“The object for which the _liberator_ was commenced thirty-five years ago having been gloriously consummated--” wrote the white-haired editor. He could now close his office. The slaves were free--his job was finished. Garrison sailed for England and the Continent. Frederick Douglass, dragging himself through the weeks, hardly heeded what was being done. He caught some words of Wendell Phillips’ passionate plea: the Thirteenth Amendment had not yet become law; even after ratification it had to be carried out. But he had taken no part in the discussions. His occupation was gone and his salary--the Anti-Slavery Society had paid him about five hundred dollars a year--cut off. Lewis came home. Frederic was working with the Freedman’s Bureau in Mississippi. Douglass made sporadic attempts to think of how he would earn a living. The newspaper hung heavy on his hands. An idea occurred to him. With the few thousand dollars Anna had saved from the sales of his book, _My Bondage and My Freedom_, he had best buy a farm, settle down and earn an honest living by tilling the soil. But nothing seemed of any real importance. “John Brown and Abraham Lincoln!” He lay awake at night linking the two names. Time seemed endless. Yet it was only the latter part of June when President Johnson made Benjamin F. Perry, former member of the Confederate legislature, the Provisional Governor of South Carolina. Perry promptly put things back the way they had been “before Lincoln.” He conferred suffrage upon all citizens who had been legal voters prior to Secession. He called for an election by these people of delegates to a Constitutional Convention to be held in September. In his opening address as Provisional Governor, the Honorable Mr. Perry stated his platform very clearly. “This is a white man’s government, and intended for white men only.” Horace Greeley reported the facts in the _Tribune_ together with a grim editorial. Douglass shook with rage. His anger was directed not at the Southern Provisional Governor but at the man who now sat in Abraham Lincoln’s place. For a moment his hate for Andrew Johnson consumed every rational thought. Then his mind began to clear--to race, to leap forward. The moment broke his lethargy. “John Brown and Lincoln--yes!” He spoke aloud. “But I’m living. _I_ am still here!” He struck the desk with his fist. “And by God we’ll fight!” Then, seizing his pen, he swept aside the papers that had been gathering dust, and on a clean white page he began to write. “The liberties of the American people are dependent upon the ballot-box, the jury box and the cartridge box.... Freedmen must have the ballot if they would retain their freedom!”