There was once a slave ... : $b The heroic story of Frederick DouglassDu Bois, Shirley Graham
History
There was once a slave ... : $b The heroic story of Frederick Douglass
Du Bois, Shirley Graham
Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895
The vigorous young city waxed fat. Sleek, trim “city fathers” began
considering the “cultural aspects” of their town. Rochester’s Gallery
of Fine Arts was established; plans were drawn up for an Academy of
Music. “Causes” became less popular than they had been. There were
those who gave an embarrassed laugh when Susan B. Anthony’s name came
up, and some wondered if so much antislavery agitation was good for
their city.
Slaveholders, vacationing in Saratoga Springs, dropped in on Rochester.
They admired its wide, clean streets and fine buildings, but they
shuddered at the sight of well-dressed Negroes in the streets. The
Southerners spent money freely and talked about new cotton mills; and
more than one wondered aloud why Frederick Douglass was allowed to
remain in such a fine city.
But the hardy, true strain of the people ran deep. When Frederick
Douglass was prevented from speaking in nearby Homer by a barrage of
missiles, Oren Carvath resigned as deacon of the Congregational Church,
sold his farm and moved to Oberlin. His son, Erastus, made Negro
education the work of his life and became the first president of Fisk
University.
* * * * *
There was scarcely any moon the night Douglass rode his horse homeward
along Ridge Road. He had spoken in Genesee on the Nebraska Bill and
politics for Abolitionists.
He enjoyed these solitary rides. They cleared his brain. But tonight
he kept thinking about an angry letter he had received that day--a
letter in which the writer had accused Douglass of having deserted his
friend Garrison “in the time of his greatest need.” Douglass loved
William Lloyd Garrison and the complete unselfish sincerity of the New
Englander’s every utterance.
“If there is a _good_ man walking on this earth today, that man is
Garrison!” Douglass spoke the words aloud and then he sighed.
For he knew that the _North Star_ was diverging more and more from
Garrison’s _Liberator_. Douglass took a different stand on the
Constitution of the United States.
Garrison had come to consider the Constitution as a slaveholding
instrument. Now as the clashes were becoming more bitter in Boston and
New York, he was raising the slogan “No Union with Slaveholders.”
Douglass, with the Abolitionists in western New York, accepted the fact
that the Constitution of the United States was inaugurated to “form a
more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
provide for common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the
blessings of liberty.” They therefore repudiated the idea that it could
at the same time support human slavery. Douglass held the Constitution
as the surest warrant for the abolition of slavery in every state in
the Union. He urged the people to implement the Constitution through
political action.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account