout the journey. THE BOOK IS MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH BETTER THAN THE MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • 2/5
      The book "Around the World in 80 Days" by Jules Verne is a decent book. It is very slow in the beginning and has annoying old words. As the story progesses it gets a little better, but still not very good. The book is about a guy (Phileas Fogg) who bets he can make it around the world in 80 days. The book is just a boring account of the stuff he does. This book is very slow and boring and is not recommended to read unless you need to.
    • 3/5
      I'm not sure which translation I read (it was the free English one on the Gutenberg Project) but I wasn't really engaged by this. I didn't like the characters, save for Passepartout, and the trip didn't have the suspense or creativity I've come to expect from Verne.
    • 4/5
      Very entertaining, though Verne has a couple of facts wrong- Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith was from NY, not Vermont, and a mango defintely doesn't have white flesh! I love the adventure in this book and the different temperaments of the main characters.
    • 5/5
      A super fun adventure. Following dutiful, straight-laces, prompt and no-nonsense Phileas Fogg around the world through exotic and strange places is almost too funny to bear. Amazing, quick, and to the hilarious point. Clever!
    • 4/5
      A wonderful adventure story. This story, much like many of Verne's others, captures the imagination and lets the reader simply enjoy a good story. Every story might have a little something to teach us, or a little bit of a moral, but the adventures of Phileas Fogg are, to me, nothing more than a darn good story. It reminds me of a time when I could read for pleasure without having to expect a conspiracy, or to discover some hidden truth. Verne tells a story that often includes all the latest in technological advances, as was his style, but he seems to have no other desire but to entertain. It is often hard to read a "classic" due to the tendancy for a "classic" to be rather dated. Thie piece by Verne, though perhaps dated just a bit, is a classic for the best reason: it entertains!
    • 5/5
      A version of Around the World in 80 Days done as a French language textbook reader with English introduction and notes. Useful for someone like me who loves the story and has only moderate skill in French
    • 3/5
      A very fun Victorian adventure - with all the baggage that entails. It's a cliché, but I do wish that I had read this earlier or during a more stressful part of my life. As it was, I didn't really engage with it very well. While it was certainly well executed, I'm still kind of surprised that this one made it on to the 1001. Mostly because when I think of Jules Verne I think of science fiction and this is one of his least scientific works. Of course Verne himself spends this entire book praising the English when he was French. So nothing is quite what you expect.
    • 4/5
      My most recent installment book was Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne which was originally published in 1873 and I think it has definitely aged well. The story is told in a simple straightforward style, and the various global adventures move the story along at a rapid pace. The plot is a little silly yet the book comes together nicely and before too long the reader finds himself involved in the story and rooting for the participants. The characters are distinct and well developed from the routine-obsessed, uptight yet cool main character who travels around the world based on a bet from some of the gentlemen at his club, to the sympathetic French manservant who is loyal, smart and a very good gymnast. Even the lesser developed characters of Aouda, the Indian lady, to Fix, the stalking policeman, are colourful and add to the story. Around the World in Eighty Days is light, fun and makes for great escape reading. A little dated, to be sure, but overall a very good read.
    • 5/5
      Delightful book. Passepartout is the real hero; saving lives all over the globe.
    • 5/5
      My favourite of all Verne's stuff. Fast paced, funny and exciting.
    • 4/5
      a great adventure story about one Englishman's journey around the world at a time when only train and ships were available as means of transport.
    • 5/5
      Reading this as an adult, I realise how oddly written it is. Most of it is told at such a high level that critical scenes are reported to the reader rather than shown. As a result the pace rips along. Sometimes I wanted Verne to slow down and give me more detail, but he never does; everything is sacrificed to pace. It's story story story and you're slightly isolated from the characters. Which is interesting because the characters are all isolated in some way by a lack of communication; Passepartout doesn't tell Fogg about Fix's true identity, Fix isn't who he says he is, Aouda doesn't tell Fogg about her feelings and Fogg hardly says a word to anyone. A most strange book and thoroughly enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      This was a very suspenseful, exciting book! This was the first Verne book I've ever read, and he is very good at keeping readers gnawing on their nails at the edge of their seats. The story has humor sprinkled throughout it that had me laughing out loud. I loved it; I know I say this about nearly everything I read, but this truly was a wonderful book!
    • 3/5
      excelent book to read i also wish to travel around the world but not only in eighty days
    • 3/5
      This novel is light and entertaining for the most part. A delightful romp around the world, some fantastical adventures, all in the company of Philias Fogg and his valet, Passepartout. Let's see, a maiden snatched from being sacrificed, opium dens in China, daring adventures with Indians in the United States......quite a busy journey. The characters are all stereotyped by ethnicity, even if tongue-in-cheek, and the end was predictable from almost the beginning. It was okay.
    • 3/5
       What a delightful book. It bears the tone of an unflappable gentleman of the world, and the travel tour across the globe, particularly Asia, is highly memorable. There is time enough to do good deeds as well, as when a young woman is rescued from the fate of suttee in India.
    • 4/5
      This was a very suspenseful, exciting book! This was the first Verne book I've ever read, and he is very good at keeping readers gnawing on their nails at the edge of their seats. The story has humor sprinkled throughout it that had me laughing out loud. I loved it; I know I say this about nearly everything I read, but this truly was a wonderful book!
    • 5/5
      You know the story and so forth, but what you might not know (unless you are psychic or I already told you) is that this book had a life-changing effect on me.One has to read the right books at the right time, especially in childhood. Frankly, one has to read in childhood - this point is critical. I read this beautiful little novel, and for a time the world lay stretched out before me, a perfect little world full of adventure just waiting to be explored.The more I think about it, the more I'm sure that it was this book that caused me to become so obsessed with travel. I've always dreamt of far-away places, and having read this book during my formative years, and having loved every page, there's a strong possibility that I owe Verne my very ambitions. Thank you, sir.
    • 5/5
      I can't even begin to count the number of times I've read this book. Every time the adventure is just as fresh and fun and I still hold my breath waiting to see if he'll make it in time. It's a classic for good reason.
    • 4/5
      An easy enjoyable read, marred somewhat by the prejudices that come through.
    • 2/5
      I actually found this quite boring.
    • 2/5
      Probably a good book for kids, but reading it for the first time as an adult it really doesn't do it. It is SO cartoonish and the characters so outlandish that I stopped after about 40 pages.
    • 5/5
      Phileas Fogg is that among that special breed of eccentric British men that were such a fixture of Victorian England. At his club he is challenged to race around the world in 80 days -- in an era where transportation was a scosh...unreliable. Accompanied by his incredibly resourceful servant Passepartout he accepts the challenge. The book chronicles his adventures. It's a remarkable journey full of action, suspense, and absurd comedy. And of course, that comical Vistorian xenophobia -- though doubtless it is more humorous for the reader than it was in international business relationships. Focused on his goal, and only his goal, Fogg does his level best to bring England with him, and not experience even a trace of other cultures. That alone is worth the price of admission.
    • 5/5
      I read this book awhile ago so this review is not going to go into to much detail about what I liked and what I didn't like. However there is nothing about this book that I remember disliking.

      I loved it. I stayed up all night reading it- it helped that I have never seen any of the movies or met anyone else that has read this book (OK I don't actually know if that is true I guess some of my teachers had probably read this book but I haven't spoken about this book with anyone else who read it.) and, because of that, I had no idea what was going to happen in the end or even during the book. I thought it was all very entertaining- it was one of the first classics I read without being told to.

      When I finished it I said to myself, "Wow that was a good book." I love reading but that doesn't happen often for me (I can only think of two other books that have had that effect on me).

      I recommend this book to everyone but especially people who like adventure stories or classics.
    • 3/5
      Ok boring at points
    • 4/5
      I found it a rough beginning, but the story fits together in such a satisfying way that it's so much fun to read. And the characters - lovely, every one of them. The hilarious and imaginative Passepartout, of course, and dear Phileas Fogg and poor, persistent Fix, all wonderful personalities on their own little stages. I don't think it was a great novel, but it was certainly a very good one.
    • 4/5
      Despite the idea of a hot air balloon ride being so associated the story in most peoples' minds there is no hot air balloon ride in the actual book.Phileas Fogg remains completely calm through out the story.His servant Passepartout is the much more emotional. Passepartout is the person I identified with throughout the story.
    • 5/5
      I adore this book. It is so delightful. How is it I have never read this book until now? How is it that Jules Verne was, until now, only an author mentioned in Back to the Future that I'd never read?
    • 4/5
      A classic, with good reason. There was a certain amount of 'Deus ex machina', but it didn't detract from the enjoyment of the book. I found it interesting how Verne subtly brought up Phileas Fogg's despondency, at the end - it was a while before I clued in as to what Fogg was actually planning to do.While the story was delightful, I have a couple of quibbles with this particular edition:1. It doesn't say who the translator was; and2. I found at least 3 typos in the book. Proofreading!I chose this edition because it had interesting cover art and wasn't full of "book club" questions and endless commentary like most of the others - but the typos were disappointing, and omission of the translator's name baffling to say the least. Those things aside, the story was thoroughly enjoyable, and before I'd finished I was already wanting to read it again. Highly recommended - but try a different edition.

    Book preview

    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - Frederick Douglass

    Image Missing

    NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

    Frederick Douglass

    Image Missing

    Copyright

    William Collins

    An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

    1 London Bridge Street

    London SE1 9GF

    WilliamCollinsBooks.com

    This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2020

    Cover photograph © Shutterstock

    A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

    All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

    Source ISBN: 9780008403492

    Ebook Edition © September 2020 ISBN: 9780008403447

    Version: 2020-08-27

    CONTENTS

    Cover

    Title Page

    Copyright

    History of William Collins

    Life and Times

    PREFACE

    LETTER FROM WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ.

    CHAPTER I

    CHAPTER II

    CHAPTER III

    CHAPTER IV

    CHAPTER V

    CHAPTER VI

    CHAPTER VII

    CHAPTER VIII

    CHAPTER IX

    CHAPTER X

    CHAPTER XI

    APPENDIX

    A PARODY

    FOOTNOTES

    Classic Literature: Words and Phrases

    About the Publisher

    History of William Collins

    In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books, and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William co-published in 1825, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.

    Soon after, William published the first Collins novel; however, it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed, and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.

    Aged 30, William’s son, William II, took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly Victorian in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and The Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time.

    A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientific books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases, and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.

    In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of books for the millions was developed, although the phrase wasn’t coined until 1907. Affordable editions of classical literature were published, and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel, and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time, and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.

    HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics, and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition—publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible, and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.

    Life and Times

    It is a uniquely difficult task to economically describe the life and times of a man who wrote and published no less than three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime. Frederick Douglass, through his life’s work, demonstrated the powerful effect of biographical writing, but also showed how it could be moulded to one’s purpose and political agenda, through what was edited and re-written. He spent his life lecturing about slavery, the abolitionist movement and women’s rights, as well as his biographical writing, and this had a profound effect on the politics of his time and our understanding of slave life in nineteenth-century America.

    Early life and his road to freedom

    Frederick Douglass was born into slavery sometime in 1818 on a Maryland plantation. The exact date of his birth is unknown, a detail he comments on in his Narrative as one of the many injustices that contributed to an erosion of self-hood as a slave: ‘The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege’. His father was likely a white man, though his exact identity is unknown. He was raised for the most part by his maternal grandparents, working on the plantation of Thomas Auld. He was later sent to live in Baltimore to work for Thomas Auld’s brother, Hugh Auld, as a house servant. Hugh’s wife, Sophia, took an interest in Douglass and began to teach him to read and write. However, as teaching slaves to read was strongly discouraged, Douglass eventually had to finish his own education, teaching himself with whatever reading material he could find. The young Douglass was soon returned to Thomas Auld’s plantation, where he was deemed too rebellious and sent to work on Edward Covey, the ‘slave breakers’, farm. After enduring incredibly harsh treatment under Covey, Douglass finally decided to fight back: he felt this physical confrontation to be a transformative moment in his life. He made his first attempt at escaping in 1836, after which he was briefly jailed. Later he was returned to Hugh Auld, where he planned his next escape. He also met and fell in love with Anna Murray, a freewoman, at this time, and she was instrumental in his escape: she helped him pose as a sailor and travel to New York under these pretences. She soon followed him there and they were married in New York City.

    Beginnings of a career

    Soon after their marriage, the couple settled in Massachusetts, which is where Douglass adopted his name, after Sir Walter Scott’s ‘The Lady of the Lake’. Having learned to read and write through the study of the Bible, it was no surprise that Douglass was drawn to the clerical profession, becoming a licensed preacher in 1839. During this time he met journalist William Lloyd Garrison, who became an important contact, friend and early ally in Douglass’s abolitionist work. Garrison hired him as a speaker after hearing his first anti-slavery speech, and Douglass began to tour the country, giving impassioned speeches on the injustices of slavery.

    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

    Frederick Douglass’s first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, was published in 1845 by Garrison’s Anti-Slavery Office in Boston. It was a commercial success, selling 30,000 copies in the first five years. While many earlier slave narratives were ghost-written by white editors, it was clear that Douglass had written this work himself, as by this point he was a well-known orator with a distinctive style that translated to his writing. The fact that several prefaces to the book attested to the truthfulness of Douglass’s claims in the book demonstrates the wide-spread, unfounded scepticism regarding his abilities and trustworthiness as a writer. The autobiography accounts his early life, as well as his road to freedom, however Douglass did not write about his escape until the third version of his autobiography, so as not to endanger the lives and plans of other fugitives. With this work, he was not only engaging with the ‘slave narrative’ genre, but showing his concern with the limits of literature and autobiography, the divide between real experience and what can be conveyed through language. Although the revised editions of his work were also well received, the original Narrative was the greatest commercial success, and had the most influence on the abolitionist movement.

    ‘Slave narrative’

    Douglass’s work tied into a wider tradition: the slave narrative, with its roots in eighteenth-century captivity narratives, which came to prominence as a literary genre in the mid-nineteenth century. Many of these narratives were originally used to bolster support for the abolitionist movement, appealing to northern sensibilities and arousing sympathy. Harriet Beecher Stowe, a white abolitionist, published her fictionalised account of slavery in the South, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in 1852, which became an enormous success and an important tool in the abolitionist movement. However, it’s important to note that even Stowe seemed to accept notions of racial difference in her novel, highlighting the fact that abolitionists themselves were often racist, portraying black people as ignorant and morally underdeveloped. Many of these slave narratives were also tied into the American Romantic movement and audiences demand for sensationalist stories, so their prevalence didn’t always have humanitarian or politically-minded roots. While Uncle Tom’s Cabin continued to be popular well into the twentieth century, important movements to widen and reinterpret the canon of African-American literature have resulted in first-hand accounts of slavery coming to the forefront.

    Revisions and later work

    As Douglass’s work as an orator and writer began to gain a following, fear for his freedom led him to travel to Great Britain, where he toured as a public speaker to great success. His British followers eventually raised funds to purchase his freedom so that he could return to America as a free man. After the success of Narrative, he continued to write, founding the abolitionist newspaper North Star, and publishing The Heroic Slave in 1852. This fictionalised account of a slave’s life was a departure from his earlier work, as it was mediated by a white man in the form of his narrator, Mr Listwell. In 1855 however, he returned to the autobiographical genre, with a revised version of his life story, My Bondage and My Freedom. This edition contained more information about the families he lived under as well as his own family and daily life. Some see his later emphasis on the familial aspect of slave life, especially the role of women on the plantation, as a conscious tying in to the work of other female writers of slave narratives at the time. Women had become a powerful force in the abolitionist movement, with works by Harriet Jacobs and Mary Prince having a profound influence, as well as speeches by Sojourner Truth. Douglass was concerned by the disenfranchisement of women, and become a powerful advocate in the women’s rights movement. He continued his advocacy work during the Civil War, recruiting black soldiers to the Union army and fighting for their right to equal pay. After the war, he continued his work, publishing his third autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. In 1895, after giving a speech on women’s rights, Douglass suffered a heart attack and passed away at the age of 77.

    PREFACE

    In the month of August, 1841, I attended an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to become acquainted with Frederick Douglass, the writer of the following Narrative. He was a stranger to nearly every member of that body; but, having recently made his escape from the southern prison-house of bondage, and feeling his curiosity excited to ascertain the principles and measures of the abolitionists,—of whom he had heard a somewhat vague description while he was a slave,—he was induced to give his attendance, on the occasion alluded to, though at that time a resident in New Bedford.

    Fortunate, most fortunate occurrence!—fortunate for the millions of his manacled brethren, yet panting for deliverance from their awful thraldom!—fortunate for the cause of negro emancipation, and of universal liberty!—fortunate for the land of his birth, which he has already done so much to save and bless!—fortunate for a large circle of friends and acquaintances, whose sympathy and affection he has strongly secured by the many sufferings he has endured, by his virtuous traits of character, by his ever-abiding remembrance of those who are in bonds, as being bound with them!—fortunate for the multitudes, in various parts of our republic, whose minds he has enlightened on the subject of slavery, and who have been melted to tears by his pathos, or roused to virtuous indignation by his stirring eloquence against the enslavers of men!—fortunate for himself, as it at once brought him into the field of public usefulness, gave the world assurance of a MAN, quickened the slumbering energies of his soul, and consecrated him to the great work of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the oppressed go free!

    I shall never forget his first speech at the convention—the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind—the powerful impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise—the applause which followed from the beginning to the end of his felicitous remarks. I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment; certainly, my perception of the enormous outrage which is inflicted by it, on the godlike nature of its victims, was rendered far more clear than ever. There stood one, in physical proportion and stature commanding and exact—in intellect richly endowed—in natural eloquence a prodigy—in soul manifestly created but a little lower than the angels—yet a slave, ay, a fugitive slave,—trembling for his safety, hardly daring to believe that on the American soil, a single white person could be found who would befriend him at all hazards, for the love of God and humanity! Capable of high attainments as an intellectual and moral being—needing nothing but a comparatively small amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race—by the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a beast of burden, a chattel personal, nevertheless!

    A beloved friend from New Bedford prevailed on Mr. Douglass to address the convention: He came forward to the platform with a hesitancy and embarrassment, necessarily the attendants of a sensitive mind in such a novel position. After apologizing for his ignorance, and reminding the audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and heart, he proceeded to narrate some of the facts in his own history as a slave, and in the course of his speech gave utterance to many noble thoughts and thrilling reflections. As soon as he had taken his seat, filled with hope and admiration, I rose, and declared that Patrick Henry, of revolutionary fame, never made a speech more eloquent in the cause of liberty, than the one we had just listened to from the lips of that hunted fugitive. So I believed at that time—such is my belief now. I reminded the audience of the peril which surrounded this self-emancipated young man at the North,—even in Massachusetts, on the soil of the Pilgrim Fathers, among the descendants of revolutionary sires; and I appealed to them, whether they would ever allow him to be carried back into slavery,—law or no law, constitution or no constitution. The response was unanimous and in thunder-tones—NO! Will you succor and protect him as a brother-man—a resident of the old Bay State? YES! shouted the whole mass, with an energy so startling, that the ruthless tyrants south of Mason and Dixon’s line might almost have heard the mighty burst of feeling, and recognized it as the pledge of an invincible determination, on the part of those who gave it, never to betray him that wanders, but to hide the outcast, and firmly to abide the consequences.

    It was at once deeply impressed upon my mind, that, if Mr. Douglass could be persuaded to consecrate his time and talents to the promotion of the anti-slavery enterprise, a powerful impetus would be given to it, and a stunning blow at the same time inflicted on northern prejudice against a colored complexion. I therefore endeavored to instil hope and courage into his mind, in order that he might dare to engage in a vocation so anomalous and responsible for a person in his situation; and I was seconded in this effort by warm-hearted friends, especially by the late General Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. John A. Collins, whose judgment in this instance entirely coincided with my own. At first, he could give no encouragement; with unfeigned diffidence, he expressed his conviction that he was not adequate to the performance of so great a task; the path marked out was wholly an untrodden one; he was sincerely apprehensive that he should do more harm than good. After much deliberation, however, he consented to make a trial; and ever since that period, he has acted as a lecturing agent, under the auspices either of the American or the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In labors he has been most abundant; and his success in combating prejudice, in gaining proselytes, in agitating the public mind, has far surpassed the most sanguine expectations that were raised at the commencement of his brilliant career. He has borne himself with gentleness and meekness, yet with true manliness of character. As a public speaker, he excels in pathos, wit, comparison, imitation, strength of

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1