Then Jack saw that the chairman on the platform had stepped aside and his place had been taken by an impressive figure. Even before he said a word the vast audience settled into silence. For undoubtedly this was the “fugitive slave” they had come to hear. Jack stared: this man did not look as if he had ever been a slave. The massive shoulders, straight and shapely body, great head with bushy mane sweeping back from wide forehead, deep-set eyes and jutting jaw covered with full beard--the poise and controlled strength in every line--called forth a smothered exclamation from Jack. “My God! What a human being!” “Ssh-sh!” several people hissed. Frederick Douglass was speaking. “The gentleman would have us argue more and denounce less. He speaks of men and black and slaves as if our cause can differ from his own. What is our concern except with equal rights for men? And must we argue to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race? Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks and secretaries, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian’s God, we are called upon to prove that we are men! “I tell you the slaveholders in the darkest jungles of the Southland concede this fact. They acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government; they acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the state of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be) subject him to punishment by death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? It is admitted in fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, than I may consent to argue the manhood of the black man.” Men stamped and shouted and threw their hats into the air. The hall rang. Douglass took up in a quieter mood. He talked of the meaning of constitutional government, he talked of what could be gained if exploited people stood together and what they lost by battling among themselves.