“Politics is an evil thing--it is not for us. We address ourselves to men’s conscience!” Garrison had often said. But Frederick Douglass went into politics. The Free Soil party, formed in 1848, did not become a positive political force under that name. But, assembling in August as the election of 1852 drew near, it borrowed the name of “Free Democracy” from the Cleveland Convention of May 2, 1849, and drew to itself both Free Soilers and the remnants of the independent Liberty party. Frederick Douglass, on motion of Lewis Tappan, was made one of the secretaries. The platform declared for “no more slave states, no slave territory, no nationalized slavery, and no national legislation for the extradition of slaves.” The most aggressive speech of the convention was made by Frederick Douglass, who was for exterminating slavery everywhere. The lion had held himself in rein for some time. The duties of editor and printer of his paper had chained him to his desk. He had built onto his house to make room for the fugitive slaves who now came in a steady stream to Rochester, directed to “Douglass,” agent of the Underground Railroad, who handled the difficult and dangerous job of getting the runaway slaves into Canada. Douglass was still a young man, yet that night as he stood with the long, heavy bush of crinkly hair flowing back from his head like a mane--thick, full beard and flashing eyes--there was about him a timeless quality, embracing a long sweep of years, decades of suffering and much accumulated wisdom. “Americans! Your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties) is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three million of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria and pride yourselves on your democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad ... and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill.... You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators.... Your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against the oppressor; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence.... You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America!” The people went out along the streets of Pittsburgh repeating his words. The convention delegates scattered to their states.