Chapter II: Preface

The chance or destiny which brought to this land of ours, and placed in the midst of the most progressive and the most enlightened race that Christian civilization has produced, some three or four millions of primitive black people from Africa and their descendants, has created one of the most interesting and difficult social problems which any modern people has had to face. The effort to solve this problem has put to a crucial test the fundamental principles of our political life and the most widely accepted tenets of our Christian faith. Frederick Douglass’s career falls almost wholly within the first period of the struggle in which this problem has involved the people of this country,—the period of revolution and liberation. That period is now closed. We are at present in the period of construction and readjustment. Many of the animosities engendered by the conflicts and controversies of half a century ago still survive to confuse the councils of those who are seeking to live in the present and the future, rather than in the past. But changes are rapidly coming about that will remove, or at least greatly modify, these lingering animosities. This book will have failed of its purpose just so far as anything here said shall serve to revive or keep alive the bitterness of those controversies of which it gives the history; it will have attained its purpose just so far as it aids its readers to comprehend the motives of, and the men who entered with such passionate earnestness into, the struggle of which it gives in part a picture—particularly the one man, the story of whose life is here narrated.

In the succeeding chapters, an effort has been made to present an account of the life of Frederick Douglass as a slave and as a public man during the most eventful years of the anti-slavery movement, the Civil War, the period of reconstruction, and the after years of comparative freedom from sectional agitation over the “Negro problem.”

To bring this study within the plan and purposes of the American Crisis Series of Biographies, such subjects as “The Genesis of the Anti-Slavery Agitation,” “The Fugitive Slave Law,” “The Underground Railway,” “The American Colonization Society,” “The Conflict in Kansas for Free Soil,” “The John Brown Raid,” “The Civil War,” “The Enlistment of Colored Troops,” and “Reconstruction,” have been given more space than they have received in earlier biographies.

While it is true that Frederick Douglass would have been a notable character in any period, it is also true that in the life of hardly any other man was there comprehended so great a variety of incidents of what is perhaps the most memorable epoch in our history. The mere personal side of Douglass’s life, though romantic and interesting, is here treated only in outline.

S. Laing Williams, of Chicago, Ill., and his wife, Fannie Barrier Williams, have been of incalculable service in the preparation of this volume. Mr. Williams enjoyed a long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Douglass, and I have been privileged to draw heavily upon his fund of information. He and Mrs. Williams have reviewed this manuscript since its preparation and have given it their cordial approval.

In addition to these sources of information, I wish to make grateful acknowledgment of my indebtedness to Major Charles R. Douglass for the use of many printed addresses, and for interesting data showing his father’s work in the Underground Railway.

I must also acknowledge my sense of gratitude for the opportunity afforded in this work of getting close to the heart and life of this great leader of my race. No Negro can read and study the life of Frederick Douglass without deriving from it courage to look up and forward.

CONTENTS

CHRONOLOGY 11

I. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, THE SLAVE 15

II. BACK TO PLANTATION-LIFE 33

III. ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY; LEARNING THE WAYS OF FREEDOM 54

IV. BEGINNING OF HIS PUBLIC CAREER 69

V. SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY 83

VI. SEEKS REFUGE IN ENGLAND 99

VII. HOME AGAIN AS A FREEMAN—NEW PROBLEMS AND NEW TRIUMPHS 116

VIII. FREE COLORED PEOPLE AND COLONIZATION 139

IX. THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 157

X. DOUGLASS, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE AND JOHN BROWN 174

XI. FOREBODINGS OF THE CRISIS 195

XII. DOUGLASS’S SERVICES IN THE CIVIL WAR 217

XIII. EARLY PROBLEMS OF FREEDOM 245

XIV. SHARING THE RESPONSIBILITIES AND HONORS OF FREEDOM 273

XV. FURTHER EVIDENCES OF POPULAR ESTEEM, WITH GLIMPSES INTO THE
PAST 302

XVI. FINAL HONORS TO THE LIVING AND TRIBUTES TO THE DEAD 334

BIBLIOGRAPHY 353

INDEX 355

CHRONOLOGY

1817— February. Born on a plantation at Tuckahoe, near the town of
Easton, Talbot County, on the eastern shore of Maryland; the
exact date not known. His mother, Harriet Bailey, was the slave
of Captain Aaron Anthony, the manager of the estate of Colonel
Edward Lloyd.

1825— Sent to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld, a relative of his
master.

1833— Returns to Maryland and becomes the slave of Thomas Auld, at St.
Michaels, Talbot County; while here he has an encounter with
the Negro slave-breaker, Covey.

1836— First attempt to run away results in his being sent back to
Baltimore where he is apprenticed by Thomas Auld to William
Gardiner of Fells Point, to learn the trade of ship-calker.

1838— September 3d. Makes his escape from Baltimore, reaching New York
the next day. September 15th, according to the marriage
certificate, possibly a day earlier, he marries a free colored
woman, Anna Murray, who on receiving the news of his escape
follows him to New York. They are directed to New Bedford,
Mass., by Anti-Slavery friends where Douglass begins his life
as a freeman. He changes his name from Frederick Augustus
Washington Bailey, to Frederick Douglass.

1841— August 11th. Makes his first speech before an Anti-Slavery
convention and becomes a lecturer in the Anti-Slavery cause.

1842— Participates in the campaign for equal rights in Rhode Island
during the “Dorr Rebellion.”

1843— Takes part in the campaign of “A Hundred Anti-Slavery
Conventions”; his hand broken in a fight with a mob at
Pendleton, Indiana.

1845— Writes, in order to prove that he is what he proclaims himself,
a fugitive slave, _Narrative of Frederick Douglass_, giving
the names of his owners. This book was published by the
Anti-Slavery Society. August 16th, sails for Liverpool,
England, lest the publication of his biography should lead to
his capture and reënslavement. He is received with enthusiasm
in England and his freedom is purchased by two members of the
Society of Friends.

1846— August 7th. Addresses the “World’s Temperance Convention” at
Covent Garden Theatre, London. December 5th, the papers are
signed which grant him his freedom.

1847— April 20th. Reaches America again. December 3d, the first issue
of the _North Star_, subsequently _Frederick Douglass’s Paper_,
is published, he having first removed to Rochester, N. Y.
Following its establishment came his rupture with Garrison and
the Abolitionist wing of the Anti-Slavery party.

1848— September. Delivers an address before a colored convention at
Cleveland, O., on farming and industrial education.

1851— Announces his sympathies with the voting Abolitionists.

1852— Supports the Free Soil party and is elected a delegate from
Rochester to the Free Soil Convention at Pittsburg, Pa.

1853— Visits Harriet Beecher Stowe at Andover, Mass., with reference to
the forming of an industrial school for colored youth.

1855— _My Bondage and My Freedom_ published in New York and Auburn.

1856— Supports Frémont, the candidate of the Republican party, for
President.

1858— _Douglass’s Monthly_ is established. Its publication is continued
until 1864.

1859— August 20th. Visits John Brown at Chambersburg, Pa. This was his
last interview with the old Anti-Slavery hero before the attack
on Harper’s Ferry, three weeks later. At this interview John
Brown made a final effort to induce him to join in the
dangerous enterprise.

1859— November 12th. Sails from Quebec on his second visit to England.
This trip is undertaken because he is in danger of being
implicated in the plot to cause an uprising of the slaves for
which John Brown had already been executed.

1860— Returns to the United States, called home by the death of his
daughter, Anna.

1860— December 3d. Attempts to speak in Tremont Temple, Boston, but the
meeting is broken up.

1863— Publishes in _Douglass’s Monthly_ his address to colored men
urging them to enlist in the Federal Army. He is instrumental
in forming the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts
Regiments of colored soldiers. Subsequently he visits President
Lincoln to secure fair treatment of the colored soldiers and is
promised, by Secretary Stanton, a commission as Assistant
Adjutant to General Thomas, which, however, he does not
receive.

1866— February 7th. Interviews President Johnson to urge upon him the
wisdom of granting the suffrage to the freedmen. Issues shortly
afterward an address in reply to President Johnson’s argument
against granting the suffrage to Negroes. In September, is
elected a delegate to the “National Loyalists’ Convention” in
Philadelphia.

1869— Becomes editor of the _New National Era_ which he continued to
edit until 1872, at a pecuniary loss of about $10,000.

1871— Visits San Domingo as Secretary to the Commission, consisting of
B. F. Wade, Dr. S. G. Howe and Andrew D. White, to determine
the attitude of that country toward annexation to the United
States. He is appointed a member of the upper house of the
territorial legislature of Washington, D. C., but shortly
resigns his position in favor of his son, Lewis. May 30th, he
delivers the Decoration Day address at Arlington National
Cemetery. Becomes president of the “Freedmen’s Savings and
Trust Company.”

1872— April. Presides at the National Convention of colored citizens
held in New Orleans. Chosen elector-at-large from the State of
New York on the Presidential ticket which elected General Grant
to a second term and is afterward designated to carry the vote
of the electoral college of New York to Washington.

1876— April 14th. Delivers an address at the unveiling of the Lincoln
Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C.

1877— Appointed Marshal of the District of Columbia, which office he
held until 1881.

1878— May. Visits St. Michaels and is reconciled to his old master,
Thomas Auld.

1879— September 12th. Reads a paper before the American Social Science
Association in which he opposes the Negro exodus to Kansas.

1881— May. Appointed Recorder of Deeds in the District of Columbia.
June 12th, visits the Lloyd plantation.

1882— January. _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_ published. August
4th, his first wife dies: she was the mother of five children.

1884— January 24th. Marries Miss Helen Pitts, of New York.

1889— Appointed Minister and Consul General to Hayti.

1893— Commissioner for the Haytian Republic at the World’s Fair at
Chicago. Makes an address on Negro Day at the Fair.

1895— February 20th. Dies at his home at Cedar Hill, Washington. Buried
with honors from the Metropolitan Church (African Methodist
Episcopal); public services being held subsequently in
Rochester. His body finally interred beside those of his wife
and daughter, in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, N. Y.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS