“Lest you should, at any other time, commit a similar blunder, I beg to state, once for all, that I do not believe that the slavery question is settled, and settled for ever. I do not believe that slave-catching is either a Christian duty, or an innocent amusement. I do not believe that he who breaks the arm of a kidnapper, or wrests the trembling captive from his grasp, is ‘a traitor.’ I do not believe that Daniel Webster is the saviour of the Union, nor that the Union stands in need of such a saviour. I do not believe that human enactments are to be obeyed when they are point-blank against the law of the living God. And believing most fully, as I do, the reverse of all this, you will easily believe me to be a person wholly unfit to receive the suffrages of gentlemen holding the opinion and favouring the policy of that wing of the Whig party denominated ‘the _Silver Grays_.’ “With all the respect which your derision permits me to entertain for you, “I am, gentlemen, “Your faithful fellow-citizen, “FREDERICK DOUGLASS.” The perpetrators of the wanton and gratuitous insult which elicited this beautiful rebuke, would be sadly outraged were we to insist on withholding the title of “gentlemen” from those who could, on any pretence, trample on the feelings of such as they esteem their inferiors. If they half begin to comprehend the meaning of the term, much more to feel its power, their cheeks must have crimsoned with shame, when they saw their own unprovoked assault, contrasted with, the calm and self-respectful serenity of this reply. Another instance of this dignity under circumstances of peculiar trial, may be found in his own account—in the columns of “Frederick Douglass’ Paper”—of a rencontre with a hotel clerk in Cleveland. It is as follows:—