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In riDeinoriam 
 
 Frederick Douglass 
 
 v.»,\».v- ■ '. ■;.• 
 
 To live— that freedom, truth and [ife 
 
 Might never know eclipse — 
 To die, with woman'3 work and words 
 
 Aglow upon his lips,— 
 To face the foes of human kind 
 
 Through years of wounds and scars,— 
 It is enough ;— lead on— to find 
 
 Thy place amid the stars" 
 
 — Mary Lowe Dirftiww 
 
 h e L e '^/l {-"'. r .. s -L: a x > l a. ^ G 
 
 PHILADELPHL\: 
 JOHN C YORSTON & CO^ Publishers 
 
 J 897 
 
 x-\V^"-^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This simple Memorial Volume tells its own story. It 
 is a record of the spontaneous expression of grief and 
 surprise evoked by the unexpected death of Frederick 
 Douglass. The news of this event startled the country as 
 the ear is startled by the sudden crash when some monarch 
 of the forest suddenly falls to the ground. 
 
 These expressions of feeling are a solemn chord from 
 living hearts suddenly swept by the invisible hand. They 
 are instantaneous pictures of the impression which the 
 powerful personality of Mr. Douglass had made upon the 
 human mind, and a sincere tribute to him whose unpar- 
 alleled life was only possible to, and the outward expression 
 of, a soul upborne by a purpose born of God, and which, 
 pursuing its pathway among the eternal spaces, pas^d 
 suddenly and swiftly beyond mortal sight. 
 
 This unpretending volume is a record of the world's 
 impulse to honor him who so honored humanity, and of 
 whom it can be truly said that " no event had power to 
 disturb his heart ; that the pulse of his inner life remained 
 fresh as long as life endured. " 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 The Death of Frederick Douglass 17 
 
 OBSEQUIES AT WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 Removal of the Casket to the Metropolitan A. M. E. 
 
 Church 19 
 
 Opening of the Funeral Services, 21 
 
 Prayer by the Rev. Alexander Crummell, D. D., of St. 
 
 Luke's Episcopal Church, 22 
 
 Reading of Scripture by Bishop Hood, D. D., of the 
 
 A. M. E. Zion Church, 24 
 
 Tribute by the Rev. J. T. Jenifer, Pastor of the Church, . 25 
 Tribute by the Rev. Hugh T. Stevenson, Pastor of the 
 
 First Baptist Church, Anacostia, 29 
 
 Tribute by the Rev. J. F). Rankin, D. D., President of 
 
 Howard University, 32 
 
 Tribute and Song by Mr. John Hutchinson, of Lynn, 
 
 Mass 38 
 
 Tribute by Monsieur T. Nicolas, of the Haitieu Legation, 41 
 Tribute by Bishop A. W. Wayman, of Baltimore, Md., . 41 
 Tribute by the Rev. William B. Derrick, D. D., of the 
 
 A. M. E. Church, of New York 41 
 
 Singing by Mr. Moses Hodges, of Boston, Mass. , . . . 43 
 Letter from Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, read by Miss 
 
 Anthony 44 
 
 Letter from Mr. C. C. Bonney, read by Miss Anthony, 45 
 
 Remarks by Mrs. May Wright Sewell, President of the 
 
 National Council of Women of the United States, . 45 
 
a CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prayer by the Rev. Anna Shaw, M. D., Vice-president of 
 
 the National Woman's Suffrage Association 47 
 
 Benediction by Bishop Williams, of the C. M. Church, 47 
 
 Departure for Rochester, N. Y., 47 
 
 OBSEQUIES AT ROCHESTER, N. Y. 
 Proceedings of the Common Council of the City of 
 
 Rochester, N. Y., 51 
 
 Arrival of the Funeral Cortege at Rochester 53 
 
 Reception of the Remains in the City Hall, Rochester, . 54 
 Funeral Services in the Central Church of Rochester, . . 55 
 Invocation by the Rev. William R. Taylor, o( the Brick 
 
 Church, 55 
 
 Reading of Scripture by the Rev. Wesley A. Ely, of Zion 
 
 Methodist Church 56 
 
 Singing by Mr. George W. Watson, of the Central 
 
 Church Quartette, 58 
 
 Hymn, " Hide Thou Me." 
 Reading of a Poem by Sherman D. Richardson, the 
 
 Author 59 
 
 Address by Miss Mary B. Anthony, Representative of the 
 
 Woman's National Conference, Washington, D. C, . 59 
 Singing by the Quartette of the Central Church, .... 60 
 
 Hymn, " Lead, Kindly Light." 
 Address of the Rev. W. C. Gannett, of the First Uni- 
 
 versalist Church, Rochester 60 
 
 Singing by the Quartette of the Central Church, .... 63 
 
 Hymn, " Gathering Home. " 
 Prayer and Benediction by the Rev. Dr. H. H. Stebbins, 
 
 of the Central Church, 65 
 
 Services at Mount Hope Chapel, Mount Hope Cemetery, 
 
 Rochester, • • 65 
 
COXTENTS. 7 
 
 TENDER WORDS FROM LOVING HEARTS, 
 
 IN LETTERS RECEIVED FROM 
 
 Titus Alexander, of Ann Arbor, Mich 74 
 
 J. M. Ashley, of Toledo, Ohio, 82 
 
 Augustine Protestant Episcopal Church Aid Literary, of 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y 76 
 
 Charles A. Bradley, of Washington, D. C, 84 
 
 Mrs. Helen P. Bright Clark, Somersetshire, England, . . 83 
 Central Council of the International Society for the 
 
 Recognition of the Brotherhood of Man, London, 
 
 England 78 
 
 J. M. Dalzell, of Caldwell, Ohio, 87 
 
 Hon. John Eaton, Ex-Commissioner of Education, ... 70 
 Frontier Lodge, No. 14, Knights of Honor of the World, 
 
 London, England, 85 
 
 Francis J. Garrison, of Roxbury, Mass 77 
 
 William Lloyd Garrison, of Boston, Mass 79 
 
 J. H. Gray, of Saginaw, Mich., 76 
 
 Richard F. Greener, of New York City 74 
 
 Hon. Clement Haentjens, Haitien Minister, 75 
 
 Col. Richard J. Hinton, of Bay Ridge, N, Y 73 
 
 Rev. Bishop James Theodore Holly, of Port-au-Prince, 
 
 Haiti, 90 
 
 Lewis G. Janes, of Brooklyn, N. Y., S3 
 
 McKinley Republican Club, of Baltimore, Md 78 
 
 Mrs. Rebecca Moore, of London, England 84 
 
 National Council of Women of the United States, . . So 
 
 Walter W. Pike, City Clerk of Cambridge, Mass 121 
 
 Rev. E. W. Porter, President of Storer College and 
 
 Pastor of the Free Baptist Church of Harper's 
 
 Ferry, Va So 
 
 Hon. Richard B. Pullun, of Cincinnati, Ohio, 73 
 
Rev. J. E. Rankin, President of Howard University, 
 
 Washington, D. C 71 
 
 Mrs. Caroline Richardson, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Eng- 
 land, 87 
 
 Miss Ellen Richardson, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, . 69 
 
 Dr. Robert Reyburn, of Washington, D. C, 72 
 
 Robert L. RufRn, of Boston, Ma.ss., 83 
 
 Society of the Sons of New York, New York City, ... 83 
 
 Some Rochester Friends, 91 
 
 Eady Henry Somerset, of London, England ; written 
 
 from Philadelphia. Pa 78 
 
 Theodore Stanton, Paris, France 88 
 
 St. Augustine's Church Literarj', of Brooklyn, N. Y., . . 76 
 Sturge Lodge, No. 7, Independent Order of Good 
 
 Templars, of Birmingham, England 86 
 
 L. H. Taft, of Humboldt, Iowa, 89 
 
 Theodore Tilton, of Paris, France, 88 
 
 Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee, Ala., 82 
 
 Frances E. Willard, written from Philadelphia, Pa., . . 75 
 Francis B. Woodbury, Secretary National Spiritualists' 
 
 Association of the United States 69 
 
 Woman's Anthropological Society, of Washington, D. C, 88 
 
 PREAMBLES AND RESOLUTIONS 
 
 ADOPTED BY THE 
 
 Academy and Industrial School, at Asheville, N. C, . . 108 
 
 Anti-Lynching Committee, of London, England 131 
 
 Anti-Lynching League, of Northern Ohio, 114 
 
 Assembly Club, of San Francisco, Cal., 143 
 
 Benjamin Storrs, Jr., Po.st, No. 68, G. A. R., of Dor- 
 chester, Mass., 123 
 
 Board of Trustees of Howard University, Washington, 
 
 D. C ■ 103 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Central Tennessee College, Nashville, Tenn 102 
 
 Cherry Street Baptist Church, of Philadelphia, Pa 133 
 
 Christiansburg Institute, of Cambria, Va 115 
 
 Citizens of Americus, Ga 125 
 
 Citizens of Calvert, Texas, 116 
 
 Citizens of Harper's Ferry, W. Va 122 
 
 Citizens of Helena, Ark., 114 
 
 Citizens of Madison, Ind 141 
 
 Citizens of Philadelphia, Pa., 142 
 
 Citizens of South Charleston, Ohio, 113 
 
 Citizens of Springfield, Mo 118 
 
 Citizens of Waco and adjoining towns, Texas 112 
 
 City Council of Cambridge, Mass., 121 
 
 City Council of Rochester, N. Y., 103 
 
 Cleveland Social Club, of Cleveland, Ohio 118 
 
 Colored American League, of Cheyenne, Wyo 107 
 
 Colored Citizens of Cincinnati, Ohio, 131 
 
 Colored Citizens of Elmira, N. Y., 135 
 
 Colored Citizens of Knoxville, Tenn. , . no 
 
 Colored Citizens of Marshall, Mo., 105 
 
 Colored Citizens of St. Joseph, Mo. 104 
 
 Colored Citizens of Urbana, Ohio, 134 
 
 Colored Citizens of Worcester, Mass., 121 
 
 Colored Republican Association of the State of New York, 136 
 Corporators of the Miner Institute for the Education of 
 
 Colored Youth, Washington, D. C 139 
 
 David Hunter Post, No. 9, G. A. R., of Beaufort, S. C, . 120 
 
 Dr. Simmon's Pioneer Lyceum, of Providence, R. I., . . 138 
 
 Emancipation Association of the District of Columbia, . 107 
 
 Fourth Ward Republican Club, of Raleigh, N. C, . . . 124 
 Frederick Douglass Literary Association, of Baltimore, 
 
 Md., loi 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 Frederick Douglass Lyceum, of Memphis, Tenn 137 
 
 General Assemblj' of the State of Illinois 97 
 
 Instructors of Howard University, Washington, D. C, . 140 
 
 Ida B. Wells Woman's Club, of Chicago, 111 117 
 
 Industrial School, of Asheville, N. C, 108 
 
 Kansas State Protective Home Association and W. T. 
 
 C. U., 109 
 
 Mass Meeting at Americus, Ga., 125 
 
 Mass Meeting at Helena, Ark., 114 
 
 Mass Meeting at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 
 
 Pa., 142 
 
 Mass Meeting at Calvert, Texas 116 
 
 Mass Meeting at Knoxville, Tenn no 
 
 Mass Meeting at Springfield, Mo 118 
 
 Mass Meeting at St. Joseph, Mo. 104 
 
 Members of Providence Hospital Staff, Baltimore, Md., . 98 
 
 Memorial Meeting in Allen Temple, Cincinnati, Ohio, . 131 
 
 Memorial Meeting at Madison, Ind 141 
 
 Memorial Meeting in Motmt Zion Baptist Church, Peoria, 
 
 111 99 
 
 Memorial Meeting in Quinn Chapel, Chicago, 111., . ... 117 
 Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of 
 
 Slavery, Philadelphia, Pa., 144 
 
 Progressive Republican Club, of Xenia, Ohio, 137 
 
 Robert G. Shaw Veteran Association, of Boston, Mass., . 100 
 Senate and House of Representatives of the Common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts, 129 
 
 Seventh Ward Republican Club, of Providence, R. I., . 135 
 
 Shaw University, Raleigh, N. C, 95 
 
 Social Literary Society, of Amherstburg, Canada, ... 130 
 
 Staff of Providence Hospital, Baltimore, Md 98 
 
 Storer College, Harper's Ferry, W. Va 99 
 
CONTENTS. 11 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Sturge Lodge, Independent Order of Good Templars, 
 
 Birmingham, England, no 
 
 Syracuse Lodge, No. lo, Knights of Pythias, St. Joseph, 
 
 Mo., 119 
 
 Temperance and Collegiate Institute, of Claremout, Va., . 99 
 
 West End Auxiliary Club, of Chicago, 111 100 
 
 Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio 120 
 
 Woman's League, of Denver, Col., 129 
 
 Woman's Loyal Union, of New York City 132 
 
 Women's National Council 95 
 
 Woman's Political Equality Club, of Rochester, N. Y., . 116 
 
 Young Men's Foraker Club, of Cleveland, Ohio, .... in 
 
 POEMS AND SONNETS. 
 Sonnets to the Memory of Frederick Douglass. By 
 
 Theodore Tilton 149 
 
 Poem. " In Memoriam." By Robert Reyburn, M. D., . 48 
 
 Poem. " Frederick Douglass." By Cordelia Ray, . . . 161 
 Poem. "Frederick Douglass." By Arthur Elwell 
 
 Jenks 165 
 
 An Epitaph. By Mrs. Laura H. Clark 166 
 
 Poem. "Frederick Douglass." By Paul Lawrence 
 
 Dunbar 168 
 
 Poem. "Frederick Douglass." By Rev. Phebe A. 
 
 Hanaford 48 
 
 Poem. " Frederick Douglass." By J. H. Gray, ... 166 
 
 Poem. " Frederick Dougla.ss. " By Mary Lowe Dickinson, 163 
 
 Poem. " Frederick Douglass. " By Ruth D. Havens, . 170 
 
 Poem. " Our Douglass. " By William A. Joiner, ... 157 
 "The Mystery of the Grave." A Song. Dedicated to 
 
 the Memory of Frederick Douglass. Words by 
 
 James A. Thomas. Music by Mrs. T. H. Lyles, . . 167 
 
12 CONTENTS. 
 
 MEMORIAL SERVICES— ADDRESSES AND 
 SERMONS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Memorial Sermon of the Rev. Francis J. Grimk^, of the 
 Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, Washington, 
 D. C, 177 
 
 Memorial Address of the Rev. J. E. Rankin, D. D., Presi- 
 dent of Howard University, Washington, D. C, . . 195 
 
 Memorial Meeting at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian 
 
 Church, Washington, D. C 208 
 
 PR0GRAMM8. 
 
 Prayer by Rev. William V. Tunnell 208 
 
 Introductorj^ Remarks of Robert E. Terrell, the Presiding 
 
 Ofi&cer, 209 
 
 Resolutions Offered by Frederick G. Barbadoes, .... 210 
 
 Address of Charles B. Purvis, M. D. 211 
 
 Address of Rev. Alexander Cnimmell, D. D 215 
 
 Address of Hon. John S. Durham, ex-Minister to Haiti, . 219 
 
 Tribute by Mrs. Charlotte F. Grimk^, 221 
 
 Address of Hon. John R. Lynch, 222 
 
 Address of Hon. P. B. S. Pinchbeck, 224 
 
 Address of Dr. Rush R. Shippen 227 
 
 Address of Rev. William A. Creditt, " Douglass in His- 
 tory," 228 
 
 Benediction by the Rev. Francis J. Grimke, D. D., . . . 231 
 
 Memorial Address of Mr. Isaac C. Wears, at the Academy 
 
 of Music, Philadelphia, Pa 237 
 
 Memorial Addre.ss of Dr. H. L. Waylaud, at the Academy 
 
 of Music, Philadelphia, Pa 237 
 
 Memorial Address of Mrs. Fanny J. Coppiu, at the 
 
 Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pa 241 
 
 Memorial Addre.ss of Professor W. H. Hart, 259 
 
CONTENTS. 13 
 
 PA6S 
 
 Memorial Tribute by S. H. Taft, of Humboldt, Iowa, . . 241 
 Remarks of Justice John M. Harlan, at the Memorial 
 
 Meeting, Washington, D. C 244 
 
 Memorial Address of Hon. E. D. Bassett, at the Memorial 
 
 Meeting, Washington, D. C 244 
 
 Memorial Discourse of Rev. Dr. Albert Louis Banks, . . 257 
 
 Memorial Address of Professor H. T. Kealing, 270 
 
 Eulog>- on the Life and Public Services of Frederick 
 
 Douglass, by Professor George F. Cook, 272 
 
 TRIBUTES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 KROM 
 
 The "Advance," Chicago, 111., 309 
 
 The "Bee," San Francisco, Cal 292 
 
 The " Pilot," Boston, Mass 320 
 
 The "Post," Boston, Mass., 303 
 
 The "Transcript," Boston, Ma.ss 286 
 
 The "Eagle," Brooklyn, N. Y 286 
 
 The "Times," Brooklyn, N. Y 287 
 
 The " Herald," Chicago, 111 297 
 
 The "Tribune," Chicago, 111 296 
 
 The " Western Newspaper Union," Chicago, 111 322 
 
 The " Christian Recorder, " Philadelphia, Pa 324 
 
 The " Christian Register, " Boston, Mass. , 308 
 
 The "Christian World," Strand, London, England, . . 312 
 
 The " Daily News, " Strand, London, England, .... 298 
 
 The " Democrat and Chronicle," Rochester, N. Y., . . 305 
 
 The "Tribune," Detroit, Mich., 320 
 
 The " Evangelist," New York, N. Y., 310 
 
 The " Evening Star," Washington, D. C, 285 
 
 The " Freeman," Indianapolis, Ind., 313 
 
 The "Journal," Indianapolis, Ind., 288 
 
The " News," Indianapolis, Ind., 291 
 
 The "Sentinel," Indianapolis, Ind., 295 
 
 "Le Journal de Rouen," Rouen, France 307 
 
 " Iv'Eclair," France 301 
 
 " La Justice," Paris, France, 304 
 
 The " Independent," New York, N. Y., 307 
 
 The "Mail and Express," New York, N. Y 288 
 
 The " Morning Advertiser," New York, N. Y 174 
 
 The "Tribune," New York, N. Y 294 
 
 The "Outlook," New York, N. Y 319 
 
 The "Times," Pittsburg, Pa., 291 
 
 The " Presbyterian Journal," Philadelphia, Pa., .... 321 
 
 The "Press," Philadelphia, Pa., 300 
 
 The "Review of Reviews," 325 
 
 The " Republican," Springfield, Mass 289 
 
 The "Strassburger Post," Strassburg, Germanj' 316 
 
 The "Times," Oakland, Cal., 300 
 
 The " Capital," Topeka, Kan., 289,323 
 
 The "Tribune," Salt Lake City, Utah, 299 
 
 The " Post," Washington, D. C 293 
 
 The " Weekly Astonisher," Philadelphia, Pa 296 
 
 REMINISCENCES. 
 
 The " Methodist," Philadelphia, Pa 329 
 
 The "Times," Narragansett, R. 1 330 
 
 The " New Englander," 332 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 Frederick Douglass 339 
 
©beequies 
 
 at 
 
 MashinGton, 2)» C. 
 
 (IS) 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 Died February 20, J895, Act. 78. 
 
 The world does not need to be told who Frederick 
 Douglass was, or why he lived. So long had he stood as 
 a synonym for human enfranchisement, so thoroughly had 
 he been identified with the effort for its achievement, that 
 to speak his name was to give an epitome of the anti-slav- 
 ery struggle in the United States. He was a tower of 
 strength to those whose cause he espoused. He was hon- 
 ored by the virtuous and feared by the mean and wicked. 
 He was without fear and without reproach. Keenly alive 
 to the advantages of wealth and position, their temptations, 
 nevertheless, fled from before his singleness of purpose. His 
 was a living consecration, and he endured imto the end. 
 
 At his home. Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D. C, at the close 
 of day, Tuesday, February 20, 1895, suddenly and peace- 
 fully, Frederick Douglass entered into his eternal rest. 
 The day had been spent in attendance at the Triennial 
 Session of the Women's Coinicil, then being held in Wash- 
 ington, and upon his return home, while cheerfully recount- 
 ing the incidents of the day, the strong, sweet Angel of Death 
 drew him gentl}' within the vail, and he was with God. 
 
 The winter, though spent mostly at home, had been one 
 of ceaseless activity. On the evening of February i, Mr. 
 Douglass lectured at West Chester, Pa., when, " toward 
 the close, he laid aside his manuscript and spoke extem- 
 poraneously and with his old-time fire." The evening but 
 one before his death he had spoken at a meeting in Wash- 
 ington, called to consider the subject of restoring the right 
 2 (17) 
 
IS IX ME MORI AM. 
 
 of suffrage to tlie citizens of the District, and, a few 
 moments after his death, a friend called to con\-ey him to 
 a neighboring church where he was to address the people. 
 But the voice that, for more than fifty years, had sounded 
 like a tocsin through the land ; that had never been heard 
 in advocacy of any doubtful measure ; but had declared 
 that in any compromise it is always the right that is com- 
 promised, had that day made its last public utterance, which 
 was for the removal of the final barrier to perfect and abso- 
 lute human freedom, and was already stilled in death. 
 When another day dawned, two hemispheres were saying, 
 " Frederick Doiiglass is dead ! " 
 
 Telegrams and letters and visits of condolence and 
 sympathy did their titmost to express the feeling of per- 
 sonal and public bereavement, a bereavement that fell with 
 crushing weight upon the race for whose deliverance and 
 advancement Frederick Douglass spent his life, with a 
 devotion that never faltered, a zeal that never lessened, 
 and a patience and persistency that never wearied ; a race 
 for which, turning his back upon all the possibilities that 
 a life in England opened to a mind as sensitive and as 
 aspiring as his, he could say to those who not only urged 
 this, but would see that he and his family were established 
 in competence, " I go back, turning away from comfort 
 and ease and respectabilit)', which I might maintain here. 
 I go back for the sake of my brethren. I go back to suffer 
 with them, to toil with them for that emancipation which 
 is yet to be achieved by the power of truth over the basest 
 selfishness. I could not remain here at peace with the 
 consciousness that there are three millions of my fellow 
 creatures groaning beneath the iron rod of the worst 
 despotism that could be devised, even in hell ! " 
 
 This fidelity and the spotless integrity of his soul were 
 his to the last. Now, all this was over. The cruel limi- 
 tations of hi^ life ; the scorn, the ignominy and the 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 19 
 
 contumely and the misapprehension, and the insolence of 
 attempted patronage, often by those upon whom the world 
 smiled, but who could never hope to reach up to his level ; 
 from these and all the thousand stings of ingratitude, his 
 soul was free. 
 
 Each day, from early morning till late evening, a 
 mournful procession climbed the hillside to look upon the 
 face of the dead, and each turned away feeling that it was 
 his or her dead lying there. 
 
 The world knows the heroic figure of Frederick Doug- 
 lass. His noble and picturesque head was the ambition of 
 artists, and his mobility of expression their despair. Now, 
 when the sensitive features no longer responded to the soul's 
 quick emotion, the fundamental quality of strength came 
 powerfully forth, that reverent, fearless strength, which 
 was a dominant characteristic, and which, in life, flashed 
 out in rebuke of meanness and wrong. It was the highest 
 possible embodiment of the awful majesty of death ! The 
 immense torso, the majestic head and the noble dignity of 
 expression, spoke, not of time, but of eternity ; the eternity 
 of the past as well as of that to come. 
 
 United to heroic size was a remarkable perfection of 
 form. To nothing was the lifeless body so like as to a 
 huge Egyptian monolith. It wore the same calm, digni- 
 fied, inscrutable expression ; the was, and is, and is to be. 
 From it flashed into the soul of the beholder a sudden 
 comprehension, and a voice within the soul said, Now under- 
 standest thou old Egypt? An artist standing by, said, 
 " I cannot conceive of Mr. Douglass as dead ! He does not 
 speak, but it does not seem to be because he cannot ! He 
 seems to be silent for reasons of his own ! " 
 
 On the morning of Monday, February 25, after a brief 
 service at the house, the body of Mr. Douglass, re- 
 posing in a plain but massive oak casket, was removed to 
 the Metropolitan A. M. E. Church in Washington, where 
 
20 7^ MEMORIAM. 
 
 it lay in state until the hour of the funeral at two o'clock 
 in the afternoon of that daj'. To the colored people of the 
 District the event was one of peculiar sadness. The day 
 was generally observed by them. They closed their public 
 schools and their places of business, and ceased their pur- 
 suits and thronged to the church to do honor to the dead 
 — their dead. Early in the morning the throng began 
 to assemble at the church. " As the hours passed the gath- 
 ering swelled until it reached down M street to Fifteenth, 
 and down that thoroughfare past L street. The front of 
 the church was massed with men, women and children, the 
 throng extending to the westward, even past Sixteenth 
 street. It was estimated that 25,000 persons were gath- 
 ered in the streets." A few minutes before ten o'clock a 
 plain hearse drove slowly through the waiting concourse 
 to the church doors, where it was met by the trustees of 
 the church, an honorary guard of honor furnished by the 
 General Russell A. Alger Camp, No. 25, Sons of Veterans, 
 division of Maryland, in the fatigue uniform of the United 
 States Cavalry, the detail in charge of Captain Judd 
 Malvin ; Past Captain John P. Turner, Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Hamilton S. Smith, Sergeant Willis A. Madden and 
 Sergeant Woodson of the Tenth United States Cavalry. 
 
 The heavy oaken casket was carried to the dais of the 
 main auditorium of the great church, and members of the 
 guard of honor were detailed to stand at the head and foot of 
 the casket, while others stood at the entrance and exit 
 doors. No attempt had been made to decorate the church. 
 Save a single draping of black about the pillar lights at 
 the pulpit, not a sign of mourning was to be seen. Then 
 through the church steadily poured the procession of sad- 
 faced people. " Some would have stood and shed their tears 
 upon the casket, had time allowed such demonstration of 
 grief. It was a wonderfully impressive throng of people. 
 There were white-haired old men, who had known Mr. 
 
FREDERICK: DOUGLASS. 21 
 
 Douglass from the time when the struggle for race liberty 
 began in this country. Fathers and mothers lifted little 
 children to see the face of their champion. Men and 
 women wept, and upon all there was the look of genuine 
 sorrow for the death of a generous benefactor. Here and 
 there in the long, pei'sistent stream of humanity, came one 
 bearing a flower, a fern leaf or a bouquet, which was 
 silently laid upon the casket. Thousands upon thousands 
 thus looked for the last time on the face of Frederick 
 Douglass, greatest of their race in this age." Among the 
 man)' beautiful floral designs with which the pulpit was 
 banked, was a large wreath of ferns and violets from Mr. 
 Douglass' associates on the Board of Trustees of the Insti- 
 tution of Colored Youth, with the inscription, " Farewell 
 to Frederick Douglass," bearing the signatures of his 
 co-laborers. Rev. Rush R. Shippen, S. A. Bond, Henry M. 
 Baker, Henry P. Montgomery, J. O. Wilson, Dr. Caroline 
 B. Winslow, Emily J. Brigham and Marj^ J. Stroud ; 
 tributes from the pupils of the colored High School ; from 
 the various colored schools of the city ; from the pupils of 
 Wilson School, Meridian Hill, and from individuals and 
 personal friends. From the Women's Council came a beau- 
 tiful tribute significantly composed of laurel and palm. 
 The Government of Haiti sent its testimonial, a magnifi- 
 cent victor wreath of roses, orchids, lilies of the valley and 
 violets, within which were woven the leaves of a rare East 
 Indian palm and the national colors in broad red and blue 
 ribbons upon which were engraved in silver, " Republique 
 d'Haiti Temoignage d'Estime et de Regrets." 
 
 The funeral procession, as it entered the church, was led 
 by Rev. Dr. Jenifer, pastor of the church, reading the 
 litany. The reserved seats were occupied by the family 
 and friends, by the honorary pall-bearers and delegations 
 from New York, Baltimore, Norfolk and Annapolis. 
 Upon the platform were Rev. Dr. Jenifer, pastor, and Rev. 
 
22 JN MEMOEIAM. 
 
 Dr. John W. Beckett, former pastor of the church ; Bishop 
 J. W. Hood, D. D., of the A. M. E. Zion Church ; Bishop 
 A. W. Wayman, of Baltimore, Md. ; Dr. J. E. Rankin, 
 D. D., President of Howard University ; Rev. Dr. Alex- 
 ander Crummell, D. D., of St. Luke's Episcopal Church, 
 Washington ; Rev. Hugh T. Stevenson, of the First 
 Baptist Church, Anacostia, D. C. ; Miss Susan B. Anthony, 
 President of the National Woman Suffrage Association ; 
 Rev. Anna H. Shaw, M. D., Vice-President of the National 
 Woman Suffrage Association ; Mrs. May Wright Sewall, 
 President of the National Council of Women of the United 
 States ; Mr. John Hutchinson, of L,ynn, Mass. ; Monsieur 
 T. Nicolas, Secretary of the Haitien Legation ; Hon. E. 
 W. Durham, ex-United States Minister to Haiti ; Rev. J. 
 C. Embry, of Philadelphia ; Rev. L.J. Coppin, D.D., of Phil- 
 adelphia, and Hon. C. H. J. Taylor, of Washington, D. C. 
 Rev. John W. Beckett, D. D., read the opening hymn, 
 " Nearer, my God, to Thee," which was impressively sung 
 by the choir of the church. The Rev. Alexander Crum- 
 mell, D. D., then offered the following prayer : 
 
 We bow down before Thy throne, O God, our Father, with reverence 
 and humility; with praise and thanksgiving; with submissiveness. 
 Thou art the great Ruler of the universe; and we but feeble creatures 
 of the earth ! Deep and marvelous are Thy ways, O Lord, and we 
 cannot always understand them ; and when death enters our circles, we 
 are staggered, not seldom, at Thy providences, and overcome with Thy 
 dealings with the sons of men. "Thou turnest man to destruction ; and 
 again Thou sayest. Come again, thou children of men!" "How 
 unsearchable are Thy judgments, O Lord, and Thy ways past finding 
 out!" "Clouds and darkness are round about Thee," and we cannot 
 understand Thee; for "Thy righteousness is like the great mountains, 
 and Thy judgments are as the great deep." 
 
 But nothing, O Lord, can obscure Thy mar\'elous goodness to the 
 sons of men. "Thy mercy reachest unto the heavens, and Thy faith- 
 fulness unto the clouds." Thou art God; and so we know that Thou 
 art the Good. We cannot fathom Thy mystery; but we know Thy 
 graciousness, and we acknowledge Thy great loving kindness. 
 
 How wonderful art Thou, O God, in Thy gifts to the sons of men ! 
 How lavish the outpourings of Thy favors to the creatures of Thy 
 
FliEDEl^'ICK DO Ua LASS. 23 
 
 make! How especially Jo we see Thy boiintifulness in the gift, in 
 heaven and on earth, of both angels and men, for the glory of Thy 
 name and the good of Thy creatures ! 
 
 We bless Thy holy name for the mission, to the societies of men, of 
 patriots and prophets ; of apostles and martyrs ; of noble Confessors and 
 devoted Reformers; who, all along the lines of historj', served their 
 generation, and glorified God. 
 
 On this day of sorrow and sadness, and amid the gloom of death, wc 
 recognize the light of Thy goodness and the glory of Thy beneficence, 
 in the life and labors, in the zeal and bravery, of the great man whom 
 Thou hast removed from the duties of life and from the bosom of his 
 family. We bless Thy holy name for the strong desires for letters and 
 culture which marked his boyhood ! We praise Thee for the currents 
 of his youthful ambition for superiority! We thank Thee for the 
 earnest aspirations of his early manhood for elevation ! We glorify 
 Thee for the hungering and thirsting of his soul for freedom ! 
 
 All these were the gift of God to his manly being! Thou didst put 
 these qualities into his living soul. They were Thine! All the things 
 of good come from Thee! Thou art the fountain of all human excel- 
 lence; and "of Thine own do we give unto Thee. " 
 
 We praise Thee, too, O Lord, for the higher gifts of Thy favor to 
 Thy servant : — for the gleams of burning poetry ! For the flights of lofty 
 imagination! For the thrilling threads of sensibility! For the strength 
 and dignity of noble speech! For the majesty of subduing eloquence! 
 
 We bless Thee, above all, for that constant apprehension of truth 
 which swayed the soul of Thy servant. We thank Thee for the moral 
 elevation of his persistent life; for his devotion to the cause of man; 
 for his self-consecration to the work of freedom and the emancipation 
 of the slave; for his resolute maintenance of the right; for his resist- 
 ance to the audacity of slavery' ; for his defiance of the pagan caste- 
 spirit of our sinful country ! We thank Thee, O God, our Father, 
 for the gift of this great preacher and prophet of Justice and 
 Freedom ! 
 
 And now, O Lord, Thou hast removed him from the bosom of his 
 family aud the society of his friends! May this instance of mortality 
 serve its proper teaching to us all ! May none of us forget that death 
 is our nearest neighbor; that, in a moment, in "the twinkling of an 
 eye, " we may be called to the realities of eternity. Give us grace so to 
 live that life may be a constant preparation for Thy presence, and for 
 eternal blessedness, through Jesus Christ our Lord! 
 
 Soften, we beseech Thee, the icy touch of death, upon the tender 
 hearts of wife and children and kinsfolk ! Calm their sensibilities, 
 under this great bereavement! Open all our eyes upon the grand reali- 
 ties which reach beyond the grave! 
 
 And so come to us all, O Lord, with the teachings of duty; of high 
 resolve for the ser\'ice of man; with the spirit of self-sacrifice; with 
 
24 /xV MEMOKIAM. 
 
 the purpose of heroic adherence to truth ; with glad and unselfish 
 devotedness to Thee, our Saviour and our God ! 
 
 Lift up our hearts, O Lord our God, to Thee, with gratitude for the 
 gift of a noble man ! Fill our souls with the passion of imitation for 
 excellence and life-long zeal for humanity. Amen. 
 
 Bishop J. W. Hood, D. D., of the A. M. E. Zion 
 Church, Washington, then read the following selection of 
 Scripture : 
 
 PSALM xc. 
 
 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. 
 
 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed 
 the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. 
 
 Thou turnest man to destruction ; and sayest, Return, ye children of 
 men. 
 
 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is 
 past, and as a watch in the night. 
 
 Thou carriest them away as with a flood ; they are as a sleep : in the 
 morning they are like grass which groweth up. 
 
 In the morning it fiourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is 
 cut down, and withereth. 
 
 For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we 
 troubled. 
 
 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light 
 of thy countenance. 
 
 For all our da)-s are passed away in thy wrath : we spend our days as 
 a tale that is told. 
 
 The days of our years are threescore years and ten ; and if by reason 
 of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and 
 sorrow ; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. 
 
 Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy 
 fear, so is Thy wrath. 
 
 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto 
 ■wisdom. 
 
 Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy 
 servants. 
 
 O satisfy us early with thy mercy ; that we may rejoice and be glad 
 all our days. 
 
 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afl3icted us, 
 and the years wherein we have seen evil. 
 
 Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their 
 children. 
 
 And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish 
 thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands 
 establish thou it. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLAfiS. 25 
 
 After an aiithetu b)- the choir the pastor, Rev. J. T. 
 Jenifer, paid tlie following tribute to the memory of Mr. 
 Douglass, taking for his text : 
 
 " Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man 
 fallen this da)- in Israel?" — 2 Sam. iii. 38. "And I 
 heard a voice from heaven saying. Write, Blessed are the 
 dead that die in the Lord, from henceforth ; yea, saith the 
 vSpirit, that the)- may rest from their labors : and their 
 works do follow them." — Rev. .\iv. 13. He said : 
 
 Thursday last the peoples of five continents and the islands read with 
 retjret the sad intelligence: "Frederick Douglass is dead." 
 
 To-da)' the world unites in sympathy with us who sorrow for our 
 great loss by this death. We mourn the taking away of him who was 
 our eminent and beloved leader and most illustrious example of our 
 possibilities as a people, Frederick Douglass, a representative ever 
 faithful to his people, their champion, wise counsellor and fearless de- 
 fender. Such a life as his is itself an oration, and this gathering an echo. 
 
 No man can give the people Frederick Douglass' funeral discourse ; 
 he has delivered that himself by his life and labors. He is in fifty 
 years of his country's eventful historj-. Seventy-eight years he was 
 passing through the most thrilling epochs of his people's experiences 
 in this, their land of conflicts and sufferings. 
 
 Our text tells us of "a great man" that had fallen in the national 
 struggles in Lsrael. All parts of history are tributaries to the one vast 
 whole, as rivers that go into the ocean help to make a whole. It was 
 the leading spirits among the Egj'ptian, Assyrian, Grecian, Hebrew 
 and Roman peoples that made them so potent factors in the world's 
 advance in civilization. Each of these peoples at its appointed time 
 came into its place as a part of this vast whole of historj-. The 
 Hebrews have been large tributaries to the tide of the world's advance- 
 ment ; Moses, David, Abner and their kind evidenced their people's 
 possibilities in leadership. 
 
 When this Republic entered as a tributary to the current of events 
 George Washington, pre-eminent among his followers, led them. The 
 Afro-Americans becoming potent factors in American history, Fred- 
 erick Douglass has been the pre-eminent leader of them. But let us 
 not forget that the courses of each and all the tributaries that run 
 in to make the gulf stream of human history are guided by the 
 Almighty God, whose hidden hand directs the main current in its 
 onward flow to the betterment and broadest happiness of mankind. 
 
 Our text says that Abner was "a great man. " Men show themselves 
 to be great as they evidence their abilities in overcoming difficulties in 
 
26 IN MEMOKIAM. 
 
 the achievements that benefit niankinj. Where in history do we find a 
 more eminent example of this than Frederick Douglass? 
 
 What an inspiring example of possibilities the life of Frederick 
 Douglass has set before young men. A hungry slave boy in crocus 
 trousers, tussling with the dog "Tip" for a crust of bread. The sign- 
 boards are made his alphabet; from this he advances to the devourer 
 of the contents of books, the coiner of great thoughts, the orator, the 
 writer, lecturer, editor, author, the foreign traveler, the consort and 
 counsellor with great men and great women ; he is Commissioner of the 
 District of Columbia, the United States Marshal, the Recorder of 
 Deeds, the Foreign Diplomat, and then the Haitien Commissioner at 
 the World's Columbian Exposition. Standing second to none in 
 courage and abilities among Garrison, Sumner, Phillips, Ward, Payne, 
 Rock and other brave and pure men and women in the anti-slavery 
 conflict, how full his life! How completely rounded out! How inter- 
 woven in the warp and woof of American history ! 
 
 When any of the great questions involving his country's interest or 
 his people's welfare had been spoken upon or written about, then what 
 Douglass had to say was eagerly looked for, because he always said 
 something that gave an old subject a new setting and threw upon a 
 trite question a new light. 
 
 His comprehensive scrutiny and logical expressions in brief and best 
 English compelled the discerning mind, though prejudiced, to say: 
 "We never saw it in that light before." Hence in written matter, or 
 platform oratory, or in companionship, Frederick Douglass was never 
 an occasional man; but ever graded, ever apt and ready, never disap- 
 pointing those who heard him. Coming into his presence, his simple 
 unassuming manner impressed you with the greatness of his character. 
 
 His tenderness of heart, love of little children and of young people, 
 high regard for women, with that broad sympathy for human sufferings, 
 everywhere marked the trend of his great soul. "He regarded man as 
 man and all men brothers. ' ' How befitting, therefore, it was for such a 
 man to die on such an occasion, discussing with delight such a sub- 
 ject ! One whose life devoted, as Mr. Douglass' has been, in conflict 
 for manhood freedom, on what occasion and from what place more 
 appropriate for such a soul to take its flight from labor to reward 
 than from an assembly of the women of the world, who are striving for 
 larger liberty, higher development of their sex in the interest of wife, 
 mother, daughter, sister and the home. 
 
 A great deal has been said and written about Mr. Douglass' religious 
 convictions and of Frederick Douglass as a churchman. Wliat I .shall 
 say briefly upon this subject will be what I have been told by Mr. 
 Douglass himself. 
 
 I first met Mr. Douglass at the home of my father in New Bedford, 
 Mass., in 1862, since which time I have known him well. The Wash- 
 ington Post, Thursday, February 21, said: "Freedom to Mr. Douglass 
 
FREDEIUCK DOUGLASS. 27 
 
 meaut not only freedom of the person. He believed in and was a 
 brilliant champion for the vast liberty of the soul." But let no young 
 man or person in skeptici.sm and love of sin by this fact be deceived 
 and be led astray from light and from truth, following Mr. Douglass' 
 example. Reflect that the liberty of soul which Mr. Douglass sought 
 was not license, but spiritual liberty in a broader sense than he con- 
 ceived it to be in the American Church. Frederick Douglass was a con- 
 verted man. I heard him, last summer, tell the Methodist Conference, 
 to which he was invited by Bishop Hurst, that "I remember the time 
 when I bowed at the altar in a little Methodist Church that I now own, 
 on Fell's Point, Baltimore; then and there I caught a stream of light 
 and I have followed that light ever since. " 
 
 Mr. Douglass broke with the American Church, and with American 
 Christian dogma, when he saw it made to sanction, and defend the 
 enslavement and bondage of a brother, with its horrible consequences. 
 It was then that he had advanced beyond his country, and its church, 
 to where Christ to him was larger than Creed, and his Christianity 
 transcended his Churchianity. And from this point Mr. Douglass never 
 retrograded, but he never ceased to reverence the God of humanity, as 
 he saw God. 
 
 In this terrific soul conflict, Mr. Douglass told me that he for a time 
 blundered into bewilderment, but God .sent him deliverance. Last 
 fall at the office of his son Lewis he explained this conflict to nie in a 
 conversation on religion. The crisis was reached when the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill became a law. The national domain became the enslavers' 
 hunting ground, and any citizen liable to be made a slave catcher. He 
 was then editor of the North Star at Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, coming to the city, called upon Mr. 
 Douglass and inquired, "Mr. Douglass, how are you?" 
 
 "I am all broken up; done with your church, your Christianity, and 
 your hypocris)'. You have given your country over to slavery, and to 
 slave catchers, and your church sanctions it, as authorized by the 
 Bible." 
 
 Mr. Douglass said: " Mr. Beecher sat down upon the head of a keg 
 taking as his text, 'Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!' — 
 Rev. xix. 6. Upon this," he said, "Mr. Beecher for half an hour 
 went into history, into science, reason and into Scripture truths, with 
 other facts as only Mr. Beecher could. When I arose," said Mr. Doug- 
 lass, "I arose a changed and delivered man. Now," said he, "I am 
 in the trade winds of the Almighty. " 
 
 Mr. Douglass has several times within a few months expressed to 
 me the joy he experienced in God and in spiritual life. He was a 
 constant worshiper here when weather and health permitted. He always 
 called this his church and took deep interest in its welfare and in the 
 affairs of the connection. He several times after listening to the sermon 
 in the morning hour has grasped the minister's hand saying, "I have 
 
28 LV MEMORIAM. 
 
 been greatly iustructed, edified and inspired this morning." Several 
 times he told me how his soul had been thrilled by Dr. J. W. Beckett, 
 when singing : 
 
 "Jesus my Saviour, to Bethlehem, came, 
 Born in a manger to sorrow and shame ; 
 Oh it was wonderful! How can it be? 
 Seeking for me, for me. ' ' 
 
 Death has ended the career of the long and useful life of this great, 
 good and unique man. We can't say of him as of Abner, that he has 
 fallen, but that he has risen, in that to a greater extent, by his death, 
 his true merits and character will be emulated. The hearts of the 
 people will be cemented in closer bonds of sympathy for that, and for 
 those for whom he so ably labored. 
 
 Douglass, the Success, the Student, Worker, Philanthropist, Patriot 
 and Leader was given us by God, and the Lord has taken him. 
 
 "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; yea, saith the Spirit, 
 that they may rest from their labors ; and their works do follow them. " 
 
 On his return from the National Council of Women last Wednesday, 
 February 20, the chariot of God met Mr. Douglass in the hallway of 
 his home, when without a struggle, while in conversation with his 
 beloved wife, the two alone, the spirit passed into the better land, in 
 the seventy-eighth year of his age. 
 
 On Wednesday, February 20, there was caused a great commotion in 
 the Spirit World. There it was announced, "Frederick Douglass has 
 come. ' ' There gathered about him among others, Peter Landy, William 
 Lloyd Garrison, William Wilberforce, Daniel O'Connel, Owen Lovejoy, 
 Garrett Smith, William C. Nell, Samuel R. Ward, John Brown, Lewis 
 Hayden, Henry Highland Garnett, William Wells Brown, Charles 
 Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, John A. 
 Andrews, Daniel A. Payne, with many heroes prominent in the anti- 
 slavery conflict. 
 
 Garrison and Brown inquired, "Well, Frederick, how is it in the 
 world from which you just came? WTiat are the results of freedom 
 for which we all struggled?" Douglass replied, "The victory has been 
 achieved; slaves freed and enfranchised, and made citizens. They have 
 schools, colleges, and great churches. Two millions of children in 
 school, and sixty thousand teachers instructing them. They have their 
 own press, paper and periodicals. They have able men and women in 
 every trade, calling and profession. They have accumulated since 
 freedom |;200, 000, 000, and my people are advancing along ever)' line 
 and are rising generally. " 
 
 The angels heard the tidings, took down their harps, and sang, 
 "Alleluia, Alleluia, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. " 
 
 He leaves two sons, a daughter, grandchildren and a wife to mourn 
 his loss. He leaves a race in grief, the world of mankind in respect 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 29 
 
 and iu regret, but heaven and earth will unite in saying, "Well done, 
 thou good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. ' ' 
 Father, brother, leader, farewell ! Dear family, wife, sons, daughter, 
 grandchildren and relations, we commend you to the God of all grace, 
 in this your deepest sorrows. Be you assured that you will never cease 
 to have the deepest sympathy and profound respect of a grateful 
 humanity for whom your great head gave his life and best efforts. 
 
 The Rev. Hugh T. Stevenson, pastor of the Baptist 
 Church of Anacostia, D. C, followed Pastor Jenifer, and 
 tendered these words in memory of Mr. Douglass : 
 
 You will pardon me if I can not find words to express the feelings of 
 my soul, for my heart beats in sympathy with yours at the realization 
 of the sad fact that Frederick Douglass has gone. I shall never forget 
 the scene that greeted me last Wednesday night, when I climbed Cedar 
 Hill and beheld the noble form of the great man who had just fallen 
 asleep. I could hardly realize that he was gone. Yes, be is gone. He 
 heard his Master's voice calling him home to His mansion in the skies. 
 His soul, that loved freedom, hastened to respond, and suddenly took 
 its journey to the palace of his King, rejoicing as it burst the chains 
 that bound him, for at last he was free. The price that Jesus paid had 
 ransomed him, and with the imprint of his Saviour stamped upon his 
 soul he entered the gates of paradise. 
 
 We shall never see another like him. His life has passed into the 
 world's history, which amid its records of men has none like that of the 
 man whose encasketed form lies before us. For as Emerson says, "God 
 once in a hundred years or .so creates a great man, and then breaks 
 that mould forever. " Frederick Douglass was one of God's great men. 
 Gifted with elements that would have made him a master in any walk 
 of life, his work developed in him three prominent characteristics : 
 breadth of sj^mpathy, dauntless courage, and oratorical power. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was a prince among the orators of the world. 
 He swayed men by the power of his eloquence. He moved them from 
 their positions by the tide of his convictions. The eloquent tongue is 
 silent. The great heart, which was the source of his power, has ceased 
 its labor. The heart which beat in sympathy with all mankind, which 
 felt for the oppressed not only of his own, but of every race and clime, 
 which throbbed as never did a heart before in human breast for freedom, 
 shall never beat again. The great soul, which with undaunted courage 
 has faced death time and time again, in his struggles for freedom, 
 justice and equity, has met death with the same courage in the hour of 
 peace, leaving the smile of the conqueror behind upon his lips. "Oh 
 death! where is thy sting? Oh grave! where is thy victory?" Let us 
 give thanks unto God for the victory given through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
30 IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 I shall leave it to others to paint the record of the heroic life which 
 Frederick Douglass gave to the viforld. If I should paint it, I would take 
 it from your hearts — but then, how poor would be the picture! Yet, 
 you must tell the story ; you who have been side by side with him iu 
 his conflicts on behalf of his people, you who have followed the leader- 
 ship of this warrior of civil and religious liberty, amid the strife of 
 agitation, the battling of the sword, and the conquests of peace; you 
 who have received the word of cheer, the encouragement of hope, and 
 the gift of love in your efforts to advance another round on the ladder 
 of life, tell the world — you owe it to us — of his consecrated and concen- 
 trated life as the apostle to humanity. 
 
 You who have associated with him in the public arena of life, and 
 have seen his love of justice, and heard his demands for "fair play" 
 and honesty, as he toiled for the weal of his country, and the purity of 
 her public life, have a duty to perform, for you must tell the story of 
 his patriotism and faithful services to the land he loved, which gave 
 him birth. 
 
 If j'ou have enjoyed the friendship and had the privilege of seeing 
 him in the sacred precincts of the home, tell of the man and the 
 Christian, who in his love for the world, amid the great toils and cares 
 which were his, gave the purest and best of his life to his family and 
 friends. How I wish that some Boswell had followed him, and picked 
 up the gems of purity and righteousness which dropped from his lips 
 when he was alone with friends and family. But then, the pen of no 
 man, much less his voice, could do him justice. No poet could to-day 
 sing his true worth. We are too near to his life and times to do him 
 justice. It will need the future as well as the present to judge him. 
 When the youth of this and future generations read of his .struggles to 
 break the fetters which bound his .soul in bondage, when they behold 
 "his foot prints on the sands of time" and see him rise above every 
 adverse wave and surmount every barrier to his onward progress, when 
 they learn that "in spite of law and gospel, despite the statutes which 
 thralled him, and the opportunities which jeered at him, he made 
 himself by trampling on the law and breaking through the thick 
 darkness that encompassed him," they, too, will be filled with the love 
 for their fellows and be emancipators of men. His life, more eloquent 
 than his silver tongue with its pathos and grandeur, pa.ssing through 
 such vicissitudes of degradation and exaltation, will move men of all 
 coming ages to be men. 
 
 " 'In the world's broad field of battle, 
 In the bivouac of life, ' 
 To 'be not like dumb driven cattle, ' 
 But ' be heroes in the strife. ' ' ' 
 
 In the future, which I trust is not distant, when the mildewed lips 
 of prejudice .shall be forever silent, when there will be no aspirants 
 
FREDFAUCK DOUGLASS. 31 
 
 filled with em-y at the elevation of a brother, when man shall be judged 
 by his character and achievements, then I believe, that men hearing of 
 the burdens Frederick Douglass has lifted, of the crises he has bridged, 
 of his great heart, of his dauntless courage, and his eloquent tongue — 
 then — I believe thai he whom we mourn to-day as the leader of a great 
 race will be written down as the greatest man of his times. 
 
 A thousand years hence, the story of his life will be the subject of 
 an epic that will be recited with increasing interest as time rolls 
 on. moulding and developing the characters of the men of the coming 
 ages. 
 
 Farewell, Frederick Douglass, farewell, till that fair morn of morns, 
 when the disciples of Jesus, emancipated from the slavery of sin, shall 
 gather at the marriage supper of the Lamb. In the words of Mary 
 Lowe Dickinson, whose trumpet commands were inspired by your 
 parting, I would cr\-: 
 
 "Swing wide, O shining portal. 
 
 That opes to God's new day: 
 Make room, ye ranks immortal, 
 
 A conqueror comes your way. 
 With greetings meet for victors 
 
 Your hearts and hands outreach ; 
 Break, with glad song, his silence. 
 
 Too deep and grand for speech. 
 
 "Greet him with martial music 
 
 That fits a soldier's rest;— 
 For braver heart for battle 
 
 Ne'er beat in warrior breast; 
 A great white heart of pity ; 
 
 At war with sin and gloom, — 
 His home is with the heroes, 
 
 Stand back — to give him room ! 
 
 "Room for the stricken millions. 
 
 Unbound by freedom's wars; 
 To whom his strife meant light and life, 
 
 And broken prison-bars; 
 The love out-poured in prayers and tears 
 
 Along the conqueror's track 
 Is his spent love and life of years 
 
 Bringing their blessing back. 
 
 "To live — that freedom, truth and light 
 Might never knov^ eclipse — 
 To die, with woman's work and words 
 
 Aglow upon his lips, — 
 To face the foes of human kind 
 
 Through years of wounds and scars, — 
 It is enough; — lead on — to find 
 Thy place amid the stars. ' ' 
 
 Farewell, Frederick Douglass, my friend, farewell ! 
 
32 ]N MEMO RI AM. 
 
 At the close of Dr. Stevenson's remarks the Rev. J. E. 
 Rankin, D. D., President of Howard University, followed. 
 He took as his text : 
 
 Psalm cv. 17-19- " He sent a man before them. He 
 ■was sold for a servant. His feet they hurt with fetters. 
 He was laid in chains of iron. Until the time that His 
 word came to pass, the word of the Lord tried him." 
 
 Dr. Rankin said : 
 
 There is but one parallel to the life of Frederick Douglass, and this is 
 found in the Bible; the Bible, which surpasses all other literature. 
 There is no narrative which in natural pathos and eloquence so reminds 
 rae of the history of the favorite son of Jacob as the storj- of Frederick 
 Douglass. And I find God in one as much as the other. And I think 
 of all the men in his generation, so momentous of great events, so influ- 
 ential upon future humanity, no man is more to be congratulated — could 
 human congratulations reach him — than this man who now sleeps in 
 death's marble before us. God made him great; yes, but God also gave 
 him a great opportunity, and that opportunity began when he was born 
 a slave. 
 
 I feel the pathos of it, in every fibre of my being, when this boy, 
 without father, without mother, save as once or twice in his memorj' 
 she walked twentj'-four miles, between sunset and sunrise, to give her 
 son a few clandestine kisses — jes, without beginning of days, for Mr. 
 Douglass never knew the day of his birth, was, in that prison-house 
 of bondage, slowly emerging to consciousness of himself and to con- 
 sciousness of his surroundings. But that was his schooling for years to 
 come. It was the only way in which he could become a swift witness 
 against the great wrong which was crushing the bodies and souls of 
 millions. It was the secrets of that prison-house of despair which the 
 world needed to know. And God had given him the tongue of the 
 eloquent to tell them. Fascinating as is the masterpiece of Harriet 
 Beecher Stowe, beautiful and touching as are the scenes depicted, 
 dramatic as is the movement, powerful as are the delineations, we all 
 know it is fiction. It is founded on fact. But this narrative is fact. 
 
 KnA I say, that just as God sent Joseph down into Egypt preparatory 
 to great events which were to follow; to save much people alive; just 
 as His word tried him in the house of Potiphar and in the dungeons of 
 Egypt, so it was with the boy, the young man Douglass. When he was 
 praying there with Uncle Lawson, God was girding him for that day 
 when he was to go from town to town, from State to State, a flaming 
 herald of righteousness ; to cross oceans, to gain admission to palaces, 
 lifting up the great clarion voice, which no one who ever heard can 
 ever forget or forget its burden. So that I say Frederick Douglass was 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 33 
 
 fortunate in the misfortune of his birth. If he had not been born of 
 a slave mother, one potent factor in the great work put upon the men 
 and women of his generation would have been wanting. God wanted 
 a witness. After Dante wrote his "Inferno" the people of Florence 
 said as he walked their streets, ' ' There goes the man who has been in 
 hell ! ' ' What the cause of freedom wanted was a man who had been 
 in hell ; in the hell of human slavery, an eye-witness of the dark possi- 
 bilities and experiences of the system into which he was born ; who had 
 felt the iron enter his own soul ; who knew what it was to be compelled 
 to yearn in vain for mother-love ; to fight his way, inch by inch, into 
 the simplest rudiments of human speech, of human knowledge, into 
 any of the prerogatives of manhood. 
 
 I do not at all underrate the work done by those magnificent cham- 
 pions of freedom, who took this young man at twenty-five into the 
 charmed coterie of their fearless eloquence; who gave him the baptism 
 of their approval, who laid their hands upon his head, William Lloyd 
 Garrison, Wendell Phillips and their associates. But they needed him 
 as much as he needed them. After their cool and eloquent logic, after 
 their studied irony and invective, which, mighty as it was, was wanting 
 in the tremolo of the voice of one that has suffered, of one whose very 
 modulations signified more than their words; when this man arose, as 
 one rises from the dead, as the ghost of one, the crown and sceptre of 
 whose manhood has been stolen away, while he goes from laud to land 
 proclaiming the wrong and asking for justice, then the climax was 
 reached. This man made the work of such men as Garrison and Phillips 
 and Sumner and even Lincoln possible. I do not wish to use the lan- 
 guage of exaggeration. It is not fitting the occasion. It is not in 
 keeping with the dignified manner and methods of the man whom we 
 commemorate, or the providential movement of which he was so long 
 a part. But I believe that the birth of Frederick Douglass into slavery 
 was the beginning of the end. And that this was just as needful to his 
 anti-slavery associates as to himself. God planted a germ there, which 
 was to burst the cruel system apart. It was as though he said, "Go to, 
 ye wise men of the Great Republic ; ye Websters and Clays, miserable 
 physicians are ye all. I will set this Samson of Freedom in your temple 
 of Dagon, and his tawny arms shall yet tumble its columns about the 
 ears of the worshipers. I will put the ark of my covenant in this man's 
 soul, and the time .shall come when your idol-god shall lie toppled over 
 upon his nose in his presence." 
 
 I think that Frederick Douglass is to be congratulated on the kind 
 of tuition that came to him — no, that God had provided for him, 
 through these anti-slavery associates. They were regarded as the 
 ofFscouring of the earth, and yet many of them received their culture in 
 the choicest New England schools, and they sprang from the noblest 
 New England stock. And when he went abroad it was his privilege 
 to hear .such men as Cobden and Bright and Disraeli and O'Connell and 
 3 
 
34 IN ME MO RUM. 
 
 Lord John Russell and Lord Brougham. These men Mr. Douglass 
 studied, admired, analyzed. His more elaborate addresses, too, show 
 the influence, of the first and greatest of New England orators, Daniel 
 Webster. But, even beyond the great American orator, whose model 
 orations are in all one's school books, was Mr. Douglass in fervor and 
 fire. Ah, that was a day, when that runaway slave heard that great 
 statesman at Buuker Hill. And he once told me that he owed a great 
 debt to the poems of Whittier. To converse with Mr. Douglass, to hear 
 him in public, one who knew his humble origin and limited oppor- 
 tunities might well ask, "How knoweththis nian letters?" But, in the 
 art of which he himself had such a master}-, he had the best teachers 
 and examples the Anglo-Saxon schools could afford, while not one of the 
 great men mentioned had such a theme as his. How carefully he im- 
 proved his intercourse with such men, his observation of them, one has, 
 only to read his life to discover. Howard University, I believe, gave 
 this man the degree of doctor of laws, and there were some laws that no 
 man knew better how to doctor than he. But there was not an official of 
 the university who could reach high enough to put a wreath on his 
 brow. It had to be done from above, by the winged genius of the 
 university. 
 
 Then in the third place, Mr. Douglass is to be congratulated on the 
 •wonderful contrasts and antitheses of his life. If we go on in the 
 Psalm from which I have quoted, we read: "The king sent and loosed 
 him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go free; he made him 
 lord of his house and ruler of all his substance; to bind his princes at 
 his pleasure and teach his senators wisdom." The king that loosed 
 this man was the King of kings and not Pharaoh, even as of old, till 
 after the Angel of War had smitten the first-born of the land. If we 
 except this prime minister of Pharaoh, perhaps no man who ever lived 
 ever had such extremes and vicissitudes of experience as Mr. Douglass. 
 There is probably no civilized nation on earth that has not been made 
 acquainted with his wonderful storj-. 
 
 Perhaps he never saw a prouder day than when, as United States 
 Marshal— an official once so offensive to the sensibilities of a free 
 people, because of his participation in the arrest and return of fugitive 
 slaves— he accompanied President-elect Garfield from the Senate cham- 
 ber to the platform of the portico, where he took the oath of office and 
 delivered the inaugural address. This was the man who ran away from 
 the neighboring State of Maryland, whose territory was once the ground 
 on which the Capitol stands; who had twice exiled himself from his 
 native land to escape arrest, first as a fugitive slave, and then as in 
 complicity with the John Brown conspiracy, whose friends had actually 
 paid the sum of $ioo — I have this morning read the bill of sale again — 
 to purchase his freedom from bondage, and who now acted as the rep- 
 resentative of the United States in the moment of transition from the 
 term of one President to that of another. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 35 
 
 And if we turn from his public to his private career, what more 
 striking and unusual scene, save perhaps Joseph's forgiveness of liis 
 brethren, ever was introduced into the lot of man than his visit to his 
 old and dying master, so many years after his escape from bondage? 
 Was there ever an experience more pathetic? Was there ever forgive- 
 ness more generous? We pray, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our 
 debtors. ' ' This our great Teacher has taught us. The spirit of for- 
 giveness is the basis on which we stand before God, who has so much 
 to forgive in us; is the spirit which fits us for the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 I come now to the last ground on which I think Mr. Douglass should 
 be congratulated. By many it would be thought of first. Mr. Douglass 
 was fortunate in his endowments as an orator. Eloquence is virtue. 
 This the Germans have taught us. That is, there must be virtuous char- 
 acter, genuine truth and manliness behind all eloquent speech. A 
 crafty, deceitful, dishonest, dishonorable man cannot be an eloquent 
 one. He can deceive only the groundlings. His eloquence is all a sham 
 and mockery. 
 
 Mr. Douglass had a commanding figure, a commanding presence, a 
 commanding voice. In all these there is leadership. There was some- 
 thing more there. When he rose to his feet, when an audience saw that 
 dignified and serious but kindly face, that venerable and seer-like 
 aspect, when they heard that voice, it arrested attention and hushed 
 everyone to silence and expectation. Utterance with him was the con- 
 siderate and judicious gathering of great forces ; like the gathering of 
 a storm in the sky; now and then a distant mutter, then the marshaling 
 of the winds and the sweeping of the clouds across the horizon ; then 
 the descending thunderbolt and the lightning flash; then the rolling 
 back of the clouds as a curtain, the return of the sunshine and the song 
 of birds and the laughter of children. Mr. Douglass" voice was of 
 unequaled depth and volume and power. And back of all this was a 
 great-hearted, generoup, forgiving natured soul, which feared not the 
 face of man and believed in the living God. 
 
 Mr. Douglass never lost his sense of the proportion of things; never 
 was unduly elated by his successes and achievements. He was uncom- 
 promising in his opinions and yet a patient waiter. He had a saga- 
 cious, a long patience for the result. When a great man is gone for the 
 first time we begin to see the space he filled, as though a mountain 
 peak had been removed from our moral horizon. It will take a long 
 time to measure the conservative and yet progressive influence of this 
 great man ; for he was great, and great in the period of great men. He 
 was greater than his eloquent speech ; he was greater than his life. 
 If you write the history of the anti -slavery movement, he was great 
 there; it centered in him and around him; of the civil war and the 
 reconstruction period, he was a man to whom Presidents and Senators, 
 to whom millions of eufranchised people looked for counsel. He taught 
 the Senators wisdom. Shakespeare makes Marc Antony say over the 
 
so 7.V MEMORIAM. 
 
 form of the dead Caesar: "My heart is in the coffin there witli Caesar." 
 I know what that means to-day. Mr. Dougla.ss had (jualities that won 
 the heart. No young man could know him without having for him a 
 reverence that was filial. And wise will it be for the young men, whom 
 he tenderly addressed as a father, if they heed his counsels, read his 
 life, study his example, live as he lived. 
 
 Mr. Douglass was a consistent man. He had no erratic moods or 
 vagaries. There were men, great men, who drew away from Abraham 
 Lincoln because, carrying upon his shoulders, like Atlas, this great 
 American world, he seemed to move so slow. They were lighter loaded 
 and could dance and cut capers along such a rugged pathway. But not 
 Frederick Douglass. He saw where God was walking on that field and 
 believed that Mr. Lincoln was walking with God. There were men, 
 great men, who broke with President Grant. But not Frederick Doug- 
 lass. He believed in the man who had fought the nation's battles 
 through. And of Santo Domingo he said: "Since liberty and equality 
 have become the law of the land I am for extending our dominion 
 whenever and wherever such extension can peaceably and honorably be 
 accomplished. " A wiser saying to-day than when it was uttered. 
 
 If any man had a right to criticise and break down if he could the 
 public policy of our great leaders and executives on the subject of 
 human freedom it was Mr. Douglass. But he had not so learned the duty 
 of a citizen, nor the art of statesmanship. It was his to suggest and 
 counsel and then patiently wait. Lord Beaconsfield has said, ' ' Every- 
 thing comes, if a man will onlj' wait," and Philip II., "Time and I 
 again.st any two, " and Mr. Douglass has quoted, if he did not originate, 
 that greater proverb, "One with God is always a majority." In that 
 majority he was contented. For he knew that in His own time God 
 would show himself, moving on His great affairs. It was this that 
 made all his methods noble. There was no meanness in this man. He 
 did not conspire and intrigue and backbite and undermine. He was 
 no such mole as that. He was always above the ground, always acting 
 in the open day. He did not poison his weapons and give the thrust 
 of the assassin. But, standing in God's light, he fought what he 
 believed to be God's battles against principalities and powers, with the 
 weapons of a man. He gave hard blows, but never hit below the belt. 
 
 In his autobiography Mr. Dougla.ss describes the anxiety with which 
 millions watched the breaking of the day when President Lincoln had 
 promised to let locse the thunderbolts of war again-st slavery, and give 
 the watchword " Freedom for all" to our gallant soldiers in blue, to see 
 if it would be done. True as the movement of the stars, the mandate 
 came. No such watching was his, when a few days since he was 
 delivered from the entanglements and infirmities of this mortal prison- 
 house, somewhat shattered in its walls by seventy-seven years occu- 
 pancy, where we all wait the emancipation act of our great captain, of 
 Him who has broken through the bars of death, and brought light and 
 
FREDERICK nOUGLASS. 37 
 
 immortality to light iu the gospel. The summons came as came the 
 horsemen ami chariots of Israel to Elijah, straight from the excellent 
 glory, and before we could say, "My Father" the splendiil retinue of 
 heaven had returned with their delivered guest, leaving only dust and 
 ashes. 
 
 It was natural for Mr. Douglass to come back here to the bosom of 
 the Methodist Church. Here he sat in that draped pew, as said Pro- 
 fessor Shedd, after resigning his chair, "Getting ready to die, " saying 
 to his old Mother-Church that all the past was forgiven, repeating in 
 his heart the words of Ruth to her mother Naomi: "Thy people shall 
 be my people and thy God my God, " hiding himself anew, as he used 
 to sing in his Anacostia home, in the "Cleft of the Rock" that was 
 .smitten on Calvary. She long ago had made him a preacher before he 
 became an orator. This was the expectation and prayer of Uncle Law- 
 son, while he was yet a slave. So that here, again, like a vessel that had 
 made many a rough vo3-age, but now comes back to final anchorage, 
 Mr. Douglass each Lord's day sat with his dearly cherished companion in 
 this sanctuary of God. Call this man irreligious, an infidel? This 
 man, whose foundations of truth and righteousness were established in 
 God ! This man, with whom one with the form of the Son of Man had 
 so often walked in a hotter than a Nebuchadnezzar furnace ! This 
 man, with the spirit of God's kingdom, as the angels sang it, deep 
 within him! Nay, call him father, brother, husband, friend! Have 
 we forgotten the words of our Great Liberator in the synagogue of 
 Nazareth? — "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because He hath 
 sent me to preach deliverance to the captive. ' ' Have we forgotten the 
 epithets that were thick in the air about our Master: "Beelzebub! He 
 casteth out devils through the prince of the devils. " Gentle with a 
 womanly gentleness, wise with a wisdom beyond that of the universi- 
 ties, patient, long-suffering and kind, always ready to forgive, always 
 ready with the word of cheer; this is the man we mourn! Lips from 
 which have fallen such golden eloquence, eyes from which have flashed 
 such radiance, heart with such great throbs of sympathy for all God's 
 downtrodden ones, hands which were always open and outstretched 
 toward the wretched; these were his; these belonged to that man whom 
 we call Frederick Douglass. Through the changes of the greatest and 
 most eventful period in American history, not once did he lose his 
 footing; not once did he forfeit the companionship of our greatest ; 
 aye, not once did he lose his hold upon God. 
 
 Here is thy greatest son, my Maryland ! Rise up to greet him as he 
 passes through ! Seventy-seven years ago thou gavest him the birth of 
 the bondman; but thou hast lost him. The nation has claimed him — 
 the wide world. Thou great Virginia planter, sleeping by the Potomac, 
 let the river bear thee these tidings: "What thou didst with thy bond- 
 men, we have done with ours." The tread of the soldier is around 
 thy slumber no more. And thou, martyr-soul beneath God's throne, to 
 
38 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 whom w;is given to speak the fiat of freedom to millions of men, 
 women and children whose lot was like this man's; who were thus 
 "cabined, cribbed and confined," though God's image was in them, 
 take this martyr-spirit to thy Celestial companionship. And thou, 
 great Empire State, who gavest to this man a home, where he could 
 earn his bread and rear his children, at a time when he had not where 
 to lay his head, and by the flow of whose great river sleeps the dust of 
 Freedom's greatest captain, take to thy central heart and bear on thy 
 bosom, as the ages sweep more and more into the sunlight of the man 
 Christ Jesus, the battle-scarred form of Frederick Douglass. Sleep, 
 Freedom's herald in the land of the free bom! Thine exile is over. 
 Thou art dowered with the freedom of the city of God. All Hail, and 
 Farewell ! 
 
 In response to a letter sent up by Mrs. Douglass, the 
 program ■was enlarged to allo'w the participation therein by 
 the sweet singer of the abolition cause, the one -who sang 
 what Mr. Douglass talked as they traveled together holding 
 meetings over this country and England, not only the last 
 of the famous Hutchinson family of singers, but the last of 
 the old guard which numbered Garrison, Sumner and 
 Phillips in its ranks Notwithstanding his great age, Mr. 
 John W. Hutchinson's voice was clear as he recalled his 
 labors with Mr. Douglass, the New York riots, where 
 Mr. Douglass and Ward, another ex-slave, faced the mob 
 when they would not let a white man speak, and other 
 stirring scenes. 
 
 Mr. Hutchinson spoke as follows : 
 
 Dear friends, our grief and sorrow to-day, on this solemn occasion, 
 is assuaged and relieved by the knowledge of the great life and labors 
 of the loving man and brother who has so suddenly closed his earthly 
 career of earnest activities, and now lies a lifeless form before us. 
 Though dead, his noble life speaks joy and comfort to all who knew 
 him and sympathized in his labors of love and hope, and watched with 
 pride his successes. 
 
 As a prelude to the words which I am privileged to utter, I repeat the 
 lines dedicated to him by my brother Jesse, more than fifty years ago: 
 
 "I'll be free, I'll be free, and none shall confine 
 With fetters and chains this free spirit of mine; 
 From my youth I have vowed in my God to rely, 
 And, despite the oppressor, gain freedom or die. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 39 
 
 Though my back is all torn by the merciless rod, 
 
 Yet firm is my trust in the right arm of God. 
 
 In His strength I'll go forth, and forever will be 
 
 'Mong the hills of the North, where the bondman is free. 
 
 New Kngland ! New England ! Thrice blessed and free ! 
 
 The poor hunted slave finds a shelter in thee, 
 
 Where no bloodthirsty hounds ever howl on his track ; 
 
 At thy stern voice. New England, the monsters fall back ! 
 
 Go back, then, ye bloodhounds, that howl on my path! 
 
 In the laud of New England I'm free from your wrath; 
 
 And the sons of the Pilgrims my deep scars shall see 
 
 Till they cry with one voice, 'Let the Bondman go free!' " 
 
 And so did the friends in New England extend the welcome hand. 
 We loved him from his first coming among us, and as we listened to 
 his story of wrongs, we allied ourselves more closely to the cause of the 
 oppressed slave and espoused more earnestly the cause of emancipation. 
 Thus the great work received a new impulse, and the little band of 
 abolitionists labored on, singly and collectively, loving each other 
 more, as the indignities of pro-slavery were heaped upon us; and so 
 throughout evil report and good report, the battle for freedom was 
 earnestly waged. 
 
 Mr. Douglass was induced to take up his abode in Lynn, Mass. , and 
 resided there for some years. He visited my father's home in Milford, 
 N. H. , and we were enamored with his genial, loving nature. I named 
 my first-born son after him. In a letter written a short time before 
 he died, and intended as introductory to my forthcoming history and 
 autobiography, Mr. Douglass said, ' ' I was permitted to hear the whole 
 'tribe of Jesse' sing in their old family mansion, when thirteen of 
 the family poured out their souls together in pious song, till it 
 appeared as if the very roof were rising skyward. The scene of 
 that hour has been present to me during all these fifty yeans, 
 and I still recall it as one of the most sublime and glorious hours 
 I ever experienced." In the year 1845 we sailed with Mr. Douglass, 
 in the steamer ' ' Cambria, ' ' for England, where we enjoyed, on 
 many occasions, the hospitalities of the people of Great Britain, 
 and for more than a year exchanged friendships and received thank- 
 fully cherished congratulations from true hearted friends in the 
 Fatherland. We also often met Mr. Douglass in the course of our 
 journeyings through the States and were most hospitably received in 
 his adopted home in Rochester, N. Y. , and again we were, on 
 many occasions, most royally entertained at his mansion at Cedar Hill, 
 Anacostia, D. C. It was my privilege to be associated with him on 
 many notable occasions at the "World's Fair, " where for .seven months 
 he received the congratulations of multitudes of old and new friends. 
 Thus for more than a half century have we been on intimate relations, 
 and we did what we could to build up a public sentiment that made it 
 possible for Abraham Lincoln, during the progress of the great conflict 
 
40 /iV MEMORIAM. 
 
 and war, to issue the proclamation that emancipated four millions of 
 human beings. 
 
 Mr. Douglass also espoused the cause of woman, and his last public 
 effort was in her behalf. 
 
 I could not stay away from these auspicious obsequies, but came from 
 my home at High Rock, to extend my sympathies to the bereaved and 
 to look once more upon this form, and commune with the beloved spirit 
 of this Frederick the Great, and chant for him this requiem. 
 
 Then raising his voice, impressive, loud and sweet, he 
 half chanted, half sung the requiem of the dead : 
 
 L.^-Y HIM LOW. 
 Close his eyes, his work is done, 
 
 What to him is friend or foemau? 
 Rise of moon, or set of sun, 
 
 Hand of man, or kiss of woman ? 
 
 Refrain : 
 
 Lay him low, lay liim low. 
 
 Under the clover or under the snow, 
 How we loved him, none can know. 
 
 Lay him low. 
 
 As man may, he fought his fight. 
 
 Proved his truth by his endeavor, 
 Let his name in golden light. 
 
 Live forever and forever. 
 
 Great his love for human kind, 
 
 Strong his faith in truth's promotion; 
 In his teachings, gems we find. 
 
 Beacon lights along life's ocean. 
 
 Wreaths we bring that ne'er shall fade; 
 
 Greener with the passing years ; 
 Brighter for our error's shade; 
 
 Jeweled with our falling tears. 
 
 Pure the radiant path he trod. 
 
 Conscious of the fount 'twas given ; 
 His allotted years from God 
 
 Are triumphs emphasized from Heaven. 
 Bend in love, O azure sky ; 
 
 Shine, O .stars, at evening time; 
 Watch our Frederick calmly lie 
 
 Clothed in faith and hope sublime. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 41 
 
 God of nations, bless the land 
 
 Thou hast saved to houor Thee ! 
 Guide us with Thy mighty hand, 
 
 Till every nation shall be free ! 
 
 We are almost home, almost home, 
 
 Almost home to join the heavenly band. 
 Come along, dear pilgrims, come along, 
 
 The time is drawing nigh ; 
 The angels stand ready to welcome you home. 
 To join the hosts on high. 
 Monsieur Nicolas, Secretary of the Haitien Legation, 
 then expressed the regret and sj-mpathy of the Haitien 
 Government on the death of Mr. Douglass, as follows : 
 
 Le Gouveruement et le peuple haitiens out ^te p^niblement aflFectds 
 par la nouvelle de la mort subite du venere Frederic Douglass. 
 
 A cette triste cdremonie qui nous assemble ici et ou le peuple 
 americain, en se decouvrant devant le cercueil de Monsieur Frederic 
 Douglass, salue une grande intelligence dont les nobles qualitds ont 
 impost le respect aux nations des deux continents, je renouvelle, au nom 
 de la R6publique d'Haiti, ses temoinages d'estime et de profond regrets. 
 
 Bishop A. W. Waynian, of the A. M. E. Church, then 
 spoke in eloquent terms of the worth and greatness of Mr. 
 Douglass, and was followed by the Rev. W. B. Der- 
 rick, D. D., who spoke as follows : 
 
 Frederick Douglass has accomplished more in his death than in his 
 life. This sad and solemn occurrence has brought the American press, 
 especially that portion of the press which is to be found in the civilized 
 part of the country, to acknowledge, that it was not color, but fitness 
 and character that made the man. The metropolitan press of the great 
 city of New York, unanimously declared that Mr. Douglass was a fit 
 example for all classes and conditions of people, be they black or white. 
 Marvelous declaration. Nevertheless true. Is not this an evidence 
 that the American conscience is right, provided it is properly aroused? 
 As Israel, we mourn the loss of our Moses. God took him. 
 
 I would rather occupy the place of a mourner in the pew than to 
 attempt to have anything to say on this occasion. But having been 
 requested, but a few moments ago, to take part in these ceremonies, I 
 have consented, with no set speech, as a representative from the great 
 State of New York, head of a delegation whose presence here to-day 
 is to pay respect to this great man. When I say great State of New 
 York I mean she is great, and may be rightly considered the sun in the 
 solar system of States, around which revolve minor States, deriving 
 
42 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 commercial, financial, political and intellectual greatness from her. 
 New York will gladly welcome all that is mortal of her adopted son, 
 Frederick Douglass; and in her rich and prolific soil will give to his 
 manly form a calm and silent repose. 
 
 Although Mr. Douglass may not be considered by some to have been 
 a master in the republic of letters, nevertheless it was he who fought 
 and contended in those trying times, in those dark periods of the race's 
 and country's hi,story, to make it possible for you, the young men 
 present, and other young men, to become the masters of the three R's. 
 His great labors and marvelous achievements in the defence of human 
 rights will be remembered and appreciated. In those days when it 
 tried men's souls, his voice was heard above the clamor, "There 
 is light ahead." He was always cheerful, living in a state of 
 bright expectancy, his confidence unshaken, in a Divine and Supreme 
 Being, believing that the right would prevail sooner or later. 
 It was he, who, with a few others, encouraged Mr. Lincoln to 
 issue the Proclamation of Emancipation, the result of which was 
 the freedom of the American negro. To him may be attributed 
 the large number of colored soldiers and sailors who willingly went 
 to the front and fought the battles of the Union. His clarion 
 voice, his bewitching and enchanting eloquence incited them on. 
 It was when the nation was tossed upon a sea of blood and war, and 
 not a star appeared in the firmament, not an ark on the troubled 
 waters, disaster after disaster perched upon the Union's banner, 
 the Ship of State with the flag at half-mast, no one did more during 
 those times of blood and carnage than he, by his stirring speeches and 
 manly effort.s. He was and is to be considered one of the leading 
 members of the great army of emancipators who have stamped their 
 moral, social, intellectual and political personalities upon the hearts 
 of the liberty-loving world. Although nearly all these champions and 
 warriors are gone, having already joined the glorified host amid the 
 throng of the spirits of just men made perfect (this galaxy of anti- 
 slavery heroes), their deeds are inscribed in letters of fire in the blue 
 arch of heaven: Garrison, Phillips, Giddings, Garrett Smith, Lucretia 
 Mott, Wade, Lovejoy, Sumner, John Brown, Lincoln and Douglass. 
 Claimed by both races, justly so, such as it ought to be. Yet we are 
 proud of him and are not in any way ashamed of that part of him with 
 which Africa is charged. No, no. Africa, land of precious memory; 
 the land in which Abraham sojourned, Jacob lived and died, Joseph was 
 exalted, Moses born; the country in which God furnished a garden .spot 
 in which corn was raised to feed his starving Israel, and still more 
 notable, it was here an asylum was furnished in which the child Jesus 
 and His espoused parents were sheltered from the avenging hands of 
 Herod. We are proud to own our Moses. 
 
 Mr. Douglass was fortunate to have live<l to see his country free from 
 the foul and infamous stain which had blotted the fair name of the 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 43 
 
 American Republic and rendered it a hiss and a byword among the 
 sisterhood of nations. He lived to see his countrj-'s press unmuzzled, 
 the pulpit unshackled, the judiciary washed from the foul stain of 
 Taney's infamous decision; yes, he lived to see the whip dropped 
 from the hand of the overseer. The bloodhound no longer hunts the 
 fugitive slave in the mangrove swamps of the Mississippi ; the hammer 
 of the auctioneer of negroes struck for the last time on his platform, 
 and its hateful sound has died into eternal silence. 
 
 He lived to see the flag washed and cleansed, until to-day it is the 
 gem among national emblems, until to-day the stars represent the stars 
 of heaven, the blue the blue vaulted sky, the white the high and lofty 
 Christian civilization, the red the blood of the various nationalities 
 which were spilled upon the fields of carnage to maintain and uphold 
 the principles of justice, equality and truth. Yes, he lived to see the 
 slave pens abolished and in their stead planted the sctool houses; he 
 lived to -see the auction blocks swept away and Christian pulpits planted 
 in their places ; he lived to see the day when the barbarous and inhuman 
 voice of overseer and auctioneer was hushed into eternal silence; and 
 from the ice-bound coast of New England, across the tobacco fields of 
 Maryland and Virginia, the rice and pine swamps of the Carolinas, the 
 cotton patches of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and 
 Louisiana, the tread of the slave shall be heard no more. 
 
 Wliat means this great outpouring to-day? This great throng speaks in 
 mute language, symbolizing in letters A. P. G. , which when explained 
 mean "American Prejudice Going." Wliat means this distinguished 
 gathering, among which are to be found senators from the halls of 
 Congress and judges from the Supreme Bench of the United States 
 Judiciar)-, gentlemen who occupy high places in the list of fame? It 
 is the strongest evidence of the high and .spotless character of him 
 whom we mourn, our champion, our defender, our friend, our countrv'- 
 man. He is not dead, he sleeps. When the historians shall write 
 concerning the greatness of the nineteenth century, they will speak of 
 Mr. Douglass, his virtues which the hard experiences of early life had 
 strengthened in him; of his sincerity and simplicity; of his manly 
 frankness and self-re.spect ; of his large, humane and tender sympathies ; 
 of his self-control and good temper; of his truthfulness and sturdy 
 honesty. 
 
 Farewell, fearless defender, bold and courageous champion, manly 
 man, true friend, peerless leader, farewell, farewell. 
 
 Mr. Moses Hodges, of Boston, tlien sang Mendelssohn's 
 " Oh, Rest in the Lord ; " after which Miss Susan B. 
 Anthony read the following tribute from Elizabeth Cady 
 Stanton, who was unable to be present ; as also the letter 
 from Mr. Bonnev. 
 
44 IN MEMURIAM. 
 
 [ELIZABETH CADY STANTON'S LETTER.] 
 
 Taking up the morning Tribune, the first words that caught my eye 
 thrilled my very soul. "Frederick Doulgass is dead!" What vivid 
 memories thick and fast flashed through my mind and held me spell- 
 bound in contemplation of the long years since iirst we met. 
 
 Trained in the severe school of slavery, I saw him first before a 
 Boston audience, fresh from the land of bondage. He stood there like 
 an African prince, conscious of his dignity and power, grand in his 
 physical proportions, majestic in his wrath, as with keen wit, satire 
 and indignation he portrayed the bitterness of slaverj-, the humiliation 
 of subjection to those who in all human virtues and capacities were 
 inferior to himself. His denunciation of our national crime,/4)f the 
 wild aud guilty fantasy that men could hold property in man, '{)oured 
 like a torrent that fairly made his hearers tremble. 
 
 Thus I first saw him, and wondered as I listened that any mortal man 
 should have ever tried to subjugate a being with such marvelous powers, 
 such self-respect, such intense love of liberty. 
 
 Around him sat the great anti-slavery orators of the day, watching 
 his effect on that immense audience, completely magnetized with his 
 eloquence, laughing and crying by turns with his rapid flights from 
 pathos to humor. Ail other speakers seemed tame after Douglass. 
 Sitting near, I heard Phillips say to Lydia Maria Child: "Verily, this 
 boy, who has only just graduated from the 'southern institution' (as 
 slavery was called), throws us all in the shade. " "Ah," she replied, 
 "the iron has entered his soul and he knows the wrongs of slavery 
 subjectively ; the rest of you speak only from an objective point of 
 view. " 
 
 He used to preach a sennon in imitation of the Methodist clergy, 
 from the text, "Servants, Obey your Masters," which the people were 
 never tired of hearing. Often after he had spoken an hour shouts 
 would go up from all parts of the house, ' ' Now, Douglass, give us the 
 sermon." Some of our literary critics pronounced that the best piece 
 of satire in the English language. 
 
 The last time I visited his home in Anacostia, I asked him if he 
 ever had the sermon printed. He said "No. " "Could you reproduce 
 it?" said I. He said, "No; I could not bring back theold feeling if I 
 tried, and I would not if I could. The blessings of liberty I have so 
 long enjoyed, and the many tender friendships I have with the Saxon 
 race on both sides of the ocean, have taught me such sweet lessons of 
 forgiveness that the painful memories of my early days are almost 
 obliterated, and I would not recall them." 
 
 As an orator, writer and editor, Douglass holds an honored place 
 among the gifted men of his day. As a man of business and a public 
 officer he has been pre-eminently successful ; honest and upright in all 
 his dealings, he bears an enviable reputation. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 45 
 
 As a husband, father, neighbor and friend, in all social relations. 
 he has been faithful and steadfast to the end. He was the only man I 
 ever knew who understood the degradation of disfranchisement for 
 women. Through all the long years of our struggle he has been a 
 familiar figure on our platform, with always an inspiring word to say. 
 In the very first convention he helped me to carry the resolution I had 
 penned, demanding woman suffrage. 
 
 Frederick Douglass is not dead! His grand character will long be 
 an object lesson in our national history; his lofty sentiments of liberty, 
 justice and equality, echoed on every platform over our broad land, 
 must influence and inspire many coming generations! 
 (Signed): 
 
 Ei,iz.\be;th Cady St.\nton, 
 26 West vSixty-Crst street. New York. 
 
 February 21, 1895. 
 
 [MR. C. C. BONNEV.S LETTHR.] 
 
 Dear Miss Anthony ; 
 
 Other duties will prevent me from attending the funeral of Frederick 
 Douglass, but I am glad to express, in compliance with your request, 
 my high appreciation of his character and career. He was the most 
 eminent representative of his race, and the most eloquent prophecy of 
 the splendid civilization that is destined to fill all the Dark Continent 
 with its light. 
 
 Rising, through his own heroic efforts, from the condition of slavery 
 to the lofty position of the acknowledged leadership of his race in the 
 New World; and finally winning, by his ability, courage and high- 
 minded course of action, the respect and admiration of those who were, 
 at the outset, intensely hostile to his aspirations and claims, Frederick 
 Douglass deserves to live in the hi.story of representative men as one of 
 the noblest examples of the triumph of man over the most adverse 
 conditions. 
 
 1 therefore honor his memor\- and send you this tribute to his worth. 
 With high respect and kind regards. 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 c. c. bonney. 
 Miss Susan B. Anthony, 
 
 Nalional Council of Women. 
 
 Mrs. May Wright Sewell then .spoke, in substance, as 
 follows : 
 
 I experience a feeling of great diffidence in .standing before an audi- 
 ence wherein are gathered so many of the early friends and so many of 
 
46 IN MEMO EI AM. 
 
 the later companions, if one may not say peers, of the man whose death 
 we are met to mourn, whose career we are met to honor. The words 
 written on one occasion by Daniel Webster, when he was asked to in- 
 scribe his name in a book that held the autographs of many wise and 
 great persons, force themselves upon my lips now: 
 
 ' ' If by this name I write my own 
 'Twill take me where I am not known. 
 The cold salute will meet my ear, 
 'Pray, stranger, how did you come here?' " 
 
 In answer to this inquiry, which I see upon the faces of many, I 
 must say that I stand here by virtue of two claims. The first is small 
 and personal. For many years, I have enjoyed the friendship of Fred- 
 erick Douglass. The second is large and universal. I stand here sum- 
 moned by the family of Frederick Douglass to speak for a constituency 
 in which he believed. I come as the representative of the National 
 Council, in which Frederick Douglass spent his last day on earth. 
 What brought him to us in a business session was his sense of the soli- 
 darity of human interests. As I saw him moving with the majesty of 
 a king down the aisle, with every eye fixed upon him, I thought, 
 "There moves a page of history, an epic poem, a tragedy:" (for there 
 is no sublimity without the elements of tragedy). He seemed a mono- 
 lith rising up to remind us of the past and to point us to the future. 
 
 We never know in what field we shall reap. When Frederick Doug- 
 lass began to sow for the freedom of one-half of one race, he little 
 thought the harvest of that sowing was to be reaped in the freedom of 
 the other half of two races; in the emancipation of women from fixed 
 and false opinions. In every field where civilization is known, has 
 been reaped a harvest from his sowing. 
 
 Many times during these solemn services, Frederick Douglass has 
 been referred to as the "hero of a race" with the evident restriction of 
 the word "race" to the colored people. His record is a glory to the 
 colored race, but it must not at this hour be forgotten that through his 
 veins there flowed a mingled strain of blood. The white race as well 
 as the black has been uplifted by his career. It is the whole race 
 human, not the fractional race African, to which he belonged, and the 
 annals of which will be illuminated by the splendid record of his life. 
 
 I come to lay on the bier of him we love and honor a crown of laurel 
 and palms. The laurel is from an old tree still standing on the estate 
 on which he was bom. So one sees that before Frederick Douglass was 
 born, in Maryland, a tree had been planted there which was destined 
 ultimately to furnish forth his crown when his earthly warfare should 
 end in victory. Can any of us doubt that, before he entered this plain 
 of existence through the humble avenue of a slave mother, there was 
 also planted a tree by the River of Life, which shall furnish forth 
 leaves for his crown in the world that he has just entered? If we 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 47 
 
 mourn because our little world is taade smaller by his departure, we 
 also rejoice knowing that another world is made larger by his arrival. 
 
 A letter was then read from Rev. Francis J. Grimke, D. D., 
 who was unable to be present on account of the death of 
 his mother. 
 
 Rev. Anna Shaw offered the closing prayer, giving 
 thanks that out of the infinite heart of love the world had 
 been given " this peerless voice, this great heart, this loving 
 and noble soul." 
 
 Bishop Williams, of the C. M. E. Church, then pro- 
 nounced the benediction. 
 
 At the close of the services the remains of Mr. Douglass, 
 under the escort of the active pall-bearers, detailed from 
 the letter-carriers, were conveyed to the depot of the Balti- 
 more and Potomac Railroad, and, with the family of the 
 deceased, together with General John A. Eaton, ex-Com- 
 missioner of Education, and Professor George W. Cook, 
 delegates from Howard University, and Rev. J. I. Shelcutt, 
 of the Asbury Methodist Church, were taken on the 
 evening train to Rochester, N. Y., where they were re- 
 ceived with civic honors ; and thus, crowned with years 
 and laurels and usefulness and memories, of which the 
 sweet overshadowed the bitter, Frederick Douglass passed 
 out of the bondage of earthly existence, into the freedom 
 of spiritual life. 
 
JN MEMO RUM. 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 Frederick Dougi.ass. 
 The voice we loved is hushed, why should we weep ? 
 For him who, full of honors and of years, 
 Has drawn with feeble hands (made strong by death), 
 The curtain hiding life ? There is no cause for tears ! 
 
 Weep rather for ourselves, who, in this brazen age 
 Filled with base ingrates, scorning Nature's plan, 
 Will plead the cause he always loved so well, 
 Of Justice, Freedom, Equal Rights of Man ? 
 
 Robert Reyburn, M. D. 
 Washington, D. C, February 22, 1S95. 
 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Gone, at swift summons, to the Better Land ! 
 
 Risen, like prophet of the Orient clime ! 
 The fiery chariot could not, waiting, stand, 
 
 And Azr.-iel's errand came in God's good time. 
 The white locks rested as a glory crown 
 
 Upon his noble head. Now, like a peal 
 Of chiming sweetness, all the ages down 
 
 Shall sound his voice, though death his lips may seal. 
 Dead ! Is he dead, whose memory cannot die ? 
 
 Whose life was one long effort to be free, 
 Free as the truth makes free, with purposes high, 
 
 As well as free from bonds of Slavery ! 
 Servant of God, and Priest at Freedom's shrine ! 
 
 Immortal life and pure renown are thine. 
 
 Phebe h.. Hanaford. 
 New York, February 26, 1S95. 
 
©bsequies 
 
 at 
 
 tRocbester, fl. 1^. 
 
OBSEQUIES AT ROCHESTER. N. Y. 
 
 Proceedings ok the Common Council of Rochester, 
 N. Y., HELD February 23, 1895. 
 
 Mayor's Office, 
 RocHKSTER, N. Y., February 23, 1S95. 
 Theodore S. Pulver, City Clerk. 
 
 Sir: You wUl please call a special meeting of the Conimon Council for 
 this Saturday afternoon, at 2.30 o'clock, to take such action as may be 
 necessary aud appropriate in connection with the funeral of the Hon. 
 Frederick Douglass, for many }-ears a respected resident of this city. 
 
 Merton E. Lewis, 
 Acting Mayor. 
 SPECIAL MEETING. 
 
 Aldemian Merton E. Lewis, president of the board, in 
 the chair. 
 
 Present — Aldermen Caliban, McMillan, Green, x\dams, 
 Edelman, Ashton, Dewey, Cook, Pauckner, Lewis and 
 Harris — 11. 
 
 Aldennan McMillan — 
 
 Mr. President : I rise to a qnestion of privilege and 
 beg leave to snbinit the following memorial and resolu- 
 tions on the death of our former fellow townsman, the 
 Honorable Frederick Douglass. 
 
 MEMORIAL. 
 
 At his residence in Washington, February 20, 1895, Frederick Douglass, 
 a former resident of Rochester, died, and this Council have met this after- 
 noon to honor his memory. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, near Easton, Talbot County, 
 Maryland, February 14, 1S17. His early boyhood was passed in slavery 
 upon the plantation of Colonel Lloyd. When about nine years of age he 
 learned to read and write ; September 3, 1838, he escaped from slavery 
 and took up his residence in New Bedford, Mass., where he was first 
 (5') 
 
62 7.V MEMORIAL. 
 
 married. It was here be met and was assisted in his efforts to secure an 
 education by William Lloyd Garrison. In 1841, Mr. Douglass made a 
 speech at an anti-slavery convention at Nantucket which brought him 
 before the attention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and this 
 society at once employed him as one of its agents ; for them he lectured 
 through New England for about four years, upon the subject which he 
 was so eminently qualified by nature and experience to speak. So suc- 
 cessful was he that in 1845 he made a tour of England, Scotland, Irelaud 
 and Wales, receiving marked attention everywhere. Rochester was 
 honored by his making it his home in 1847, and here he resided for the 
 most part until 1870. 
 
 When he first settled in Rochester he began the publication of a paper 
 known as the North Star, an organ devoted to the abolition of slavery, 
 and which he continued a greater part of the time until the emancipation 
 of his race removed the cau.se for its existence. 
 
 Mr. Douglass filled many positions of trust with eminent credit to him- 
 self and his country. In 1871 he was appointed assist.Tnt secretary to the 
 commission of Santo Domingo, and later by President Grant as a member 
 of the Territorial Council of the District of Columbia. In 1872 he was 
 elector-at-large for the State of New York and the messenger of the 
 Electoral College. From 1876 to 1881 he was United States Marshal forthe 
 District of Columbia, and Recorder of Deeds for that district from i88i to 
 t886. But it was as an orator and author that Mr. Douglass was perhaps best 
 known from the time when he fired the hearts and zeal of the New England 
 abolitionists until his last public appearance a few years since. He was 
 an orator whose oratory was spontaneous, natural and convincing, and the 
 citizens of Rochester have not forgotten the occasions when he held, as if 
 by magic, the large audiences which would congregate to hear him. As 
 an author he achieved distinction by his works : " Narrative of My Expe- 
 rience in Slavery," " My Bondage and My Freedom," published here in 
 1855, and " Life and Times of Frederick Douglass." 
 
 Rochester is proud that he was one of her sons and that he will rest in 
 her beautiful city of the dead. 
 
 In his life and life work, our youth can find much worthy of emula- 
 tion, and its lesson to all cannot be lost. 
 
 " Whoe'r amidst the sons 
 Of reason, valor, liberty and virtue 
 Displays distinguished merit, is a noble 
 Of Nature's own creating." 
 
 Resolved, That we do hereby tender to the family and relatives of 
 Honorable Frederick Douglass our sympathy in their affliction, and that 
 this memorial be spread upon the minutes of this Council, a copy of this 
 memorial and these resolutions be sent to his family, and further 
 
 Resolved, That the family of Mr. Dougla.ss be requested to permit his 
 body to lie in state in the City Hall on the day of the funeral, and further 
 
FKEDEUICK DOUGLASS. 53 
 
 Resolved, That this Common Council altenil the funeral services in a 
 body. 
 
 Adopted. 
 
 Aldennan Pauckner moved that a committee of five 
 members of the Council be appointed to make arrange- 
 ments for the funeral of Mr. Douglass. Carried. 
 
 The Chair appointed as such committee : Aldermen 
 Pauckner, Adams, Ash ton, Green and Harris. 
 
 On motion of Alderman Dewey the board then ad- 
 journed. Theodore S. Pulver, Clerk. 
 
 The Common Council and the friends of Mr. Douglass 
 in that city united in a public funeral, as a tribute of 
 respect to his memory, held February 25, 1895. The 
 whole city was in mourning. From the public buildings 
 and from many places of business flags floated at half-mast. 
 All of the public schools were closed, and the pupils, in 
 charge of teachers, joined in the exercises of the day, and 
 thus became a part in this historic event. 
 
 Aldermen Adams and Asliton joined the funeral cor- 
 tege at Canandaigua. With every token of love and sad 
 respect, Rochester received the mortal remains of her 
 former citizen and the world's friend. Often, in the earlier 
 times, had Frederick Doxiglass moved about the streets 
 and in and out of the city, to ordinar}- comprehension 
 a presuming, illogical fanatic, bent on his Quixotic errand ; 
 to the divinely seeing, out of the many called, one of the 
 few chosen. To-day, though dead, he had returned a 
 victor, bringing his sheaves with him ; for he had fought 
 the good fight, and finished the course. The draped 
 banner, the tearful faces, were a living response to the 
 pleas his burning zeal had urged, and for which his mute 
 lips now made their final appeal. They were witnesses, 
 not only of a last sad welcome, but of the coming of the 
 clearer vision, to bring which had been the travail of his 
 soul, and for which he had lived and died. Solemnly and 
 
54 IN MEMORIA}f. 
 
 slowly the heavily draped hearse, followed by the Fifty- 
 fourth Regiment Band, a platoon of police, the Douglass 
 League, the Mayor, members of the City Council, and 
 other city officials, honorary and active bearers, and the 
 family and friends of the deceased, passed on through the 
 lines of uncovered heads. Beautiful floral tributes lay 
 upon the casket, which was borne to the City Hall, where, 
 under a guard of honor, it lay in state until two o'clock in 
 the afternoon, the hour of the funeral. The decorations of 
 the City Hall were beautiful and elaborate. From the 
 tower floated the United States flag at half-mast. The 
 portico of the main entrance was heavily draped. The sides 
 and ceiling of the main corridor were nearly hidden 
 beneath flags, and black and white bunting hung from the 
 ceiling, converged to a point above the catafalque in the 
 centre of the room. Beneath the chandelier and over 
 the casket the American eagle held by its beak the 
 Stars and Stripes draped in black, and flags draped the 
 entrances to the Mayor's and other oflfices. To the palms 
 and tropical plants in profusion, which lent their beauty 
 and suggestions to the scene, was added a beautiful floral 
 tribute from the colored people of Boston, representing in 
 miniature Bunker Hill Monument, at whose base Frederick 
 Douglass stood entranced at Webster's noble periods in his 
 address at the unveiling of that monument. To-day no 
 voice was needed to intensify the eloquence of the scene. 
 The mute lips of death told their own message, as, in 
 a continuous procession, from all the avenues leading to 
 the City Hall ; from the suburbs ; from the country towns ; 
 from Syracuse; from Buffalo and Boston, came, in unbroken 
 line, to pause a moment at his bier, those to whom the life 
 now ended had stood in the past, and would stand in the 
 future, unfalteringly, for an idea, a principle. 
 
 Thus Rochester received her dead, and publicly em- 
 phasized her recognition of the heroic qualities of Frederick 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 55 
 
 Douglass, his moral worth and the principles for which he 
 lived and died. 
 
 Again the solemn notes of the Rineral march; the draped 
 colors ; the reversed amis ; the slowly moving hearse ; the 
 thronging populace with uncovered head ; and the Central 
 Church, before which, for an hour, the people had been 
 waiting in line for admittance, opened its doors, and in a 
 profound silence, broken only by the deep tones of the 
 organ pealing forth Chopin's Funeral March, the casket 
 was reverently borne down the aisle and deposited in front 
 of the altar. Above the pulpit were draped large flags 
 hung with mourning, and floral decorations filled the front 
 of the platform upon which were seated Rev. Dr. H. H. 
 Stebbins, of the Central Church ; Rev. Dr. William R. 
 Taylor, of the Brick Church ; Rev. Dr. J. P. vSankey, of 
 the United Presbyterian Church ; Rev. H. Clay Peebles, 
 of the Park Avenue Baptist Church; Rev. Dr. W. C. 
 Gannett, of the Unitarian Church ; Rev. G. W. Peck, of 
 the North Presbyterian Church ; Rev. Wesley Ely, of Zion 
 Methodist Church ; Rev. Dr. J. H. Mason, Presiding Elder 
 of the A. M. E. Church of the district ; Mr. Sherman D. 
 Richardson, Miss Mary Anthony, Mayor Lewis and the 
 Aldermanic Committee consisting of Messrs. Pauckner, 
 Harris, Ashton, Adams and Green, and Mr. Cleary, Super- 
 intendent of Police. Five hundred seats in the centre of 
 the church had been reserved and were occupied by the 
 family and friends, the bearers, officials and organizations. 
 
 The solemn hush that pervaded the assembly was broken 
 by the rich voices of the male quartette of the Central 
 Church, in " Remember Now Thy Creator," after which 
 the Rev. William R. Taylor, of the Brick Church, offered 
 the following invocation : 
 
 Unto Thee, O Lord, do we lift up our souls. 
 
 We are in the presence of a dread reality and a solemn mystery — the 
 reality and mysterj- of death. 
 
56 IX MEMORIAM. 
 
 But we are also face to face with a greater reality and a greater mystery 
 — the reality and the mystery of a human life that was full of divine 
 goodness, divine feeling and divine power. 
 
 Only Thou dost still continue to make men and women in Thine own 
 image, and share with them Thine own divine nature; only Thou 
 who, by Thy Providence, dost rule in their affairs, bringing liberty 
 and peace out of their bloody conflicts, and a higher righteousness from 
 their very sins ; only Thou who didst kindle a divine fire within the soul 
 of this man, whose mortal body we are this day to bury in the earth, 
 who didst give him his great heart and eloquent tongue, and didst 
 make him a power in the stirring and eventful period in which Thou 
 didst cast his lot; only Thou couldst teach us the lesson of his life, and 
 through it fit us the better to serve Thee and our fellow men. 
 
 We therefore entreat Thee for the influence of Thy Holy Spirit upon 
 our spirits, that we may see Thee and recognize the solemn realities, 
 the noble opportunities and the unescapable responsibilities of our 
 life. 
 
 Forgive and cleanse us. Set us free from every form of bondage ; 
 teach us, lead us, help us, inspire us, and save us through Him who 
 hath taught us to pray saying: 
 
 "Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy 
 kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give 
 us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our 
 debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil : 
 For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. 
 Amen. ' ' 
 
 Rev. Dr. We.sley A. Ely, of the Zion Methodist Church, 
 Rochester, then read the following selections of Scripture : 
 
 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. 
 
 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed 
 the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou 
 art God. 
 
 Thou turnest man to destruction ; and sayest, Return, ye children of 
 men. 
 
 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is 
 past, and as a watch in the night. 
 
 Thou carriest them away as with a flood ; they are as a sleep ; in the 
 morning they are like grass which groweth up. 
 
 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is 
 cut down, and withereth. 
 
 For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we 
 troubled. 
 
 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light 
 of thy countenance. 
 
FREDEIUVK DOUGLASS. 57 
 
 For all our da3-s are passed a%vay in thy wrath : we spend our years 
 as a tale that is told. 
 
 The daj'sof our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason 
 of strength may be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor 
 and sorrow ; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. 
 
 Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy 
 fear, so is thy wrath. 
 
 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto 
 wisdom. 
 
 Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy 
 servants. 
 
 O satisfy us early with thy mercy; tliat we may be glad and rejoice 
 all our days. 
 
 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, 
 and the years wherein we have seen evil. 
 
 Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their 
 children. 
 
 And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us : and establish 
 thou the work of our hands upon us ; yea, the work of our hands 
 establish thou it. — Psalm xc. 
 
 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and 
 another glory of the stars; for one star difl'ereth from another .star in 
 glory. 
 
 So also is the resuiTection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it 
 is raised in incorruption : 
 
 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness, 
 it is raised in power : 
 
 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body There 
 is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. 
 
 And so it is written: The first man Adam, was made a living soul ; 
 the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 
 
 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is 
 natural ; and afterward that which is spiritual. 
 
 The first man is of the earth, earthy : the second man is the Lord 
 from heaven. 
 
 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy : and as is the 
 heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 
 
 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear 
 the image of the heavenly. 
 
 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the 
 kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 
 
 Behold, I shew you a mystery ; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all 
 be changed. 
 
 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the 
 trumpet shall .sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we 
 shall be changed. 
 
58 IN MEMORIA Jf. 
 
 For this corruptible must put ou incorrujitit)]], and this mortal must 
 put on immortality. 
 
 So when this corrxiptible shall have put on incorrupt ion, and this 
 mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the 
 saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 
 
 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 
 
 The stiug of death is sin ; and the strength of sin is the law. 
 
 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victorj- through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always 
 abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know tliat your 
 labor is not in vain in the Lord. — / Coriiii/u'ans .rv. 41-sS. 
 
 The Scripture reading was followed by an adaptation of 
 the hymn, "Hide Thou Me," sung by Mr. George W. 
 Walton, of the Central Church Quartette. 
 
 HIDE THOU MK. 
 In Thy cleft, O Rock of Ages, 
 
 Hide Thou me; 
 When the fitful tempest rages, 
 Hide Thou me. 
 Wliere no mortal arm can sever 
 From my heart Thy love forever, 
 Hide me, O Thou Rock of Ages, 
 Safe in Thee. 
 
 From the snares of sinful pleasure, 
 
 Hide Thou me; 
 Thou, my soul's eternal treasure. 
 Hide Thou me. 
 When the world its power is wielding. 
 And my heart is almost yielding. 
 Hide me, O Thou Rock of Ages, 
 Safe in Thee. 
 
 In the lonely night of sorrow, 
 
 Hide Thou me; 
 Till in glory dawns the morrow, 
 Hide Thou me. 
 In the sight of Jordan's billow. 
 Let Thy bosom be my pillow- 
 Hide me, O Thou Rock of Ages, 
 Safe in Thee. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 59 
 
 The following original poem was read by the author, 
 Mr. Sherman D. Richardson : 
 
 DOUGLASS. 
 
 I saw the slave of Maryland 
 
 Upon the soil of freeilom stand. 
 
 The waves that once the Mayflower bore, 
 
 Were dashing on New England's shore. 
 
 The Stars and Stripes showed Northern will 
 
 On breezes from old Bunker Hill; 
 
 And, as he drank in liberty, 
 
 I saw the man from serfdom free. 
 
 I saw him like a monarch stand 
 With Lincoln's edict in his hand; 
 With lips infused from heaven's fire. 
 With thoughts that would all time inspire, 
 Transfigured on Columbia's sod; 
 \ living type from Freedom's God; 
 Incarnate soul of Liberty 
 He stood. A race and land were free. 
 
 I saw again God's pioneer 
 
 In grand repose upon his bier. 
 
 The lines that showed the reaper's path 
 
 Were softened with Death's aftermath. 
 
 But yet that face more grandly taught 
 
 Of will and power, of battles fought, 
 
 Of victories won for Liberty ; 
 
 The crown, at last ; the soul was free. 
 
 Miss Mary Anthony, representing the great body of 
 women with whose efforts toward establishing a universal 
 nobler womanhood, Mr. Douglass had always been in close 
 sympathy, made the following address : 
 
 It is so seldom that any person, man or woman, bom amidst the most 
 unfavorable surroundings, making a life work of the most unpopular 
 subjects, lives, as did this husband and father, to see the world come 
 to recognize the beautiful precepts of the brotherhood of man, that the 
 most hopeful and best word one can say, is. Thank God and take 
 courage ! 
 
 When we think of the first years of his life in our midst, and com- 
 pare them with the last visit he made here, with the Presidential party 
 of Harrison, to take part in the dedication of the Soldiers' Monument, 
 
60 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 and his being one of the honored guests at the Cottage Banquet at 
 Ontario Beach, we may well exclaim, "The world does move!" 
 
 The struggles and trials, and they were legion, which Frederick 
 Douglass endured for seventy-eight years, are to-day crystallized into a 
 grand prophecy, of which this hour is the beginning of the fulfillment. 
 
 The appreciation and love which we, the women of Rochester, bear 
 toward our friend and co-worker, cannot be better expressed than by 
 reading the resolutions passed at the meeting of the National Council 
 of Women, in Washington. 
 
 Miss Anthony then read the Memorial adopted by the 
 Woman's National Conference at Washington, on the 
 death of Mr. Douglass. [See page 95.] 
 
 The following hymn, " Lead, Kindly Light," was suug 
 in an impressive manner by the Quartette : 
 
 LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT. 
 Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, 
 
 Lead Thou me on ; 
 The night is dark, and I am far from home, 
 
 Lead Thou me on. 
 Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene; one step's enough for uie. 
 
 So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still 
 
 Will lead me on 
 O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 
 
 The night is gone. 
 And with the mom those angel faces smile, 
 Which I have loved long since, and lost a while. 
 
 The Rev. W. C. Gannett, of the First Universalist 
 Church, of Rochester, then delivered the following address : 
 
 It is an impressive moment in our city's history. There was a man 
 who, when a fellow-citizen among us, lived in one of the humbler 
 houses of the city; a man whose race debarred him from reception in 
 its wealthy mansions; a man whose color exposed him to insult on the 
 streets. This man has come home to us to-da}-. Three years ago he 
 came surrounded by a Presidential company, but then the greeting to 
 him lost itself in that given to the magnates of the land. To-day he 
 comes alone, alone, though guarded by the little circle of his best 
 beloved. The greeting now is all bis own. For once he has been wel- 
 comed for himself, and in the mo.st impressive manner. Our city went 
 
FREDERICK DOVGLASK 61 
 
 forth to meet him at its gates. Our mayor and other official representa- 
 tives counseled together to show him honor due. As he passed along our 
 streets, the citizens have paused with lifted hat. In our Cit)' Hall he 
 has lain in state, and the very children of our schools have been dis- 
 missed that they may be able to tell their children, "We looked upon 
 the face of Frederick Douglass." And now at this very hour of 
 the day the people have gathered here to do him honor by at least their 
 silent presence around his silent form. 
 
 What does such a demonstration mean ? It has a two-fold significance, 
 both personal and impersonal. It is, first, a personal tribute. A per- 
 sonal tribute to a public officer? To the orator who held great audiences 
 in the spell of eloquence? Yes: but more than this, it is a tribute to 
 a man. A man, who, under God, made himself. America is called 
 the land of opportunity; but for this man at his beginning it was the 
 land of infinite obstacle. Out of appalling obstacles he had to car\e 
 his opportunities. Could a future look more unpromising than tliat 
 which opened upon Frederick Douglass at his birth? Nature granted 
 him the birth ; the institutions of our country granted him a nameless 
 father and almost denied him mother. He was born in a slave-cabin 
 of Maryland some fourteen years before Garrison's "Liberator," with 
 its watchword of Emancipation, was born in the Boston garret. You 
 know what the South was in those years; how the black man there was 
 the white man's chattel, his more intelligent and, by that, more dan- 
 gerous brute; how the laws of a Southern State were links of a chain to 
 hold him safely fastened to the ground; how it was crime for a slave to 
 learn to read, and a crime unto death for a slave to lift his hand against 
 a white man. You know what the public opinion of the North con- 
 cerning slavery was in those years; how at its best it was indifference 
 and acquiescence, readier to change to anger than to sympathy as the 
 solitary protests began to rise; and you know how the North was by the 
 Constitution pledged to send the fleeing slave, on a master's claim, 
 back to his southern hell. It was in that time, it was to that lot, that 
 this man, lying here in honor now, was born. 
 
 What was his training? A kind mistress and hard masters were his 
 trainers. The mistress in her innocence taught him the A B C. The 
 masters gave the lash. That combination of lash and letters made him 
 the Frederick Douglass he became. Would you know more of his 
 schooling, read the chapter in his autobiography called "My Last 
 Flogging," — the story of a two hours' combat between the sixteen 
 years' old slave boy and the white master. The boy came off the 
 unflogged victor. Those two hours, he says, were the turning point in 
 his life. At their end he was still a slave in body, but a freeman in 
 his soul. "I was nothing before: I was a man now." 
 
 Already the hope of liberty was burning in his breast. Five years 
 more it burned in him, till at last came the escape. Three years he 
 carried the hod and rolled the oil-casks on New Bedford wharves, and 
 
62 IN 3IEM0RIAM. 
 
 then came the Nantucket speech. Lord Byron wrote a book, went to 
 bed, and woke up famous, it is said. Frederick, the fugitive slave, 
 went to an anti-slaverj- meeting on a little island off the New England 
 coast, made a speech, and sat down famous. An orator had been dis- 
 covered! From that time on his fame increased. It quickly reached 
 across the water. It was yours to watch it grow ; for before long he 
 had come here to live his quiet life among you, — to edit his paper, 
 speed on black fugitives to liberty, go about the country roads on 
 rounds of anti-slavery lecturing, now and then to face a mob some- 
 where, now and then to electrify some city audience. One of the 
 minutemen in the long, slow emancipation rally of the North. Through 
 it all a man, self-making, adding cubits to his inner stature. 
 
 Meanwhile, history was also making. In our great central valley the 
 rivers, run they east or run they west, all run into one, the Mississippi. 
 So for forty years before the war the streams of national life, whatever 
 they were called in shifting politics, were really running into one, — 
 the great dark stream of slavery. The war at last began. The war at last 
 was over, and the country still was one, but slavery was no more. And 
 then for Frederick Douglass, also, America became the land of oppor- 
 tunity. Thenceforth he was by law, at least, the equal of every other 
 in the land. Honors and trusts began to seek him. The State of New 
 York made him elector-at-large to choose the President. He was made 
 Marshal for the District of Columbia. He was made Minister of the 
 United States to Haiti. Though not himself a soldier of the war, few 
 but the greatest of its leaders were better known than he. In a sense 
 all his own he .stood, a clear-cut silhouette, against the background of 
 the nation's history. 
 
 So to this man, under God self-made, we render tribute here. Tribute 
 also to the man magnanimous. For to the last, when all is said, there 
 was a chronic insult waiting him. And Douglass' soul was as sensitive to 
 insult as his back had once been to the lash. It lurked in a street-boy's 
 epithet, it broke forth in a newspaper, it met him on the cars, at any 
 moment in society it might surprise him. And he matched the chronic 
 insult with a chronic forgiveness. America has been, indeed, is still, 
 the black man's land of opportunity for that, — forgiveness! The charity 
 in his heart ennobled more and more the face, mellowed more and more 
 the manner, until he walked among us visibly distinguished, one of 
 the nation's loftier gentlemen. 
 
 But the full significance of this hour is more than personal. As we 
 think of Frederick Douglass, we see a race behind him; his name 
 becomes transfigured, representative, impersonal. In honoring him here 
 we render ever tardy gratitude and honor to his people. This large 
 mind, this larger heart, this royal manner, bid us remember that the 
 spirit knows no color; that man is man not by the lightness or the 
 darkness of the face, but by the worth of soul. Do we talk of equality? 
 Here, if we are to draw compari.son, is a fact not of equality, but of 
 
FREDERICK IWCCLASS. 63 
 
 shining superiority to most of us. Give the fact full weight against the 
 ancient and still current prejudice. Judge a race, like a man or a 
 poem, by the best lines in it. Let Douglass stand as type. 
 
 Few persons in our little city are famous through our State; very few 
 grow famous through America ; but when this man died last week, the 
 journals of two continents printed editorials about him. So far as world- 
 fame is concerned, he is one of two who, a generation hence, are likely 
 to be remembered as Rochester's "First Citizens, "—in the sense in 
 which the poet Bryant bore that title in the city of New York. And — 
 be the law' of after-fame remembered — if such title come to them, each 
 of our two earned it amid ridicule and contumely, and each one as a 
 helper in the emancipation of bondmen and bondwomen. "The things 
 of a man for which we visit him were done in the dark and the cold, ' ' 
 sa3-s Emerson. 
 
 We have as yet but one bronze monument upon the squares of 
 Rochester. Shall the next one be the monument of Frederick Douglass, 
 ex-slave and orator of anti-slavery? If the wish be realized, the monu- 
 ment will stand, as Lincoln's yonder stands, no mere memorial of a 
 man. A great man is ever greater as a symbol than as an individual ; his 
 name suggests a movement, an endeavor, an achievement, of his age. 
 Lincoln, there in bronze, embodies the struggle for the Union ; the 
 soldier and the sailor at his feet are the people offering life to keep the 
 nation one. Douglass in his bronze would represent the same great 
 struggle, but in an even more pathetic form ; for he would be the symbol 
 of the struggle in its cause, — that cause, the nation's crime against the 
 black man. In him the actual victim would be pedestaled, — the man who 
 had been born the slave, whose back had felt the lash, whose lifetime 
 spanned the period from the first stir of the people's conscience in a 
 few "fanatics" to the doom which crashed upon the guilty land, and 
 the great Hallelujahs of emancipation and release which closed the war. 
 
 When inscriptions shall be sought for such a monument, let* six 
 words, traced to Douglass' own lips as their apparent source, be graven 
 on it: "One with God is a majority." Words fit for church-walls or 
 for Bible pages. Words to warn all prospering plotters of a wrong, to 
 hearten all forlorn hopes and strengthen all reformers. ' ' One with God 
 is a majority. ' ' 
 
 The lips that said the words are silent now, — are silent here before 
 us. Our citizen has come home to us once more. We give the stately 
 fonn its burial in our Mount of Hope. "His soul is marching on!" 
 
 After the singing, by the Quartette, of the following 
 hymn : 
 
 GATHERING HOME. 
 They are gathering home from every land. 
 
 One by one! One by one! 
 As their weary feet touch the shining strand, 
 Yes, one bv one, one bv one. 
 
64 AV MEMO RI AM. 
 
 They rest with the Saviour, they wait their crown ; 
 Their travel- stained garments are all laid down; 
 They wait the white raiment the Lord shall prepare 
 For all who the glory with Him shall share. 
 
 Gathering home ! Gathering home! 
 Fording the river one by one! 
 Gathering home I gathering home, 
 Yes, one by one ! 
 
 Before they rest they pass through the strife. 
 
 One by one! One by one! 
 Through the waters of death they enter life, 
 
 Yes, one by one ! 
 To some are the floods of the river still, 
 As they ford on their way to the heavenly hill ; 
 The waves, to others, run fiercely wild. 
 Yet they reach the home of the undefiled. 
 
 Gathering home! Gathering home! 
 Fording the river, one by one! 
 Gathering home! Gathering home! 
 Yes, one by one. 
 
 The final prayer and benediction was pronounced by Rev. 
 Dr. H. H. Stebbins, of the Central Church, Rochester. He 
 said: 
 
 Almighty God, who hast been our dwelling place in all generations, 
 in whose hand are our times, who hast appointed the bound of our 
 habitation, we are here reverently and humbly to worship Thee, to 
 acknowledge the benefits with which every day is loaded, to confess 
 our manifold unworthiness, to .supplicate Thy continued favor, and 
 especially to bow submissively before that Divine decree that has 
 removed from our nation one of its most distinguished citizens. 
 
 We bless Thee for the man. We bless Thee that above the color of 
 his face and the bondage of his earlier years, that with such scant 
 opportunity, that throughout the severe hardship, extreme peril, the 
 violent prejudice and the bitter persecution, to which he was exposed, 
 he was, and remained, the man. 
 
 We bless Thee for the divinely implanted instinct of freedom that 
 could never essentially make him a slave to any man. We bless Thee 
 for the character he developed; for his steadfast devotion to his race; 
 for the great ideas that stirred him; for the honest heart, out of the 
 abundance of which he spake; for his fidelity to conviction; for his 
 steadfastness, and for his ready and active sympathy. And we blesis 
 Thee for the effective pen and the eloquent tongue that gave such 
 
FREDERICK DOUOLASS. 65 
 
 brave expression to what was in him. We bless Thee, most of all, for 
 his faith in God, a faith wrought by love, that purified the heart, and 
 that stimulated to manifold endeavor. We bless Thee that between the 
 birth of the man and the death of the man, there lie so many fruitful 
 years. We bless Thee for the brave fight he fought, for the course he 
 so nobly finished, and for the faith he kept. Surely a crown of life 
 has beeu awaiting him, and now he wears it. 
 
 Surely he has been welcomed into the higher life, with the greeting, 
 "Well done, good and faithful servant. " We would add our tribute of 
 respect and gratitude, and admiration and affection. We bless Thee 
 that so much of the good that men do lives after them, and that he, 
 whose mortal remains lie before us, being dead, yet speaketh. Help 
 us to hear and to heed the lesson his notable life teaches. Let our 
 admiration inspire imitation, make us better men, men of God, men 
 of faith, men of action, truer to conviction, more ready to do and to 
 dare, for God and man, for country and world. 
 
 Apply Thy balm of consolation to the wife and family of Thy deceased 
 servant. Comfort all who mourn over this event. We thank Thee for 
 the safe conduct, thus far, of these precious remains. Attend them to 
 the resting place, where we shall gratefully and sacredly cherish them. 
 Bless our city. Into our municipal life may there enter such laws and 
 such administration as shall make us an upright, happy, contented and 
 united communit}-. Bless our beloved land. Bless our President and 
 his immediate advisers; our Congress, the governors of our States, the 
 judges of our courts, and all who bear any authority. Help us, stimu- 
 lated by the lives of worthy citizens who have gone to their reward, to 
 cultivate the righteousness that exalteth a nation. Bless all lauds and 
 all peoples that on earth do dwell. May governments become more lib- 
 eral ! May God be universally acknowledged as Father, and may all 
 men live together as brethren ! 
 
 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the 
 communion of the Hoi}' Spirit, be with us all. Amen. 
 
 At the close of the.se impressive services, as the funeral 
 cortege was leaving the church, Beethoven's Maicia 
 Fiincbrc was played. At Mount Hope Chapel there was 
 also a brief service, consisting of a prayer b)- the Rev. W. 
 R. Taylor, of the Brick Presbyterian Church, a reading of 
 selection of Scripture, and the singing, by the Central 
 Church male quartette, of the " Hymn of Parting." 
 
 Sleep on, beloved, sleep, and take thy rest ; 
 
 Lay down thy head upon the Saviour's breast; 
 
 We love thee well, but Jesus loves thee best, — 
 Good Night! Good Night! 
 
66 IN 3IEMORIA3T. 
 
 Calm is thy slumber as an infant's sleep; 
 But thou shalt wake no more to toil and weep ; 
 Thine is a perfect rest, secure and deep, — 
 Good Night! Good Night! 
 
 Until the shadows from this earth are cast, 
 Until He gathers in his sheaves at last, 
 Until the twilight gloom be overpast, — 
 Good Night! Good Night! 
 
 Until we meet again, before His throne, 
 Clothed in the spotless robe He gives His own, 
 Until we know, even as we are known — 
 Good Night! Good Night! 
 
 In the beautiful cemetery of Mount Hope, Rochester, 
 N. Y., repose the mortal remains of Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Well named Mount Hope ! And here thy ashes rest, 
 
 And here is gathered to thy peaceful breast, 
 
 The calm repose that Nature gives her own. 
 
 'Tis thine at last. Sleep on, beloved ! Sleep on ! 
 
 Thy great heart bore one race's woe, another's shame! 
 
 It scorned not aught but violence and wrong. 
 
 But clasped within its patient tenderness. 
 
 All, whom the Father's likeness spoke His own. 
 
 O Titan soul ! The scorn, the hate 
 Of souls so little they could never guess 
 The glorious freedom of thy spirit's realm, 
 Are lost in utter worthlessness. 
 
 Whilst thou, blest soul ! whom ignominy could not reach, 
 Freed from the sorrow of beholding littleness. 
 Art one in rapturous glory with the mighty ones, — 
 The Almighty's primal messengers of love to man: 
 
 And in the Hallelujahs of thy song 
 Stirred with a deeper note of thankfulness, 
 The paeans of the ages yet to be. 
 Tremblingly swell the eternal harmony. 
 
XTenber Morbs 
 
 from 
 
 %ovinQ Ibearts. 
 
TENDER WORDS FROM LOVING HEARTS. 
 
 Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, 
 
 Februarj' 21, 1S95. 
 My dear Mrs. Douglass : 
 
 How shall I write to you, in view of tliis deep sorrow? I know not 
 what words can convey all I feel, — but you will understand better than 
 any expression of mine, the sympathy I feel for your very sudden bereave- 
 ment. Truly, stroke after stroke has come upon you, lately. 
 
 I share very deeply with you in the loss of our dear Frederick. How 
 unexpected that he should be taken away before me. 
 
 His beautiful letter which came with yours is a prize. His last words 
 to me, so full of deep feeling, — and again, his letter to my cousin, Caroline 
 Richardson, read to me this morning — his closing words so nobly ex- 
 pressed, as his always were, are a legacy. 
 
 I write in bed and must be brief. I have been, indeed, very ill ; I am 
 now relieved from pain, but weak, still. * * * * 
 
 My thoughts dwell with you. To think of dear Frederick stretched on 
 a bed of death ! * * » * 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 ^ (^:.o^U-^7:i.^.^ 
 
 Washington, D. C, February 21, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Dear Madavt : It is with profound sorrow that I hear of the transition 
 of your illustrious husband. In my native State he has many friends who 
 will mourn his death. 
 
 But he is not dead, but has awakened to life eternal . His labors for 
 his race and for every good cause testified that his spirit was not of the 
 earth, earthy. 
 
 The liberty-loving citizens of Massachu.setts loved and honored this 
 great apostle of liberty and truth, in the past, and will continue to do so 
 in the future. Garrison, Phillips, George Thompson, and all great men, 
 loved him as a brother. 
 
IN MEMORIAyr. 
 
 "The storm and peril overpast, 
 
 The howling hatred shamed and still, 
 Go, soul of freedom, take at last 
 The place which thou aloue can fill. 
 
 ' ' Not for thyself, but for the slave 
 
 Thy words of thunder shook the world ; 
 No selfish griefs or hatred gave 
 The strength wherewith thy bolts were hurled. 
 
 " From lips that Sinai's trumpet blew, 
 We heard a tenderer undersong ; 
 Thy very wrath from pity grew ; 
 
 From love of man, thy hate of wrong. 
 
 " Go, leave behind thee all that mark 
 The work below of man for man ; 
 With the white legions of the stars. 
 Do service such as angels can. 
 
 " Wherever wrong shall right deny. 
 Or suffering spirits urge their plea. 
 Be thine the voice to smite the lie, 
 A hand to set the captive free." 
 
 (Whittier's poem sent to the funeral of Garrison.) 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Francis B. Woodbury, Secretary, 
 National Spirilualisls' Association of the U. S. America. 
 
 " The Concord," 
 Washington, D. C, February 21, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 My dear Madam : We are greatly shocked this morning at the news 
 of the death of Mr. Douglass last evening. How sudden! It is diflficult 
 to realize that we are to meet his familiar presence no more among us. 
 What a loss to his family, to the race, to the country, nay, to the world! 
 A veritable prince among men has fallen! What a record he has left 
 behind him! Where is there a parallel ? 
 
 I first met him on the occasion of one of his earliest visits to Concord, 
 New Hampshire. How many incidents illustrative of his noble life are 
 brought to mind ? In 1864 difficulties connected with my duties in the 
 war compelled me to seek their solution in Washington, and I came by 
 way of Toledo, Ohio, where I arrived in season to hear a part of an 
 evening address by Mr. Douglass. I talked with him a moment after he 
 closed, and again the next morning, and was deeply impressed with the 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLAK'?. 71 
 
 fact tliat he uiisunderstood the President. When going over my business 
 witli Mr. Lincoln I alhided to the fact that I heard Mr. Douglass and 
 mentioned his misapprehensions. The President questioned me about 
 them and expressed a desire to know Mr. Douglass, and said, that con- 
 sidering the condition from which he had arisen and the obstacles that he 
 had overcome, and the position to which he had attained that he regarded 
 him as one of the most meritorious men, if not the most meritorious man, 
 in the United States, and wondered whether Mr. Douglass knew of his 
 letter to Governor Hahn— a copy of which he took from his private 
 drawer and read to me — and wondered too, whether he would be willing 
 to see him. I replied, telling him what I knew of Mr. Douglass' move- 
 ments. The interview was speedily arranged. Mr. Douglass, while in 
 town, stopped at the house of a wealthy colored man. Immediately after 
 the interview, I called upon him and found him with pen, ink and paper 
 on the table, pacing the parlors, and concentrating his thoughts, in a 
 state of marked satisfaction. He no longer misunderstood the President, 
 and was to pen for him his views on some of the difficulties of the situa- 
 tion. He could hardly find language to express his favorable impression 
 of the great Emancipator. With much emphasis, he said there was 
 nothing in Mr. Lincoln's manner to make him feel that he was black or 
 that there was any difference in their color. The friendship that followed 
 is well known. Mr. Douglass won the confidence and admiration of the 
 greatest and best men the more they knew him. Those nearest him may 
 feel his loss more keenly, but they cannot mourn him more sincerely than 
 the multitudes of every race and clime, who were familiar with his life- 
 long struggles, and the exertion of his great powers for the liberation and 
 elevation of the oppressed. He was a true man. Who can fill his place ? 
 Heartily sympathizing with you in this great bereavement, I am. 
 Very truly yours, etc., 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 CEDARHURST, UNIVi'RSITY Hll,!,, 
 
 February 21, i-'^95. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Douglass: 
 
 My first duty is to write you, and tell you how much I regrel the 
 departure of your great and noble husband. To a singular degree, mv 
 heart has alwa^-s gone out to him in reverence and love. The question of 
 race has never entered into our relations ; I have always thought of him 
 as a man so remarkable in gifts and endowments and achievements, that, 
 whatever his nationality, my heart must hasten to pay him homage. It 
 is verv pleasant to me to recall nianv of his kind words and deeds, and to 
 
72 IX MEMORIAM. 
 
 feel that he appreciated, and in some measnre reciprocated, my attach- 
 ment. 
 
 It is a .severer stroke to you, becau.se of your recent afflictions. May the 
 Iiord comfort yon ! 
 
 To tne I niversity he is a great loss. I had a partial promise from him, 
 that he would speak at the opening of our new chapel. But, his great 
 heart has felt its last throb. His great voice has thrilled with its last wise 
 utterance. His counsel must now come only from memory. To a singu- 
 lar and unique degree, God has kept him in such ways, that to call him a 
 .sage, as to all the great and agitating questions which have been presented 
 to him, is not exaggeration. 
 
 And now he is gone, as though the Lord of Elijah had sent Elijah's 
 chariot of glory, so that he saw no decay of his faculties, no loss of his 
 vigor; his eye still undimmed, and his natural force unabated. I am 
 thankful for that! I wish to think of him as the tall oak, that yields to 
 no decay, but is felled by a single stroke, not of wrath, but of infinite love. 
 
 Please regard me as one who wishes to enter the circle of personal 
 mourners with you, aud does not stand aloof in the general grief. 
 Very truly. 
 
 PirsidenI Hoivard rniversitv. 
 
 Wa.shington, D. C, Februar\ 21, 1S95. 
 Mr.s. Frederick Dohgla.ss. 
 
 Dear Madam: A great man has gone ! The news of your lamented 
 hu.sband's death came to me this morning with a great shock. 
 
 He was among the earliest to be present at the District Suffrage 
 Meeting, on last Monday night, and spoke with his usual feeling and 
 emphasis. 
 
 In introducing him at the District Suffrage Meeting, held in last 
 January, I spoke of his labors in the cause of freedom, and trusted that 
 he would long be spared to us, to assist in the cause of justice and equal 
 rights in this District. 
 
 Our loss is irreparable, and is only mitigated by the reflexion that he 
 leaves behind him a hallowed memory of good deeds and a hallowed life. 
 Yours in hearty sympathy. 
 
 iVvv^ 
 
 Uvj 
 
 W^^ > 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 73 
 
 Bay Ridge, N. Y., February 21, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Dear Madam : Reading my morning paper brought me, a few nioments 
 since, the great shock from wliich you must suffer so intensely, if I 
 myself feel the loss so keenly. 
 
 He has passed away— so noble— so rounded and strong ; so beloved and 
 revered ! There is one golden thought ; one perfect and unbroken halo 
 about him ! He filled his days with honor. He served his kind and his 
 cause to the last full moment of his life, and all who honor freedom and 
 esteem man will feel their love for the nolile orator and statesman — the 
 stalwart soldier of liberty— deepen into the truest reverence. May this 
 be to you his best legacy. 
 
 He was my friend and his passing away is a personal loss. That he 
 sent me, but a few days since, so friendly a letter, so full a tribute to my 
 small work, is to me a great pleasure, even in the midst of this sorrow. 
 
 My deepest sympathies go out to you, Dear Madam, and my wife joins 
 therein. 
 
 Alwavs with profoundest respect. 
 Yours faithfully and truly. 
 
 ,M^c/c.>^.^ J, 
 
 Pui.i.i'N Avi;nuh, Cincinnati, Ohio, 
 
 February 21, 1S95. 
 Dear Mrs. Frederick Doiiglass : 
 
 The sad tidings of the death of your dear husband carry sorrow 
 through the land— I may say many lands ; but nowhere more surely than 
 to the family that has cherished his name for more than fifty years. 
 Permit me to offer their sjoiipathy in the tender words he addressed to 
 me when he heard of the irreparable loss they had sustained. 
 
 "Be assured, my dear friend," he said, "you and yours have my 
 fullest sympathy in the great sorrow that has befallen your house. But 
 what can I say, what can any one say, that can lift one shadow cast b)- 
 this death upon your heart ? Alas! sorrow must bring its ovra solace, and 
 mourning its own comforter." 
 
 And then, after speaking of the long and useful life of one he had 
 known in "youth, maturity and age," and of " her abundant charity in 
 early taking up the cause of the slave, pre-eminently the cause of 
 Christ," he continued, " But here I am, trying to do the impossible ! I 
 cannot, by word or thought, console you. Sometimes I find myself 
 reminding friends, whose dear ones have departed, tliat we will soon join 
 the unnumbered throng in the silent continent of eternity. I do this now 
 more than formerl}-, because I am sensibly growing old. I am now in 
 my seventy-eighth year. IWy friends tell me that I do not seem old, and 
 
74 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 assure me that I have many days left me ; but I do uot deceive myself by 
 such illusions. I am looking to the sunset and doing so very calmly. I 
 know I am in the care and keeping of the Almighty, and, whether I live 
 or die, I still remain within the arm of His power." 
 
 Verj' sincerely your friend, 
 
 /StJ^y-'^^-O^^'^yf^xM^u,^^ 
 
 No. 146 Broadway, New York, 
 
 February 21, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Madame: Permit me to join in the universal condolence which will 
 be offered you on the sudden demise of our champion and friend — your 
 talented and public-spirited hu.sbaud, who, judged by any standard, was 
 one of the greatest men America has produced ; and, measured by the 
 heights attained and the obstacles overcome, confessedly the greatest. 
 
 I little thought, when I had the honor of introducing him at the 
 Providence meeting, that I should never see him again in the flesh, and 
 I shall count it among the hallowed memories of my life that I did then 
 meet him, and had a chance to grasp his hand and to hear his voice. 
 
 My wife and Mrs. Fleet and her sons join with me in condolin.5 with 
 you and Mr. Douglass' children, in what must, from the nature of 
 things, be an irreparable bereavement. 
 I am Madame, 
 
 Yours most respectfully. 
 
 ^^UjUXJ^Ct 
 
 Ann Arbor, Mich. 
 
 February 21, 1S95. 
 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Dear Madame: News has just reached the West of the sudden demise 
 of your honored, beloved and illustrious husband, Frederick Douglass. 
 Allow me to express my heartfelt sjnnpathy and condolence in your hour 
 of affliction. Your sobs, your groans, your sighs are reverberated in the 
 sobs, the groans, the sighs of twelve millions of negroes who loved him ; 
 who idolized him, and who will cherish his name and his memory as no 
 name and memory were ever before cheri,shed. 
 
 Your loss is not sectional, not national; but a universal loss. There- 
 fore feel not alone in your sorrow and affliction, but consider that, at this 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 75 
 
 same moment, thousands, yea millions, mourn with you for the death of 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Again expressing my sympathy and condolence, I have the pleasure 
 to be Yours very truly, 
 
 '^^ii^^.tM^*^ 
 
 LEGATION DE LA RiiPUBUQUE D'HaITI, 
 
 New York, le 21 Fevrier, 1895. 
 
 Madame: C'est avec une douloureuse surprise qu' Haiti apprendra la 
 nouvelle de la mort subite de I'honorable Frederic Douglass, votre ^poux. 
 
 Le President Hyppolite, le Gouvemement et le Peuple haitiens 
 regretteront vivement la perte du grand tribun de la race noire, de celui 
 qui par ses vertus et par ses talents a conquis I'admiration et le respect des 
 classes ^clairees de tous les pays du monde. 
 
 Veuillez agreer, Madame, 1 'expression de mes sentiments personnels de 
 profond chagrin. 
 
 c/4>A^U^^^ ^',i^&^^' 
 
 JIadame Vve. Frederick Douglass, 
 Anacostia, D. C. 
 
 "The Stratford," 
 Philadelphia, Pa., February 2T, 1895. 
 My dear Mrs. Douglass: 
 
 How swiftly that great soul passed on into the Light ! 
 
 It seems but a day since we were talking pleasantly together, — onl)' two 
 days before his transit to a better world. 
 
 When we read the account, this morning. Lady Henry Somerset and I 
 said, in one breath, " How thankful we are that we saw him! " It was 
 one of life's pleasantest experiences— that little talk with your great and 
 good husband. I shall never have his voice for my phonograph, but the 
 autobiograph}- is a noble monument to his memory. Lady Henry and I 
 have been reading it with great pleasure, and we highly value the auto- 
 graph inscriptions. 
 
 Dear friend, may the blessing and comfort of our Heavenly Father help 
 you, is my prayer. Ever sincerely. 
 
 ''Y/MA 
 
 ejuweCa^rA. 
 
76 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Saginaw, E. S., Mich., 
 
 February 21, 1895. 
 My dear Madame : 
 
 I have learned with profound regret of the death of your husband. I 
 condole with you most sincerely on the sad event, and if sympathy of 
 friends can be any consolation under the trying circumstances, be assured 
 that all who knew him share in your sorrow for his loss. There is, how- 
 ever, a higher source of consolation than earthly friendship, and, com- 
 mending you to that, I remain, 
 
 To Mrs. Frederick Douglass, 
 Washington, D. C. 
 P. S. Please accept the enclosed lines.— J. H. G. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 J. H. Gr-1 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., February 22, 1895. 
 To THE Bereaved Widow and Family of 
 
 Honorable Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D. C. 
 Dear Madain and Friends: We, the officers and members of St. 
 Augustine P. E. Church Aid Literary, of Brooklyn, realizing the great 
 and irreparable loss that the race has sustained by the demise of the 
 Honorable Frederick Douglass, the chief pioneer of emancipation 
 throughout the Union, respectfully tender to you, the bereaved family 
 our sincere and inexpressible condolence, and trust that you may find 
 some solace in the fact that " he is not dead, but gone before," to receive 
 the fruits of his lifelong labors. 
 
 We remain yours in sympathy, 
 
 Sumner C. Lewis, President. 
 Mrs. J. A. Young, Vice-President. 
 Henry S. Williams, ] 
 Louis A. Jeppe 
 
 and members, 
 
 Special 
 Committee. 
 
 125 Highland Street, 
 ROXBURY, Mass., February 22, 1895. 
 My dear Mrs. Douglass : 
 
 The announcement of your honored husband's swift translation to 
 another life, came with a shock to me, as to all his friends and to the 
 world at large, and you have my deepest sympathy in your great bereave- 
 ment. But while I deplore his departure, and keenly feel the irreparable 
 loss which the country has sustained in the disappearance of his unique 
 and noble and inspiring personality, I am glad that the great change 
 came, as I believe he would have wished it, without pain, or suffering, or 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 77 
 
 decay, and iu an instant, and the last happy day of his life, spent as it 
 was at the Woman's Council, the honored guest of that great representa- 
 tive gathering, and by the side of old friends, seems to me not the least 
 of the many dramatic and felicitous incidents of his -wonderfully romantic 
 life. I like to think, too, of his last visit to Boston, when his surviving 
 anti-slavery co-workers flocked to greet him, and the Legislature of the 
 State welcomed him in both its Houses ; and I am glad I heard his 
 masterly address on the lynching question, at that time. I have many 
 pictures of him iu my memory, from the evening when the Emancipation 
 Proclamation was first read in Boston, and he led the great audience in 
 singing " The Year of Jubilee Has Come," to his last appearance in this 
 city, thirty-one years later. 
 
 I recall him as he appeared in the camp of the Fifty-fourth Massachu- 
 setts Regiment, and again, among the exultant speakers in Faneuil Hall, 
 after the fall of Richmond ; and I remember with peculiar pleasure his 
 and your visit to my father's old home here, in iS86. He belonged not 
 only to two races, but to two nations, and both and all realize to-day their 
 common loss. In how many homes in England and Ireland his name is 
 spoken with tender affection and sadness to-day ! 
 
 The mar\-elous contrast between his early years of bondage and suffer- 
 ing and his serene and happy afternoon of life, is the common theme 
 to-day ; but only his nearer friends know how serene and happy your 
 companionship made tliese last years to him. Be assured that they 
 appreciate it and are grateful to you for facing so unflinchingly whatever 
 of trial it involved. That you are and will ever be grateful for the privilege 
 of that companionship with such a great and world-embracing spirit a.S 
 his, they know full well, aud their congratulations go to you with their 
 condolence, now that the earthly limit is reached. Certainly his career 
 here was most happily rounded and crowned. 
 
 Believe me, with sincerest sympathy and regard, 
 Faithfully yours. 
 
 "The Stratford." 
 PHlLADELrHiA, Pa., February 22, 1895. 
 My dear Mrs. DougIvASS : 
 
 The tidings of your great loss and the loss of the entire world, in the 
 death of your noble husband, comes to me as a personal grief, for 
 the impression made by that dignified aud genial presence and states- 
 manlike intellect is still fresh in mind and heart. 
 
 I shall always be grateful and glad that I was privileged to grasp the 
 hand of the great leader of his race in this century, and one of the chief 
 apostles of the universal freedom of mankind. 
 
78 IN MEMOKIAM. 
 
 God bless and comfort you with the realization of all your husband has 
 been spared by such a swift and happy transition into the land of light. 
 
 I see him, as I last looked on him, with his noble head and bright 
 smile and his kindly good-bye, and I am glad to think I have another 
 friend over there, where so many are fast gathering as the day of life 
 grows late. Yours in sincere sympathy, 
 
 OT->^e-t^/g^- 
 
 McKiNLEV Republican Cldb, 
 Baltimore, Md., February 22, 1895. 
 Mrs. Douglass and Family : 
 
 We sincerely commiserate you, in this fearful and awful visitation ; not 
 only we, of the above-named club, but our colored citizens of Baltimore. 
 It is true that we live in a world where dark shadows are continually 
 falling on our path, and we must all, one by one, yield to them. 
 
 Mr. Douglass was good, in every sense of tlie word. His charities, his 
 willingness to relieve any real distress ; his talents and his charms 
 endeared him to all. 
 
 Accept our sympathy, and weep not, for he only awaits you upon the 
 heavenly shores. We are sincerely yours, 
 
 Alexander McDaniels, President. 
 William Murray, Secretary. 
 
 50 Tudor Road, South Hackney, 
 London, N. E., England, February 23, 1895. 
 To Mrs. Frederick Dougl.ass. 
 
 Madam : We, the undersigned members of the Central Council of the 
 International Society for the Recognition of the Brotherhood of Man, beg 
 to tender you and your household our heartfelt sympathy in your 
 bereavement. To some of us Mr. Douglass was personally known, and 
 by all of us he was admired, respected and loved. 
 
 Madam, the great services which your noble husband rendered the 
 cau.se of Brotherhood have already borne good fruit, which must increase 
 a hundred-fold as years roll by. In his removal humanity has sustained 
 a sad loss. Yet there is comfort in the inspiring remembrance of his 
 noble Ufe and all that it achieved, which encourages each of us to follow 
 faithfully along the broadening path of freedom, whose thorny entrance 
 was marked so deeply and cleared so well by his courageous footsteps 
 and his strong arguments. 
 
 In yielding to our strong desire to assure you. Madam, of our fervent 
 sympathy, we would not intrude unduly upon your privacy at this sad 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 79 
 
 juncture. Yet would we fain express our earnest hope that God may 
 abundantly comfort and bless you in your great sorrow. May His conso- 
 lation be given to you and your household. We are, Madam, 
 Yours most respectfully and in deepest sympathy, 
 
 Isabella Fv-vie Mayo, 
 
 Aberdeen. 
 Rev. S. G. Woodrow, 
 
 Aberdeen. 
 Frau F.rckmann, 
 
 Alzey, Hesse, Germany. 
 George Ferdinands, M. D., 
 
 Ceylon, E. I. 
 E. Cameron Mawson, 
 
 Ashfield, Gateshead. 
 Mary A. M. Marks, 
 
 155 Adelaide Road, London. 
 Fanny L. Kingerbey, 
 
 50 Tudor Road, London. 
 Mary G. Burnett, 
 
 52 Lower Sloane St., S. W. 
 Edwin J. Norris, M. R. C. S., 
 
 10 Cottage Grove, Southsea. 
 Helen Sillsbie, 
 
 50 Tudor Road, London. 
 William Thompson, 
 
 19 South John St., Liverpool. 
 
 Boston, Mass., February 23, 1S95. 
 My dear Mrs. Douglass ; 
 
 I regret exceedingly that I cannot be present at the funeral of Mr. 
 D uglass, to represent the family of his old friend, as well as to testify 
 my own personal respect. The attendance and the tributes will doubtless 
 be worthy of the remarkable man and the occasion. No one succeeds 
 him, for he 
 
 " hath not left his peer." 
 
 I shall always esteem it an honor to have presided at his last lecture in 
 Boston. His vigorous presence then indicated many years of life in 
 store, and the announcement of his death came with a sudden shock. 
 Yet it was merciful to him, and he has escaped the pains and infirmities 
 of age. 
 
 Our hearts go out in sympathy to you and the bereaved family. 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 y^:^4_<^^ 
 
80 JN MEMOEIAM. 
 
 Storrr College, 
 Harper's Ferry, W. Va., February 23, 1895. 
 My dear Mrs. Dodgi,ass : 
 
 The nation and a common humanity share wth you your j^reat sorrow. 
 All have lost a tried and noble defender. 
 
 His was a deep and abiding interest in Storer College. On the day of 
 his death I received his as.surance that he would be one of the lecturers in 
 our anticipated course for the benefit of our church building. 
 
 His autograph letter will always be held as a sacred memento, and his 
 name stands at the head of our noble list of contributors. 
 Yours, in the consolations of the Gospel, 
 
 E. W. Porter, 
 Pastor Harper's Ferry Free Baptist Church. 
 
 National Council of Women of the United States. 
 Office of the President, 
 
 Indianapolis, Ind., February 23, 1S95. 
 To the Family of Frederick Douglass : 
 
 The National Council of Women of the United States send affectionate 
 and sympathetic greeting to the bereaved. 
 
 At a meeting held by the working body of the National Council, it was 
 ordered that through a committee appointed for the purpose, the National 
 Council should express its consciousness of its own participation in the 
 universal sense of loss experienced b\' the nation in the death of Frederick 
 Douglass. The special committee thus constituted feels that the commu- 
 nication is properly of a fourfold character. Hence a resolution has been 
 framed by a sub-committee, a copy of which will accompany this letter. 
 Hence, also, a poem has been written by a patron of the National Coun- 
 cil, appointed by this committee, a copy of which also will be found 
 enclosed herein. The floral tribute, which this letter and its enclosures 
 accompany, is another expression of the Council's participation with you, 
 the personally bereaved, in doing honor to the memory of him you mourn. 
 
 This letter would not be a proper medium for expressing the Council's 
 conception of the character of Frederick Douglass, or of his unique con- 
 tribution to the solution of the vexed problems involved in the doctrine 
 of human liberty, and if in other respects proper, it would surely be 
 inadequate. 
 
 Therefore, in this letter, the Council, leaving the public rostrum, 
 approaches your fireside in the spirit of those who "mourn with them 
 that mourn." 
 
 The women constituting the Council have so often been called upon to 
 realize in their own experience and in the observation of their own sex, 
 that capabilities of brain and heart do not exist in inverse, but in direct 
 proportion with each other, that they would find it incredible that a man 
 
FREDEKICK DOUGLASS. 81 
 
 endowed with the intellectual powers of Frederick Douglass, should not 
 be endowed aUo with a correspondin;<ly universal capacity for affection. 
 
 Women have also observed, notwithstanding the almost universal 
 misconception of them in this respect, that the women whose hearts are 
 the quickest to respond to public appeals for help and sympathy are also 
 quickest to respond to every private claim. Therefore, the women of tlie 
 Council realize that the home at whose centre beats a heart strong with 
 love for all humanity, vital with affection, sympathy and tenderness, 
 must feel, now that that heart has ceased to beat, that the world itself is 
 cold and dead. 
 
 In the first hours of such bereavement, it is difficult to realize that there 
 can be any compensation for their pain. But, while we mourn with you 
 your present loss, we also rejoice with you in your past and therefore 
 permanent possession ; and, in a world wherein death has not yet been 
 conquered and barred, is it possible to conceive of a more welcome shape 
 in which it could come than that in which it came to your husband and 
 father ? 
 
 That one should "by reason of strength" approach fourscore years, 
 and far from finding that all life is " vanity and vexation of spirit," find 
 that life is one precious opportunity, every fleeting moment of which has 
 been used in its passing to its highest purpose — every fleeting moment 
 has been so used that it has enriched the life of which it formed a part 
 and every other with which that hfe touched. 
 
 To have come up to fourscore with an almost unimpaired physical 
 ■vitality, with perfect vigor of intellect, and with unabated vivacity of 
 emotion — this is to have drunk life from a full and sweet chalice. 
 
 To be permitted in this condition to meet the mysterious transition, is 
 to be blessed indeed. 
 
 So, dear friends, we cannot wholly mourn, because of the rejoicing in 
 our hearts that such a life has been; that such a valiant struggle has found 
 issue in a certain victory. 
 
 The highest honor which we can show to the memory of him who has 
 passed from the visible world to the world invisible — and to you whose 
 longing eyes are straining into the impenetrable darkness to follow him — 
 is to contemplate his life as an in.spiration, and to respond to his example 
 by an answering devotion to human liberty and to human equality. 
 May Wright Sewell, 
 President of the National Council of the 
 Women of the United States. 
 Susan B. Anthony, 
 Lii.i,iAN M. N. Stevens, 
 Anna H. Shaw, 
 Emily Rowland, 
 J. Ellen Fo.ster, 
 Margaret Ray Wickens, 
 f, Committee. 
 
82 7JV MEMORIAM. 
 
 Toledo, O., Teliruary 23, 1S95. 
 My dear Mrs. Douglass : 
 
 I join the sorrowing millions wlio mourn witli you the sudden death 
 of your distinguished husband. 
 
 In an address delivered by nie on the twelfth instant, I did not forget 
 to group your husband's name with those of the great anti-slavery men 
 and women whom I profoundlj- venerate. No one of them all com- 
 manded my enthusiastic admiration more than he ; no one better deserves 
 the generous love of mankind. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 ^ULc£^, 
 
 TusKEEGEE Normal and Industrial Institute, 
 TuSKEEGEE, Ala., February 23, 1S95. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D. C. 
 
 Dear Madain : With thousands of others, I write to express, in your 
 hour of mourning, my sj-mpathy with j-ou in the loss of your ,<;ood and 
 greal husband. 
 
 We shall hold memorial services here Sunday evening. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Booker T. Washington. 
 
 Mill Field Street, 
 Somersetshire, England, February 23, 1895. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Douglass : 
 
 Although a stranger to you, I feel I can hardly refrain from saying a 
 few words to you, to express something of the great sorrow I felt last 
 evening on hearing of the removal of your noble husband from our 
 earthly life. He seems the last of that band of remarkable men whom 
 from childhood we have learned to admire and esteem — the heroes of the 
 great anti-slavery struggle. 
 
 It is only a day or two ago that I was saying in my family how much 
 I still hoped to see Mr. Douglass again in America. I had a beautiful 
 letter from him a few months ago, in kind reply to some inquiries of 
 mine. I have read and re-read it to myself and to others. I cannot but 
 deeply regret that I had never thanked him for it, !u;ving left it partly in 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. Si? 
 
 the hope that I might be able to say something more satisfactor>- relating 
 to matters I had inquired about. I cannot but grieve that I had not 
 written and said all that was in my mind to say. 
 
 Mr. Douglass' little visit to us seven years ago will always be a great 
 pleasure to look back on. I have been always particularly glad that mj- 
 children could remember his venerable and noble figure. 
 
 Last night I was thinking of the reunion which may have taken place, 
 the meeting with many of the old associates, and I thought that, after his 
 own family, there would be few who, if permitted, would welcome Mr. 
 Douglass with more warmth than my father, who loved him for his 
 gifts, for his early sufferings, and for his great work for both races. 
 
 It is with a true personal sorrow that I venture to send you these few 
 lines, * * * » Belitve me, dear Mrs. Douglass, 
 
 kCu^ ^ (/h^U- cu^ 
 
 r r Grove Street, 
 Boston, M.\SS., February 23, 1S95. 
 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Dear Friend : All classes of New England unite with the civilized 
 world in mourning the death of your distinguished husband. 
 
 The notices in our leading journals but feebly express the universal 
 feelings of our hearts in the death of one we dearly loved. God called 
 him suddenly because of his life work of faithfulness. "The King's 
 business demands haste," and only responsible messengers are ordered 
 " into the presence of the King." 
 
 His work for humanity was his preparation to enter into the rest pre- 
 pared for the children of God. May his soul rest in peace! 
 Yours in sympathy. 
 
 153 West Fifty-third Street, 
 New York, N. Y., Februarj- 23, 1S95. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Respected Madam : The officers and members of the "Society Sons of 
 New York " desire to tender to yourself and family their deepest sym- 
 pathy for the loss sustained by you through the death of your devoted 
 
84 IN MEMOBIAM. 
 
 husband, our honored friend and the nation's statesman, Frederick 
 Douglass. He has ever held the choicest place in our hearts for his 
 gracious interest in our society, and, in accepting the title of " honorary 
 member," he gave fresh impetus to our efforts, and proved his love for the 
 race which is constantly seeking " a nobler manhood." 
 Yours, with profound regret, 
 
 The Society Sons of New York. 
 
 W. Russell Johnson, President. 
 
 Joseph F. Treadwell, Secretary. 
 W. H. Carter, Chairman Executive Committee. 
 
 Washington, D. C, February 23, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Most Bereaved Lady : I would bear thee up and lay thee on the breast 
 of thy martyred husband. 
 
 His labors are finished; he has kept the faith; his course has been con- 
 sistent; he has stretched onward and reached the mark. 
 
 He was the Toussaint I'Ouverture of the nineteenth century. He looked 
 like our Saviour, and did nobly emulate Him by being the saviour of our 
 people. 
 
 Yours, in most sincere sympathy, 
 
 Charles A. Bradley. 
 
 12 Blandford Road, Bedford Park, 
 London, February 26, 1895. 
 DEAR Mrs. Douglass: 
 
 I have been thinking of you all these days since the first telegram 
 brought us the sad tidings of your loss, of the colored people's loss, of 
 woman's loss, of America's loss, and I must put my hand in yours to let 
 you know, in a measure at least, how much I feel for you. 
 
 I know that the light of your life is darkened, and that henceforth 
 nothing will be quite the same to you as in the happy days when he stood 
 by your side, and you felt in all your woman's soul that he was yours, 
 and that you stood together, one and strong, in the unity and strength of 
 your love. Frederick Douglass was a noble man and you might well be 
 proud of him. * * * 
 
 As yet we have only the cable messages. I hope the Woman' s Journal 
 will give full particulars. He was always a faithful champion to woman; 
 a true knight of chivalric mould as ever was. Nearly seven years have 
 passed by since I was at your charming Cedar Hill. » * * 
 Always in sympatliy and sincere affection yours, 
 Rebecca Moore. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 8-5 
 
 Frontier Lodge, No. 14. 
 Knights of Honor of the World. 
 Hartshorn, Indian Territory, February 26, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass : 
 
 The sad news of the death of so noble a man as the Hon. Frederick 
 Douglass meets our ears in our little city with profound sorrow, and we 
 feel with heartrending sjtnpathy for you and the loved ones. Not only 
 you have lost a husband, but the race has lost the noblest man of our race. 
 With these words of condolence, may the God of peace be with you 
 and ever con.sole you in the hour of l)ereavement. 
 
 We, this sacred order of Knights of Honor, have last a loving brother, 
 as well as a race leader. 
 
 We beg to remain yours in truest sympathy, 
 
 W. S. Webber, 
 A. Turner, 
 Charles Vincent, 
 of Frontier Lodge, No. 14. 
 
 8 Clifton Place, 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., February 26, 1S95. 
 Dear Mrs. Douglass: 
 
 I cannot refrain from expressing my sincere sorrow and regret at the 
 passing away of your noble husband. 
 
 One of the earliest recollections of my boyhood is that of sitting on his 
 knee, in my father's house, in Providence, and listening to his stories 
 of his life in slavery and his escape to freedom. Contact with the brave 
 pioneers of the anti-slavery movement, I count as one of the chief factors 
 in my moral training. None came to our house, I think, who was so 
 much loved as Mr. Douglass. There was no bitterness mingled with his 
 earnest devotion to the cause of freedom. He was always genial, kind, 
 brimming over with the pure wine of human nature. 
 
 Of all the men of our time, I know of none who can be named as sur- 
 passing him in genuine achievement. The time will come when America 
 will be proud to give him place among the noblest of her sons, and when 
 we shall look back upon their petty race prejudice, the long-d3ang 
 heritage of chattel slavery, with wonder, shame and sincere contrition. 
 
 I honor Frederick Douglass, too, as the friend of religious as well as 
 secular liberty — the large-minded champion of every factor which goes 
 to make up our progressive civilization. 
 
 With sincere sympathy with you in your bereavement, believe me, 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 President of the Brooklyn Ethical Association. 
 
86 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 171 Warwick Road, C, Sparkhill, 
 Birmingham, England, March i, 1S95. 
 To THE Family of the Late Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Dear Friends: Our annual meeting was lield in tie Priestly Road 
 Church, on February 26, 1895. Having listened with feelings of deep 
 emotion to the eulogy on the late and much lamented Frederick 
 Douglass, delivered by the Rev. Peter Thomas Stanford, D.D., England's 
 colored preacher, it is resolved that the officers and members of the 
 Sturge Lodge No. 7, Independent Order Good Templars, and visitors 
 assembled, do hereby earnestly desire to express to the family of our 
 departed brother, and to the race to which he belonged, our deepest and 
 heartfelt sympathy for the great loss they have sustained. The unselfish, 
 devoted life he lived has, we feel assured, won for him a crown of ever- 
 lasting glory. His name will always be held in sacred keeping by us and 
 by all lovers of liberty throughout the world. 
 
 We would further desire to say to our beloved friends in America that, 
 while we must needs share with them their grief and weep with them in 
 their hour of affliction, we must also entreat them to share our thankful- 
 ness to God for having raised up such a noble man, and with us to bow 
 submissively to Him who doetli all things well. 
 
 It is further resolved that a copy of our resolutions be forwarded to the 
 family of the deceased and to the national colored papers of America, 
 and to the Watchiuard \. O. G. T, England. 
 
 R. Smith, Sccretaty D. G. C. T. 
 
 Caldwell, Ohio, March i, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Dear Madam : I have learned with sorrow that my dear friend, your 
 husband, Frederick Douglass, has been called away from the scene of 
 earthly labor and trial into a brighter and better world. It should be 
 with us, as doubtless it is with him, matter of sincere rejoicing that this 
 life of pain and sorrow is exchanged for one free from all suffering and 
 sin ; but such is our nature that we must weep, even when our friends 
 pass to a brighter shore. 
 
 I know that when my darling son was so suddenly taken from me, you 
 and he both wept with us, though we could not but know that the lad 
 was better off over yonder ' ' on the ever green shore. ' ' Such is our frailt}' 
 that we weep and refuse to be comforted when death takes our dear 
 ones away. 
 
 " We shall meet, but we .shall miss him " forever and everywhere, and 
 where not ? What great scene these forty years where he was not a con- 
 spicuous figure ? If I went to a National Convention, he was there! if to 
 the National Encampment of our G. A. R., who all loved him as a 
 comrade, he was there. In the great cities, in the towns, in the corridors 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 87 
 
 of the Capitol, I was not surprised any day to meet Frederick Douglass ; 
 always modest, always self- forgetful, always mindful, first of all, of the 
 comfort and welfare of others ; genial and with a smile, how warm was 
 the clasp of his honest hand, the beam of his friendly countenance. 
 
 During the first days of our journey through Indiana, in iSSo, he was 
 sad and hopeless, and talked of giving up and going home. Our meetings 
 were slim and wanting in spirit and enthusiasm. His keen faculties took 
 it all in, and, naturally he traced it all to Grant's defeat. But one morn- 
 ing when I came down to breakfast, the stalwart man with the flowing 
 mane of snow was beaming with smiles. "Say, Dalzell," he said, 
 cheerily, " did you hear anj-thing drop in the night ?" I was puzzled and 
 stupidly said, "No." He laughed outright. "Look at that," he ex- 
 claimed, handing me the morning paper, and pointed with one bronze 
 finger to the headlines. I saw it all at a glance, " Grant and Conkliug at 
 Warren," and I saw why he smiled. After that all went merry as a 
 marriage bell. Our meetings became larger and the enthusiasm intense, 
 until, towards the last, he traveled in one continuous ovation, and 
 Indiana was ours and Garfield elected. 
 
 I knew him well. He had his moods. " He wrought in sad sincerity." 
 He was too large and good for malice, revenge, envy or petty meanness 
 of any kind. Conscious of power, he was alwaj-s modest. I never heard 
 him boast of anything,— least of all, of anything he had said or done. 
 Praise enough, even flattery enough, had been accorded him in both 
 Europe and America, to have spoiled an ordinary mortal, though his skin 
 were fair as Parian marble. But it did not spoil him. 
 
 His ideal was lofty, but, of course, unattainable in mortal life ; but in 
 the sweet rest of heaven, to which I believe this good, kind soul has 
 surely gone, that ideal will, in God's own time, be realized. 
 
 I shall miss him while I live; but no heart can know your sorrow or 
 enter into the sacred domain of your affliction to offer you the sympathy 
 and comfort you so much need in this, your great trial. 
 
 May God comfort you and tlie children of our departed friend. 
 Most sincerely, 
 
 The Quarries, 
 Newca.stle-upon-Tyne, March 2, 1S95. 
 Dear Madam: Your telegram, so soon after the letter from Mr. 
 Douglass, written on February I2lh, was very touching. 
 
 The English papers had told us of your loss, and were full of the most 
 appreciative notices. 
 
88 /.V MEMOKIAM. 
 
 I trust that the knowledge of all Mr. Douglass did for his people will 
 
 help you to bear the blow. All who knew him must feel that they are 
 
 richer for even a slight acquaintance. Those of my circle, who shared 
 
 your telegram, wish to join me in the warmest expressions of sympathy. 
 
 Believe me, yours very truly, 
 
 ( ^<f-L^ ^Uk 
 
 (C^^ijfiut.^^-y>-*^ 
 
 9 Rue de Bassano, 
 Champs Elvsees, Paris, March 2, 1895. 
 My dear Mrs. Douglass: 
 
 We have just heard of the great loss that has befallen you, and we 
 hasten to send our sincerest expression of real sympathy. 
 
 I can never forget those most delightful hours with Frederick Doug- 
 lass, during his sojourn with you in Paris, in the autumn of 1SS6. I have 
 just written an article for a New York paper in which I recall them. 
 
 What a grand, noble man he was ! I frequently thought of him last 
 month as I was reading "Uncle Tom," with my children ; not that he 
 resembled the hero of that powerful work, but because he was one of the 
 strong men who helped, like Mrs. Stowe, to destroy the curse of slavery. 
 
 .\nd now he is gone ! His loss is not only yours, but that of the whole 
 nation, for he was a magnificent and unique example of moral and 
 humanitarian greatness. 
 
 Mrs. Stanton joins me in warmest regards. 
 
 Sincerelv vours. 
 
 w/icrir-^^'^ ^Tft-^rv^l^ 
 
 Paris, France, March 3, 1895. 
 My dear Mrs. Douglass : 
 
 I infer that by this time you will have gone back from Rochester to 
 Washington. 
 
 As to Frederick, I have already said my say. I have said it in verse. 
 
 But what I have said— now that I have said it — seems to me to be 
 written in so intimate, so personal and so affectionate a vein, that I ques- 
 tion the good judgment of publishing my eulogistic stanzas at the present 
 moment. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 89 
 
 I will uot tnist them even to yourself. * * * 
 
 Meanwhile, my object in this note is to say that, ever since I had the 
 news of his death, I have been filled with every friendly emotion except 
 one, and that is, grief, for of this sombre sensation I have felt none at 
 all; but, on the contrary, I have experienced a strange joy and pride 
 that he has rounded out his many years amid such universal honor, and 
 has gone down into his grave with such a magnificent exit from this 
 calumnious world. 
 
 I have shed no tears— pardon me for saying so — and I have therefore a 
 more than common privilege of speech. 
 
 Please remember me to the boys and tell them to be as proud of their 
 father as if he had been Miles Standish, or Israel Putnam, or James Otis. 
 With kindest regards, 
 
 Washington, D. C, March 8, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Dear Madam : At the last meeting of the Woman's Anthropological 
 Society, the secretary' was instructed to communicate to you their un- 
 feigned sympathy in the affliction which has fallen upon you. 
 
 They are deeply conscious that words are utterly inadequate to reach 
 sorrow such as that which now overwhelms you, but they earnestly hope 
 that this expression of their heartfelt sympathy may, in a measure, 
 impart to you strength to bear your irreparable loss. 
 
 As one whom the Father comforteth, may the dear Lord comfort you. 
 Very sincerely, 
 
 Marianna p. Seaman, 
 
 Coyyfsponding Secrelary, W. A. S. 
 
 Humboldt, Humboldt County, Iowa, 
 March 13, 1895. 
 Mrs. F. Douglass, Washington, D. C. 
 
 Bereaved Friend: Although not privileged with your personal 
 acquaintance, I beg permission to express to you and the other members 
 of the family of my old-time friend, your departed husband, my deep and 
 
90 IN MEMURIMI. 
 
 abiding svuipathy with you in your great bereavement. All true friends 
 of human progress who have known Mr. Douglass, or have known of his 
 faithful work along all lines of reform, join with you in mourning his 
 death. Permit me to add that it is your privilege to mingle with your 
 sorrow the sentiment of gratitude to God for the blessing of his com- 
 panionship and counsel for so many years. 
 
 I enclose herewith a copy of my remarks at the memorial service held 
 in Des Moines, Iowa, which please accept with the assurance of my 
 abiding sympathy. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 6^5^ 
 
 Port-au-Prince, Haiti, March 15, 1095. 
 My dear Mrs. Douglass : 
 
 Permit me, in the name of all the members of my family, and in my 
 own name, to make a pilgrimage across the waves of old ocean; to take a 
 seat in your family circle, of which the chief link has just been rudely 
 broken, and enter into your grief as far as it is possible for a deeply 
 sympathizing friend to do. * * * * 
 
 Indeed, it is only because the stupendous blow has come upon us sud- 
 denly and without preliminary warning that we may be excused if our 
 pained bosoms are swelled with unwonted grief. Otherwise, we can but 
 rejoice that our dear departed brother, having filled out the full measure 
 of his days with glorious deeds, heroically performed in harmony with 
 lofty thoughts, breathed forth in burning words nobly uttered, has at last 
 gone to his high, hard-earned and well-merited repose. 
 
 Mr. Dougl.iss was truly a grand man, and his life was noble and 
 sublime. Not only his dear family, his native country, his peeled, scat- 
 tered and persecuted race; not only humanity entire, of whom he was a 
 bright and shining light, but the whole constellated universe is also 
 better for his having lived, suflfered, labored and died, faithful to duty 
 unto the last. 
 
 He was one of those rare spirits that the earth labors long and weary 
 centuries to conceive and bring to birth, and who, on their appearance, 
 take of right the vanguard in marshaling the toiling and sufiTering 
 millions and leading them to "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." 
 
 And oh! how grand and glorious was the death that fitly closed a half 
 century of God-inspired labors in the cause of humanity. He fell at his 
 post of duty, with all his armor on, and prepared as ever to do battle in 
 the sacred cause in which he had been enlisted for a full jubilee of years. 
 His heroic face was still fronting the foe, ready to make another desperate 
 charge, as the mortal coil fell from his liberated spirit, which soared up- 
 wards whence it came. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 91 
 
 Moreover, I rejoice that the last public ser\'ices which he was called to 
 render to his country were honorably discharged in his capacity of Min- 
 ister Resident near the Government of this independent republic of the 
 Caribbean Sea, where ray humble lot has been cast for a period now well 
 on to forty years; and where, in his integrity in contending for the prin- 
 ciples of everlasting justice aud equity established by the " Higher Law," 
 he had the courage to put his manly foot upon the head of tortuous 
 diplomacy. 
 
 This last oiEcial function in the service of his own countrv- was happily 
 supplemented by an honorable public service for the Republic of Haiti, 
 as her accredited commissioner at the Universal Columbian Exposition, 
 at Chicago. 
 
 It was indeed fitting that this lifelong champion of the rights of his 
 long oppressed race should have thus crowned his closing labors, in such 
 trusted aud intimate relations with the sovereign and independent people 
 of this black republic, who were the first of their race to break oflf, wdth 
 their own hands, the fetters of slavery and to dash them into the faces of 
 their inhuman oppressors; and who thereb}' \andicated, not only their 
 right, but also their abihty to free themselves, and gave the needed 
 emphasis to the philanthropic appeals in behalf of the race that had been 
 voiced by the Clarksons, the Wilberforces and the Gregories. 
 
 And now that the curtain of eternity has dropped upon this sublime and 
 closing scene of his public life, let us again, dear madame and all the 
 afflicted family, lift up our sorrowing hearts and thank our Heavenly 
 Father for the gift to earth of such a noble man, and bless His holy 
 name for the light shed upon humanity's upward pathway by such a 
 splendid life! 
 
 Meanwhile I am, dear Mrs. Douglass, very faithfully, your deeply 
 sympathizing friend and brother. 
 
 ^J^^^^Ti 
 
 A Tribute from Some Rochester Friends. 
 
 Rochester, N. Y., February 24, 1S95. 
 
 The many friends of Frederick Dougla.ss have been stricken by sorrow 
 at the news of his death. 
 
 We who were his only sympathizers and helpers in the great cause to 
 which he was dedicated, feel and mourn his loss in a peculiar 1 
 
92 
 
 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 His friendship is one of those memories which we shall always cherish. 
 
 He was our near and dear friend, as well as the great leader to whom 
 
 we looked up in a cause which held our fullest sympathy. 
 
 His memory is indeed blessed and glorious — the memory of a brave 
 
 spirit and a strong man — who strove and dared all things in the sacred 
 
 cause of Freedom. 
 
 Mary H. Hallowei,!,, 
 Sarah C. Blackali., 
 Jacob K. Post, 
 Sarah I,. Willis, 
 Laura Ramsdell, 
 Lenia C. Smith, 
 Maria E. Porter, 
 Dr. Porter Farley, 
 Mary S. Anthony, 
 Jean Brooks Greenleap, 
 IvENiA C. Smith, 
 To this I gladly append the name of 
 
 «i^:;2^-«-3:-««'*-t. yj^. 
 
(Preambles 
 IResoluttons, 
 
 (93) 
 
PREAMBLES AND RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 The Faculty and Students of Shaw University, 
 Raleigh, N. C. 
 
 Whereas, A gracious and inscrutable Providence has been pleased to 
 call from tliis life the race's great and illustrious champion and defender, 
 Frederick Douglass; and 
 
 Whereas, His departure entails au irreparable loss, not only to his 
 struggling race, whom he served so well and long, but also to the great 
 coiintry of which he was a citizen; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That the faculty and students of Shaw University view with 
 a deep sense of sorrow the national and race calamity involved in the 
 death of Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Resolved, That in his passing away, freedom loses one of its bravest and 
 best advocates; humanity, one of its most faithful and eloquent friends; 
 and the world, one of its noblest and most remarkable men. 
 
 Resolved, That in this hour of exceeding sadness and loss, we extend 
 to the surviving family and relatives the earnest sympathy of our hearts, 
 and pray for them that sweet comfort and consolation that comes from a 
 devout trust in God, who does all things for the best. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent for publication to the 
 leading race journals, and that one of such be forwarded to Mrs. Frederick 
 Douglass, Anacostia, D. C. 
 
 In Memory ok Frederick Douglass. 
 During the early part of the evening of February 20th, 
 the Women's National Council, then convened at Wash- 
 ington, D. C, received the news of the death of Frederick 
 Douglass, and this was announced to the convention in a 
 brief speech. Mr. Douglass had been extended the courte- 
 sies of the meeting at the business session the previous 
 morning. In the course of Mrs. Sewell's remarks she said : 
 
 The report, as unwelcome as it is sad and solemn, has come to us of the 
 
 sudden and most unexpected death of Frederick Douglass. That historic 
 
 (95) 
 
96 JN MEMORIAM. 
 
 figure, which personally and intellectually was the symbol of the wonder- 
 ful transition period through which this generation has lived, has been 
 with us in our Council as an interested witness during both of our sessions 
 to-day. When we entered the hall this morning it was ordered that an 
 escort be appointed to conduct him to the platform. 
 
 We felt that this platform was honored by his presence, and I am sure 
 there was no division of feeling upon the .subject among all the organiza- 
 tions here represented, although including women whose families are 
 related to all the different political parties of our country, and who, by 
 ancestry, have been connected with both sides of the great questions 
 which have been presented to our common country for solution. 
 
 Mr. Douglass expressed his deep interest in the significance of our pro- 
 ceedings by returning in the afternoon; but he declined to occupy a place 
 on the platform, desiring to sit where he could see and hear all that was 
 going forward. 
 
 Surely it will be regarded as an historic coincidence that the man who, 
 in his own person, embodied the history of almost a century, in the 
 struggle between freedom and oppression, should spend his last day as a 
 witness of the united efforts of those who have come from so many differ- 
 ent places and along such various avenues, to formulate some plan upon 
 which they may unite to demand a new expression of freedom in the 
 relation of woman to the world, to society, and to the State, and in the 
 application of woman's brain and conscience to the great questions 
 pending at this hour. 
 
 The following memorial, in honor of Mr. Donglass, was 
 adopted by the National Council : 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Hon. Frederick Douglass, the National 
 Council of Women of the United States, assembled in Triennial Session, 
 feels itself sorely bereaved, and, with tender respect and patriotic devo- 
 tion, joins in memoriam of the great and good man, pas.sed from the 
 scenes of time. 
 
 We mourn him as a great and good man gone, as a great figure of 
 prophecy, of hope and of fulfillment in the annals of American history; 
 but keener is our sense of loss because he was so lately in our midst. 
 His last day on earth was passed with us. His familiar form, his digni- 
 fied and genial bearing on our platform was his last tribute to woman's 
 progress toward higher ideals in society, in custom and in law. 
 
 His shadow still lingered on our portals ; his words of sympathetic 
 interest in our aspirations and our hopes still echoed through the evening 
 air when the summons came ; out of life iuto death he went ; out of 
 death into life eternal. With reverential thought, because of this swift, 
 this unannounced transition, and with solemn exultation because of the 
 possible dignity of human character and human achievements, which his 
 life illustrates — we bring our tribute. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 97 
 
 Born a slave, his human instinct drove him early to forge his way to 
 freedom. Liberty secured, his robust manhood made for himself an 
 heroic career of service to his kindred, to his race, to his countrj- and to 
 the world. The tenderness of a refined nature sweetened his family life 
 and ennobled his personal friendships. In the army of progress he was 
 the trusted comrade and the respected leader of men and women, living 
 and dead, whom the years more and more will understand and honor. 
 
 He was a student of books, of men, and of institutions. He wrote 
 with clearness and force ; he spoke with eloquence and power. 
 
 The woman movement found in him a friend and champion. His sense 
 of justice and his soul of honor made their cause his own. He urged 
 and aided the enlargement of their opportunities for education, for indus- 
 trial independence, and for political equality. He believed the quality 
 of woman's service would be as helpful to the government as it had been 
 blessed in the home. 
 
 He stood for temperance, and purity and religion, and personified the 
 virtues he exalted. 
 
 In him the hopes of his race were realized ; in him humanity was dig- 
 nified. The world is poorer because he is gone ; humanity is richer 
 because he came. The legacy of his life and service attests the truth 
 that God keepeth watch above His own, that He shall turn and overturn 
 until injustice dies, and the right eternally triumphs. 
 
 May Wright Sewell, 
 Susan B. Anthony, 
 Lillian M. N. vStevens, 
 Margaret Ray Wickens, 
 J. Ellen Foster, 
 Rev. .\nnie HovirARD Shaw, 
 Emily Rowland. 
 
 The General A.ssembly of Illinois. 
 
 Reiolved, By the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring 
 therein, that the General Assembly of Illinois has learned, with sorrow, 
 of the death of Frederick Douglass, the great editor, orator and liberator, 
 who, by his own efforts and industry, transformed himself from the 
 condition of a slave, to the estate of a freeman ; from an ignorant boy to 
 an intelligent man and one of the leaders of the world's thought. 
 Recognizing that he contributed largely to the final overthrow of the 
 slave system in the United States and the enlargement of theories and 
 practices of a free government and the liberties of its citizens, the 
 General Assembly of the State of Illinois recognizes his high character 
 as a citizen and pays tribute to his memory. 
 Passed February 21, 1895. 
 7 
 
98 LV MEMOKIAiT. 
 
 The Staff of Providence Hospital, Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Baltimore, Md., February 21, 1S95. 
 To Honorable Mrs. Frederick Douglass; 
 
 Whereas, We, the undersigned, members of the staff of Providence 
 Hospital, of this city, have this morniii}^ heard with profound sorrow, of 
 the death of your husband, the Honorable Frederick Douglass; therefore 
 Resolved, That we tender to you, his widow, our sincere sympathy and 
 condolence, and hope that the same Divine Providence which succored 
 and aided him through his stormy voyage of life, may continue with you^ 
 and be helpful \.o you, in every trial. 
 
 Reverdy M. Hall, M. D., 
 Charles H. Fowler, M. D., 
 W. H. Thompson, M. D., 
 I<. D. Dyer, M. D., 
 J. Marcus Cargill, M. D. 
 
 A Memorial Meeting at Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Peoria, 
 111., February 21, i?95, unanimouslj' adopted the following 
 in honor of Mr. Douglass : 
 
 Inasmuch as death has suddenly removed from our midst our highly 
 esteemed, much-beloved, famous citizen, statesman, friend and brother, 
 Frederick Douglass, in advanced years, but apparently in the vigor of 
 perfect health; in the crowning glory and success of his cherished duties; 
 in the unfeigned love of a large and rapidly increasing circle of friends 
 (world-wide); and in the unsullied respect and confidence of all races; 
 therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, That we have received, with the most profound sorrow, the 
 announcement of his death. 
 
 Resolved, That we have lost one whose presence and memory we shall 
 ever be proud to recall; an active and zealous member of our race; an 
 honor to our country; a fearless advocate of liberty and equal rights for 
 all men of all races and nations; the leader and defender of the negro 
 race in this and other lands; the prime cause of negro soldiers enlisting to 
 support the LTnion; the companion and supporter of John Brown; the real 
 hero of America, standing easily head and shoulders above any man 
 living or dead, in the advocacy of his people. 
 
 Resolved, That the nation has reason to bow in humble sorrow at the 
 loss of a noble and exemplary citizen, a faithful friend and advocate of 
 the Union; a statesman, author, orator, diplomat, and an ornament to his 
 race, a credit to his country, an honor to .\merica, and a fit example of 
 morality, — a worthy father, husband and friend. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 9!) 
 
 Resolved, That we deeply sympathize with the grief-stricketi family of 
 the deceased, and assure them of the sincere fellow-feeling of all who 
 know of their sad affliction. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these rescjlutions be sent the family of the 
 deceased, and also be furnished the city press, for publication. 
 
 Temperance Industrial and Collegiate Institute, 
 Claremont, Va. 
 
 WhkrEaS, We have, with great sorrow, been to-day notiGed that it has 
 pleased Almighty God to call from labor to reward the Honorable 
 Frederick Douglass, the late Recorder of Deeds in the District of 
 Columbia ; and 
 
 Whereas, The said Mr. Douglass was undoubtedly the greatest man 
 of his age, and always a speaker for, and an honor to, tlie negro race to 
 which he belonged ; and 
 
 Whereas, We, as young students of the Temperance Industrial and 
 Collegiate Institute, looked upon Mr. Douglass as the greatest man of his 
 age ; and 
 
 Whereas, We look upon his work as an honor to all young negroes 
 and Americans ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That we tender to his devoted wife our heartfelt sympathy. 
 Resolved, That we request our president, John J. Smallwood, if possi- 
 ble, to represent us, as well as himself, at the funeral of our race's dis- 
 tinguished dead. 
 
 Resolved, That, in the death of the Hon. Frederick Douglass, our race 
 has lost its greatest orator, statesman and leader ; and the nation the 
 greatest man of his day and generation. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to Mrs. Douglass 
 and family. 
 
 M. E. Coleman, 
 
 Elnora Brown, 
 
 W. R. Wright, 
 
 John L. Wvatt, Chairman, 
 
 E. J. Overly, Seeretaiy, 
 
 Committee. 
 February 21, 1S95. 
 
 F.\cuLTY AND Students of Storer College, Harper's 
 Ferry, Va. 
 The following resolution was most heartily adopted by the 
 faculty and students of Storer College, on February 22, 1895: 
 Resolved, That in the death of the late Honorable Frederick Doug- 
 lass, we recognize the fact that a "great man has fallen," and, as an 
 
100 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 institution, we wish to pay our tribute of appreciation and affection to 
 his memory. 
 
 He was great in the wealth of a noble character, broad principles and 
 true ideas of liberty, that made him akin to a common humanity. 
 
 Thus he best served one race and people, by defending the rights of all 
 
 One of his latest expressions was in sympathy with Storer College and 
 the assurance of a service that death prevented his rendering. 
 
 The Robert G. Shaw Veteran Association of 
 Boston, Mass. 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased God, the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, 
 to remove from this life, Frederick Douglass, the greatly esteemed leader 
 of the negro race ; the champion and defender of the oppressed, and a 
 true representative of the black race, in its onward march to greater 
 freedom and advanced culture ; and 
 
 Whereas, The death of such a leader and defender is a great grief, 
 not only to the members of the negro race, but also to thousands of Cau- 
 casian extraction in this country and in the countries on the other side 
 of the Atlantic ; therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, That, as members of the Robert G. Shaw Veteran Associa- 
 tion, we take this, our earliest opportunity, to record our appreciation of 
 the late Frederick Douglass, as a citizen and as a co-worker with such 
 eminent advocates of liberty, as Garrison, Sumner and Wendell Phillips. 
 Resolved, That we hereby tender to the family and relatives of the 
 deceased, to whom his death is a severe alHiction, the condolence of our 
 sympathetic hearts in their bereavement. 
 
 Ordered, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the widow 
 of the departed, as an evidence of the sympathy of this command. 
 John D. N. R. Powell, Sr. 
 John H. Tillman, Lieutenant. 
 Bdrrill Smith. 
 
 George Washington, Sergeant. 
 W. D. Fowler, 
 
 George Goler, Color Sergeant. 
 George W. Cross, Sergeant-Major. 
 Major Wesley J. Furlong, Commander. 
 D. Miles, Captain, Company "A." 
 Adopted February 22, 1S95. 
 
 The West End Auxiliary Club, of Chicago, III. 
 
 Whereas, The sad intelligence reaches us from Washington, D. C, 
 that the Honorable Frederick Douglass, the foremost negro of his race, 
 bas been summoned to his eternal rest ; and 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 101 
 
 Whereas, In his death, humanity loses a great friend; his couutrj-, a 
 great national character; the Republican party, a safe counsellor; and his 
 race, a strong advocate; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That we, the oflScers and members of the West End Auxiliary 
 Club, of the Third Ward of Chicago, 111., do greatly deplore his death, 
 acknowledge his purity of character, his sterling worth, and his illustrious 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be forthwith sent to the 
 bereaved family. 
 
 A. H. Roberts, President. 
 K. B. Hali., Secretary. 
 Adopted February 22, 1895. 
 
 The Frederick Douglass Literary Association. 
 Baltimore, Md., February 22, 1895. 
 
 At a called meeting of the Frederick Douglass Literary 
 Association, of Baltimore, convened to take action of its 
 sorrow on the sad announcement of the translation of the 
 Honorable Frederick Douglass, from his earthly labors to 
 his ineffable reward, Thomas I. Hall, president of the 
 association, made feeling mention of his translation, and 
 the following resolution was, on motion of Mary L. Butler, 
 unanimously adopted and ordered to be transmitted to the 
 bereaved family: 
 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Madam : In the presence of overshadowing sorrow, we, at the behest 
 of a large and growing organization, reverently lay before you its sympa- 
 thetic testimonial, in mournful appreciation of the bereavement that has 
 fallen upon you, upon us, and upon the community. With painful satis- 
 faction we discharge this trust. 
 
 Accept this testimonial as the sincere expression of our earnest feelings 
 of the community's irreparable loss in the translation of Honorable 
 F'rederick Douglass. 
 
 "A great man has fallen in Israel." When Death would make a 
 startling and profound impression, he selects a shining mark for his 
 shaft. 
 
 He has stricken down a giant whose colo.ssal proportions towered as 
 possibly the foremast figure of the African race. He was a giant of won- 
 derful powers, which he controlled by unerring judgment and benign 
 
102 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 philanthropy; sought exercise in doing good, harming none, and causing 
 blossoms to spring where'er he trod. 
 
 Justice, in judgment and actions, kept pace with his vast powers; and, 
 what might be deemed the brightest gem of character, he arose from the 
 depths of African slavery to exalted American citizenship. 
 
 We have never failed to receive the encouraging smile of his approval 
 in all our efforts at moral and social elevation, and to-day our race 
 mourns a true and tried friend, laid low. Verily, " A prince has fallen in 
 Israel! " In solemn sorrowing, with bowed heads and reverent steps, our 
 mourning millions approach and crave leave to lay the laurel wreath on 
 the honored tomb of departed worth. 
 
 Resolved, That, as a mark of our respect, a committee be appointed to 
 attend the funeral of Honorable Frederick Douglass, and that a copy of 
 this resolution and its accompanying letter, be transmitted to his family 
 and entered on the journal. 
 
 Thomas I. Hall, President. 
 
 Samuel W. Ockmey, Chaplain. 
 
 Mary L. Butler, Treasurer. 
 
 WiLLLAM F. Hall, Secretary. 
 
 The Central Tennessee College, 
 Nashville, Tenn. 
 At a meeting of the faculty and students of Central 
 Tennessee College, held in the College chapel, Feb- 
 ruary 22, 1895, the following resolutions were unanimously 
 adopted : 
 
 Whereas, The hand of Divine Providence has removed from this 
 world and the busy cares of life. Honorable Frederick Douglass, of 
 Washington, D. C. ; and 
 
 Whereas, We, the faculty and students of Central Tennessee College, 
 recognizing the irreparable loss sustained by his family and the race, and 
 desiring to express our deep appreciation of the many and lasting obliga- 
 tions we owe to him, by words and outward tokens ; and also to extend 
 our sincere condolence to the bereaved family ; and 
 
 Whereas, His life and character have been such as deserve the highest 
 emulation of young Americans ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That we set apart a day upon which to commemorate the 
 life and deeds of this illustrious American. 
 
 Resolved, That the school be suspended between the hours of eleven 
 and twelve, in honor of our deceased benefactor. 
 
 Resolved, That we tenderly condole with the family of our deceased 
 citizen, in this their hour of trial and affliction, and devoutly commend 
 
FKEDERICK DOUGLASS. 103 
 
 them to Him who looks with compassion upon the widowed and father- 
 less. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the family of the 
 deceased, and to the various newspapers. 
 
 E. S. Foreman, 
 
 President of Committee. 
 John H. Brown, Secretary. 
 E. S. Foreman, 
 jNo. H. Brown, 
 
 J. E. GUINN, 
 
 J. M. Thomas, 
 T. G. EwiNG, Jr., 
 Mattie a. Carr, 
 Rosa McDonald, 
 Prof. M. W. Dogan, 
 Prof. H. W. Byrd, 
 
 Comniitlee. 
 
 The City Council of Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 Resolved, That we do hereby tender to the family and relatives of 
 Honorable Frederick Douglass our sympathy in their afHiction, and that 
 our memorial be spread upon the minutes of this Council, and that a 
 copy of it and of these resolutions be sent to his family ; and further 
 
 Resolved, That the family of Mr. Douglass be requested to permit his 
 body to lie in state in the City Hall on the day of the funeral; and 
 further 
 
 Resolved, That this Common Council attend the funeral services in a 
 body. 
 
 Adopted February 23, 1895. 
 
 Theodore S. Pulver, Cle 
 
 Howard University, Washington, D. C. 
 
 Washington, D. C, February 25, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D. C. 
 
 Dear Mada»i: I have the honor to communicate to yon 
 the following resolutions adopted by the Board of Trustees 
 of Howard UniYersity, at a .special meeting held February 
 23. 1895: 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Honorable Frederick Douglass, LL.D. , 
 the Trustees of this University have lost the most remarkable of their 
 number ; a man singular in the humility of his origin, as well as in his 
 
104 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 wonderful career as an orator and public man ; a man recognized and 
 honored b>- two continents of the Anglo-Saxon race ; the acknowledged 
 representative and leader of the Afro-American race, in richness of 
 intellectual endowment and wisdom ; and the emphatic and lasting dis- 
 proof of the theorj- that men and women of African extraction cannot 
 stand unchallenged among the great ones of the earth. 
 
 Resolved, That we put on record our sense of the value of the services 
 of Mr. Douglass as a member of this board, and of the dignity and inspi- 
 ration of his counsel ; and that, as an expression of the recognition of our 
 loss and the loss of the country by his death, we, as a body, attend his 
 funeral services, and delegate Honorable John Eaton, ex-Commissioner 
 of Education, and the Reverend F. J. Grimke, to accompany the remains 
 to Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 Resolved, That this action be recorded in our minutes as a corporation, 
 and communicated to the widow and other relatives of the deceased, for 
 whom, in their affliction, we have sympathy, the deepest and most 
 sincere. 
 
 With great respect I am yours, etc., 
 
 J. B. Johnson, Secretary. 
 
 A Mass Meeting of colored citizens of St. Joseph, Mo., 
 adopted the following resolutions on Febniary 25, 1895: 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased the great Giver of life to summons from the 
 walks of men the great freeman, statesman, orator and diplomat, 
 Frederick Douglass, and 
 
 Whereas, We stand here, a stricken people, at the imaginary bier of 
 the champion of our rights and liberties ; and 
 
 Whereas, With wounded hearts and anguished spirits, we have 
 assembled to do honor to the great liberator and statesman who, by his 
 own efforts and industry, transformed himself from the condition of a 
 slave to that of a freeman ; from that of an uncultured and unlettered 
 boy to an intelligent man without a peer in the world of thought and 
 action, therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That iu the recognition of the fact that he contributed 
 largely to the overthrow of slavery in the United States and to the 
 emancipation of thought and speech ; to the enlargement of the theory 
 and practice of free government, and to the personal liberties of the 
 negro citizens of St. Joseph, a part of the beneficiaries of his life's labors, 
 and realizing that in his fall the whole race has lost a champion and the 
 nation one of its most devoted patriots ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That, although the whole race rests in the shadow of the 
 deepest sorrow and most poignant grief, and our hearts are torn with 
 the sense of our bereavement, we bow humbly to Heaven's decree, trust- 
 ing that we shall meet him in a land where conflicts are unknown and 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 105 
 
 where sorrows never come. During the various vicissitudes through 
 which this people have passed ; in the midnight of their struggles for 
 liberty and a foothold among the races, as well as in the approaching 
 triumph of the new era, Frederick Douglass, the fallen chieftain of 
 Africa's race, always stood in the vanguard of duty fighting the battles 
 of his people ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolrcd, That we, the negro race of America, suffer, by his death, 
 an irreparable loss. He labored under great dilEculties and discourage- 
 ments never fulh' appreciated, often misunderstood ; yet patiently he 
 labored in what he considered the path of duty. Steadfastly he clung to 
 u.s, sharing in our labors and suffering in our discouragements ; and 
 now. Heaven has called him, full of years and crowned with the appro- 
 bation of the world. 
 
 Ki'solivd, That we look beyond our present grief to the Hand which 
 rules and controls the destinies of men, learning the lesson of devotion 
 to duty. The lesson taught is impressive and should be seriously con- 
 sidered. Our best days, and not merely our last hours, belong to God. 
 Amidst the cares of State, the earnest pursuits of business and the general 
 rush of life, He holds His unyielding claim upon us. Whatever the 
 world may demand of us, we belong, in a paramount sense, to Him. 
 This was the great success of Frederick Douglass' long years and multi- 
 plied successes. He translated this lesson into a practical experience. 
 
 Rfsolzed, That the young men of this country have, in the life of 
 Frederick Douglass, a most brilliant example of moral purity, setting 
 forth the benefits that surely follow a consistent Christian effort in the 
 cause of social advancement and spiritual progress. His life was of such 
 a character as to merit all the demonstrations called forth by his death. 
 
 Resolved, That we extend to the bereaved family our heartfelt con- 
 dolence and sympathy in this their loss, assuring them that we shall ever 
 cherish the name and memory of the late Honorable Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the family 
 of the deceased, and also furnished the metropolitan dailies and Weekly 
 Minoi of our cit}-. 
 
 ISA.^c Frederick, Chairman. 
 Ch-^vrles S. Hdnter, Secretary. 
 J. M. Trent, 
 Prof. J. H. Simms, 
 H.\RRV Robinson. 
 
 The colored citizens of Marshall, Mo., adopted, February 
 25, 1895, the following: 
 
 Resolved, That we have learned with deep sorrow of the death of Hon- 
 orable Frederick Douglass, the great editor, orator and liberator, who, by 
 his own eflforts and industry, transformed himself from the condition of a 
 
106 IX MEMORIAM. 
 
 slave to the state of a free man; a man who always fought for the rights 
 of his race. 
 
 Resolved, That Frederick Douglass was one of the leaders of the 
 world's best thoughts. Recognizing that he contributed largely to the 
 final overthrow of the slave system in the United States, and to the en- 
 largement of the theory and practice of a free government and the 
 liberties of a citizen, the colored citizens of Marshall, Mo., remember 
 his high character as a citizen and pay tribute to his memory. 
 
 He absorbed the good only to diffuse it in a thousand fold. He seemed 
 to have been conceived in the womb of Liberty, rocked in the cradle of 
 Freedom, and he found his workshop in the broad field of human eman- 
 cipation. He sought the good and he condemned the bad. He breathed 
 the air and sunlight of freedom, and he declared and decreed that all men 
 should enjoy the fruits of personal liberty. 
 
 He was good in spite of the gods of the earth; religious in spite of 
 creeds, and moral in spite of vice. The world came to be his home, and 
 to do good was his religion. No one was so humble but that he was 
 below them, and none were so exalted but that he towered majestically 
 above them. His .sympathies were with his race. His withering frown 
 gazed down on the tyrant. From every wrinkle on his benevolent face 
 burst forth well-springs of love for his race. 
 
 Resolved, That although Frederick Douglass is dead, yet he will live in 
 the hearts of his race. The emancipation of the mind and body of man 
 was delivered to him as one of the leaders, and as an everlasting gift. 
 All this because Frederick Douglass lived, and with his death he made 
 secure all these gifts and sealed them as everlasting trophies to all 
 human kind. 
 
 Resolved, That no people ever lived who owed as much gratitude to one 
 man as our people owe to Frederick Douglass. Call for no proof. It is 
 gratifying to know that our dear people appreciate the acts of that great 
 and grand old man, Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Resolved, That this meeting send a copy of these resolutions to the 
 family of the late Honorable Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Colonel A. A. Jones, Chainnan. 
 
 Rev. Harrison Green, 
 
 Rev. Daniel Hawkins, 
 
 Henry S. Smith, 
 
 Lewis Presley, 
 
 Talton Robinson, 
 
 Miss Nellie Brown, 
 
 Miss Delia Hawkins, 
 
 Miss Sadie Bush, 
 
 Douglass Murray, 
 
 George Murray, 
 
 Committee on Resolutions. 
 
frederick douglass. 107 
 
 The Emancipation Association of the District of 
 Columbia. 
 The following resolutions were passed by the Associa- 
 tion, February 25, 1895 ■ 
 
 Whereas, The Supreme Ruler has called from our midst one whose 
 services as a leader will be remembered eternally by the Emancipation 
 Association of the District of Columbia, therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Honorable Frederick Douglass the 
 A fro- American race has sustained an irreparable loss, and the country a 
 man of pure character and of patriotic devotion to all of its interests. 
 
 Resolved, That the emancipation societies in all the States be requested 
 to set aside a day in their respective States for memorial services upon the 
 life and character of the deceased as a great instrumentality in the eman- 
 cipation of his race. 
 
 Resolved, That the Emancipation Association of the District of Colum- 
 bia be requested to meet on Friday, April 12, in such place as the Presi- 
 dent shall hereafter name, to conduct such ser\-ices. 
 
 Resolved, That, as a mark of sympathy, a copy of these resolutions 
 be furnished the relatives of the deceased. 
 
 Mr. George W. Stewart offered the following amendment : 
 
 Resolved, That all societies, both military and civic, of the District of 
 Columbia, are hereby requested to wear a badge of mourning for the 
 period of sixty days, in commemorating the dead statesman and 
 acknowledged leader of the colored race, and the " Gladstone of a strug- 
 gling people." 
 
 The Colored American League, of Cheyenne, Wyo. 
 
 Cheyenne, Wyo., February 25, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass, Cedar Hill, Anacostia, D. C. 
 Dear Madam : I am directed by the Colored American 
 League, of the city of Cheyenne, State of Wyoming, to 
 forward you and Mr. Douglass' family, the enclosed pre- 
 amble and resolutions, which we consider only a faint 
 token of our sorrow and respect for your departed husband. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 D. D. Moore. 
 
 Whereas, The sad news has reached the members of the Colored 
 American League, of the city of Cheyenne, State of Wyoming, that God, 
 
108 IX MEMOEIAM. 
 
 in His infinite wisdom and all-wise Providence, has seen fit to remove 
 from our midst here on earth, by death, Frederick Douglass, that hon- 
 ored and foremost of all American citizens, the statesman, orator, diplo- 
 mat, teacher, leader, husband, father and Christian, who, with the galling 
 bonds of slavery once about him, yet reached that eminence and fame 
 which shall ever shine as bright in the hearts of his countrymen, as the 
 stars in the brilliancy of heaven. 
 
 Resolved, That the profound admiration of the members of this league, 
 herein recorded, is but a faint expression of our desire to honor, and to 
 record, our appreciation of his efforts and success in the elevation and the 
 protection of our every right as American citizens. 
 
 Resolved, That we cause the foregoing preamble and these resolutions 
 to be spread upon our journal, as a mark of respect. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these be forwarded to the bereaved widow and 
 children of the deceased. 
 
 D. D. Moore, 
 Cassie Condoi,, 
 J. W. Price, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 The Academy and Industrial School at Ashe- 
 
 VILLE, N. C. 
 Asheville, N. C, Februan- 25, 1895. 
 To Mrs. Frederick Douglass and Family : 
 
 At a memorial service held to-day, the students of the 
 Academy and Industrial School, desiring to show their 
 high appreciation of your illustrious husband and father, 
 adopted the enclosed resolutions of sympathy and respect, 
 ■which they beg leave to offer to you in your hour of 
 bereavement. 
 
 Most respectfully, yours in sympathy, 
 
 AlsiE B. Dole, Superintendetit. 
 
 Whereas, In the dispensation of an unerring and all-wise Providence 
 we are called, in the death of Honorable Frederick Douglass, to mourn 
 the departure of the chieftain of our race — the most eminent man it has 
 yet produced ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That, in the death of this eloquent orator ; this honored 
 statesman ; this profound scholar ; who was the chosen counselor of our 
 martyred Lincoln ; we have, as a people, lost a loj-al and devoted friend ; 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 109 
 
 one who was ever ready to fearlessly champion the cause of justice and 
 right. 
 
 licsolvcd. That, while wc bow in tearful submission to this heavenly 
 mandate, we tender to the wife and family of our deceased leader our 
 deepest sympathy and condolence in their bereavement. 
 
 Resolved, That, recognizing the grandeur and dignity of his character, 
 and the high attainments he had reached, as citizen, orator, scholar and 
 statesman, and that, with true heroism and the invincible courage of a 
 great cause, he had, amidst adverse circumstances, won his place among 
 the honored of the earth ; we, as students, find in his success, a realiza- 
 tion of the possibilities that are open to us, and are stimulated by his 
 example to loftier ideal and greater effort, and to strive to make of our 
 lives also, " one grand, sweet song," and to leave behind us the benedic- 
 tion of a well-spent life. 
 
 A. Cl,ARK, 
 
 Etn.v R. Holderness, 
 Zui.A R. Pope, 
 Maggie Greeni,ee, 
 Ella J. Edgarton. 
 
 The Kansas State Protective Home A.ssociation 
 AND W. T. C. U. 
 
 At a joiut session of these bodies, held in Leavenworth, 
 Kas., February 25, 1895, the following were adopted : 
 
 Whereas, Our Heavenly Father has, in His all-wise Providence, 
 permitted the removal, by death, of our noble statesman, benefactor and 
 representative, and we are therefore made to mourn, as never before, for 
 one of our race whose peer among us is yet to be found ; 
 
 Whereas. He canvassed, in his broad mind, the true conditions of all 
 people, impartially encouraging justice and liberty as a safeguard to all 
 true happiness, thereby making himself our chief benefactor ; therefore 
 be it 
 
 Resolved, That no warmer friend to the great reforms conducted by the 
 women of our present age, could be found, than was manifested in Mr. 
 Douglass, even to the end of his life, and that, in his death, the members 
 of this body have, indeed, lost a true champion ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That in the midst of our sorrow, we bow in humble submis- 
 sion to our God, and say, 
 
 " Not our will, but Thine be done ! " 
 
 Resolved, That this message of condolence be sent to the family of the 
 Honorable Frederick Douglass. 
 
110 IN MEMOEIAM. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be published in our home 
 
 papers. 
 
 Mrs. S. a. Bland, 
 Mrs. W. a. Townsend, 
 Miss M. J. Mitchell, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 The Sturge Lodge, Independent Order of Good Tem- 
 plars, Birmingham, England, adopted the following, Feb- 
 ruary 25, 1895 : 
 
 Resolved, That, having listened with feelings of deep emotion to the 
 eulogy on the late and much lamented Frederick Douglass, delivered by 
 the Rev. Thomas Stanford, D. D., representative of the negro race in this 
 country, we, the officers and members of the Sturge Lodge, Independent 
 Order of Good Templars, and visitors assembled, do hereby earnestly 
 desire to express to the family of our departed brother, and the race to 
 which he belonged, our deepest and heartfelt sympathy in the great loss 
 which they have sustained. 
 
 The unselfish and devoted life which he lived has for him now, we feel 
 assured, a crown of everlasting glory. 
 
 His home will always be held in sacred keeping by us and all lovers 
 of liberty and truth throughout the civilized world. 
 
 Resolved, That we further desire to say to our beloved friends in 
 America, that, while we must needs share their grief and weep with 
 them in their hour of affliction, we must also entreat them to .share our 
 thankfulness to God for having raised up such a noble man, and also to 
 bow with us in submission to Him who doeth all things well. 
 
 Proposed by the REV. W. A. H. Babidge, 
 Seconded by Sister L. Thomas, D. S. 
 
 Supported by the REV. P. T. Stanford, D. D. 
 Councillor Joseph Malins, G. C. T. 
 
 W. H. Woodward, W. C. T. 
 A. D. Ekins, Esq. 
 
 Mass Meeting of the Colored Citizens of Knoxville, 
 Tenn., convened February 26, 1895, adopted the following : 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God, in His all-wise Providence, 
 to remove from the midst of the American people, one of its most illus- 
 trious citizens and distinguished sons, in the person of the Honorable 
 Frederick Douglass, who departed this life, at his home in Anacostia, 
 D. C, Wednesday, February 20, 1895, and 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. Ill 
 
 Whereas, The Honorable Frederick Douglass was, in his lifetime, 
 the recognized leader and the ablest representative of the negro race; a 
 leader who never faltered, never feared, and a representative of which 
 any race might be proud; therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, By the colored citizens of Knoxville, Teun., in mass meeting 
 assembled for the purpose of doing honor to the memory of our dis- 
 tinguished leader and illustrious chieftain, that, in the death of the 
 Honorable Frederick Douglass, the race has lost its greatest and grandest 
 representative, and the world, one of the best and noblest types of man. 
 Frederick Douglass possessed all the elements of greatness, and, in 
 answer to the charge that is often made, that he was only great because 
 he was a negro, we make reply that he was great despite the fact that he 
 was a negro, and that, had he been a white man, he would have occupied 
 the highest positions within the gift of the people, and would have been 
 regarded by the American people with the same respect and veneration 
 that they accord to Washington and Grant, to Lincoln and to Garfield. 
 From the lowe.st condition of slavery, by an indomitable will that could 
 not be repressed, he became known and respected throughout the civilized 
 world: and all true and fair men will do homage to his greatness, and 
 regret his sad and sudden decease; and, while we realize the fact that we 
 have but one Frederick Douglass, we can but hope that the same kiml 
 Providence who gave us him, will raise up another, to labor and battle in 
 our behalf. Be it further 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the family of the 
 deceased, and to the local papers for publication. 
 
 W. F. Yardley, Esq., 
 T. Garner, M. D., 
 Rev. J. R. Riley, 
 Rev. G. W. Parkes, 
 
 W. L. MAPLE.S, M. D., 
 
 Committee on Resolutions. 
 
 The Young Men's Foraker Club, Cleveland, Ohio, at a 
 meeting held Febnian' 27, 1895, adopted the following: 
 
 Whereas, Being moved upon by the Spirit, and the deepest sense of 
 regret at the loss of one of America's brightest stars, the late Frederick 
 Douglass, who was a statesman, a diplomat and a great counselor, and as 
 the nation mourns his death, and the nations of the world join in sym- 
 pathy with us in our bereavement, and while we as a race feel the pain 
 deeper than tongue or pen can express, nevertheless, we bow to the will 
 of Him who rules the destiny of nations and of mankind, remembering 
 that man is mortal and all mortals must fade away; but in all this we feel 
 
112 IX MEilOEIAM. 
 
 that we have lost the brightest historical figure of our race, the greatest 
 national leader, and 
 
 Whereas, The hand of Almighty God has been laid heavily upon him 
 ■whoui we love, and has removed from our midst the Honorable Frederick 
 Douglass, who shall ever live in our meiuorj-, and ever be dear to our 
 hearts, therefore be it 
 
 Rc'soh'ed, That we ever hold him dear to us in niemorj' and in heart; 
 and be it further 
 
 Jiesolvcd, That we join in sympathy with the wife and family in this 
 their hour of sad bereavement. 
 
 Resolved, That we spread a copy of these resolutions upon our books, 
 and that another copy be sent to the family. 
 
 Yours in sympathy, 
 
 The Young Men's Foraker Ci,ub, 
 Cleveland, Ohio. 
 Charles S. Gordon, President. 
 J. W. Winters, Secretary. 
 
 Citizens of Waco and Other Town.s of Texas. 
 Waco, Tex., February 27, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass and members of the bereaved 
 
 family of a loving husband and a kind and indulgent 
 
 father : 
 
 We, the tmdersigued, speaking in these chosen but 
 inadequate words, for the citizens of our city and of the 
 many surrounding towns and cities of Texas, herewith 
 extend to you our deepest sympathy in your hour of 
 sorrow ; a sorrow, though overwhelming in yours, the 
 hearts nearest him, is hardly more deep than in the hearts 
 of the American people. 
 
 As a mark of our sincere regret, the following resolu- 
 tions were drawn up by us, in memory of the late and 
 much-beloved Frederick Douglass. We know that words 
 are inadequate to truly express our sorrow, but we give of 
 our best : 
 
 WfiKRKAS, On the twentieth day of February, eighteen hundred and 
 ninety-five, it pleased Almighty God to remove from the walks of men. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 113 
 
 the Honorable Frederick Douglass, orator, statesman and diplomat, full 
 of years and honor, and 
 
 Whereas, His death is historic in importance, by reason of tie promi- 
 nent place his deeds occupy in the affairs of the American people ; there- 
 fore be it 
 
 Resolved, That we, in mass meeting assembled, do feel our loss irrepar- 
 able. It not only takes from the race its grandest representative, but 
 from the whole American people, one of their strongest, most virtuous 
 and most patriotic citizens. 
 
 Resolved, That we recognize that, in exalted character, comprehensive 
 views, courageous advocacy of human rights and liberty against peculiar 
 disadvantages, and despite almost insuperable opposition, he stands in 
 civic stature uncircumscribed by race or class distinction, among the few 
 great men of all time. His life has wrested honor from obloquy, added 
 glory to private citizenship, and made simple manhood the highest title 
 of nobility. His soul responded to all the harmonies, but silently rejected 
 all the discords of humanity. The broad-minded, everj'where, will acqui- 
 esce in the decree of the world's court, which adjudges to every man who 
 maintains a high course with power and persistence, honor and success. 
 In the death of Sir. Douglass, the wife loses a loving husband, and the 
 children a kind father. 
 
 Resolved, That we extend to the bereaved family our heartfelt sympa- 
 thy, and that a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to them. 
 Ben. F. Wallace 
 G. S. Pryce, 
 H. T, Walker, 
 
 J. H. HiNES, 
 
 S. J. Jenkins, 
 
 B. J. Henry, Chainnan. 
 
 G. L. Wylie, Secntaty. 
 
 W. L. Dorsey, Assistant Secretiiry. 
 
 Citizens of South Charleston, Ohio, in a Town ^Meeting 
 a-ssembled, February 27, 1895, adopted the following: 
 
 Whereas, The God of the universe has, in His blessed omniscience, 
 permitted the exit of our own friend, Frederick Douglass, from this world 
 of toil and care, of responsibilities and accountabilities, to the world of 
 rest and peace, of happiness and joy ; and 
 
 Whereas, Though this be true, yet there are sad souls in the family, in 
 States and nations, and in the world at large, by reason of the removal of 
 our own Douglass from us ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That we, the undersigned, with a countless number of other 
 friends and sympathizers, do hereby extend to Mrs. Douglass and the 
 8 
 
114 IX MEMOKIAM. 
 
 bereaved family, to the race of which Mr. Douglass was a member, to the 
 States aud uations by which he has been so often honored and esteemed, 
 both in and out of public life, and to other countries and nations who feel 
 his true worth, as gentleman, orator, statesman, counselor and manly 
 man, onr most profound sympathy in their and our inestimable loss in the 
 decease of Honorable Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to Mrs. Douglass and 
 bereaved family ; and that a copy be sent for publication to the Freeman, 
 of Indianapolis, and to the 5Vh//«c/, of South Charleston, Ohio. 
 
 Resolved, That while our hearts are filled with sorrow in view of our 
 great and irreparable loss, and with sympathy for the family so suddenly 
 and sorely afflicted, yet we would bow in submission, saying, " It is the 
 Lord ; let Him do what seemeth to Him best ! " and " The will of the 
 Lord be done ! " 
 
 S. MoTEN, M. D., 
 Joseph Reed, 
 Aaron Myers, Sr., 
 William Mitchell, 
 John Steward, 
 William White, 
 George Wheatlv. 
 
 Citizens of Helena, Arkansas, assembled in Mass Meet- 
 ing, Febrnary 27, 1895, adopted the following : 
 
 Resolved, That we stand pledged to contribute the sum of twenty-five 
 dollars ($25), to be applied to the erection of a monument to the memory 
 of the Honorable Frederick Douglass, which said amount we stand ready 
 to forward to the proper authority, upon notice, after necessary arrange- 
 ments .shall have been made for the erection of said monument. 
 Henry Avant, 
 
 Member of Commitlee. 
 
 The Anti-Lynching League of Northern Ohio. 
 
 Cleveland, O., February 27, 1895. 
 
 Resolved, That we, the members of the Anti-lynching League of 
 Northern Ohio, experiencing as we do, a deep sense of personal loss and 
 bereavement, in the sudden and unexpected death of Frederick Douglass, 
 extend to his stricken family our deepest sympathy. 
 
 Resolved, That our country, which so long knew and so often honored 
 this magnanimous man, has lost a citizen who was ever earnest and influ- 
 ential in the promotion and advancement of good government, and ia 
 the interest of the black people of the United States. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 115 
 
 Resolved, That a certified copy of these resolutions be mailed to the 
 family of our deceased leader and champion, and that a copy be furn- 
 ished the daily papers, with a request that the same be published. 
 
 Rev. R. C. Ransom, President. 
 
 S. P. BovD, Secretary. 
 
 Citizens of Christiaxskurg and Cambria, Va. 
 Christiansburg Institute, 
 Cambria, Va., February 27, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Dear Madam : Enclosed resolutions in honor of your late 
 husband were passed, last night, in a Mass IMeeting held in 
 memory of our beloved countryman. So faithful, so true 
 was he to the interests of his race, that all mourn his 
 loss. 
 
 We have the honor of being 
 
 Yours sincerely. 
 
 Faculty, 
 Per H. H. Thoveatt, 
 
 Prvicipal. 
 Resolutions. 
 
 Resolved, That, in the death of the late Honorable Frederick Doug- 
 lass, the negro has lost sight of the brightest star in the constellation of 
 his great men. Not only have the negroes lost their greatest man, but 
 one of the most distinguished personages who has ever graced the 
 Western Continent, is sleeping in death. 
 
 Resolved, That, as an indefatigable laborer for the upbuilding of his 
 race, and in his efforts to place the negro in his worthy and proper light 
 before the criticising world, Mr. Douglass stood alone. 
 
 Resolved, That, although his inimitable career cannot, in its fullness, 
 be exemplified, his life is worthy of recognition and should be a guide 
 and inspiration to those of present and future generations. 
 
 Resolved, That we heartily and sincerely join in sympathy with his 
 bereaved family, in the loss of their husband and father; and assure his 
 loved ones that Mr. Douglass "is not dead, but sleepeth," and shall for- 
 ever live in the hearts of his countrymen. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the wife of the 
 deceased as from the people of Christiansburg and Cambria, Va. 
 
 Resolved, That we also send a copy of these resolutions to the Colored 
 American, for publication. 
 
116 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 The Woman's Political Equality Club, of 
 Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 Rochester, N. Y., February 27, 1895. 
 
 Resolved, That in the transition from this mundane to an immortal 
 life, of our beloved friend and advocate. Honorable Frederick Douglass, 
 the cause of woman's enfranchisement, and that of humanity, have lost 
 a power of almost boundless good. He was a man whose love of right 
 outweighed all other interests. 
 
 His face was set, like burnished steel, against every wrong and injustice, 
 and his plea for woman's equality before the law, was, like sweet incense, 
 ever rising toward Heaven; and his whole life of noble self-sacrifice aud 
 generous deeds, was a bright example wortliy of all imitation. 
 
 Resolved, That, by his life of faithfulness and integrity and never- 
 failing love of justice and equality for all, he has left an undying memory, 
 as Freedom's advocate, which memory we will cherish as a sacred trust, 
 and as a divine benediction of priceless worth. 
 
 Resohvd, That the Woman's Political Equality Club of Rochester, 
 tenders its heartfelt sympathy to his beloved and bereaved wife and 
 family. 
 
 Harriet M. Turner, Secretary. 
 
 Citizens of Calvert, Texas. 
 
 A Mass Meeting of colored citizens of Calvert, Tex., held 
 February 28, 1895, adopted the following: 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God to take from our midst our 
 friend and father, advocate, orator and champion of liberty, the renowned 
 and beloved Frederick Douglass, therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That we bow in humble submission to the will of the 
 Almighty Feather, who has graciously spared to us the long and inesti- 
 mable services of one of His most illustrious heirs of the Celestial King- 
 dom, and that we patiently bear the loss, that he may reap the glorious 
 har\'est of a long and well-spent life. 
 
 Resolved, That we recognize m his demise the loss of one whose 
 exemplary life, under the most trying ordeals, and whose sacrificing 
 devotion to suffering humanity, and burning eloquence for human liberty, 
 will kindle the flames of patriotic zeal in the hearts of our people through 
 all generations. 
 
 Resolved, That in his transition, the wife loses a noble and devoted 
 husband, the children a kind and s)-rapathetic father, and his race and 
 country a most illustrious aud patriotic citizen. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 117 
 
 Resolved, That we hereby extend to his bereaved family our most pro- 
 found sjTupathy in this, the hour of their deepest sorrow. Well may we 
 say in the language of Buel : 
 
 Our Douglass is gone, and we are alone ; 
 
 'Tis the debt which all mortals must pay ; 
 Yet with all the sorrows our lives have known, 
 
 We never knew grief till to-day. 
 
 As the sun went down 'neath the hills about, 
 And the shadows stole forth, as in dread, 
 
 So the light of his life and ours went out 
 And left us forlorn with our dead. 
 
 Nearly four-score years he walked as our guide, 
 
 As our leaning staff, all the way ; 
 But the Angel oi^ Death has taken our pride. 
 
 And what can we do but pray ? 
 
 O, grant us. Lord, through Thy heavenly worth 
 
 And Thy grace, so freely given. 
 That so long we've journeyed together on earth 
 
 Thou'lt receive us together in heaven. 
 
 Farewell ! The leaf-strewn earth enfolds 
 Our stay, our pride, our hopes, our fears ■ 
 
 And winter's setting sun beholds 
 A nation bowed, a world in tears. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolntions be sent to the family of the 
 deceased, and to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the Texas Independent, 
 and the Illuminator. 
 
 E. A. Durham, M. D., 
 Mrs. R. L. Scott, 
 J. W. Talley, 
 W. B. Patterson, 
 
 Commiltee. 
 
 The Ida B. Wells Woman's Club and the Frederick 
 Douglass Memorial Meeting. 
 Held at Quinn Chapel, Chicago, 111., Februan^ 28, 1S95. 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased the Almighty to remove from our midst our 
 beloved leader, statesman and orator, Frederick Douglass, and 
 
 Whereas, In his death we feel that the negro race has lost its ablest 
 representative ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That, while we know that he has been called from unceas- 
 ing labors to well-earned rest, still we deeply mourn his loss. 
 
 Resolved, That, in the death of Frederick Douglass, the negro race has 
 lost an active and zealous worker, ever ready to assist the oppressed ; 
 prompt to advance the interests of the race, at home and abroad ; devoted 
 
118 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 to its welfare and prosperity ; wise in council and fearless iu action in its 
 behalf ; a man good, great and kind, and whose virtues endeared him, 
 not only to his race, but also to all of his fellow citizens. 
 
 Resolved, That we extend to the family of the deceased our profound 
 sympathy, and that these resolutions be entered upon our minutes, and 
 that a copy of them be sent to the family of the deceased. 
 
 A. L. Harvey, Secretary. 
 Mrs. R. E. Hatton, 
 Mrs. H. E. Harris, 
 Mrs. C. B. Henderson, 
 Committee. 
 
 The Cleveland Social Circle, of Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 Whereas, Death has removed Frederick Douglass from the scenes of 
 his earthly labors and triumphs ; therefore 
 
 Resolved, That we, the members of the Cleveland Social Circle, desire 
 to express, in such degree as we may by tliis method, our appreciation 
 of his life and services b}' saying that we look upon his wonderful and 
 brilliant career as an inspiration to all the poor and oppressed, and as an 
 incentive in the ever upward struggle which has developed all the good 
 in humanity ; that we regard Mr. Douglass as one of the great men 
 of American history, in courage, in eloquence and in mental equipment. 
 He spoke his burning message when it required fearless courage to speak 
 it. He fought the battles of an oppressed race, and, through them, the 
 battles of all downtrodden humanity when the struggle seemed hope- 
 less ; and he lived to rejoice iu the victory he had helped to win and to 
 share in its fruits. 
 
 Resolved, That we cherish, in our hearts, the memory of Frederick 
 Douglass, and that we will hand it on to our children, as an imperishable 
 inheritance. 
 
 Resolved, That we extend to his bereaved family our sympathy in 
 the loss which we share with them, and that a copy of these resolutions 
 be forwarded to them at Washington. 
 
 Charles W. Chesnutt, 
 Freeman H. Morris, 
 George Vosburgh, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 Adopted February 27, 1895. 
 
 The citizens of Springfield, Mo., in Mass Meeting assem- 
 bled, February 28, 1895, adopted the following: 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased the Supreme Ruler of the Universe to remove 
 from our midst the Honorable Frederick Douglass, and 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 119 
 
 Whereas, The relation which he sustained to the race renders it 
 proper that we should place ou record our appreciation of his service as a 
 leader ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That while we bow with humble submission to the will of our 
 Heavenly Father, we do not the less mourn the loss of earthly friends. 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Krederick Douglass we lose not only a 
 profound thinker, wise counselor and fearless leader, but also a brilliant 
 orator, statesman, diplomat, journalist, scholar and Christian gentleman 
 — a man whose many virtues endeared him not only to his own people, 
 but to all his fellow citizens. 
 
 Resolved, That the people of Springfield, Mo., tender their heartfelt 
 .sympathy to the bereaved family and relatives of the deceased, and that 
 a copy of these resolutions be sent to them, that they may know that we 
 are not unmindful of the fact that a great man has been called from the 
 stage of action to that blissful shore where all is peace, love and everlast- 
 ing happiness, and be it further 
 
 Resolved, That we pledge ourselves to assist in erecting a monument to 
 the memory of him in whose honor we are here assembled. 
 
 B. A. Hardrick, Chairman. 
 Miss M. A. Herndon, Secretary. 
 Mrs. J. W. Mii.i,ER, 
 William Smith, 
 N. R. Smith, 
 Thomas Campbell, 
 
 Coinmiitee. 
 
 Syracu.se Ivodge, No. lo, K. of P., of St. Joseph, Mo., 
 adopted the following, February 28, 1895 : 
 
 Whereas, An all-wise and beneficent Providence has removed from 
 our midst the Honorable Frederick Dougla.ss, after having allotted to him 
 more than three-score years and ten, and 
 
 Whereas, He has removed from us a public servant of eminence an'l 
 superior executive ability ; therefore 
 
 Resolved, That in his death the nation has lost a statesman and a 
 leader who always responded to duty's call and championed the cause of 
 the lowly and oppressed. 
 
 Resolved, That he was an honor to the nation and to his race, and that 
 we commend the example of his exemplary life to the present and future 
 ambitious youths of America, and that we are, in his life, reminded of 
 the grand and sturdy oak, towering majestically .skyward while sending 
 its roots deep and wide. 
 
 Resolved, That our most profound sympathy and condolence be 
 extended to the bereaved widow and family, and that we most reverently 
 
120 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 commend them to Him who careth for the widow and protecteth the 
 orphans. 
 
 Resolved, In regular convention of Syracuse Lodge, No. lo, Knights 
 of Pythias, that a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the bereaved 
 widow, and that the hall of this lodge be draped for thirty days in honor 
 of the lamented Frederick Douglass. 
 
 R. H. Young, C. C. 
 
 T. P. L.\NGDON, A'. R. and S. 
 
 The Alumni Association of Wilberforce 
 University. 
 
 Wilberforce, C, March i, 1895. 
 Mrs. Helen Douglass and Family : 
 
 The Alumni Association of Wilberforce University, at Wilberforce, O., 
 in regular mid-wdnter session assembled, appointed the undersigned com- 
 mittee to express 
 
 1. Its appreciation and cherished love for the late Honorable Frederick 
 Douglass as a man of world-wide renown, superior intellect, powerful 
 eloquence, worthy integrity, dignified bearing, moral refinement and 
 Christian influence. 
 
 2. Its admiration for his forceful efforts to free the human slave, his 
 ardent advocacy of the cause of the American negro, and the tribute of 
 honor and credit he gave to his race by honorably representing our gov- 
 ernment at posts of trust and glory while at home and before courts abroad. 
 
 3. Its reverence for the edifying influence of his whole life, because he 
 was a man and inspired all toward manliness. 
 
 To the family we assure our deepest sympathy, and ask to share the 
 sorrow occasioned by the death of its head — the sage of Anacostia. 
 Very respectfully. 
 
 The Alumni Association op 
 
 Wilberforce University. 
 Henry Y. Arnett, B. S., Chairman. 
 Elizabeth L. Jackson, A. B., 
 William A. Anderson, A. B., 
 
 Committee on Resolutions. 
 
 David Hunter Post, No. 9, G. A. R., Beaufort, vS. C. 
 
 Whereas, We have received with profound sorrow the intelligence of 
 the death of the Honorable Frederick Douglass ; therefore 
 
 Resolved, That it is meet that we pause in our labors and testify our 
 sense of the worth and our appreciation of the character of the departed 
 leader of the race. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 121 
 
 Resolved, That we extend to the afflicted family our heartfelt sym- 
 pathy iu this their hour of deep distress, and that we commend them to 
 the all-wise God for support. 
 
 Resolved, That these resolutions be spread on the minutes of this 
 meeting, that a copy be sent to the bereaved family, and also a copy, for 
 publication, to the papers of our town. 
 
 Richard Washington, Commander. 
 Edward Wai.i,ace, Adjutant. 
 Adopted March i, 1895. 
 
 Citizens of Worcester, Mass. 
 
 Worcester, Mass., March i, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Dear Madam : On Sunday, February 24, 1895, the col- 
 ored citizens of Worcester, Mass., in Mass Meeting assem- 
 bled, at Zion A. M. E. Church, called to take action on 
 the death of the late Honorable Frederick Douglass, 
 adopted unanimously, the following resolutions : 
 
 Whereas, Honorable Frederick Douglass, a member and leader of our 
 race, has been removed by death, from our midst, therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That, by his death, we have lost a worthy leader whose wise 
 counsel, extensive knowledge and courteous manner won universal admi- 
 ration and esteem, therefore 
 
 Resolved, That the sympathy of the colored people of Worcester, in 
 Mass Meeting assembled, be conveyed to the widow and family of our 
 deceased friend and leader, committing them, in this hour of their bereave- 
 ment, to the kindly consolation of Him who doeth all things well. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the widow 
 and family, and published iu the daily papers. 
 
 F. Jones, 
 Co)responding Secretary. 
 
 The City Council of Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 City of Cambridge, Mass., 
 Clerk's Office, March 9, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D. C. 
 
 Dear Madam : I have the honor to transmit herewith a 
 copy of the resolutions unanimously adopted by the City 
 
122 7.V MEMORIAM. 
 
 Council of this city, in expression of its respect and 
 esteem for the memory of your husband, the late Honor- 
 able Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 City Clerk. 
 In Common Council. 
 
 City of Cambridge, March 5, 1895. 
 Resolved, That the City Council of the city of Cambridge has learned 
 with profound sorrow of the death of Mr. Frederick Douglass who de- 
 parted this life on the twentieth day of February last. 
 
 He was the distinguished friend and advocate of human freedom and a 
 champion of the civil and political equality of American citizenship, 
 and, since his escape from slavery, to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 
 fifty years ago, he has enlisted the admiration and appreciation of all true 
 lovers of liberty. 
 
 Resolved, That the City Council extends its sincere sympathy to the 
 family of this late illustrious citizen, and that a copy of these resolutions, 
 properly attested, be forwarded by the City Clerk, to the family of the 
 deceased. 
 
 Concurred, March 5, 1S95. 
 
 Approved, March 6, 1895. 
 A true copy. 
 
 Attest: 
 
 W. W. Pike, 
 
 City Clerk. 
 
 Citizens of Harper's Ferry, W. Va. 
 
 Harper's Ferry, W. Va., March 2, 1895. 
 The committee appointed by the citizens of Harper's 
 Ferry, to draft resolutions relative to the late Honorable 
 Frederick Douglass, prepared the following : 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God to remove from our midst, 
 the Honorable Frederick Douglass, and 
 
 Whereas, We, the people of Harper's Ferry, feel that the said Fred- 
 erick Douglass was the greatest orator and .statesman of our race, and one of 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 123 
 
 the leacjiug American diplomats; and that he spent his life in the service of 
 the people, doing much to ameliorate their condition and to procure their 
 liberty ; therefore be it 
 
 /^i-sohvd. That we extend to the relatives of said Frederick Douglass, 
 our heartfelt sympathy for their irreparable loss, and that we mourn for 
 him as the friend of his people and the father of their liberty. 
 
 Resolved, That, in his death, his family loses an affectionate husband 
 and father, the colored race a bold defender, the nation a great statesman, 
 and the world a man. 
 
 Miss Florence Lovett, 
 J. Ed. Robinson, 
 Miss Fannie L. We.wer, 
 William .\. .^ster, 
 Prof. H. Hatter, 
 Miss Ella V. Smith, 
 
 Co>?i»tillee. 
 
 Benjamin Stone, Jr., Po.st, No. 68, G. A. R., 
 DoRciiE-STER, Mass. 
 
 Whereas, The Almighty Father, in His infinite wisdom, has seen fit 
 to bring to a sudden close, the eventful and useful career of our esteemed 
 countryman, the Honorable Frederick Douglass; and 
 
 Whereas, While we bow in humble submission to this event of over- 
 ruling Providence, we deeply feel the loss, and 
 
 Whereas, We, the members of Benjamin Stone, Jr., Post No. 68, 
 G.A.R., did,at a recent meeting, vote unanimously, to invite the Honorable 
 Frederick Douglass to visit our city and deliver an oration before our 
 post, on next Memorial day, now, therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, By the Benjamin Stone, Jr., I'ost No. 68, Department Massa- 
 chusetts, G. A. R., that in the death of tlie Honorable Frederick Doug- 
 lass, the curtain falls upon the life of an esteemed friend and fellow 
 citizen, whose services in our behalf of freedom, equal rights, temperance 
 and national honor, will cause his name to be gratefully sung, by gen- 
 erations yet unborn. 
 
 Resolved, That his manly struggle against the disadvantages of birth ; 
 his fearless opposition to the institution of slavery, and his hearty co- 
 operation in all the reforms of his time, make him worthy the grateful 
 plaudits of the people of every land where liberty is dear, and national 
 honor sacred. 
 
 Resolved, That he was raised up to be a talisman to his race, to lead 
 them out of bondage, even as Moses lead the Israelites, and that the cir- 
 cumstances of his birth, his knowledge of the institution of slavery, and 
 his great natural abihty, mark him as one sent as a special messenger to 
 his people. 
 
124 IN MEMOKIAM. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the widow and 
 family of the deceased, assuring them of our esteem and of our condo- 
 lence, in this late trying dispensation of Providence, 
 
 William H. Dupree, 
 
 Coynmander. 
 J. Ripley Morse, 
 
 Adjutant. 
 H. P. Oakman, 
 Chairman Memorial Day Committee. 
 Adopted March 4, 1895. 
 
 Fourth Ward Republican Club, of Raleigh, N. C. 
 
 Raleigh, N. C, March 5, 1895. 
 Mrs. Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D. C. 
 
 Dear Madam: At a regular meeting of the Fourth 
 Ward Republican Club, of this city, some of the members 
 of which were personally acquainted with your distin- 
 guished husband, and all of us loved him, — the accompa- 
 nying resolutions were unanimously adopted. 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 B. Bowes, Sea-clary. 
 
 Whereas, The Great and Supreme Ruler of the Universe has, in His 
 infinite wisdom, removed from earth one of the most prominent citizens 
 of this Republic, that worthy and esteemed patriot, the Honorable Fred- 
 erick Douglass ; and 
 
 Whereas, Frederick Douglass did, in his own life, embody the phil- 
 osophy of the injunction, " Go, teach the hands to work, the mind to 
 think, and the heart to love," it is eminently fitting that we record our 
 appreciation of him ; therefore 
 
 Resolved, That the vrisdom and ability which he exercised during the 
 twenty years preceding the war, through his own papers, the North 
 Star, and the one bearing his own name, and in teaching from abolition- 
 ist platforms the great truth that a slave had a mind worth educating and 
 fitting for liberty, did, with his efforts after the war, help to keep alive 
 the idea that a colored man, whether free or slave, is capable of intellec- 
 tual development, and moral and social progress. 
 
 Resolved, That the sudden removal of such a life leaves a shadow on 
 our hearts, and in the world a vacancy which will be deeply realized by 
 all the liberty -loving people of this great country, and which will prove a 
 serious loss to the public. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 125 
 
 Resolved, That with deep sympathy with the bereaved relatives of the 
 deceased, we express our hope that even so great loss to us all may be 
 overruled for good, by Him who doeth all things well. 
 
 The Fourth Ward Republican Ci.ub, 
 
 B. Bovi'ES, Secretary. 
 
 Citizp:ns of Amkricus, Ga. 
 
 Americus, Ga., March 5, 1895. 
 Hon. Mr.s. Fr?:derick Douglass, Washington, D. C. 
 
 Dear Madam : As chairman and secretary of the com- 
 mittee, we have the honor to herewith enclose to you a 
 copy of the resolutions adopted by and at a large and sor- 
 rowing mass meeting of our best people, in this city, Wed- 
 nesday evening, February 27th. 
 
 Sincerely trusting that you have been enabled, by 
 divine grace and the great love of the nation for you and 
 your distinguished husband, to hold up under the trying 
 ordeal through which you have been called to pass, in his 
 loss, 
 
 We beg to remain, in great respect, 
 
 J. H. DiSMUKES, Attorn ey-at-Law, 
 
 Chairman. 
 A. Lincoln Smith, M. D., 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 Whereas, Frederick Douglass, our Moses, has been taken by God, 
 from the sacred mountain whither he was ever in quest of laws and the 
 will of heaven for the guidance and protection of his race ; our Solon has 
 disappeared, never to return ; our Douglass is dead ; and 
 
 Whereas, If we dared to contemplate his removal from a human 
 standpoint alone, Afro-Americans would be, of all people, the most 
 bereft and wretched. But we are religious in sentiment and in creed, as 
 a race, and we trust that we are religious by individual experience, pro- 
 fession and practice. 
 
 Since our advent upon this Western continent, our God has, often and 
 long, suffered the chastening rod of affliction to lacerate the soul and 
 body of our race. This night our hearts are bleeding and our heads are 
 bowed in sorrow and deepest condolence. A race less religious than ours 
 would hang their harps on the willows in the midst thereof, and exclaim, 
 " How shall we sing the Lord's song, in a strange land ? " 
 
126 JN MEMORIAM. 
 
 But amidst all our woes and distraction, as a race and as single persons, 
 we still love and praise the Lord. We do not question His divine 
 wisdom, His power. His goodness or His edicts, as they affect the affairs 
 of races and of nations. 
 
 He who, in this month seventy-eight (78) years ago, gave to the negro 
 race and to the world, this man, and surcharged his soul and nature with 
 such abundant gifts of heavenly power, unquestionably had the right to 
 call him hence, and that same power can, and will raise up another, and 
 many more, to carry to completion his people's cause. 
 
 When a slave, Douglass questioned the right of God and of man to 
 continue his condition as such. He reasoned with God, face to face, 
 about the right, divine or constitutional, of an earthly master to subjugate 
 him, body and soul. He condemned the men and the system which 
 reduced him and his race to the degradation of bondsmen, and challenged 
 God to harmonize its wickedness with His pleasure. His justice and His 
 goodness. While Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty, or give me 
 death !" our hero acted upon the principle, " I will take liberty ! Death 
 be damned !" 
 
 While yet a slave, he sought to awaken to their condition the interest 
 of his fellow slaves ; and when he fled from bondage he began, and never 
 ceased, to agitate with pen, tongue and action, in appeals to the Christian 
 conscience of the North, the nation, and the world, to liberate his 
 people. 
 
 On the subject of liberty, he opened the blinded eyes of this whole 
 nation, and enlightened the intelligence of mankind the world over. 
 His great life and his works and deeds crystallized into a rod more 
 magical than ancient Egypt's ; more powerful than that of Moses', and 
 struck a rock in the Southern wilderness from which leaped a stream 
 of liberty that shall flow throughout this nation and the continents 
 of the world. 
 
 While a fugitive, an exile and an outlaw, his eloquent voice and earnest 
 plea for freedom was heard the world around, as, from the rostrums 
 of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, he belched forth his philippics 
 and anathemas against the system of Southern slavery. 
 
 Douglass was not only great in his peculiar power of eloquent speech, 
 but he was brave and commanding in person, standing six feet and large 
 in proportion ; dignified in bearing and exceptionally gentle and polished 
 in manners. He was just, even to his enemies, and loft:y in all things. 
 He was never known to turn his back upon the foe, even though he 
 fought against great odds, as with the mob in Indiana. 
 
 He was wise and conservative in counsel, cool, logical and sweeping iH 
 debate ; pure, beautiful, lofty and prolific as a writer and as a patriot, in 
 the love he bore his country and his people, he easily takes rank with the 
 greatest of any age or country. As a leader, counselor, guide and 
 defender of his race, he was unswerving, uncompromising, pure and 
 incorruptible ; and he was ever watchful in its defence against the 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 127 
 
 attacks of the enemy, let them come as Uiey would, through the press, 
 the rostrum, or the halls of national legislation. 
 
 Douglass was the honored, valued and equal associate of that galaxy 
 of great spirits, Garrison, Lincoln, Greeley, Sumner, Beecher, John 
 Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and other agitators who precipitated the 
 war, the results of which purged the nation of slavery, and united it 
 forever. Though these are great men and women in the niches of Fame's 
 temple, the name and portrait of Douglass must rest and poise above 
 them all. 
 
 He was for war, and helped to carry it on. His aiivice and coun.sel 
 inspired Lincoln to pen, sign and give wings to the great Emancipation 
 Proclamation. When peace came, he urged the Christian church and 
 the philanthropists of the North to educate his people in the South. 
 He was our greatest, purest, most constant, and often our only 
 advocate at the bar of the world. He only could demand a decent 
 and respectful hearing with the powers. He was the only negro on the 
 globe to whom men on earth, angels in heaven, and devils in hell, would 
 listen. 
 
 He came among us and taught us to love and to remain in the South, 
 and to become progressive, manly and virtuous. His life was pure, 
 moral and religious. His words and works are an inspiration to our 
 youth and a joy to our aged. His memory is sacred, and shall live, the 
 unfading and undying heritage of our race. 
 
 No people who can produce a Douglass need despair. His hfe, his 
 struggles and his achievements shall be the standard of our race, and 
 through their inspiration it .shall rise ; therefore 
 
 Resolved, That we, the citizens of Sumter County, Georgia, in Ameri- 
 cus assembled, do revere, honor and count mo,st dear and sacred 
 to us and to our race, the life, struggles and achievements in behalf of 
 himself and of the race ; in behalf of the oppressed of every land, 
 and in behalf of the cause of truth, justice and liberty, of our greatest, 
 purest and noblest leader, the Honorable Frederick Douglass, late of 
 Anacostia, D. C. 
 
 Resolved, That from a human consideration his race suffers in his death 
 a most sore and irreparable loss ; but we bow to the wisdom and good- 
 ness of God, and trust to His divine mercy to vouchsafe to our race the 
 full and holy fruition of all the truth and justice for which our late 
 leader so ably labored and contended during his long and illustrious life, 
 and pray that the inspiration of his deeds may actuate other men among 
 us to an emulation of his powers, graces and success. 
 
 Resolved, That we count it no extravagance to estimate and rank the 
 late Frederick Douglass, in true and lovable greatness, by the side of 
 Confucius of China, Moses of the Hebrews, Solon of Greece, O'Connell 
 of Ireland, Wilberforce and Gladstone of England, Toussaint I'Ouverture 
 of Santo Domingo, Bismarck of Germany, and Lincoln, Garrison and 
 Sumner of America. 
 
128 m MEMORIAM. 
 
 Resolved, That his withering philippics, spoken and wielded by hi« 
 mighty pen against human slavery, Ku-Kluxism, the rape of the ballot 
 box, the indiflference and supineness of the North, and the injustice 
 heaped upon the people of his race by their American enemies, are not 
 surpassed in true eloquence and power, by those of any agitator, leader 
 or martyr of any people in the history of the world ; while the purity 
 and beauty of his productions are worthy to rank as classics in the Eng- 
 lish language. 
 
 Resolved, That the recent great and masterly exposition of the cause of 
 the lynching of his people in the South, and his inestimable ability in 
 defending them against the charge of being a race of rapists and general 
 criminals, entitle him to the unanimous and individual love of the negro 
 race the world over, and to the esteem of all persons who love honor, 
 truth, justice and fair play, especially when they are wielded in behalf of 
 the weak, innocent and oppressed. 
 
 Resolved, That we, the citizens of Americus, Sumter County, Ga., 
 consider it our duty to contribute, out of our poverty and still-existing 
 oppression, to a racial fund, to be used and expended in erecting a mon- 
 ument commensurate to the fame and glory of our hero, which monu- 
 ment shall be appropriately located and shall forever exist in commemo- 
 ration of Frederick Douglass, and as an expression of the love of his 
 race. 
 
 Resolved, That the Legislature of North Carolina, in adjourning out of 
 respect to the memory of Frederick Douglass ; and the city of New York, 
 in extending the use of its City Hall for his remains to lie in state, did 
 worthy and timely honor to a great man who has blessed and benefited 
 the world by having lived in it, and as a result of whose labors and teach- 
 ings the greatest republican government on earth is purged of slavery 
 and solidified forever. 
 
 Resolved, That where the remains of our Douglass shall lie buried, 
 that spot and his tomb shall ever be a sacred Mecca to the negro 
 race. It shall inspire us with patriotic zeal for that country in whose 
 bosom rests his grave, and from henceforth it shall prove the anchor to 
 hold the negro race in the strongest ties of love and affection to American 
 soil. 
 
 Resolved, That these and other appropriate resolutions and ex- 
 pressions of respect and condolence shall be recorded in our churches, 
 schools and social organizations, and that copies be retained in each 
 home and family circle as the most sacred archives of the Afro-American 
 people. 
 
 Resolved, That, so far as lies in our power, we favor and recommend 
 the adoption of a " Douglass Day," upon which all Afro-Americans shall 
 meet and discuss the great life and deeds of our hero, and shall otherwise 
 appropriately celebrate the same. 
 
 Resolved, That we request that these resolutions be published by the 
 city and race press. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 129 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolu^ions be forwarded to the family 
 of the beloved dead, with whom we deeply sympathize and condole. 
 
 J. H. DiSMUKES, Chairman. 
 
 A. L. Smith, M. D., Secretary. 
 
 C. A. Catledgk, 
 
 Rev. G. \V. Phillips, 
 
 J. H. Covington, 
 
 Joseph Dowdell, 
 
 J.^CKSON Carter, 
 
 W. J. Kennedy, 
 
 Polk Branson, 
 
 J. Matt Hart, 
 
 Commiltee. 
 
 The Woman's League of Denver, Col. 
 
 Whereas, The sad news has just been flashed across the continent of 
 the departure from earth of one of her best and noblest sons, a student, 
 a teacher, an orator, a statesman, a philanthropist, a deliverer, a husband 
 and father ; and 
 
 Whereas, This man iu youth braved the stings of poverty aud misfor- 
 tune ; stood like adamant against the storms of derision aud calumny in 
 the arena and forum, espousing the cause of his enslaved and down- 
 trodden people ; and 
 
 Whereas, In the noontide of life he was enabled to see his efforts 
 rewarded by their complete enfranchisement, and to behold them capable 
 of working out their own destiny ; and 
 
 Whereas, In the sunset of life, his work finished, and in the happy 
 society of wife, children and friends, iniiuite nature threw around him 
 the mantle of love and a halo of reverence, and iu that hour of peace and 
 quiet the Invisible Power took from earth that which was immortal of 
 Frederick Douglass ; therefore 
 
 Resolved, That we, the members of the Woman's League of Denver, 
 Col., do tender our heartfelt sympathies to the sorrowing wife and 
 children, and bedew with tears of love and gratitude the bier of our hon- 
 ored dead. 
 
 Mrs. Lizzie M. Olden, Presidenl. 
 
 JIrs. Ida DeFriest, Corresponding Secretary. 
 
 Adopted March 6, 1S95. 
 
 Senate and HorsE of Representatives of 
 
 Mass.achusetts. 
 
 Whereas, The Senate and House of Representatives of tlie Common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts, in General Court assembled, have learned with 
 profound sorrow and regret of the sudden death of Honorable Frederick 
 9 
 
130 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Douglass, ex-Uuited States Marshal at Washington, and ex-United States 
 Minister to Haiti, who, while not a native of Massachusetts, was a pro- 
 duct of her training. 
 
 /Resolved, That this Legislature attests its great appreciation of the 
 marked ability, which was shown in his rise from the low estate of his 
 birth to the height of one of the nation's counselors, his upright char- 
 acter and his lifelong, consecrated efforts to raise the race he was identi- 
 fied with to the highest pinnacle of American citizenship. 
 
 Resolved, That the Senate and House of Representatives tender to the 
 bereaved family their sincere sympathy, and that a copy, suitalily 
 engrossed, of these resolutions properly attested be forwarded by the Sec- 
 retary of the Commonwealth to the family of the deceased. 
 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 Adopted March i, 1S95. 
 
 Sent up for concurrence. 
 
 Edward A. McLaughlin, Clerk. 
 
 Senate. 
 Adopted in concurrence March 6, 1895. 
 
 Henry D. Coolidge, Clerk. 
 A true copy. 
 
 Attest :— Edward A. McLaughlin, 
 
 Clerk of the House of Represeittaiives. 
 
 The Social Literary Society of Amherstburg, 
 Canada. 
 
 Whereas, Divine Providence has closed the earthly career of that 
 great American, the Honorable Frederick Douglass, we, as members of 
 the Social Literary Society of the town of Amherstburg, Canada, add our 
 tribute to his memory as an orator, a statesman and a man of great 
 literary abilities. 
 
 And that we feel the loss of this brave advocate of liberty and justice, 
 who has had for so long the respect and love of his own race and the 
 praise of the entire people ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of the Honorable Frederick Douglass we 
 have lost a faithful advocate and a dauntless leader, and society one of its 
 brightest jewels. 
 
 Resolved, That as his career may easily find a place in the history of the 
 nation, we sincerely hope that his character will be studied by the youth 
 of to-day, and that tliey may ever look upon him as a light by which 
 they can be safely guided in all the efforts of life. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the family of the 
 deceased. 
 
 Ada Christian, President. 
 Fred. H. A. Davis, Chainnan. 
 
 Adopted March 6, 1S95. 
 
frederick douglasf!. 131 
 
 The Anti-Lynching Committee, of London, England. 
 13 Tavistock Square, 
 London, W. C, Eng., March 6, 1895. 
 To THE Hon. Mrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Dear Madam : At a meeting of the Anti-Lynching 
 Committee, held last Thnrsday, the following resolution 
 was carried amidst many expressions of sympathy and 
 regret : 
 
 That this Committee desire most respectfully to tender to Mrs. Freder- 
 ick Douglass an expression of- their warni sympathy in the irreparable 
 loss she has sustained in the death of her husband, the Honorable Freder- 
 ick Douglass ; also to place on record their sense of profound admiration 
 for the life, character and noble career of the veteran statesman to whose 
 unflinching courage, and determined loyalty to truth and justice, the 
 colored race owe so much. Most especially they deplore the loss of 
 his valuable counsels and eloquent aid by speech and pen, exposing the 
 barbarous crime of lynching practiced in some of the States of the Ameri- 
 can Union. 
 
 Permit me, dear madam, to add my own words of deep 
 sympathy and regret, and believe me, 
 
 Yours respectfully. 
 
 ''\A^J^.y<.^Ji^Ahc^JlA 
 
 cJLaa.x-x_ 
 
 Honorable Secretary. 
 
 Memorial Meeting of Colored Citizens of 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 Held at Allen Temple, in said city, on March 8, 1895. 
 
 Resolved, By the colored citizens of Cincinnati, in memorial meeting 
 assembled, that in the death of Frederick Douglass we lose a champion 
 of liberty, whose eloquence and whose energies were directed against 
 wrong and oppression ; our country, one of its most exemplary citizens 
 and a matchless orator ; and humanity, a servant instant in action, and 
 ever ready with pen and voice to plead for her cause. 
 
 His life history, epitomizing, as it does, the struggle of his indomitable 
 spirit of freedom and resistance to slavery, should be an inspiration to 
 
132 IN MEMOBIAM. 
 
 those who follow him, to struggle on with unconquerable spirit and hope 
 
 ever strong, until every vestige of thraldom is extinguished from the 
 
 manners, customs and laws of our country. 
 
 Resolved, That an engrossed copy of these resolutions be sent to the 
 
 family of the deceased. 
 
 Memorial Committee. 
 Thomas J. Monroe, 
 George H. Jackson, 
 Samuel W. Clark, 
 w. copeland, 
 Joseph L. Jones, 
 Willis S. Tisdale, 
 W. B. Ross, 
 Samdel B. Hill, 
 
 Chairman, 
 
 The Woman's Loyal Union of the City of New York, 
 in memoriam. 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased the Great Liberator of Man to call from 
 earthly thraldom the heroic leader of the negro race, the lamented 
 Frederick Douglass, who, rising from the environment of slavery and 
 surmounting the obstacles that beset him in consequence of such a con- 
 dition, made himself to be a citizen of culture, intelligence and broad general 
 knowledge, and one who, even when nearing his life's end, was devoting 
 his waning hours to the cause of the emancipation of woman ; therefore 
 be it 
 
 Resolved, That we, the members of the Woman's Loyal Union, deplore 
 the loss of this great soul, for the deeds which have made his name 
 illustrious and the influence he has always exerted among us. Born a 
 slave as he was, with a master mind, even in his youth thir.sting for 
 knowledge, and contriving ingenious means to acquire its first principles, 
 with a spirit that chafed under the restraint of oppression and struggled 
 to be free ; he fled to freedom, and out of his own experience told the 
 story of the cruelties and injustice of slavery to large audiences in the 
 North, making himself one of the greatest of orators. 
 
 Resolved, That we, in our great sorrow for the bereavement that has 
 visited the family of the Honorable Frederick Douglass, do express to 
 them the conviction that with them a nation mourns the loss of one of 
 its noblest sons, and that time, which overcometh all things, and alone 
 can bring together the separated, may assuage their poignant grief, and 
 lead them to hail with joy a future which will bring the mutually beloved 
 together again, in a sweet and endless reunion. 
 
 Resolved, That we, as a people, owe much of the success of the anti- 
 slavery cause to his participation in the work, both here and in England, 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 133 
 
 where he traveled, speaking for the slave and winning for him friends, 
 whose example obtains to this day upon all questions relative to the good 
 of the race in this country. 
 
 Resolved, That we appreciate his life for an enthusiastic devotion to his 
 race in every way ; in politics, in State affairs, in eloquently denouncing 
 the iniquitous lynching of the Southeni negro, and in manifesting his 
 unabated ardor to serve his people, even at the moment when death, the 
 messenger, called this noble heart up higher. 
 
 Resolved^ That his life throughout has been such as to command tht 
 respect and admiration of his race and of all races, euabling him to be 
 appointed to such positions of honor as United States Marshal, Recorder 
 of Deeds, and United States Minister tn Haiti, and fully entitling him to 
 be a leader of his people. 
 
 Resolved, That believing the greatest glory of any people is to transmit 
 a love of freedom to their children, we hereby pledge ourselves to hand 
 down to successive generations a knowledge of the life and deeds of this 
 brave and fearless advocate of liberty, who has gone from his earthl}- 
 home. He deserved fame and he had it. 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be engrossed and presented 
 to the family of the deceased, and also inscribed upon the record books 
 of the Union. 
 
 Victoria Matthews, President. 
 
 Katie V. Carmand, Cor. Secretaty. 
 
 Florence r. Ray, 
 
 Mary T. Tato, 
 
 J. Imogen Howard, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 The Cherry Street Baptist Church, 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God, in His wise Providence, to 
 remove from our midst, by the hand of death, the great leader of our 
 race, the great self-made man, Frederick Douglass, a man emerging from 
 the degradation of slavery and, by his own exertions and persevering 
 zeal in the pursuit of freedom and human rights, rising to the topmo.st 
 height of consideration and manhood, despite untold opposition and 
 obstacles ; furnishing the grandest illustration of the capabilities and de- 
 velopment of the colored race ; filling the positions of editor, elector-at- 
 large, United States Marshal, United States Recorder of Deeds for the 
 District of Columbia, and Uuited States Minister, with a fidelity peculiar 
 to our race, and honored by the world at large ; be it therefore 
 
 Resolved, That we, as citizens and as members of the Cherry Street 
 Baptist Church, in common with the people at large, while mourning the 
 great loss the race and country have sustained, hereby extend to the 
 
134 AV ME3I0RIAM. 
 
 bereaved widow and children our heartfelt sjTnpathies and, with this 
 slight tribute of appreciation of his great worth and services, commend 
 them to the care and guidance of the great Master who, through all 
 these long years of labor and toil, steadily lead him on to victory. 
 
 Theo. Dwight Miller, D. D., Pastor. 
 
 Richard B. Dennis, Clerk. 
 
 The Colored Citizens of Urbana, Ohio. 
 
 Whereas, The Almighty, in His wise Providence, has seen fit to 
 remove to his eternal rest that eminent representative of the negro race. 
 Honorable Frederick Douglass, whose name and history stand prominent 
 in every city, town and village of our land ; known as a slave, freeman, 
 orator and diplomat ; and 
 
 Whereas, It is highly proper that we should now, publicly, record the 
 sentiments and feelings which we, the members of his race, bear toward 
 him, and that we should give permanent testimony of our appreciation of 
 his character and of the loss which we sustain by his death ; therefore 
 
 Resolved, By us, the colored citizens of the city of Urbana, State of 
 Ohio, that we recognize, in the life and history of our eminent and 
 highly honored representative, the late Honorable Frederick Douglass, 
 the qualities and capacities with which the Creator has endowed our 
 race ; and that in his patient struggle with adverse circumstances ; his 
 resignation to the yoke of a criminal slavery ; his self-secured freedom ; 
 his incalculable service in helping his fellow men to secure freedom from 
 that slavery ; his career as an orator and statesman ; and in his record as 
 a man he has erected for himself a monument which entitles him to the 
 reverence and respect of all mankind. 
 
 Resolved, That his example constitutes a bright and shining beacon for 
 his people, and that he has made, by his persistent efforts, a plain path 
 that all may follow, to the respect and esteem of their fellow citizens. 
 
 Resolved, That in his death, we, with his family, his friends, his race 
 and his country, have been deprived of a friend whose s)-mpathy, in every 
 need, was as warm and generous, and whose prudence and business ability 
 were as unequalled, as his private and family life were stainless and pure. 
 
 Resolved, That we tender the family our sympathy in this, their great 
 bereavement. 
 
 Resolved, That this preamble and these resolutions be spread at large 
 in our city daily papers, and that a copy be sent to his afflicted family. 
 Lewis C. Sheafe, 
 Isaiah Buckney, 
 William H. Stewart, 
 
 Comtnittee. 
 
 Adopted March il, 1895. 
 
frederick douglass. 135 
 
 The Colored Citizens of Elmira, N. Y. 
 
 Whereas, We hav^e learned of the majesty and power of Almighty 
 God by the solemn dispensation of His providence in removing from our 
 midst onr noble and esteemed brother, Frederick Donglass, therefore 
 
 Resolved, That, while we mourn the loss, as those only mourn who 
 have lost a valuable friend and companion, and although we esteem him 
 as the brightest ornament of the Afro-American race, yet we will, with 
 feelings of composure and resignation, bow before the divine mandate 
 which has so suddenly dissolved those ties by which we were so long and 
 so pleasantly associated with him, possessing the assurance that our loss 
 is his gain, and believing that in Him who possesses the wisdom and 
 power to bestow rests also the inherent right and justice to deprive. 
 
 Resolved, That although the once familiar form of our distinguished 
 friend now lies lifeless in the tomb, and he can never again associate with 
 us, yet we will ever cherish, as sacred to his memory, his wise counsel in all 
 the affairs of our race, and we will treasure in fond remembrance his fra- 
 ternal affection, his modest and unyielding integrity, and his strict devotion 
 to our welfare as a people, which principles gave character to his professions 
 and practice, and were truly exemplary and worthy the emulation of all. 
 
 Resolved, That to the wife and family and to that once bright and 
 happy circle of which he was a shining light, and from which he has 
 been so suddenly removed, we, citizens of Elmira, N. Y., do offer these 
 united but feeble expressions of the sorrow and regret which pervades 
 our hearts in their behalf The loss of such a husband and father is irre- 
 parable, and for consolation we commend them to Him who is a husband 
 to the widow and a father to the fatherless, and who is the giver of all 
 good. May they meet their loved one in that boundless realm where 
 loved ones know no parting. 
 
 We can also truly say, " Surely a great man has fallen in Israel to-day ! " 
 
 Resolved, That as a token of respect to the memory of our departed 
 brother, Frederick Douglass, we hold memorial services in our several 
 churches, and that a copy of these resolutions be transmitted to the family 
 of the deceased and also to the press. 
 
 JUDSON Moore, President. 
 -Steven Clark, Chainnan. 
 Simeon Turner, .Secretarv. 
 
 Adopted March 12, 1S95. 
 
 The Seventh Ward Republican Club, of 
 Providence, R. I. 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased the Father of the Universe to remove from us 
 one of our most beloved friends and our brother, I'rederick Douglass, and 
 
 Whereas, In remembrance of the great and noble deeds done for the 
 sake of humanity and freedom by the lamented Frederick Douglass, we 
 
136 /.V MEMORIAM. 
 
 tlcem it appropriate that we place on record our appreciation of him as 
 one of the race and one of the greatest of men ; therefore 
 
 A'fso/zifd, That we, the members of this club, though we humbly bow 
 before the Giver of all good, do not the less mourn the loss of our great 
 friend who has been called from labor to his reward. 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Frederick Douglass the race loses a 
 great upright hero and a friend to be remembered by the nation. 
 
 Resolved, That this club tenders its greatest sympathy to the family and 
 friends in their great loss of the husband, father and friend — Frederick 
 Douglass. 
 
 BENj.iiMiN Taylor, President. 
 Ch.\rles H. Thompson, Secretary. 
 
 Adopted March 15, 1S95. 
 
 The Colored Republican Association of the 
 State of New York. 
 
 Where.\s, It has pleased God to remove from this earth, one whom 
 we, as a race, all love and honor for his good deeds ; be it therefore 
 
 Resolved, That we, the members of the Colored Republican Associa- 
 tion of the State of New York, have, with feelings of profound sorrow 
 and regret, learned of the death of the Honorable Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Resolved, That, in the death of the Honorable Frederick Douglass, 
 the colored people of this country are called upon to mourn the loss of 
 the champion and leader of their race, a high-minded patriot and citizen, 
 whose name must be added to the roll of distinguished heroes, and whose 
 fame and services in contending for the freedom, rights and liberties of 
 his race, a grateful people will ever faithfully cherish. 
 
 The nation, now free and united, owes to its brave defenders, living 
 and dead, a debt of gratitude. 
 
 " Though parted then, we now are one : 
 One now in love, not hate, — 
 One people and one State." 
 
 Resolved, That we recognize, in the Honorable Frederick Douglass, all 
 those admirable qualities and finer sensibilities which cluster about the 
 heart of a true gentleman, and which go so far in making up a leader, 
 a patriot and a hero. He took up the cause of the freedom and liberty 
 of Ins race, while handicapped with the shackles of slavery, and boldly 
 and fiercely showed to his oppressors, the wTongs and injuries which they 
 were inflicting on his race, and through his whole career he displayed 
 such courage and sagacity, and such brilliant oratorical and debating 
 abilities, in opposition to hisopposers, as to win for himself a world-wide 
 reputation, and a conspicuous position among our most highly honored 
 and distinguished statesmen. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 137 
 
 JUcso/fcd, That the members of the Colored Republican Association 
 of the State of New York, extend their warmest sympathies to the 
 widow and family of the late Frederick Douglass, in this, their hour of 
 sorrow and affliction. 
 
 Alfred C. Cowan, Presidctit. 
 
 J. Newton Benedict, Secretary. 
 
 James R. Braxton, 
 
 E. V. C. Raton, 
 
 F. II. Carmand. 
 
 Cotnmittee. 
 Adopted March 23, 1S95. 
 
 The Progressive Republican Cltb, of Xenia, Ohio. 
 
 Whereas, Frederick Douglass, the great statesman and leader, has 
 been called to his long home, and to his reward; and 
 
 Whereas, His distinguished career has been a blessing to mankind 
 and an honor to God, therefore 
 
 Resolved, That the Progressive Republican Club, and citizens of Xenia, 
 sincerely deplore his death and will ever perpetuate his memory and 
 emulate his good deeds. 
 
 Resolved, That we extend to his family our sympathy and our recog- 
 nition of his greatness. 
 Resolved. That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to his family. 
 J. M. Summers, 
 J. W. Crosby, 
 Charles Russell. 
 Adopted March 21, 1895. 
 
 The Frederick Douglass Lyceum, of Memphis, Tenn. 
 
 Memphis, Tenn., April 4, 1895. 
 IMrs. Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Madam: At a meeting of the Frederick Douglass Ly- 
 ceum, of Memphis, Tenn., held March 11, 1895, ^he ac- 
 companying resolutions were offered and adopted, and the 
 corresponding secretary was instructed to forward the 
 same to the widow and relatives of the late Frederick 
 Douglass. 
 
 Yours in sorrow, 
 F. D. Cassels, Corresponding Secretary. 
 
138 lf>^ MEMOniAM. 
 
 Whereas, The Honorable Frederick Douglass, one of the greatest 
 philosophers, orators and statesmen of the nineteenth century, has de- 
 parted this life, and 
 
 Whereas, In honor of his character and to perpetuate his name. The 
 Frederick Douglass Lyceum, of Memphis, Tenn., was established; there- 
 fore be it 
 
 Resolved, That the above-named association hereby tender to the 
 family and relatives of the illustrious dead, its condolence, and share 
 with them their bereavement in this, their hour of sad affliction; and be 
 it further 
 
 Resolved, That these resolutions be spread upon the minutes of this 
 association, and that a copy thereof be furnished the Watchman and 
 Christian Herald, for publication. 
 
 N. H. Pins, 
 
 President. 
 R. E. Driver, 
 
 Secretary. 
 F. D. Cassels, 
 Corresponding Secretary. 
 
 The Dr. Simmons Pioneer Lyceum, Providence, R. I. 
 
 Providence, R. I., April 9, 1S95. 
 Mrs. Helen Douglass, Anacostia, D. C. 
 
 Dear Madam: Please accept a copy of the resolutions 
 adopted by tlie Dr. Simmons Pioneer Lyceum, of Provi- 
 dence, R. I., as a token of respect to the late Honorable 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 W. H. Carter, 
 
 President. 
 
 G. H. KiBLEY, 
 
 M. N. Overton, 
 
 Conimiltec. 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased the all- wise God, the Ruler of the Universe, 
 to remove from our midst, the Honorable Frederick Douglass, and 
 
 Whereas, He was a heroic champion of truth and justice, a deter- 
 mined assailant of falsehood and wrong; one who, to the greatest e\-ils 
 which afflicted our race and country, gave no quarter, and 
 
 Whereas, He aimed his sword at the heart of the enemj', and fought 
 for nothing less than the complete and eternal overtlirow of the evils of 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 139 
 
 our nation (called by Garrison, Phillips and Sumner, a compact with 
 hell, and a covenant with sin and death); therefore 
 
 Rcsoli-cd, That, with gratitude to God, we place on record our highest 
 esteem of the character of our departed leader, one who nobly repre- 
 sented his race, his nation and his country, in State and national affairs. 
 
 Kesolvcd, That, while we bow before God's altar, in humble submission 
 to the will of our Heavenly Father, we realize that we, as a race, have 
 suffered an irreparable loss in the death of Honorable Frederick Doug- 
 lass, who was endowed with extraordinary powers; invincible in argu- 
 ment and captivating in oratory. 
 
 Resolved, That these resolutions be spread on the minutes of this 
 lyceum, and placed on file. 
 
 Resolved. That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the family 
 of the deceased, and that a copy be sent for publication to the iXe:u 
 York Age, hidiayiapolis Fyceinan, Boston Courant, Ne^u England 
 Torchlight and the Republican Sun. 
 
 WixUAM H. Carter, President. 
 J. D. Fisher, Secretary. 
 W. H. Carter, 
 
 G. H. KiBLEV, 
 
 M. \V. Overton, 
 
 Committee on Resolutions. 
 
 The Miner Institution for the Education of 
 Colored Youth. 
 
 " The Elsmere," 
 Washington, D. C, April 9, 1895. 
 My dear Mrs. Dougl.vss: 
 
 At the regular meeting of the corporators of the Institu- 
 tion for the Education of Colored Youth, held on the sixth 
 instant (the first since the death of Mr. Douglass), the 
 enclosed testimonial was read and placed on record, and I 
 was directed to forward a copy of the same to 3'ou. 
 
 I would like to add my personal sympathy for you in 
 your bereavement. 
 
 Very sincerely, 
 
 E. J. Brigham. 
 
 The corporators of the Miner Institution for the Education of Colored 
 Youth, being impressed with profound sorrow by the death of one 
 of their number, the Honorable Frederick Douglass, place upon their 
 
1-iO IN MEMORUM. 
 
 records this minute, as a testimonial of the high esteem iu which they 
 hold their late colleague. His remarkable history from a slave boy to 
 the position of ' ' foremost man of his race, ' ' a title given him by common 
 consent, his eminent abilities, exalted character, Christian principles, 
 and his general courtesy, won the respect and admiration of all who 
 knew him. His fidelity to the trust reposed in him as a member of this 
 board, his intelligent views and wise counsels, and his earnest purpose to 
 do all in his power for the advancement of the youth of his race, entitle 
 him to their lasting gratitude. 
 
 His surviving colleagues will ever cherish pleasant memories of their 
 association with the most remarkable and interesting man of his race 
 and time. 
 
 The secretary is requested to transmit a copy of the foregoing to the 
 family of the deceased. 
 
 Rev. Rush R. Shippen, 
 S. A. Bond, 
 Henry RI. B.a^ker, 
 Henry P. Montgomery, 
 
 J. O. WlWON, 
 
 Caroline B. Winslow, 
 Emily J. Brigham, 
 Mary J. Stroud. 
 
 The Instructors of Howard University, 
 Washington, D. C. 
 At a meeting called to take action on the death of Mr. 
 Douglass the following were presented and unanimously 
 adopted : 
 
 Resolved, That in the death of Honorable Frederick Douglass, LL. D., 
 the great Afro-American orator and anti-slavery agitator, and for years 
 one of the trustees of this university, this period in history has lost one, 
 who, in many respects, was its most remarkable character ; a man, whose 
 life of seventy-seven years embraced the most wonderful contrasts and 
 paradoxes ; having in his veins the blood of two alienated races, and yet 
 honored by both ; born a slave in JIaryland, and yet advanced to public 
 jiositions at home and abroad, such as fall to the lot of few mortals ; 
 living iu a period of great civil upheavals, of which the Afro-American 
 race was the central interest and problem, and yet retaining his loyalty 
 to a government that long hesitated what should be done with 3,000,000 
 of his fellow bondmen ; having had no advantage of schools, and yet 
 always welcomed as an equal into the society of cultivated men and 
 women all over the world ; a man, whose patience in tribulation, whose 
 modesty and dignity in successes, whose forgiving spirit and heart 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 141 
 
 of courage, as well as whose personal attainments and public services, 
 make it proper to classify him as wholly worthy of the confidence and 
 society of such men as Garrison and Sumner, as Lincoln and Grant, in a 
 crisis when America had to serve her a breed of her noblest and greatest 
 statesmen and soldiers ; a man, whose rise anil elevation are another 
 proof that moral greatness, consistent purpose, and just and fair dealing 
 with men and measures, and trust in the living God cannot go witliout 
 earthly reward. 
 
 "A hero high above revenge or greed. 
 Forbidding bloodshed and restraining hate. 
 Chiding and shuuniug every threat of crime, 
 Not rash, but patient, knowing well indeed 
 That Justice, being blind, must therefore wait, 
 And cannot come, except as led by Time." 
 
 Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted, with the 
 expression of our deepest sympath}-, to Mrs. Douglass, the widow, and 
 to the children of the deceased. 
 
 The Citizen.s of Madisox, Ixd. 
 
 Madison, Ind., March 4, 1895. 
 Mrs. Douglass. 
 
 Dear Madam: On Febrtiary 27, memorial exercises 
 were held in one of the largest assembly halls, to honor the 
 memory of Honorable Frederick Douglass. 
 
 It was decided, by unanimous vote, to forward to you 
 and family a copy of the memorial prepared by the 
 committee, which copy I now send, thus carrying out the 
 directions of that vast assembly. 
 
 Respectfulh-, 
 
 Faustin S. Delany. 
 In Memori.\m. 
 
 We stand to^iay in the shadow of a blighting gloom. A mighty one 
 has fallen. The great tongue, so eloquent in its pleadings for the race, 
 is stilled forever. The watchman on the bulwark of liberty is no more. 
 The great sympathetic heart has ceased to pulsate. That lofty spirit has 
 burst its bonds of claj-, and has gone to mingle with those who sing a 
 song angels cannot sing — the song of the redeemed. 
 
 An all-wise Providence has set the limit to his sojouni among men. 
 We question not its wisdom. We submit to its will. 
 
142 IN MKMOKIAM. 
 
 In Frederick Douglass we recoguize a man of great ability combined 
 with rare and unequaled courage. Undaunted, he struggled under the 
 clouds of slavery to liberate a race, until, after years of oppression, free- 
 dom came, and with it the blessings of equality. 
 
 In the great progress made since then his efforts have been appreciated 
 and his services rewarded with high offices of honor and power, in each 
 of which he performed his duties in a manner that elevated his standing 
 and endeared him to his countrymen. 
 
 For half a centurj- he has been a unique, central figure in the United 
 States; a man whose life and vi-orksare a part of its history, and whose 
 character has left its impress upon the character of the nation. 
 
 By his strength of will, indomitable courage and pure integrity, he has 
 shown to the world that all that goes to make the true man is to be found 
 in an ebon casket as well as in one of alabaster. 
 
 Mr. Douglass was a true and tried friend, a manly man, a worthy 
 leader, an illustrious character ; and his name will go down as one cele- 
 brated in history. 
 
 Mr. Douglass was more than a hero. He possessed the requisites for a 
 martyr ; for, while he did not besprinkle the shrine of liberty with his 
 life-blood, he risked his all in freedom's cause. 
 
 He was transcendent in his eloquence ; one moment convulsing his 
 audience with laughter, the next arousing a storm of opposition and then 
 arguing down that opposition. He would reach down into the depths of 
 the hearts of his listeners, steal into their sympathies and move them to 
 tears. Nay, he could annihilate time, the true test of the orator. 
 
 Who so strong to battle against the wrongs of the race? Who so 
 broad to command the attention of the world in the recital of those 
 wrongs ? 
 
 But Mr. Douglass is not merely an example. He is an object lesson. 
 He shows the possibilities of the race. 
 
 We thank God for giving to the world such a lofty character. We 
 shall ever honor the name of Frederick Douglass. 
 
 The Citizens of Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 At the meeting of the citizens of Philadelphia, held at 
 the Academy of Music, April 15, 1895, the following were 
 adopted : 
 
 Whereas, The Divine Ruler of all things has, in his infinite wisdom, 
 been pleased to call from among us, Frederick Douglass, the eminent 
 and patriotic citizen, the gifted, eloquent and consistent champion of 
 freedom and even-handed justice to all men ; and 
 
FEEDKRICK DOUGLASS. 143 
 
 Whereas, His death comes to each one of us as a sad personal bereave- 
 meut and overwhelms us all with a deep sense of grief which we can 
 only with difficulty express ; be it therefore 
 
 Resolved, That although we mouru his loss with unspeakable sorrow, 
 we yet find consolation in the remembrance of his loyal services to 
 humanity, his high standards of manhood, and his faithful consecration 
 of great talents and mar\'elous endowments to noble purposes. 
 
 Resolved, That wdiile it may be said in general that the world is made 
 better by the life of every great and good man such as he was, we aflnrm 
 our belief in particular that the power of Mr. Douglass' personality, and 
 his masterful appeals to the conscience and the understanding of the 
 nation and of mankind, had an important bearing in the evolution which 
 brought about the emancipation and enfranchisement of millions of his 
 countrymen. 
 
 Resolved, That his honorable and unswerving devotion to the interests 
 of the least favored of Americans, with whom he was especially identified, 
 his remarkable moral strength which never forsook him, his unblemished 
 good name, to which we point with pride, his unfailing good sense, his 
 modesty and dignity of character, his habitual and unvarying subordina- 
 tion of all mere impulse and passion to good reason and to that which is 
 best, his untiring industry which led to lasting achievements, display 
 qualities which merit and command our unqualified admiration, and we 
 cannot too strongly commend them to the youth of our land as altogether 
 worthy of their highest emulation. 
 
 Resolved, That, in bowing in humble submission to the Divine will, we 
 have felt moved from the bottom of our hearts to add this, our tribute, to 
 the many testimonies of respect and grateful remembrance which have 
 been made manifest all over our own land and have passed beyond the 
 oceans ; and we extend our siucerest sympathy to the family of the 
 deceased, whose name we will honor aiid whose memorj- we will cherish 
 to the end. 
 
 E. D. Bassett, 
 Chairman of Coiniiiillee on Resolnliotis. 
 
 The Assembly Club, of S.\n Francisco, Cal. 
 The members of the Assembly Chib, of San Fraucisco, 
 realizing the fact that in the death of the Honorable 
 Frederick Douglass, the United States of America have lost 
 a citizen, patriot and statesman, whose labors for the cause of 
 humanity ranked him as first among the great philanthropists 
 of the age, do hereby offer the following resolutions : 
 
 Whereas, It has pleased the Almighty, in His infinite wisdom, to 
 from the field of his labor, one who, during his life, was a most 
 
144 IX ME MORI AM. 
 
 able exponeut and a most indefatigable worker for the cause of liberty 
 and the elevation of humanity ; and 
 
 Whereas, lu the death of the Honorable Frederick Douglass, our 
 race has lost a friend, champion and leader, in whom were blended those 
 elements of superior individuality so essential to the success of a race 
 leader ; therefore be it 
 
 Resolved, That the colored citizens of California mourn the death of 
 the late Honorable Frederick Douglass, and that they regard his loss as a 
 national calamity, coming, as it does, at a time when the cause of our 
 race can illy atTord to lose his services ; and be it further 
 
 Resolved, That the colored citizens of San Francisco, in memorial 
 service assembled, do hereby extend to his bereaved family their deepest 
 sympathy for their great loss, and the loss which all liberty-loving citizens 
 of the United States suffer through his death. 
 
 John C. Rivers. President. 
 G. W. Henriques, Secretary. 
 
 The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the 
 
 Abolition of Slavery. 
 The following tribute was paid to the memory of Mr. 
 Douglass, at a public meeting of the Society, held at 
 Friends' Meeting House, Philadelphia, in April, 1895: 
 
 We would be doing less than our duty, and far less than our feelings 
 prompt us to do, were we not, on this occasion, to send to the bereaved 
 family of Frederick Douglass, some expression of our deep sympathy 
 with, and of our high admiration of, his character ; our sincere affection 
 for him and our appreciation of his life-work in behalf of his race and for 
 human freedom and the rights of man. 
 
 Seldom, if ever, was there a greater contrast in the life of a human 
 being, than is found in that of this illustrious character. Bom a slave, 
 denied an education, as he was denied his freedom, yet obtaining both by 
 his own exertions. Poor, yet free, he asserted his manhood and devel- 
 oped his genius. Ten years after being a slave, we find him in the 
 editorial chair of the A'oiih Star, and on the platform an orator of rare 
 ability and wonderful magnetic power. From a slave, he came to be 
 United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, and United States 
 Minister to Haiti ; efficient, admired, beloved ! Let young men learn by 
 this masterpiece of energ>', what can be done by individual effort and 
 determined will ! 
 
 Let governments take heed, and never enslave a human being, for they 
 know not the possibilities they are oppressing ! Let mankind every- 
 where rejoice that, in the triumphs of this man over all the disadvantages 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 145 
 
 of slavery, of caste, of persecution and of cruelty, God's great law has 
 been vindicated, that " He is no respecter of persons," and that "right- 
 eousness endureth forever." 
 
 Frederick Douglass was a member of this society, and one of its faithful 
 supporters, and, whenever possible, was with us in our arduous labors. 
 The powerful appeals he made for, not only freedom from chattel slavery, 
 but for the broadest liberty for the rights of conscience and the inalien- 
 able rights of man, will never be forgotten, but will be forever held 
 sacred, and we gratefully testify our appreciation of a life that has made 
 grander the history, not only of our country and our lives, but of the 
 world. 
 
 Signed on behalf of the Society, 
 
 WlLIJ.\M Stii.i,. 
 
 / Ice- President. 
 W. Heacock, 
 JcsEPH M. Trum.^n, Jr., 
 Secretaries. 
 
poems anb Sonnets. 
 
POEMS AND SONNETS. 
 
 SONNETS TO THE MEMORY OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 BY THEODORE TILTON. 
 
 A Career Unique. 
 
 The celebrated American orator, Frederick Douglass, died in Washington, D. C, 
 February 20, 1S95, aged seventy-eight years. 
 
 He was born a slave in Maryland, 1S17. 
 
 He escaped to Massachusetts, 1838. 
 
 He founded an anti-slavery newspaper, Rochester, N. Y., 1847. 
 
 He addressed anti-slavery meetings in the Northern States and in Great Britain 
 with powerful eloquence for twenty-five years. 
 
 He raised for President Lincoln two regiments of negro troops (the Massachusetts 
 Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth), 1863. 
 
 He was appointed by President Grant to the San Domingo Commission, 1871. 
 
 He was chosen Presidential elector-at-large for the State of New York, 1872. 
 
 He was made Marshal of the District of Columbia by President Hayes, 1881. 
 
 He was Recorder of Deeds, Washington, under Presidents Garfield and Arthur. 
 
 He was sent by President Harrison to Haiti as United States Minister, 1889. 
 
 He died in Washington (as above mentioned) and was buried at his old home, 
 Rochester, N. Y., in Mount Hope Cemetery, with unusual public honors. 
 
 The following sonnets to his memory were written in Paris, France, immediately 
 after his funeral ; 
 
 I. 
 
 I knew tbe noblest giants of my day, 
 
 .'Vnd he was o/thein — strong amid the strong : 
 But gentle, too : for though he suffered wrong, 
 
 Yet the wrong-doer never heard him say 
 
 " Thee also do I hate. " . . . 
 
 A lover's lay — 
 No dirge — no doleful requiem song — 
 Is what I owe him, for I loved him long ; 
 
 As dearly as a younger brother may. 
 
 Proud is the happy grief with which I sing; 
 For, O my Countri,' ! in the paths of men 
 There never walked a grander man than he ! 
 (1-19) 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 He was a peer of princes — yea a king ! 
 Crowned in the shambles and the prison-pen ! 
 The noblest Slave that ever God set free ! 
 
 II. 
 Too many a man is honored overmuch ! 
 
 The worthiest souls are ever scarce and few ; 
 
 And ere we crown them (if at last we do) 
 They first are outcasts whom we shrink to touch ! 
 
 From squalid Bethlehem came one of such, 
 Born in a manger, and, to human view, 
 A beggar — yet whom kings did homage to, 
 
 While cattle stood in stalls about His hutch ! 
 
 How does it happen that, in every clime, 
 When any groaning nation of the earth 
 Hath need of some new leader of a race, 
 Or some true prophet of a better time, 
 
 The Heavens elect him for his lowly birth, 
 Ere they uplift him to his lofty place ? 
 
 III. 
 I answer: He must first be taught to know — 
 
 (I say to know, and not to guess) — how real 
 
 Is all the misery which he hopes to heal ! 
 The high may show a kindness to the low : 
 Some wealthy lord is generous— be it so : 
 
 Yet who except the poor and pinched can feel 
 
 Their pang of poverty ? . . . 
 
 So for their weal, 
 They need a champion who has borne their woe ! 
 
 As the Arabian pearl, beneath the brine. 
 Lies hid, and frets and chafes within its shell, 
 Till by its torment it grows bright and pure,— 
 So an illustrious spirit, boni to shine. 
 
 Must first in some dim depth of sorrow dwell, 
 And have a wholesome anguish to endure ! 
 
 IV. 
 Be glad, O heart of mine ! and dance and leap 
 
 At all these funeral honours paid thy friend ! 
 
 This lengthened pageantry, so slow to end ! 
 These crape-hung flags ! these many eyes that weep ! 
 
FREDEEICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 These cannon, loud enough to wake his sleep ! 
 
 These bells that with the trumpets interblend ! 
 
 These published praises, eloquently penned ! 
 All telling of an homage wide and deep. 
 Not since our Land of Liberty was young, 
 When fiery Otis passed away in flame,* 
 
 And Patrick Henry's burning lips grew cold, 
 Hath mortal silence hushed a braver tongue 
 Thau of this Bondman, who, in Freedom's name, 
 
 Spake (like the Byzantine) with 'mouth of gold.' f 
 
 I ask myself, Was it a dreadful dream ?^ 
 A wild, disordered vision of the night? — 
 That the fair Country of my dear delight, 
 
 The patriot's paradise, the exile's theme. 
 
 The Land of Lands, where Freedom reigns supreme, 
 Should once have dared, in God's offended sight, 
 To sin so great a sin aganist the light 
 
 That, to atone for it, a living stream 
 
 Of human blood flowed as a holocaust. 
 Till every household had a soldier slain ! 
 
 — O tardy Nation, slow agen to learn ! 
 Let not thy former lesson now be lost ! 
 
 For now thy Northern millions toil in vain ! 
 Beware ! Deny them not the bread they earn ! 
 
 VL 
 
 Shall there be Hunger in a Land of Corn ? 
 
 Then if — (shut out from idle null and mine) — 
 
 Come the bold beggars forth in battle-line, 
 Armed and in fury, answering scorn with scorn — 
 Oh who shall lead them in their Hope Forlorn ? 
 
 How shall they know him ? How shall they divine 
 
 Their true deliverer ? I will tell the sign ! 
 Let him be like the man whom now we mourn ! — 
 A hero high above revenge or greed. 
 
 Forbidding bloodshed and restraining hate 
 
 Chiding and shaming every threat of crime — 
 Not rash, but patient, knowing well indeed 
 That Justice, being blind, must therefore wait 
 
 And cannot come except as led by Time ! 
 
 vill be remembered that James Otis was killed by lightning. t Chrysostom. 
 
IX MEMO RI AM. 
 
 VII. 
 
 I shout for joy — here on this foreign coast, 
 
 Far distant from this sad, obsequious scene — 
 To know that now, in everlasting green. 
 
 His name shall be his Country's future boast ! 
 
 For now the vipers who once hissed him most, 
 
 And stung him with their venom, vile and mean, 
 
 (Worse than the lash ! — although the lash was keen) 
 
 All praise him ! . . . 
 
 Heed them not, O gentle ghost ! 
 For Spartacus awaits thee, I am sure. 
 
 To bid thee welcome ! So, I ween, doth he — 
 That mighty spirit of the Spanish Main, 
 Hero and martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture ! — 
 Yet greater glory is reserved for thee ! 
 
 For lo ! thy laurels have no bloody stain ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A friendship is a hallowed thing ! . . . To-day, 
 In looking back on this of his and mine 
 (Which bears a date as old as 'Auld Lang Syne ' — 
 
 Ere yet a hair of either head was gray) — 
 
 A life-long love ! — what tribute shall I pay 
 To such a comrade ? Others may entwine 
 Their ivy-wTeaths and lay them on his shrine, — 
 
 But / am thrice a thousand miles away. 
 
 I hope he missed me from the mournful march — 
 For /, of all his lovers, loved him best : 
 And love is jealous; and I envy those 
 Who bore him through his last triumphal arch. 
 And up the frosty hillside to his rest. 
 With all the North to wrap him in its snows ! 
 
 IX. 
 
 I knew him to the core: so it is /, — 
 
 And not the many who belaud his name. 
 Not knowing him save only by his fame, — 
 
 Yes, it is mine to speak and testify 
 
 What well I know: how sacred, pure and high 
 Was the sublime and solitarj' aim 
 Which, like the Pillar of the Cloud and Flame, 
 
 He chose (like Israel) to be guided by ! 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 Chief of his tribe, he centered in his soul — 
 As their evangel — all their hopes and fears ! 
 — Through all his lifetime, as their wisest head, 
 He planned to lead them to some happy goal ! 
 (How they will lack him in the coming years, 
 And wish him back among them, from the dead !) 
 
 X. 
 
 I knew his latch-string — it hung always out ! 
 
 I knew his books, ou which he loved to pore : 
 His Eible — {no man ever read it more ! *)— 
 
 His Izak Walton on Religious Doubt 
 
 (And how to settle it by catching trout !) — 
 
 His Shakespeare (with a bust above the door f) — 
 His Talmud — and the never-tiring lore 
 
 Which takes a Thousand Nights to tell about. 
 
 And much he loved to con the Concord Sage, 
 And Hawthorne's Hester and the Quaker Bard, 
 And Uncle Tom (the " Cabin " and the " Key ") — 
 And sometimes he would even read a page 
 From this poor pen of mine — not for regard 
 Of my dull verses, but for love of nte / 
 
 XI. 
 
 A wistful loneliness was in his look ; 
 
 For thus he ever bore upon his face 
 
 (As in his heart) the sorrows of his race : 
 And yet he gaily — in the walks we took — 
 Would stop and chatter to a chattering brook. 
 
 And mimic all the creatures of the place. 
 
 And buzz in sharps, and croak in double bass. 
 And caw in semi-quavers like the rook ! 
 
 Not one of Nature's voices (he declared) — 
 Whether of beast, or bird, or wind, or wave — 
 Had ever chid him for his sable hue ! 
 His fellow-men — and these alone — had dared. 
 With cruel taunt, to say to him "Thou Slave !" 
 (And were the only brutes he ever knew !) 
 
 * speaking of his slave-life in Baltimore, he says in his Autobiography, " I have gath- 
 ered scattered pages of the Bible from the filthy street-gutters, and have washed and 
 dried them, that in moments of leisure Imight get a word or two of wisdom from them." 
 
 t This house was in Rochester. N. Y., and was burned in 1S72 — with all the books 
 and busts. 
 
IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 XII. 
 
 He oft would bask, through all a winter's eve, 
 Before his yule-log, till the fire was low ; 
 
 And in his talk, with all his mind aglow, 
 What wit and wisdom he would iuteriveave ! 
 It was a hearthstone I was loth to leave ! 
 
 — Alack ! I thither nevermore shall go ! 
 
 — So, though my song is not a wail of woe, 
 Yet such a thought is sombre — and I grieve. 
 
 Keen was his satire ; but the flashing blade. 
 Instead of poison on the biting steel, 
 Bore on its edge a balsam of a kind 
 Wliereby the very wouud the weapon made 
 Was at the very moment sure to heal , 
 And nevermore to leave a scar behind. 
 
 XIII. 
 If love of music be a mortal sin 
 
 (As certain of the saints are wont to say). 
 
 He was a sinner to his dying day ! 
 For like the rest of his melodious kin 
 A song was what his soul delighted in, — 
 
 Especially some soft and plaintive lay 
 
 Which in the old and weird plantation way 
 He loved to echo on his violin. 
 
 He touched the strings with more than rustic art ; 
 For oft a sudden supernatural power 
 
 Would swell within him — till he gave a vent 
 To all the pent-up passions of his heart ! — 
 So his Cremona in a troubled hour 
 Beguiled for him a care to a content.* 
 
 XIV. 
 He came to Paris ; and we paced the streets 
 
 As if we twain were truants out of school ! 
 
 We clomb aloft where many a carven ghoul 
 And grinning gargoyle mocked our giddy feats ; 
 We made a sport of sitting in the seats 
 
 Where Kings of France were wont to sit and rule ! 
 
 " A throne," quoth he, " is a pretender's stool — 
 For kingship is a fraud, and kings are cheats ! " 
 
 * " Of all the interesting objects in the Museum of Genoa," he wrote, "the one that 
 touched me most was the violin of Paganini— a precious object in my eyes." 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 He loved a hero. Nor can I forget 
 
 How with uncovered head, in awe profound, 
 He hailed Coligny's all-too-tardy stone ;* 
 And how, before the tomb of Lafayette, f 
 
 He said, "This place is doubly sacred ground- 
 This patriot had two countries for his own ! 
 
 XV. 
 
 I here might crowd this empty rhyme of mine 
 With tales of how my travel-eager friend 
 (Who wished to see the world from end to end) 
 
 Sped southward from the many-castled Rhine 
 
 To languid Italy— a land supine. 
 
 Yet soon to rouse herself (as signs portend), 
 Though why she waits is hard to comprehend : 
 
 Thence to the country of the Muses Nine— 
 
 To Marathon, and to the Academe : 
 
 Thence to the Sphinx at Ghizeh — whom with awe 
 He answered— and his answer may be guessed : 
 
 For there — in Egypt — by her classic stream. 
 He said that every famous land he saw 
 Taught him the more to love his own the best ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 For though his own had been a cruel land. 
 
 Wherein, through many a long and groaning year, 
 Oppression had been bitter and austere 
 (As harsh as under Pharaoh's hand)— 
 Yet such a slave could never be unmanned ; 
 But ever with a sweet and secret cheer 
 He felt the day of freedom to be near. 
 So when it came, he well could understand 
 That his dear Country, long herself a thrall. 
 Self-chained and self-degraded in the past — 
 Till, smiting off her shackles with her sword 
 She too ! — she too ! — the chiefest slave of all — 
 Self-freed and self-uplifted, had at last 
 Stood forth redeemed, and lovely, and adored ! 
 
 * Admiral de Coligny was murdered in the St. Bartholomew massacre, < 
 of August 24, 1572. 
 t Lafayette lies in the Picpus Cemetery, rue Picpus, Paris. 
 
IN MEMOEIAM. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 His form was like Apollo's, and his brow 
 
 Like what the sculptors carve for Zeus' own — 
 As godlike as was ever cut in stone ! 
 For if the old god Thor were living now, 
 With his dark visage, with his frosty pow, 
 
 Aud with his awe-inspiring thunder-tone— 
 Such a resembling pair (could both be known) 
 Would pass for twin-brothers, I avow ! 
 
 The gods are dead, and all the godlike men 
 Are dying too ! How fast they disappear ! 
 For Death seems discontent to fill the grave 
 With common bones, but dowuward to his den 
 Drags, like a greedy monster, year by year 
 The men most missed— the good, the wise, the brave ! 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Spake I of goodly giants in the land ? 
 
 And did I boast that I had known them well? 
 
 I was a stripling : so I live to tell, 
 In these degenerate days, how great and grand. 
 How plain and simple, were the noble band 
 
 Who cried to Heaven against that crime of Hell 
 
 Which to the auction-block brought Babes to sell, 
 And which on Women burnt a market brand ! 
 
 Who were those heroes? Since the roll is known 
 I need not call it : Lincoln was the chief: 
 The rest were legion— name them whoso can : 
 But whoso counts the list of Freedom's Own 
 Must name the Chattel whom, vdX.\i pride and grief, 
 We buried yesterday and called a Man ! 
 
 XIX. 
 
 What final wreath of olive, oak or bay 
 
 (Which to withhold would do the dead a wrong) 
 Is due him for the fetter, yoke and thong 
 
 Which, as a Slave, he bore for many a day ? 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 If to his wintry burial blooming May 
 
 Had come herself, chief-mouruer of the throng, 
 And stopt his bier as it was borne along, 
 
 And laid a million lilies on his clay, — 
 
 Not one of all these fading funeral-flowers 
 Would have survived the frost ! . . . So — (since, 
 Such honours fade) — my Country, hark to me ! 
 
 Let us, in yonder Capitol of ours, 
 
 Mould him a statue of enduring brass 
 
 Out of the broken chains of slaves set free ? 
 
 Pajijs, Feb. 2S, 1895. 
 
 Our Douglass. 
 
 Each age some hero has, whose honored name 
 Becomes a household word in ev'ry clime ; 
 
 Whose memory is cherished, and whose fame 
 Is deathless, blazoned on the scroll of time. 
 
 Of all the names upon the page of fame, 
 Of all the men who in high place have stood, 
 Of all whose words and deeds resplendent flame,— 
 They only have been great who have been good. 
 
 And noblest they whose daring deeds were wrought 
 While in defence of liberty they fought. 
 
 And when the record shall complete be made, 
 And deeds of Freedom's heroes truly traced 
 
 (That each be placed where merit makes his grade), 
 Among the foremost Douglass shall be placed. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Proud Switzerland (crag-locked on ev'ry side) 
 May chant the praises of her Winklereid ; 
 Proclaim his deeds from lofty mountain peaks 
 Unto the world. With fitting pride she speaks 
 Of him who broke a path for the oppressed ; 
 He took the Austrian spears into his breast 
 And died for liberty. 
 
 The Em'rald Isle, 
 Home of the shamrock, justly claims, meanwhile, 
 The right on Freedom's altar to engrave 
 The name of Emmet, or O'Connell brave. 
 What though they vainly fought or vainly fell ? 
 Warm-hearted Ireland's bosom can but swell 
 With fond emotion at the thought of men 
 Who gave their all, her honor to defend. 
 
 If from the Scottish peak of Ben-venue 
 (Whose snow-capped summit, piercing fleecy clouds, 
 Its barren forehead bold forever shrouds 
 In misty haze); if in the Trossach's glade ; 
 On meadow heath, or in the forest shade ; 
 In rocky glen of thickly-tangled brake 
 Upon the shore of Katrine's dreamy lake, 
 A spell be tried, to see what best-loved name 
 The sylvan elves of echo would proclaim 
 With most distinctness, lo ! they cry a truce — 
 And sound together, Douglass, Wallace, Bruce. 
 
 And England — boasting mistress of the seas. 
 Whose flag is kissed and tossed by every breeze 
 That sweeps the earth, from where the silv'rj' sheen 
 Perpetual gleams from fields of virgin snow. 
 To where the tropic rivers placid flow — 
 Points to the monuments, on Freedom's course. 
 That mark the deeds of Pitt and Wilberforce. 
 
 Now Haiti rises from the surging waves, 
 Like Neptune mounting from his coral caves. 
 With sovereign dignity she calmly lifts. 
 From ocean's boiling depths, her stately cliffs, 
 And seems rejoicing with the elements ; 
 For their wild freedom fitly represents 
 The wider freedom of the habitants 
 Of this lone isle, who, at the open door 
 Of Freedom's temple, place their gift of pure 
 And spotless manhood, Toussaint I'Ouverture ! 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 169 
 
 Each hero of this number, in his place 
 A giant stood, to shield a helpless race ; 
 Each fought for right, for right a vicfry won ; 
 But Liberty's great struggle yet goes on 
 Against the tyrant's power. 
 
 On nature's battlefield, day puts to flight 
 The sombre-mantled forces of the night ; 
 Rescues the victims from her sable clutch 
 And wakens them to life with radiant touch. 
 Fierce seems this conflict, but 'tis mimicry 
 Beside the contest in which Liberty 
 Against Cyclopean foes of right arrays 
 Her Titan warriors. 
 
 What is nature's gloom. 
 Compared with darkness of benighted brains. 
 Whose cells intelligence doth not illume 
 With conscious knowledge ? What the lofty chains 
 Of mountains, barring from the vale below 
 The sun's refulgence, to the chain of chance 
 Or foul design that turns the sparkling flow 
 Of wisdom from the thirsty soul that pants 
 For its refreshing draughts ? Or what the crash 
 Of pealing thunder-bolts, when tempests rave, 
 Besides the cry drawn by Oppression's lash 
 From human lips ? The raging ocean wave— 
 Foam-crested,— leaping toward an angry sky 
 In mountain masses, turbulent and high, 
 Is but the ripple of a summer sea 
 Beside emotion's waves, tempestuously 
 Tossing the human heart in agony. 
 
 Amid such conflict, waged 'twixt dark and light, 
 'Twixt ignorance and knowledge, wrong and right, 
 Was Douglass, by the force of changeless fate, 
 Huded into life, to find, at length, his place; 
 A Prince in Freedom's court, though of a race 
 Despised on ev'ry hand. 
 
 Born was he, in the clutch 
 
 Of vilest bondage, whose polluted touch 
 
 All things defiled, and friend and foe alike 
 
 Bound with deceptive cords till it could strike 
 
IN MEMO EI AM. 
 
 Its veuoui to their souls and poison thought 
 
 Of equal justice, by a prejudice 
 
 As wilful blind as was the avarice 
 
 Of its red-handed champions, who sold 
 
 Immortal human life, for blood-stained gold ! 
 
 Like pigmies, by a giant's blows 
 
 Repelled, the savage horde of freedom's foes 
 
 Contended with him feebly for breath, 
 
 Then, vanquished, fell back in that living death 
 
 Of utter rout; while, from his arms and hands, 
 
 Like circlets made of glass, the heavy bands 
 
 With which 'twas sought to bind and make him fast 
 
 In slaverj', with calm disdain he cast. 
 
 Long had he listened while Columbia's song 
 
 Of liberty entrancing rolled along 
 
 In wild and beauteous strains that rose and fell 
 
 With changeful cadences that seemed to swell 
 
 Into a sea of music, whose vast waves 
 
 Lashed slav'ry's stronghold, as the ocean raves 
 
 Against the headland. 
 
 Sweet the music fell 
 
 On Douglass' ear and made his heart to swell 
 
 With strong desire that could not be repressed; 
 
 Nor ties of life nor fear of deatli possessed 
 
 The power to turn him from his noble plan 
 
 To battle for the "Equal Rights of Man." 
 
 Wherever justice has an altar raised; 
 
 Wherever liberty and right are praised, 
 
 His name is known, 
 
 Even age — which with its wan 
 
 And chilling finger often withers grand 
 
 And noble minds, or curbs with rigid hand 
 
 Ambition's course, — was powerless to chain 
 
 The dauntless spirit of that giant brain. 
 
 Thou art our Douglass. To thy lofty name 
 
 What words of praise can add one lustrous spark ? 
 
 'Twould take a pen divine, a tongue of fire 
 
 To coin in words the feelings of each heart. 
 
 Thus must it be, till some historian grand. 
 
 In this or mayhap in some distant age, 
 
 Shall truly paint thy hist'ry, noblest of our land, 
 
 The Nation's Hero: Anacostia's Sage ! 
 
 William A. Joiner. 
 
frederick douglass. 
 In Memoriam. 
 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 One whose majestic presence ever here 
 Was as an inspiration held so dear 
 Will greet us nevermore upon the earth. 
 The funeral bells have rung; there was no dearth 
 Of sorrow as the solemn cortege passed; 
 But ours is grief that will outlast 
 The civic splendor. Say, among all men, 
 Who was this hero that they buried then, 
 With saddest plaint and sorrow-stricken face ? 
 Ay ! 'Twas a princely leader of his race ! 
 
 And for a leader well equipped was he; 
 
 Nature had given him most regally 
 
 E'en of her choicest gifts. What matter then 
 
 That he in chains was held ? What matter when 
 
 He could uplift himself to noblest heights ? 
 
 For with his native greatness, neither slights 
 
 Nor wrongs could harm him; and a solemn wrath 
 
 Burned in his soul. He well saw duty's path; 
 
 His days heroic purposes did know. 
 
 And could he then his chosen work forego ? 
 
 Born to a fate most wretched, most forlorn ! 
 A slave ! alas ! of benefits all shorn 
 Upon his entrance into life. What lot 
 More destitute of hope ! Yet e'en that blot 
 Could not suffice to dim the glowing page 
 He leaves to History; for he couM wage 
 Against oppression's deadliest blows a war 
 That knew no ending, until nevermore 
 Should any man be called a bondman. Ay ! 
 Such was a conflict for which one could die ! 
 
 Panting for freedom early, he did dare 
 To throw aside his shackles; for the air 
 Of slavery is poison unto men 
 Moulded as Douglass was ; they suffer, then 
 Manhood asserts itself; they are too brave — 
 Such souls as his, to die content a slave. 
 So being free, one path alone he trod. 
 To bring to liberty — sweet boon from God — 
 His deeply injured race ; his tireless zeal 
 Was consecrated to the bondman's weal. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 He thought of children sobbing around the knees 
 Of hopeless mothers, where the summer breeze 
 tlew o'er the dark savannas. What of woe 
 In their sad story that he did not know ! 
 He was a valiant leader in a cause, 
 Than none less noble, though the nation's laws 
 Did seem to spurn it ; and his matchless speech 
 To Britain's sea-girt island shores did reach. 
 Our Cicero, and yet our warrior knight 
 Striving to show mankind might is not right ! 
 
 He saw the slave uplifted from the dust, 
 
 A freeman ! Loyal to the sacred trust 
 
 He gave himself in youth, with voice and pen, 
 
 He had been to the end. And now again 
 
 The grandest efforts of that brain and heart 
 
 In ev'rj- human sorrow bore a part. 
 
 His regnant intellect, his dignity 
 
 Did make him honored among all to be ; 
 
 And public trusts his country gladly gave 
 
 Unto this princely leader — born a slave ! 
 
 Shall the race falter in its courage now 
 
 That the great chief is fallen ? Shall it bow 
 
 Tamely to aught of injury ? Ah, nay ! 
 
 For daring souls are needed e'en to-day. 
 
 Let his example be a shining light. 
 
 Leading through duty's paths to some far height 
 
 Of undreamed victory. All honored be 
 
 The silv'ry head of him we no more see ! 
 
 Children unborn will venerate his name, 
 
 And History keep spotless his fair fame. 
 
 The Romans wove bright leafy crowns for those 
 
 Who saved a life in battle with their foes ; 
 
 And shall not we as rare a chaplet weave 
 
 To that great master-soul for whom we grieve ? 
 
 Yea ! Since not always on the battle field 
 
 Are the best \-ict'ries won ; for they who jneld 
 
 Themselves to conquer in a losing cause, 
 
 Because 'tis right in God's eternal laws. 
 
 Do noblest battle ; therefore fitly we 
 
 Upon their brows a victor's crown would see. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 1 
 
 Yes ! our great chief has fallen, as might fall 
 
 Some veteran warrior answering the call 
 
 Of duty. With the old serenity, 
 
 His heart still strung with tender sympathy, 
 
 He passed beyond our ken ; he'll come no more 
 
 To give us stately greeting as of 3-ore. 
 
 We cannot fail to miss him. When we stand 
 
 In sudden helplessness, as through the land 
 
 Rings echo of some wrong he could not brook, 
 
 Then vainly for our leader will we look. 
 
 But courage ! no great influence can die 
 
 While he is doing grander work on high, 
 
 Shall not his deeds an inspiration be 
 
 To us left in life's struggle ? May uot we 
 
 Do ought to emulate him whom we mourn ? 
 
 We are a people now, no more forlorn 
 
 And hopeless. We must gather courage then, 
 
 Rememb'ring that he stood man among men. 
 
 So let us give, now he has journeyed hence, 
 
 To our great chieftain's memory, reverence ! 
 
 Cordelia Ray. 
 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Swnng wide, O shining portal. 
 
 That opes to God's new day. 
 Make room, ye ranks immortal, 
 
 A conqueror comes your way. 
 With greeting meet for victors 
 
 Your hearts and hands outreach. 
 Break, with glad song, this silence, 
 
 Too deep and grand for speech. 
 
 Greet him with martial music 
 
 That tits a soldier's rest, 
 For braver heart for battle 
 
 Ne'er beat in warrior's breast. 
 A great, white heart of pity, 
 
 At war with sin and gloom, 
 /Jis home is with the heroes. 
 
 Stand back and make him room. 
 
IN MEMO HI AM. 
 
 Room for the stricken millions 
 
 Unbound by freedom's wars ; 
 To whom his strife meant light and life 
 
 And broken prison bars. 
 The love outpoured in prayers and tears 
 
 Along the conqueror's track, 
 Is his spent lo\'e and life and years 
 
 Bringing their blessing back. 
 
 To live that freedom, truth and right 
 
 Might never know eclipse, 
 To die — with woman's work and word 
 
 Aglow upon his lips. 
 To face the foes of humankind 
 
 Through strife and wounds and scars : 
 It is enough ! Lead on — to find 
 
 Thy place among the stars. 
 
 Silent another voice — that echoed the infinite chorus, 
 Rising forever to heaven from hearts that are bravest and truest ; 
 Pleading with God for the human, pleading with man for his Maker, 
 And raising a triumph strain to echo each watchword of promise. 
 
 Silent another voice — strong against all that was evil. 
 Comforting all that were bowed, cheering and lifting the fallen, 
 Sweet to the spirits in pain, the smitten of God and afflicted, 
 And soft to the smitten of men, but fierce as a curse to the smiter ; 
 Sounding the war cry of death to cruelty, greed and oppression. 
 
 Silent another voice — tender with infinite pity. 
 To answer with tenderest word the outcry of suffering childhood ; 
 To plead for brotherly hands, to help in the saving of brothers, 
 To echo, alas, that they need it ! the unspoken heartbreak of 
 
 Silent another voice — but hark, in the infinite chorus 
 Ringing forever in heaven from hearts that are bravest and truest, 
 Hear we another voice, swelling the poean triumphant, 
 That rises and trembles and breaks at the gates of the glorified city ; 
 Silent ! Nay, nevermore silent, but echoing on down tlie ages. 
 
 Mary Lowe Dickinson. 
 
frederick douglass. 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Born 1817— Died 1S95, 
 Fallen, to rise again transfigured, when 
 Our country's grief shall pass away, and men 
 Shall see the moral beauty of a life 
 Unscathed by toil, thro' years of bitter strife! 
 Not Vulcan at his forge struck fiercer blows; 
 With every breaking chain his courage rose. 
 His warfare was a mora! brittle-field, 
 Where Truth and he were never known to yield ! 
 'Twas his, alone, in saddest hours, to ring 
 The tocsin for his brothers, suffering ! 
 
 With ready pen, and eloquence that stirred 
 The beating hearts of all who ever heard, 
 This master mind refused not to rehearse 
 The woes of slavery — its bitter curse. 
 
 Foul chattel-yoke that bound him, binds not now ! 
 He spurned each shackle; lifted up his brow; 
 Stood forth, a man undaunted; seeking aid 
 Of Heaven, until the hateful plague was stayed. 
 He had no rival in his scathing speech 
 Of this great wrong. No orator could reach 
 Such depths of pathos — for no other knew 
 The dread miasma that his life led through— 
 Or, like him, weave the olive branch of peace 
 In lovelier chaplet at the slaves' release. 
 
 But, when he died, how suddenly his face 
 
 Shone with the light that streams from honor's place ! 
 
 Then statesmen bowed, each with uncovered head, 
 
 Within the presence of the honored dead, — 
 
 And wrote the name of Freedom's gifted son. 
 
 With that of Lincoln and of Washington. 
 
 His voice is still. The champion of his race 
 Has laid his armor by; yet, in its place. 
 Grand, phoenix-like, in sculpture's purest form. 
 Shall stand this hero of the fire and storm ! 
 
 Arthur Elvvkll Jenks. 
 
in memoriam. 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 
 This piece of mute, inert and senseless clay 
 Was once a man. In all his conscious strength 
 He strode upon life's pathway ; till, at length, 
 The great Destroyer's shadow passed his way. 
 Death, smiling, beckoned, and his victim came, 
 Serene, unrufHed, calm and unafraid ; 
 Not his the right to question or to blame — 
 He bowed his head content and undismayed, 
 And yielded Life to Death's superior claim, 
 The mandate grim, with gentle grace, obeyed. 
 
 So fate decrees ! And so the bough must bend : 
 God guard thee, in thy last long sleep, my friend ! 
 
 O, sweet, lost comrade ! All the stonny years 
 That passed above thy unresisting head 
 Seem like mere moments, now that thou art dead. 
 And mem'ry fades amid a mist of tears ! 
 Truest of friends, thou seekest restful bliss ; 
 Thy soul hath sought the fate that gave it birth. 
 And troops of friends, who thy kind presence miss. 
 Now whisper, in thy death hour, of thy worth, 
 And -say thine epitaph should read like this : 
 He had no enemy upon this earth. 
 
 So fate decrees ! And so the bough must bend ; 
 God guard thee, in thy last long sleep, my friend ! 
 
 J. H. Gray. 
 Saginaw, Mich., February 21, 1S95. 
 
 An Epitaph. 
 
 How can we fitly praise the man 
 
 Who sleeps beneath this sacred mound ; 
 
 How tell the noble course he ran 
 Within life's fleeting round ? 
 
 What tongue can tell his generous love ? 
 
 His ardent hopes for all mankind ? 
 Or say how faithfully he strove 
 
 To lift the common mind ? 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 1° 
 
 His was a power of eloquence 
 
 To still the restless throng ; 
 To hush the cry of insolence, 
 
 And show the mighty wrong 
 
 That ground his people in the dust, 
 
 And roused each geuerous soul 
 To indignation strong and just 
 
 Against a crime so foul. 
 
 But though we mourn the great niau dead, 
 
 His influence sublime 
 Still lives, and will its brilliance shed 
 
 Far down through coming time. 
 
 Laur.^ H. Clark. 
 
 The Mystery of the Grave. 
 
 Dedic.-vted to the JIemory of Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Words by James A, Thomas. Music by Mrs. T. H. Lyles. 
 
 O Lord, we raise our voice to Thee, 
 Lift thou the veil of mystery 
 
 That lies beyond the grave. 
 We, of ourselves, must ever be 
 Unworthy, Lord, to dwell with Thee, 
 
 Yet Thou our souls canst save. ^ 
 
 -When ni sorrow antl m weepmg 
 Our loved ones are laid away ; 
 Take their spirits in Thy keeping, 
 Father we humbly pray. 
 
 O help us, then, to understand 
 That, following Thy high command- 
 
 (Love God with all thy heart). 
 It matters not how this poor clay 
 And soul within it for a day. 
 
 How they indeed shall part.— Cho. 
 
IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Give to us sufficient measure 
 Of Thy grace to do Thy pleasure, 
 
 'Till this life's race is run, 
 A crown of immortality 
 In thine own principality 
 
 Awaits when duty's done. — Cho. 
 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 
 A hush is over all the teeming lists, 
 
 And there is pause, a breath-space, in the strife ; 
 A spirit brave has passed beyond the mists 
 
 And vapors that obscure the sun of life. 
 And Ethiopia, with bosom torn, 
 Laments the passing of her noblest horn. 
 
 She weeps for him a mother's burning tears — 
 She loved him with a mother's deepest love 
 
 He was her champion thro' direful years. 
 And held her weal all other ends above. 
 
 When Bondage held her bleeding in the dust, 
 
 He raised her up and whispered, " Hope and Trust.' 
 
 For her his voice, a fearless clarion, rung 
 That broke in warning on the ears of men ; 
 
 For her, the strong bow of his pow'r he strung 
 And sent his arrows to the very den 
 
 Where grim Oppression held his bloody place 
 
 And gloated o'er the niis'ries of a race. 
 
 And he was no soft-tongued apologist ; 
 
 He spoke straight-forward, fearlessly, uncowed ; 
 The sunlight of his truth dispelled the mist 
 
 And set in bold relief each dark-hued cloud. 
 To sin and crime he gave their proper hue. 
 And hurled at evil what was evil's due. 
 
FRF.DERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 Thro' good and ill report he cleaved liis way 
 
 Right ouward, with his face set towards the heights ; 
 
 Nor feared to face the foeman's dread array— 
 The flash of scorn, the sting of petty spites. 
 
 He dared the lightning in the lightning's track, 
 
 And answered thunder with liis thunder, back. 
 
 When men maligned him, and their torrent wrath 
 
 In furious imprecations o'er him broke, 
 He kept his counsel, as he kept his path ; 
 
 'Twas for his race, not for himself, he spoke. 
 He knew the import of bis Master's call, 
 And felt himself too mighty to be small. 
 
 No miser in the good he held, was he— 
 
 His kindness followed his horizon's rim. 
 His heart, his talents, and his hands, were free 
 
 To all who truly needed aught of him. 
 Where poverty and ignorance were rife. 
 He gave his bounty, as he gave his life. 
 
 The place and cause that first aroused his might, 
 
 Still proved its pow'r until his latest day. 
 In Freedom's lists and for the aid of Right 
 
 Still, in the foremost rank, he waged the fray. 
 Wrong lived,— his occupation was not gone ; 
 He died in action, with his armor on. 
 
 We weep for him, but we have touched his hand. 
 
 And felt the magic of his presence nigh ; 
 The current that he .sent thro'out the laud ; 
 
 The kindling spirit of his battle cry. 
 O'er all that holds us we shall triumph yet. 
 And place our banner where his hopes were set ! 
 
 Oh, Douglass ! Thou hast passed beyond the shore, 
 
 But still thy voice is ringing o'er the gale ! 
 It tells thy race how high her hopes may soar. 
 
 And bids her seek the heights,— nor faint- nor fail. 
 She will not fail ! She heeds thy stirring cry ; 
 She knows thy guardian spirit will be nigh ; 
 And, rising from beneath the chast'ning rod. 
 She stretches out her bleeding hands to God ! 
 
 Paui, Lawrence Dunbar. 
 
170 LV MEMOEIAM. 
 
 Frkderick Douglass. 
 Read at a Memorial Meeting in honor of Frederick 
 Douglass, at the Metropolitan A. M. E. Church, Washing- 
 ton, D. C, held February i8, 1896. 
 
 I. 
 
 A frame surpassing human mould, 
 A brow denoting power untold, 
 An eye undazzled by the sun, 
 
 A heart undaunted by the sight 
 Of ground ungained, of work undone, 
 Of toil and peril for the right ; 
 O slave-born child, by nature free. 
 How shall we fitly honor thee ? 
 
 II. 
 O bvu-ning brain that fired the world ! 
 O flag of liberty unfurled ! 
 
 O man, to whom all fetters were 
 
 As seven green withes in Samson's hand. 
 Thy memory will always stir 
 The soul of Freedom's worshipper. 
 In every age and every land. 
 
 III. 
 A voice that thundered, burned and chilled, 
 
 When tyrant Wrong usurped a throne ; 
 But to a whisper hushed and stilled 
 
 When Love recalled him to his own. 
 A loyal hand, a royal heart, 
 
 A soaring, reaching over-soul. 
 Inspired and grand, he stood apart 
 
 .'ind read the future as a scroll. 
 O statesman wise, prophetic seer. 
 We loose our sandals drawing near, 
 Nor seek, nor hope, to find thy peer 
 
 IV. 
 A slave in fetters ! Yea, a slave ! 
 
 For only thus incarnate, he 
 
 Could feel the curse of slavery ; 
 
 And in his longing to be free. 
 Could know the souls he came to save. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 V. 
 E'en so another Saviour came — 
 
 A babe to compass infant grief; 
 A boy, to know the blush and blame 
 
 Of eager childhood's flower and leaf ; 
 A man to feel the flush and flame 
 Of burning sorrows past relief ; 
 To count each separate pain and grief 
 And bind life's struggles in a sheaf. 
 In dark Gethsemane he stood, 
 Bathed in a ghastly sweat of blood, 
 And saw his drowsy friends had slept 
 While He His awful vigil kept ; 
 And in the depth of His abyss 
 He felt the sting of Judas' kiss. 
 Alone He went to meet his death ; 
 And heard the coward brood disclaim 
 All knowledge of their Master's name ; 
 While yet the blest memorial wine. 
 Of His shed blood the sacred sign. 
 Was fragrant on their treacherous breath. 
 A " Man of Sorrows " ! Royal fame ! 
 
 To stand, of marred and bruised, the chief! 
 
 And, after this experience brief, 
 
 To send adown the endless ages 
 
 A history to crown all pages. 
 
 A name reviled, a name adored ; 
 
 A crucified but risen Lord ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 Rejoice, that Frederick Douglass' birth 
 Was shameful, humble and obscure ; 
 
 Rejoice that all his matchless worth 
 Was in himself, and so, secure 
 
 From all the shocks and falls and flings 
 
 Which mar the gloss of outward things. 
 
 And wreck the kings who are not Kings. 
 Into a slave's dread history 
 
 His mighty spirit must be hurled 
 To penetrate life's mysten,- — 
 
 The writhing of the under-world. 
 
 He heard the accursed serpent hiss ; 
 
 His lips were scorched by Judas' kiss ; 
 
 And e'en the ashes where he sleeps 
 
 Full many a bitter memory keeps. 
 
IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 Rejoice, that into all the deeps 
 
 Of Douglass' great and fearless soul 
 He felt the whelming billows roll. 
 
 It takes a Herod on the throne 
 
 To bring a Leader to his own ; 
 
 And each Messiah that is bom 
 
 Must wear the cruel crown of thorn 
 
 Not otherwise the sinless born, 
 
 The nimbus of a Christ had worn. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Talk not of graves. Their billows swell, 
 And grasses wave, and flowers bloom, 
 
 Only above the empty shell. 
 
 Weep not around that hollow tomb. 
 But lift your vision to the height 
 Where all our loved ones walk in light ; 
 
 Where Freedom only is, and where 
 
 Calm Justice broods in all the air. 
 
 But only as we stoop to save, 
 
 Shall we, too, rise beyond the grave. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Rise ! Follow Douglass ! His calm feet 
 Have smoothed the path wherein you tread. 
 
 Make your discipleship complete. 
 Nor fear to follow where he led. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Your cause is mine. Though through my line 
 No scar of chains attaints my blood ; 
 
 The bondage of a sex is mine — 
 The slavery of womanhood. 
 
 By most disgraceful laws compelled ; 
 
 Without a share in their decree ; 
 Unrepresented, taxed and held 
 
 To full responsibility ; 
 
 Enslaved in spirit ; weak, oppressed, 
 
 Crying in vain for liberty ; 
 How were my wrongs to be redressed ? 
 
 And who should speak to set me free ? 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. m 
 
 Was there no man who loved his mother ? 
 
 Not one who dared to say the word ? 
 No wife's liege lord, no sister's brother, 
 
 For woman, to unsheath his sword? 
 
 'Twas then that Frederick Douglass rose. 
 
 Amid our feeble band he stood 
 Alone, before a world of foes, 
 
 To champion our womanhood ! 
 
 'Twas he, aloue, whose matchless ken 
 
 Swept far above, beyond his brothers, 
 And saw a race of freest men 
 
 Must needs be born of freest mothers. 
 
 That not in black, and not in white, 
 
 God set the love o'f liberty ; 
 Nor gave to men alone the right. 
 
 The human birthright, to be free. 
 
 Since then, from farthest pole to pole, 
 
 The eternal truth has spread abroad. 
 That Freedom is for every soul. 
 
 Since "right is right, and God is God." 
 
 X. 
 
 Followers of Douglass ! Can you see 
 The Woman standing on the Dome ? 
 The Goddess of our Liberty ? 
 Methinks she beckons you and me, 
 And every humble worshipper 
 Whose eager, trembling pulses stir 
 With equal longings to be free. 
 She whispers, " Take these watchwords three ; 
 Take Labor, Love and Harmony." 
 
 She speaks " Some sow and some may reap ; 
 That some may laugh, lo, some must weep ! 
 But all must watch, and none must sleep ! " 
 She calls : " O ye who would be free ! 
 The day to wait is over-past ; 
 The time to work is here, at last ; 
 Now men and women— children, come ! 
 This is your year of Jubilee ; 
 The world is ripe for Harvest Home ! ' ' 
 
 Ruth G. D. Havens. 
 
IN ME3I0RIAM. 
 
 AT FREDERICK DOUGLASS' BIER. 
 One of God's noblemen, slave born lies here; 
 
 Though dusky was his face his soul was white; 
 He trod the path of danger without fear, 
 
 And led his race forth into freedom's light. 
 
 True as the faithful needle to the pole 
 
 He marched, obedient to his duty's call, 
 Till from the tenement of the bondsman's soul. 
 
 He saw the shackles break and heard them fall. 
 
 He saw Wrong's shattered temple tumble down, 
 
 By conquering Justice leveled to the dust 
 Before the assembled gaze of many a crown ; 
 
 ' ' Praise God, " he said. " Behold that He is just ! " 
 
 Gather ye round his corse ; look on the face 
 
 Of freedom's champion, who knew no fear; 
 He helped to free from Slavery his race — 
 A greater than an emperor lies here. 
 
 C.^LKB Dunn. 
 Morning Advertiser, a. Y. , Feb. 27, 1S95. 
 
Memorial Services. 
 
 Hbbresses anb Sermons. 
 
 (175) 
 
MEMORIAL SERVICES. 
 
 ADDRESSES AND SERMONS. 
 
 Sermon by the Rev. Francis J. Grimke, of the 
 
 Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, 
 
 Washington, D. C, March io, 1895. 
 
 "And the king said unto his servants, Know ye not that there is a 
 prince and a great man fallen this day?" — 2 Samuel iii. 3S. 
 
 On the evening of the twentieth of February there passed from the 
 stage of action the greatest negro that this country has yet produced ; 
 one of the most illustrious citizens of the Republic, and one of the 
 most remarkable men of the century now drawing to a close. The 
 shock which the announcement of his death produced was all the more 
 startling, inasmuch as it was entirely unexpected. There was nothing 
 to indicate that the end was near. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the sum- 
 mons came, and in a moment the noble form which all men knew and 
 delighted to look upon, was laid low. 
 
 To say that we miss him ; that we are deeply, profoundly saddened 
 by the thought that we shall no longer hear his voice, or see his face 
 in our social and public gatherings; that we shall no longer have his 
 great strong arm to lean upon, and his wise counsel to guide us in the 
 hour of darkness and doubt, in our efforts to solve the perplexing pro- 
 blems which still confront us as a race, in this country, in the face of a 
 cruel and bitter race prejudice, — is but feebly to express the sentiment 
 that we all feel this morning. As David felt over the death of Jonathan, 
 so do we feel. 2 Sam. i. 17-27: ".\nd David lamented with this lamen- 
 tation over Saul and over Jonathan his son : The beauty of Israel is 
 slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in 
 Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon ; lest the daughters of the 
 Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. 
 Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain 
 upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is 
 vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed 
 with oil. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the 
 bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not 
 12 (177) 
 
KS JX MEM0R1A3T. 
 
 fuipty. Saul and Jonathan were pleasant in their lives, and in their 
 death they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles, they were 
 .stronger than lions. 
 
 "How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle. O Jonathan, 
 tl;ou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother 
 Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was 
 wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen, and 
 the weapons of war perished!" 
 
 The sorrow, the deep, the almost inexpressible sorrow, which this 
 ii'.an felt for his dead friend, do we feel for this great man who has now 
 jiassed beyond our ken, "into the Silent Land, into the land of the 
 threat departed. ' ' 
 
 Our purpose this morning, is not, however, to use this occasion to 
 puur out our lamentations, but rather to look back over that remarkable 
 career covering a period of nearly eight decades, with the view of 
 forming some estimate of the man, of the debt we owe him, and of 
 getting from his life courage and inspiration for the future. 
 
 I. As to the man. He was by nature cast in a great mould, — phj'si- 
 c.'.lly, iutellectuallj' and morally. Physically, what a splendid speci- 
 men of a man he was; tall, erect, massive, and yet moving with 
 the grace and agility of an Apollo. How Phidias or Michael Angelo 
 would have delighted to carve in marble or to cast in bronze that noble 
 form and figure ! It was always a pleasure to me, just to look at 
 him. His presence affected me like some of the passages of rugged 
 .grandeur in Milton, or as the sight of Mont Blanc, rising from the Vale 
 of Chamouni, affected Coleridge, when for the first time he looked upon 
 that magnificent scene. I think all who came in contact with him felt 
 the spell of his splendid presence. The older he grew, the whiter his 
 locks became, the more striking was his appearance and more and more 
 did he attract attention wherever he appeared, — whether in our streets or 
 in our public assemblies. I was never more impressed with this fact than 
 at the great Columbian Exposition in Chicago. One morning I had the 
 pleasure of going with him to the Art Gallery. There were several 
 things that he wanted to show me, he said. The first thing we stopped 
 before was a piece of statuary, ' ' Lincoln Dying. ' ' We had been standing 
 there but a few moments before a great crowd gathered about us. I was 
 absorbed in what he was saying and did not at first notice it, but he 
 took in the situation at once, — it was an old story to him, — and said, 
 "Well, they have come, — let us pass on." And wherever he went in 
 the building, the same thing was repeated. It seemed to me as if nearly 
 everybody knew him ; but even people who were entirely ignorant of 
 whom he was, were attracted by his remarkable appearance. 
 
 Intellectually, what a splendid specimen of a man he was. His 
 intellect was of a very high order. He possessed a mind of remark- 
 able acuteness and penetration, and of great philosophical grasp. It 
 was wonderful, how readily he resolved effects into their causes and 
 
FliEDEHK'K IIOCGLASS. 179 
 
 with what ease he got down to the uiulerlying facts and principles of 
 whatever subject he attempted to treat. Hence he was always a for- 
 midable antagonist to encounter. No man ever crossed swords with 
 him who was not forced to acknowledge, even when he did not agree 
 with him, his transcendent ability. He had the faculty of seeing at a 
 glance the weak points in an opponent's position, and with the skill of 
 a trained dialectician, knew how to marshal all the forces at his com- 
 mand, in the form of facts and principles, in refutation of the same. 
 It was to me a constant delight to witness the play of his remarkable 
 powers of mind, as they came out in his great speeches and published 
 articles. He had a strong, mighty intellect. They called him the Sage 
 of Auacostia ; and so he was, — all that that term applies, — wise, thought- 
 ful, sound of judgment, discriminating, far seeing. 
 
 Morally, what a splendid specimen of a man he was, — lofty in 
 sentiment, pure in thought, exalted in character. Upon the loftiest 
 plane of a pure and noble manhood he lived and moved. No one need 
 ever be ashamed to call his name. There he stands, in the serene, 
 beautiful white light of a virtuous manhood. For more than fifty years 
 he has been before the public, not infrequently during that time the 
 object of the bitterest hatred; and yet, during all these years, in the 
 face of the strongest opposition, with the worst passions arrayed against 
 him, no one has dared even to whisper anything derogatory of him, or 
 in any way refJectiug upon the purity of his life, or upon the honesty 
 and integrity of his character. There have been among us, in the past 
 history of our race, men who were richly endowed intellectually, and 
 who, like him, also possessed that rarest of gifts, — the mighty gift of 
 eloquence; men who could hold entranced great audiences by the hour, 
 the fame of whose eloquence has come down to us : but when you have 
 said that of them, you have said all. Beyond that you dare not go. 
 When It comes to character, which infinitely transcends all mere intel- 
 lectual endowments, or even the gift of eloquence, we are obliged to 
 hang our heads and remain silent, or go backward and cover their 
 shame; but not so here. No one need ever hang his head when the 
 name of Frederick Douglass is mentioned, or feel the necessity of 
 silence. No man need ever go backward to cover anything in fiis life. 
 There is the record, covering a period of more than fifty years. Read 
 it and put your hand upon anything in it, if you can. Character, 
 character, has been one of the things for which his name has always 
 stood. 
 
 Physically he was great. Intellectually he was great, and morally he 
 was great. Had he not been, whatever may have been his other gifts 
 and graces, he never could have risen to the place of power and influ- 
 ence which, for more than a generation, he has occupied. He never 
 could have won for himself the universal respect in which he is held 
 to-day. Had he not been sound morally, we would not be here to-day 
 to say what we are saying, nor would any such gathering as assembled. 
 
180 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 in this city one week ago last Monday, to pay the last tribute of respect 
 to his memory, have been witnessed. It was because, in addition to 
 the admiration which all felt for his transcendent intellectual endow- 
 ments and his marvelous eloquence there was the conviction that back 
 of, and beyond, and above all these, there was a pure and exalted man- 
 hood. It was because we could say of him as Mark Antony said of 
 Brutus : 
 
 "His life was gentle, and the elements 
 So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up 
 And sa}' to all the world. This was a man. " 
 
 One of the things that I am especially proud of to-day, is, that this 
 greatest representative that our race has yet produced, was a pure man, 
 a man of unblemished reputation, a man of sterling integrity of char- 
 acter, whose example we can commend to our children, and to the gen- 
 erations that are yet to come. 
 
 Let us make much of this, and let the fiat go forth; let it ring out 
 from every pulpit and from every school-house, from every hilltop and 
 from every valley, that any man who aspires to leadership among us, 
 must be pure. In the presence of the splendid record that is before me, 
 with the full knowledge of what this man was, of what his sentiments 
 were, I stand here to-day, and in the name of Frederick Douglass, I 
 say to this black race, all over this country, stand up for pure leader- 
 ship ! Honor the men and the men only, whose character you can 
 respect, and whose character you can commend to your children. 
 
 "God give us men; 
 
 Men whom the lust of office does not kill ; 
 Men whom the .spoils of office cannot buj'; 
 Men who possess opinions and a will ; 
 Men who have honor ; men who will not lie : 
 Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog 
 In public duty, and in private thinking." 
 
 And such was the great man whose memory we honor to-day. 
 
 "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mt. Zion, " is 
 what the Psalmist wrote as he looked out upon the Holy City; and so 
 we feel to-day, as we look upon this man, that there is a beauty, a 
 moral beauty, in that life, that is to us, and will remain to us, a joy 
 forever. . 
 
 In attempting to analyze this life, with a view of forming some 
 estimate of it, there are several things to be taken into consideration, — 
 the circumstances under which it began, the obstacles it had to contend 
 with, and what it became. 
 
 As tc^ the circumstances under which he was bom. These may be 
 briefly set forth in two statements. { i ) He was born a colored man. 
 He was identified with a despised race, — a race that had no rights which 
 white men were bound to respect. The condition of the colored people of 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 181 
 
 this country, — even the free colored people, ^eighty years ago, were 
 sad, inexpressibly sad. There was not even a glimmer of light on 
 the horizon. All was dark, and gloomy, and discouraging. (2) He 
 was born a slave, a piece of property, a chattel, a thing to be bought 
 and sold, to be cuffed and kicked about at the will of another. 
 
 The fundamental a.ssumption underlying the system of slavery was the 
 suppo.sed inferiority of the negro, — the natural, inherent, God-ordained 
 inferiority. Its great aim was to crush out of him every noble aspira- 
 tion ; to degrade him to the level of the brute, and to make him a mere 
 beast of burden. Hence it made it a crime for him to learn to read and 
 write, almost to think. He was to have no views or opinions of his 
 own. He was simply to reflect those of others; to be obedient to 
 the mandates of the master. Its whole code of ethics was summed 
 up in the injunction, "Servants, obey your masters." This man was 
 born under this accursed system, a system which entirely ignored the 
 fact that he was a man, or that he had the right to exercise any of the 
 prerogatives of a man. This was the prevailing sentiment, not only in 
 the South, but it was largely the prevailing sentiment in the North. 
 Church and State were alike in league with the South against the negro. 
 Almost the entire North was pro-slavery. It was worth almost a man's 
 life to say a word against the Slave Power. It was in Boston, the cradle 
 of Liberty, that Garrison was dragged through the streets by a " broad- 
 cloth mob." It was in the State of Connecticut that Prudence Cran- 
 dall's school was destroyed because she dared to admit colored pupils. 
 What Theodore Parker said in his great sermon, entitled "The True 
 Idea of a Christian Church!" perfectly reflects the then existing senti- 
 ment of the North. "Are there not three million brothers of yours and 
 mine, in bondage here, the hopeless sufferers of a savage doom ; debarred 
 from the civilization of our age; the barbarians of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury; shutout from the pretended religion of Christendom; the heathens 
 of a Christian land; chained down from the liberty inalienable in man ; 
 the slaves of a Christian Republic? Does not a cry of indignation ring 
 out from every legislature in the North? Does not the Press war with 
 its million throats and a voice of indignation go up from East and 
 West, out from the hearts of freemen? Oh, no! There is none of that 
 cry against the mightiest sin of this age. The rock of Plymouth, 
 sanctified by the feet which led a nation's way to freedom's large estate, 
 provokes no more voice than the rottenest stone in all the mountains of 
 the West. The few who speak a manly word for truth and everlasting 
 right, are called fanatics; bid be still, lest they .spoil the market. 
 Great God! and has it come to this, that men are silent over such a 
 sin? 'Tis even so. Then it must be that every church that dares 
 assume the name of Christ, that dearest name to men, thunders and 
 lightens on this hideous wrong. That is not so. The Church is dumb, 
 while the State is only silent. While the servants of the people are 
 only asleep, "God's mini.sters are dead." 
 
182 AV MEMORIAM. 
 
 Such were the conditions under which this man .vas liorn, and such 
 were the adverse circumstances against which he had to contend. 
 
 In looking back over this life, in studying it carefully, as he himself 
 has written it out, the first thing that impresses us, and that gives 
 promise that something may yet come out of it, is his rebellion against 
 this system under which he was born. It asserted his inferiority. It 
 declared that he was created simply for the convenience and the pleas- 
 ure of others. This, in his inmost soul, he branded as a lie. Slave 
 though he was, there came welling up into his soul the conviction that 
 he was a man ; and with that conviction its necessary corollary, that, 
 being a man, he ought to be free. Byron, in his "Prisoner of Chillon, " 
 speaks of the "Eternal spirit of the chainless mind:" and it was this 
 spirit that came into his soul, and that came there never, never to be 
 extinguished. The consciousness, ' ' I am a man ! I ought to be 
 free!" are the two first steps in the progress of this life upwards. 
 
 A third step was soon taken, when he plead with his mistress for the 
 privilege of learning to read, and, by her a.ssistance, mastered the 
 alphabet, thereby getting hold of the key which was to unlock for him 
 the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. One of the most pathetic 
 things in this history is the eagerness, the avidity, with which this lit- 
 tle slave boy appropriated the crumbs of knowledge that lay about him. 
 In imagination I can see him now, with his spelling-book concealed 
 under his coat, pressing into his service his little white playfellows 
 whom he met along the streets as he was sent on errands, or during his 
 hours of play, — making them his teachers. The spirit of liberty is 
 not only stirring in this boy's breast, but a thirst for knowledge is also 
 taking possession of him. The immortal mind, that marvelous thing 
 we call the intellect, is beginning to work. The alphabet is soon mas- 
 tered ; the ability to read is soon acquired, and one book, at least, 
 comes into his possession: — "The Columbian Orator," from which he 
 drank in great draughts of the bracing air of liberty, as he studied the 
 utterances of .such men as Chatham, Fox, Pitt, and others. Thus his 
 ideas were enlarged and his desire to be free greatly stimulated. The 
 truth of what his master had said to his mistress, when forbidding her 
 to continue to instruct him, "Learning will do him no good, but a 
 great deal of harm, making him disconsolate and unhappy," he began 
 now keenly to realize, for he became more dissatisfied with his condi- 
 tion than ever. 
 
 In this frame of mind, a fourth step soon followed, — the solemn pur- 
 pose and determination to be free is formed. It was the natural and 
 logical outcome of what had gone before. I am a man. I ought to be 
 free. I will be free. Garrison said, "I am in earnest. I will not 
 excuse. I will not equivocate. I will not retreat a single inch, and I 
 will be heard. ' ' And in the .same spirit this man says, ' ' I will be free. ' ' 
 No emancipation proclamation, no stroke of the pen of the immortal 
 Lincoln, gave freedom to him. He wrote his own emancipation 
 
fukderick DovaiAss. 1S3 
 
 proclamation. He struck, with his own hands, the fetters from his 
 limbs. On the third of September, 1S3S, he turned his back forever, 
 upon slavery, and quietly .settled down in the town of New Bedford, 
 Mass., where he labored, putting in coal, digging cellars, working on 
 the wharves, and doing whatever he could get to do that was honorable, 
 in order to make an honest living for himself and his family. Let our 
 young people take note of that! It may give them a hint or suggestion 
 that may be of service to them in the future. This man was not ashamed 
 to work. It is hard for us to think of him as putting in coal, digging 
 cellars, and as working as a common laborer on the wharves; and yet he 
 did, and was not ashamed of it either. All honest toil was honorable 
 in his estimation. In his new environments, in order to keep from 
 starving, it was necessarj' for him to work, and he did work, and work 
 hard. He did not forget, however, in the midst of his struggles to 
 keep soul and body together, that he also had a mind which needed to 
 be fed. He still had a desire to improve himself, the old love for 
 knowledge still burned within him. And hence all the leisure he could 
 command, he gave to the cultivation of his mind. He read book.s, and he 
 read the newspapers, especially that great fountain-head of anti-slavery 
 thought and sentiment, the Liberator. This paper he read carefully 
 week by week, as it came out, with ever increasing interest and profit. 
 And so things went on until 1841, when quite unexpectedly to himself, 
 and only three years after his escape from slavery, he loomed into 
 notice, and then began that marvelous career which ended only two 
 weeks ago last Wednesday. Incredible as it may seem, in the short 
 space of nine years from his escape, he was lecturing to great audiences, 
 both in this country and in England, — captivating them by the magic 
 of his eloquence and by his masterly appeals in behalf of his enslaved 
 brethren, and was al,so the editor of a paper which took rank with such 
 papers as the Anti-Slavery Standard, and others. The most w^onderful 
 thing about it all is, not that he was able to talk to great audiences, and 
 edit a paper, but that he was able to do these things so well? Men 
 heard him with astonishment, they questioned and even doubted his 
 story, and wondered whether his speeches and editorials were not 
 written for him. It seemed incredible to them that he could ever have 
 been a slave, or that he had so recently made his escape, or that he had 
 no educational advantages. Some said right out that they did not 
 believe it. Either they must deny his story, or else admit that he was 
 a prodigy. And this they were not ready to do. Even many who were 
 disposed to be friendly were not quite prepared, at that time, to concede 
 the possibility of a negro prodigy. Their doubts did not deter him, 
 however. While they were puzzling their brains, and philosophizing 
 about him, he moved steadily on. Day by day he continued to grow, 
 to expand, to develop. More and more did he attract attention, and 
 more and more did he make his influence felt. It was not long before 
 he won his way to the very front rank, and took his place by the side 
 
184 /A- MEMOBIAM. 
 
 of the greatest of the anti-slavery leaders. Fifty-five years ago this man 
 was unknown, save to a few in the town of New Bedford. To-day, he 
 is known everywhere. Fifty-five years ago the name of Frederick 
 Douglass was no more than any other name. To-day, it is one of 
 earth's honored names. On Wednesday, February 20, when he passed 
 away, the whole civilized world took note of it, and acknowledged that 
 one of earth's great men had fallen. 
 
 The Star of this city, in commenting on his death, says : " Of remark- 
 able men, this country has produced at least its quota, and among those 
 whose title to eminence may not be disputed, the figure of Frederick 
 Douglass is properly conspicuous. Born into captivity, and constrained 
 for years by anti-educational environment, he neverthele.ss achieved 
 greatness such as rewards the conscientious efforts of but few. " 
 
 The Philadelphia Press says: "The death of Frederick Douglass has 
 been followed by wide public notice of the honors he has received, the 
 consideration with which he has been treated, and the positions he has 
 filled. But it is worth while remembering, in the interest of justice 
 and equality, — twin duties of the Republic, — that these honors and this 
 consideration were both infinitely less than he would have received in 
 any other civilized country in the world." An ex-editor in the Phila- 
 delphia Inquirer says: "That the whirligig of time brings its revenges 
 was never better illustrated than in the death columns of the newspapers 
 yesterday. In one column, imposing headlines announced the demise 
 of Frederick Douglass, ex-slave, of Talbot County, Maryland. In 
 another, two lines served to chronicle the death of the last Charles 
 Carroll, of Carrollton. The latter inherited great wealth and a proud 
 name in American annals. The other was born a piece of animated 
 chattels, without a name, taking the proud one of the master who owned 
 him, and afterward discarding it for that of Douglass, with a double "s. " 
 The one came from an ancestor who signed the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. The other left children and grandchildren who are proud to 
 claim him as an ancestor who helped to make possible the Proclamation 
 of Emancipation. These are our two great charters of liberty. When 
 history makes its final award, it will not give a higher place to Charles 
 Carroll, of Carrollton, for that Magna Charta that left the black man 
 enslaved, than to Frederick Douglass for the labors of a lifetime in 
 securing that other, which washed out the blot on the 'scutcheon of the 
 nation. It was an unconscious realization of the platitude of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, that all men are created equal, so long a mockery 
 where all men were not free, that the newspapers should almost overlook 
 the descendant of the ' signer' in paying an obituary tribute to the slave- 
 born hero who earned a renown greater than ancestry ever conferred." 
 
 The Philadelphia Record says: "Frederick Douglass was the most 
 famous citizen of Washington. No other Washingtonian, white or 
 black, has the world-wide reputation that he had. Indeed, when you 
 stop to think of it, it would be difficult to name any other man, white 
 
FREDERICK DOCGLASS. 185 
 
 or black, in the whole country, who would be as well known in every 
 corner of the world, as is Frederick Douglass. Lincoln and Grant were 
 such men, but I cannot think of anyone now, except President Cleve- 
 land and ex-President Harrison, who are, ex-ojfficio, so to speak, our 
 world-wide celebrities. Dr. Holmes was the la.st of our men of letters 
 who had this world-wide fame, and no other class of men or of women 
 seems to have produced an international character in our time. Our 
 great lawyers are perhaps known by lawyers the world over; our great 
 physicians by physicians ; clergymen by clergymen ; journalists by jour- 
 nalists ; business men by business men, and so on ; but where is the man 
 or woman who is known in all countries by people of all classes?" These 
 are but samples of the many comments which his death has called forth. 
 There have been other men in the history of our country, who have 
 ri.sen from humble beginnings to places of power and influence. Lincoln 
 was a rail splitter. Grant was a tanner. Garfield was a canal driver. 
 These men had no such obstacles to overcome, however, as this man 
 had. They were not identified with a despised race. They were not 
 born slaves. Public sentiment was not against them. The schools and 
 colleges of the land were not closed to them. Every avenue was open 
 to them. In his case, however, the very reverse was true. And yet, in 
 spite of his environments, with everything to discourage him : with 
 obstacles like mountains rising before him at every step; by the .sheer 
 force of his character, by almost superhuman efforts, — for it seems 
 almost like a miracle now, as we look back over that life, — 
 
 "On with toil of heart and knees and hands. 
 Through the long gorge to the far light, he won 
 His way upward, " 
 
 to a place by their side. And there he stands and will stand : not by 
 sufferance either, but by right. Indeed, in view of all the circum- 
 stances ; when we remember where he began and where he ended ; what 
 his environments were, and what he became; he is, it seems to me, 
 the most conspicuous and shining example of the century, of what 
 ability, and pluck, and character, and hard work, can do to carve out 
 a great and honorable career, in spite of adverse circumstances. His 
 example stands colossal, to borrow an expression from Tennyson, yes, 
 that is the only word that expresses it, colossal. 
 
 Notice in the second place, if you please, the debt we owe to this 
 man. Why should we, as a race, honor the memory of Frederick 
 Douglass? What has he been to us? What has he done for us? It is 
 impossible fully to estimate his services ; nor shall I attempt, in the 
 limited time that is at my command this morning, to do so. A few 
 things may be said, however, that will enable us, in a mea.sure, at 
 least, to approximate the greatness of these services. 
 
 In the first place, he consecrated to the welfare of this race, his 
 splendid oratory. Who that ever heard him, can ever forget? Which 
 
186 IN MEMO lU AM. 
 
 of us has not felt the thrill of his magnetic utterances? And they 
 tell us that he was nothing in his later days to what he used to be 
 in the prime of his splendid manhood. This tongue of fiery eloquence 
 he gave to his race, and who can estimate the influence of that voice as 
 it rang out in everj' part of. this country, in behalf of his oppressed 
 and enslaved brethren ? W'herever he went he attracted great 
 audiences. 
 
 In 1852, at a meeting in one of the large halls in Thiladelphia, he 
 spoke for two hours to an audience which filled everj- seat and packed 
 the aisles. Ten o'clock came, and he stopped, amid the cries of "Go 
 on! Go on!" He stopped and said: "I don't often have the chance to 
 talk to such an audience of friends. You who are standing are cer- 
 tainly wearied. We will take a five minutes' recess and allow any one 
 to retire who wishes to do so. " The time was up, and he spoke for 
 another hour and a quarter, but not a man or woman left. Three hours 
 and a quarter is a long time to sit and listen, much less to stand, and 
 yet such was the power of his eloquence, that men forgot that they 
 were standing, and ceased to take note of the time. 
 
 A writer in the New York Evangelist describes a scene which took 
 place in that city, and which will give us some idea of what the effect 
 of this man was, as he went from place to place, a living protest against 
 the barbarism of slaverj'. He says: "When Anthony Burns was taken 
 by slave-hunters in the streets of Boston, and Dred Scott was handed 
 over in Missouri to his captors, by a Supreme Court decision, the end 
 of forbearance had come, the limit of endurance was passed, the slave 
 power had humiliated the nation. In those days it was necessary for 
 politicians to 'trim ship' with extraordinary vigilance and adroitness. 
 To them Douglass seemed a spectre of defeat. If he lifted those once 
 manacled arms before the people, even before they caught the tremulous 
 tones of his magical voice, the)' were swayed by uncontrollable emotion. 
 Once, in the old Broadway Tabernacle, filled up to the dome, as Douglass 
 was announced, the vast crowd sprang up as one man, and the IMarseil- 
 laise\iyvan, with a refrain, 'Free soil, free speech, free press, free men,' 
 rolled out through doors and windows, blocking the street with linger- 
 ing listeners for a hundred yards either way. Meanwhile Douglass 
 stood with bowed head, and great tears coursing down his cheeks. 
 His very presence was often more effective than the eloquence of other 
 men. " 
 
 In the second place, he consecrated to the service of his race his time, 
 and all the powers of his body and mind. He labored incessantly. He 
 was instant in season and out of season. He worked by day and by 
 night. He was at it, and always at it. The wonder is that his iron 
 constitution did not give way. He himself tells us that he used to 
 write all day and then take the train and go off at night and speak, 
 returning the same evening, or early the next morning, only to resume 
 his work at his desk. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 187 
 
 In addition to writing and speaking, he was also an active agent in 
 the Underground Railroad, and from his bouse many a fugitive crossed 
 the Hue into Canada. He labored also in many other ways. 
 
 Some men have said that Douglass was selfish ; that he always had an 
 eye to his own interest; implying that it was not the race that he was 
 thinking of so much as himself. For this base insinuation, for that 
 is the only term which properly characterizes it, I have only the utmost 
 contempt. When I think of how richly this man was endowed, of the 
 great services which he rendered to freedom and remember that his 
 salary was only jiS450 a year; when I think of his self-sacrificing efforts 
 to carry on his paper, the North Star, putting everj' cent that he could 
 into it, even mortgaging the house over his head, I say I do not believe 
 it. I have read his life carefully, and I have had the honor of knowing 
 him intimately for a number of years, and as I look back over those 
 years, I can recall nothing that would in any way, justify such an 
 accusation. In the summary which he gives at the close of Part II of 
 his life, we get a true insight into the spirit which animated him during 
 his long and eventful life, as well as the motives which prompted him 
 to make a record of that life. He .says : "It will be seen in these pages 
 that I have lived several lives in one; finst, the life of slavery ; secondly, 
 the life of a fugitive from slavery; thirdly, the life of comparative 
 freedom; fourthly, the life of conflict and battle; and fifthly, the life of 
 victory, if not complete, at least assured. To those who suffered in 
 slavery I can say, I, too, have suffered. To those who have taken some 
 risks and encountered hardships in the flight from bondage, I can say, 
 I, too, have endured and risked. To those who have battled for liberty, 
 brotherhood and citizenship, I can say, I, too, have battled. And to 
 those who have lived to enjoy the fruits of victory, I can say, I, too, 
 live and rejoice. If I have pushed my example too prominently for the 
 good taste of my Caucasian readers, I beg them to remember that I have 
 written in part for the encouragement of a class whose aspirations need 
 the stimulus of success. I have aimed to show them that knowledge 
 can be obtained under difficulties; that poverty may give place to com- 
 petency; that obscurity is not an ab.solute bar to distinction, and that 
 a way is open to welfare and happiness to all who will resolutely and 
 wisely pursue that way ; that neither slavery, stripes, imprisonment nor 
 proscription need extinguish self-respect, crush manly ambition or 
 paralyze effort ; that no power outside of himself can prevent a man from 
 sustaining an honorable character and a useful relation to his day and 
 generation ; that neither institutions nor friends can make a race to 
 stand unless it has strength in its own legs; that there is no power in 
 the world that can be relied upon to help the weak against the strong, 
 or the simple against the wise; that races, like individual;;, mu.st 
 stand or fall by their own merits. I have urged upon them self-reliance, 
 self-respect, industry, perseverance, and economy. Forty years of 
 my life have been given to the cause of my people and if I had forty 
 
188 IN MEMOS JAM. 
 
 years more, they should all be sacredly given to the same great 
 cause. ' ' 
 
 There is not a taint of selfishness there. If any man ever lived who 
 carried this race upon his heart, who desired to see it succeed, and who 
 labored earnestly for its freedom, for its elevation, for its protection 
 under the laws and in order that it might have a fair chance in the race 
 of life, that man was Frederick Douglass. He loved this race with all 
 the depth and strength of his great soul. One of the most touching 
 things I ever heard of him was told me by a friend. He happened to 
 call at the house while Mr. Douglass was preparing his great speech on 
 Southern Outrages. He took this friend into his study and read him 
 portions of that speech, and when he came to the part which described 
 the sufferings of our poor brethren in the South, great strong man 
 though he was, the tears ran down his cheeks and choked his utterance 
 so that he was unable to proceed. Tell me that this man was selfish, 
 that he was thinking only of himself? It will be a long time before 
 this black race will have another Douglass to lean upon ; a long time 
 before it will find another man to carry it in his heart of hearts, as he 
 did. "Forty years of my life I have given to the cause of my people, 
 and if I had forty more, they should be all sacredly given to the same 
 great cause, ' ' is not the utterance of selfishness but of a great soul whose 
 chief desire was the good of his people. As the exiled Jews felt toward 
 the Holy City, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget 
 her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the 
 roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy," so 
 felt he toward this race. It was ever uppermost in his thoughts, and 
 never did he forget it for a moment. 
 
 In the third place, it was due largely to the influence of Mr. Douglass, 
 that the colored man was allowed to shoulder his musket and strike a 
 blow for his own freedom and for the preservation of the Union. In 
 chapter eleventh of his Life, entitled "Secession and War," he says: 
 ' ' When the government persistently refused to employ colored troops ; 
 when the emancipation proclamation of General John C. Fremont, in 
 Missouri, was withdrawn ; when slaves were being returned from our 
 lines to their ma,sters; when Union soldiers were stationed about the 
 farm-houses of Virginia to guard and protect the master in holding his 
 slaves; when Union soldiers made themselves more active in kicking 
 colored men out of their camps than in shooting rebels; when even Mr. 
 Lincoln could tell the poor negro that "he was the cau.se of the war," 
 I still believed, and spoke as I believed, all over the North, that the 
 mission of the war was the liberation of the slave, as well as the salva- 
 tion of the Union : and hence, from the first, I reproached the North 
 that they fought the rebels with only one hand, when they might 
 strike effectively with two; — that they fought with their soft white 
 hand, while they kept their black iron hand chained and helpless 
 behind them; that they fought the effect, while they protected the 
 
FKEDEIiU'K DOUGLASS. 189 
 
 cause, and that the Union cause would never prosper till the war 
 assumed an anti-slavery attitude and the negro was enlisted on the 
 loyal side. In every way possible, — in the columns of my paper and 
 on the platform, by letters to friends at home and abroad, I did all 
 that I could to impress this conviction upon this country." 
 
 And when the general government finally came to its senses, and 
 Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, was given permission to raise two 
 colored regiments, it was through the columns of his paper that the 
 cry rang out, "Men of color. To arms! To arms!" It was his pen 
 that wrote the burning words, "Liberty won by white men would lose 
 half its lustre. Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow. " 
 "Better even die free, than to live slaves." "By every consideration 
 whicli binds you to your enslaved fellow countrymen and to the peace 
 and welfare of your country — by every aspiration which you cherish 
 for the freedom and equality by yourselves and your children ; by all 
 the ties of blood and identity which make us one with the brave black 
 men now fighting our battles in Louisiana and in South Carolina, I 
 urge you to fly to arms and smite with death the power that would bury 
 the government and your liberty in the same hopeless grave. " He 
 also took a very active interest in .securing just and fair treatment for 
 the colored soldiers, after his services were accepted. To this end he 
 not only wrote and spoke, but visited Wa.shington and had an inter- 
 view with President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton, in which he urged 
 the right of the colored soldiers to receive the same wages as the white 
 soldiers; the right of the colored soldier to receive the same protection 
 when taken prisoner, and be exchanged as readily and on the same 
 terms, as any other prisoner ; that if Jefferson Davis should shoot or hang 
 colored soldiers in cold blood, the United States Government should, 
 without delay, retaliate in kind and degree upon Confederate prisoners 
 in its hands, and that, when colored soldiers performed great and 
 uncommon services on the battlefield, they should be rewarded by 
 distinctions and promotions, precisely as white soldiers are rewarded 
 for like services. " And he never ceased to press this matter upon the 
 attention of those in authority until the end he aimed at was accom- 
 plished. 
 
 In the fourth place, he rendered also mo.st important services in 
 bringing about the enfranchisement of the race. Even Mr. Garrison 
 and other anti-slavery leaders questioned, at first, the wisdom of such 
 a step, but this man never doubted, never hesitated. To him suffrage 
 was nece.ssary to enable the negro to protect himself, and hence, to it 
 he addressed himself with all the earnestness of his nature, using all 
 the means within his power to secure it for him. "From the first," 
 he say,s, "I saw no chance of bettering the condition of the freedman 
 until he should cease to be merely a freedman and should become a 
 citizen. I insisted that there was no safety for him or for anybody else 
 in America outside the American government; that to guard, protect 
 
190 IN MEMORIAL. 
 
 and maintain his liberty, the freedman should have the ballot ; that the 
 liberties of the American people were dependent upon the ballot box, 
 the jury box, and the cartridge box ; that without these, no class of 
 people could live and flourish in this country ; and this was now the 
 word for the hour with me, and the word to which the people of the 
 North willingly listened, when 1 spoke. Hence, regarding as 1 did, 
 the elective franchise as the one great power by which all civil rights 
 are obtained, enjoyed and maintained under our form of government, 
 and the one without which freedom to any class is delusive, if not 
 impossible, I set myself to work with whatever force and energy I pos- 
 sessed, to secure this power for the newly emancipated millions." 
 With this end in view he, with other gentlemen, brought the matter to 
 the attention of President Johnson, and the next morning published a 
 letter which was very widely commented upon, and which had the 
 effect of bringing the subject prominently before the country. He also 
 spoke very earnestly before the National Loyalists' Convention which 
 met in Philadelphia in September, iS66. He also labored personally 
 with many Senators, when the matter was before that body, visiting 
 them daily and pressing upon them the necessity and the justice of the 
 measure. And so he continued to work until he had the satisfaction of 
 seeing it enacted into law, in the foiiu of the Fifteenth Amendment to 
 the Constitution. 
 
 There are many other things that might be mentioned under the gen- 
 eral head which we are considering, but time will not permit. Suffice 
 it to say that, during the last half century, there has been no measure 
 looking to the betterment of our condition as a people in this country, 
 in which be has not been a leading actor. For more than fifty years he 
 has allowed no opportunity to pass unimproved, in which, either by 
 his voice or pen, he could make the way easier and the future brighter 
 for this race. Whenever we have needed a defender, he has always 
 been on hand. Whenever there were rights to be asserted, he has 
 always stood ready to make the demand, never lagging behind, but 
 always at the front. For more than fifty years he has stood as a sentinel 
 on the watch-tower, guarding with the most jealous care the interests 
 of this race. I remember how I felt when he was appointed Minister 
 to Haiti. I did not want him to go, and I wrote and told him so, and 
 told him why. It was because I felt that we could not spare him out 
 of the country. It seemed to me that our interests would not be quite 
 so safe if he were away. The very fact that he was here filled me with 
 the assurance that all would be well. And this is the way, I think, we 
 all felt a sense of security in the consciousness of the fact that he was 
 in our midst. 
 
 In politics he was a Republican. He loved the grand old party of 
 liberty, — but when it proved recreant to its trust; when it was ready to 
 sacrifice the negro, to trample him in the du.st, to put him aside, out 
 of deference to popular prejudice: then it was that he turned upon it. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 191 
 
 and cauterized it with actual lightning. I shall never forget the article 
 which he wrote ou the reasons for the defeat of the Republican party, 
 which w;is published, 1 think, in Harper's Weekly. It was a masterly 
 arraignment of that party for its cowardice and its perfidy, and showed 
 how deeply concerned he was for the welfare of this race, and how he 
 was ever looking out for its interests. In the twenty-fifth chapter of 
 the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is represented in the great day of solemn 
 account, as saying to those on His right hand, "Come, ye blessed of my 
 Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of 
 the world; fori was an hungered, and ye gave me meat, I was thirsty, 
 and ye gave me drink, I was a stranger, and ye took me in, naked, 
 and ye clothed me ; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and 
 ye came unto me. " And this is what we can all say, to-daj', as a race, 
 as we think of this man. He has been all to us that is here implied. 
 In our distress and suffering, in our hours of loneliness and despond- 
 ency, when we have felt discouraged and sick at heart, he has stood by 
 us, and watched over us, and ministered to our necessities, and cheered 
 us by his voice and presence. What is it that he has not done? In 
 what way has he not manifested his interest? What more could he 
 have done than he has done? 
 
 There are many other things that I would like to .speak of, had I 
 the time. I would like to speak of some of his personal traits and 
 characteristics : of his gentleness, his .sympathetic nature, his tender- 
 ness, his generosity, his great-heartedness. There was nothing mean, or 
 close-fisted, or penurious, about him. God blessed him with means, 
 and he used it for the glory of his Maker, and the good of his fellow 
 men. He was all the time giving to some good cause, or reaching out 
 a hand to help the needy. We went to him when we started the move- 
 ment for the purchase of the building on Eleventh street, for the use 
 of the Young Men's Christian Association, — which was made necessary 
 because black men were shut out of the one on New York avenue ; let 
 it be said to their shame! I never pass that building and look up at 
 the name inscribed upon it, — "Christian Association, " — without feeling 
 that it is a libel upon the holy religion of Jesus Christ. As well write 
 it over the portals of perdition, as there, and expect me to believe it. 
 It is a lie! The great man whom we honor to-day, utterly loathed the 
 spirit which made such a lie possible, and which, years ago, nearly 
 drove, and to-day, is driving, some of our most gifted men into infi- 
 delity. If there is any Christianity there, it is a spurious Christianity. 
 It is not the Christianity of the Bible. There was no colorphobia in 
 Christ, and there is none in Christianity, whatever may be the practice 
 of so-called Christian men and women. 
 
 When we were making arrangements to purchase the building on 
 Eleventh street, as I have said, we, in company with the International 
 Secretary, Mr. Hunten, called upon Mr. Douglass, and laid the matter 
 before him. He listened to us, and when we were through said, 
 
192 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 "Gentlemen, I am not a rich man, — I cannot give yon as large a sub- 
 scription as I would like to, but I will do something. Put me down 
 for two hundred dollars. ' ' And that is but a sample of what he was 
 constantly doing. 
 
 Many years ago, in the cit}' of Baltimore, before he made his escape 
 from slavery, while he was working in one of the ship3'ards, he was set 
 upon by some of the white laborers, mobbed, and dreadfully beaten, and 
 came very near losing his life. The cry was, "Kill the nigger!" Among 
 those who took up that crj', and who tried very hard to kill him, was a 
 man who, up to a short time ago, was still living in Baltimore. He was 
 then old, decrepit, sick, and in great destitution. Mr. Douglass heard 
 of it, called upon him, spoke kindly to him and, in parting, left a ten 
 dollar bill in his hand. It was a beautiful thing for him to do. It was 
 a noble thing, and it was just like him. He was all the time doing 
 noble things. God bless his memory and give us more men like 
 him. 
 
 I might also speak of his love of the beautiful, in art and in nature. 
 At the great Columbian Exposition, the Art Gallery was a constant 
 delight to him. He reveled in its treasures. And how he loved all 
 nature, the flowers, and the gra-ss, and the trees, and the birds, and the 
 drifting clouds, and the blue sky, and the stars. He had a poet's love 
 for nature. With Wordsworth he could say : 
 
 "To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. " 
 
 How often I have heard him speak, as I have sat with him on the 
 front porch of his beautiful home, or under the trees on the hillside, 
 with the lovely landscape stretching out on all sides around us, — of the 
 pleasure which it gave him, the satisfaction, — how it rested him to 
 commune with nature. 
 
 I might also speak of his love for music, his passionate love for 
 music, especially the music of the violin. He had a kind of reverence 
 for that instrument. It seemed to him almost like a living thing. How 
 lovingly he handled it. With what enthusiasm he spoke of it. He 
 could hardly resist the temptation of speaking to a man who carried a 
 violin. He used to say "No one man can be an enemy of mine who 
 loves the violin. " He never missed an opportunity of hearing a great 
 violinist. He heard them all. It was his favorite instrument. Not 
 even Paganini himself had a more passionate love for it. He delighted 
 also in vocal music, especially in sacred music, — in the old hymns of 
 Zion that breathe the sentiment of love, of trust, and of hope. One of 
 his favorite hymns was: 
 
 "Jesus, my Saviour, to Bethlehem came, 
 Seeking for me ! Seeking for me! 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 With the refrain : 
 
 Oh, it was wonderful — blest be His name! 
 Seeking for me, for me!" 
 
 Another was : 
 
 •'In Thv cleft, O Rock of Ages 
 
 Hide Thou me; 
 When the fitful tempest rages, 
 
 Hide Thou me; 
 Where no mortal arm can sever 
 
 From my heart Thy love forever, 
 Hide me, O Thou Rock of Ages, 
 
 Safe in Thee. ' ' 
 
 That hymn I shall never forget. The last time it was my privilege 
 to be at his house, only a few weeks before he passed away, after dinner 
 was over, we all repaired to the parlor, and he himself suggested that 
 we .should have some music. His grandson Joseph was there, and we 
 knew therefore that there was a rich treat in store for us. In the singing 
 he was the principal figure. Standing in the broad space opening into 
 the hall, with violin in hand, he struck up the last mentioned hymn, 
 "In Thy cleft, O Rock of Ages!" and sang it through to the verj- end, 
 with a pathos that moved us all. We all .spoke of it afterwards. It 
 seemed to so take hold of him. The closing lines especially, seemed to 
 touch the great depths of his nature. I can almost hear now, the deep 
 mellow tones of that voice, and feel the solemnity that pervaded the 
 room as he sang the words: 
 
 "In the sight of Jordan's billow, 
 Let Thy bosom be uiv pillow ; 
 Hide me, O Thou Ro'ck of Ages, 
 Safe in Thee, ' ' 
 
 as if he had a kind of presentiment that the end was near, that he was 
 already standing on the very brink of that Jordan over which he has 
 since passed, and over which, one by one, we shall all pass. The 
 prayer which he uttered that night, 
 
 "Let Thy bosom be mv pillow. 
 Hide me, O Thou Rock of Ages, 
 Safe in Thee. ' ' 
 
 I believe has been answered. His noble head was pillowed, I believe, 
 on the bosom of the "Strong Son of God," when he fell asleep iu 
 death, and that he is safe in Him. 
 
 It is hard to realize that he is no longer among us; that we shall no 
 longer see his noble form, nor hear his elocjuent voice, nor receive from 
 him the gracious benediction of that radiant smile which so often played 
 upon his face. 
 
194 IX MKMOEIAM. 
 
 He is gone, but the memory of his great deeds remains. Never, can 
 we forget him. Never, can we cease to hold him in grateful remem- 
 brance. What he was, and what he did, will remain to us forever, a joy 
 and an inspiration. 
 
 "Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 
 Yet clearest of ambitious crime : 
 Our greatest, yet with least pretence. 
 Rich in saving common sense. 
 And, as the greatest only are. 
 In his simplicity, sublime. 
 O good gray head which all men knew, 
 O voice, from which their omens all men drew, 
 O iron ner\'e to true occasion true ; 
 Oh ! fallen at length, that tower of strength. 
 Which stood foursquare to all the winds that blew. " 
 
 To those of us who are members of the race with which he was iden- 
 tified, let me say, Let us keep his shining example ever before us. Let 
 each one of us, individually and personally, endeavor to catch his noble 
 spirit; to walk upon the same lofty plane of a pure and exalted man- 
 hood, upon which he moved ; and together, in the consciousness of the 
 fact that he is no longer with us, let us consecrate ourselves, with what- 
 ever powers we may possess, to the furtherance of the great cause to 
 which he gave his life. 
 
 And may I not also, in his name, appeal to the members of the 
 opposite race, especially to those who revere his memory, to join with 
 us in continuing to fight for the great principles for which he con- 
 tended, until, in all sections of this fair land, there shall be equal 
 opportunities for all, irrespective of race, color, or previous condition of 
 servitude; until to borrow the language of another, "character, not 
 color, shall stamp the man and woman," and until black and white 
 shall clasp friendly hands, in the consciousness of the fact that we are 
 all brethren, and that God is the father of us all. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 Memorial Address, ry Rev. J. E. Rankin, D. D., 
 
 President of Howard University, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Members of St. Mark's Lyceum, Ladies and Gentlemen, Citizens of 
 New York: 
 
 No greater occasion could have called you together. When you do 
 honor to the memory of Frederick Douglass, you do honor to yourselves ; 
 you do honor to humanity; you do honor to God. When God finishes 
 a life, it is as though he had written a book. He writes it and gives it 
 to us to read. For the last half century there has been no more unique, 
 no more important or remarkable figure in the history of American 
 civilization. Ex-Senator Evarts has said : "He was one of the greatest 
 Americans of this century. ' ' He combined in himself an epitome of 
 what American slaverj' was ; of what noble ambitions it sometimes 
 repressed; of what fires of genius it sometimes quenched; of what 
 treasures untold, what immortal possibilities were in its ashes. He 
 stood forth an illustration of the mean meanness of the falsehood that 
 all great gifts, intellectual and moral, are of Anglo-Saxon origin ; that 
 it is only the Caucasian whom God made in his own image. With his 
 crown of snow he towered to mountain heights among the great men 
 of his generation, and greeted them as neighbors; in no respect dis- 
 credited, in no respect overtopped. Notwithstanding all the vicissi- 
 tudes of his eventful career when like clouds around a mountain 
 summit they had passed, his figure stood there serene and unmoved. 
 It will so stand forever, for death has only made permanent what life 
 had done. This is my text : 
 
 Isaiah, xiii. 12. — "I will make a man more precious than fine gold; 
 even a man, than the golden wedge of Ophir. " 
 
 It is a new valuation of a man which a nation makes, when with the 
 mailed hand of war she smites the chains off four million bondmen and 
 makes them free; takes off the petty price put upon their muscles and 
 bones, and labels them with the valuation of their Creator, God. There 
 was a time, even before the Emancipation Proclamation, when the golden 
 wedge of Ophir would have been a high price to pay for Frederick Bailey, 
 otherwise Frederick Douglass ; but it was when he was in England, 
 where the slave-holder could not sample him, nor the slave-owner 
 deliver the goods, and when the day of his return was not quite certain. 
 When on February 20, last, Frederick Douglass died, it was the closing 
 of an epoch — the epoch of emancipation, of the new valuation of man. 
 This is the be.st way to study human history, by epochs; to study 
 epochs by great men. ' ' There is One that openeth and no man shutteth ; 
 that shutteth and no man openeth." God has shut this epoch. He is 
 a God that hideth Himself. When the Hebrew babe, Moses, was taken 
 
196 L\ MEilORIAM. 
 
 from the waters of the Nile, no one but the God of Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob knew, that this was the great leader and legislator of Egypt's 
 escaping bondmen; that he was to divide seas, smite rocks, bring manna 
 from heaven; take from God's own hand the tables of the law, amid 
 the portents of Sinai. "And when she had opened the ark she saw the 
 child and the babe wept." No other advocate was there then, and no 
 other was needed, than those tears. This babe might have become the 
 son of Pharaoh's daughter and his mummied image been exhumed in 
 the line of the Pharaohs, but God had a grander role for him, and in 
 his bottle he gathered these tears. This was the way in which God 
 caused this barque, braided by the fingers of a mother's love, and com- 
 mitted to the waters by a mother's faith, to float its infant occupant 
 into the palace of the Pharaohs. For he was to suck the breast of kings. 
 He was to need all the accumulated wisdom of Egj'pt. This was the 
 way in which God began the political history of a people whose sacred 
 books were to dominate the civilization of the whole earth. 
 
 And here is another great leader, the babe, Frederick, just as care- 
 lessly treated in his beginnings. If God does not remember him, who 
 will? When an heir to an earthly throne is born, every precaution is 
 taken to prevent the surreptitious introduction of a changeling, in 
 whose veins flows no royal blood ; his birth hour is witnessed and 
 recorded ; every care is taken of his infancy and boyhood ; everj- advan- 
 tage of culture is provided for his unfolding manhood; universities 
 open to him their golden gates; dignities and titles are conferred upon 
 him, and he goes on in his upward ascent, till he reaches the seat, to 
 which he has been all his life long the heir-apparent. But this heir- 
 apparent, this Frederick Douglass, was born a waif, out of Christian 
 wedlock, in a slave cabin in Maryland. He was herded with other slave 
 children, as the young of animals are herded, that in due time he might 
 be ready as waiter, as field hand, if need be for the market, the auction- 
 block, and cotton plantation, extinction in Alabama and Louisiana. 
 There are colored men who are ashamed of their origin, who make a 
 very minute mathematical calculation — a kind of homeopathic dilution, 
 and the finer they reduce it the more potency — they are high dilution- 
 ists, —to determine how little African blood flows in their veins. It was 
 not so with Frederick Douglass. He had the courage of his color : to 
 stand as God made him. He speaks of his male ancestor as his pre- 
 sumed Anglo-Saxon father! But toward his Afro-American mother his 
 heart yearns all his life long. Her face follows him into his boyhood 
 
 She broods over him, as with angel wings. Can you think of 
 anything more pathetic than his protracted search of some picture, 
 some woman's face, which shall recover to his memory his mother's 
 scattered features? This was the woman, lost from the page of earthly 
 life, who, had she known the future of her son's greatness, might have 
 said with Eve, of her first-born, "I have gotten a man from the Lord. " 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 197 
 
 Although this man, unlike the other, was williug to become his 
 brother's keeper. 
 
 In a volume on the "Types of Waiikiud, " which in his travels Mr. 
 Douglass found in Loudon, occurs a face, which finally answers to the 
 tenacious memories, the eager yearnings of his boyhood. It is not the 
 face of a woman, but the face of one of Egypt's Pharaohs, Rameses 
 the Great. A face, young, beautiful, with regular feaures, and great 
 pathetic eyes, as though already bewildered at the crowd of life's mys- 
 teries. The old slave law made the children follow the destiny of the 
 mother. It was a law of thrift that seemed to comfort the mother, and 
 was sure to enrich the master. It sweetened the mother's present lot, 
 but also embittered her anticipations. There is something of the same 
 law in men of great and original genius. They seldom resemble their 
 father, but trace their greatness to their mother. And X like to recall 
 these brave words of this most remarkable of the Afro-American 
 race; the man who had charmed two continents with his eloquence; 
 who carved his way from a Maryland slave-pen to the court of kings ; 
 the man who made his generation confront again the old Egyptian 
 type of kings; whose very physiognomy reminds you of the face of the 
 Sphinx. These are his words: "I am happy to attribute any love of 
 letters I may have, not to my presumed Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to 
 the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated mother ; 
 a woman who belonged to a race whose mental endowments are still 
 disparaged and despised." "Presumed Anglo-Saxon paternity !" "Un- 
 protected mother!" Ah, what volumes are in this phraseology. He 
 could not forget the indignity which gave him birth. If he blushed, it 
 was not for his mother! 
 
 It was into the immediate group of illustrious men, every one of 
 whom deserves a statue in Monumental Hall, Capitol Hill, Washington, 
 that God set this young man, a black diamond of the first water, at the 
 outset of his career. It is Ru.ssell Lowell who says that Abraham Lin- 
 coln reminds us of the men in Plutarch's Lives. It was a period that 
 made such men. There were scores of them all over the land. They 
 seemed to spring from the earth. It was true of Lloyd Garrison, with 
 his deathless utterance : "In the name of God, who has made us of 
 one blood, and in whose image we are created, in the name of the Mes- 
 siah, who came to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to 
 the captives, I demand the immediate emancipation of those who are 
 living in slaverj' on American soil." "I am in earnest, I will not 
 equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will 
 be heard. " Martin Luther over again. It was true of Wendell Phillips, 
 of whom I have heard Mr. Douglass speak with unqualified affection ; 
 of Wendell Phillips, "the expectancy and rose of the fair state," who 
 was born to the eloquence and culture of noblest New England as his 
 native right; within his easy reach any prize, whether literary, legal, 
 political, which he niic;ht care to seize, and who counted every proud 
 
198 IN MEMOJUAM. 
 
 possibility dross, if he might plead the cause of the down-trodden ; who, 
 for more than a generation, lived a man without a country, because his 
 country could have never a slave; that he might show comradeship and 
 sympathy for Frederick Douglass and his race; whose eloquence was so 
 courtly and so faultless, that you scarcely realized how deadly and over- 
 whelming it was, until you saw the havoc it had wrought: it was true 
 of John Greenleaf Whittier, the Quaker poet, who consecrated his lyre to 
 one single theme, contented in his seclusion to write the poems of the 
 nation, while other men fought the battles and made the laws; it was 
 true of George B. Cheever, the man with the Hebrew prophets' utter- 
 ance and the mission of Elijah ; of Henry Ward Beecher, whose heart 
 was a warm-pulsing heart of love, whose pulpit was a throne of strength, 
 and whose church was a refuge for the fugitive, and who fought the 
 nation's battle with the beasts of Ephesus in the traffic marts of our 
 Mother England. 
 
 Yes, this young man grew into his true stature among these giants, 
 and men like them, not one whit behind them in stride or achieve- 
 ment. Not one of them had a more magnificent physique; erect as an 
 Apollo, broad-shouldered as an Atlas, with the dignity and grace of a 
 courtier, and the bearing of a king, with a voice from depths that 
 were cavernous; that awakened vibrations which seemed to make the 
 very walls tremble; and with a theme such as only a man born in 
 American slaverj' and a fugitive from it, could have. These were some 
 of the men to whom God had given a special commission, to preach 
 freedom to the captives, and the opening of the eyes to the blind; this 
 was the circle of gathering orbs which made up the sj-stem, which under 
 the planet Mars was to bring redemption to four million of bondmen. 
 In eloquent speech, in patience, in wisdom, in comprehensive power, 
 perhaps none of them was his superior; while certainly none of them 
 had such a rare combination of equipment as he. 
 
 The greatest of all American orators, Daniel Webster, has said of 
 eloquence, that it "comes not from far. It is in the man, the subject, 
 the occasion. " No man ever realized these conditions more completely 
 than Frederick Douglass. He was all three in one; a triune argument 
 against slavery. He was the man, the subject, the occasion. Of the 
 system of American slavery he had a compend in his own person. On 
 every leaf she had written with her own hand; or, if she could not 
 write, she had made her mark. He was a bound volume, on which she 
 had stamped everywhere, as the librarians stamp their volumes: "My 
 book!" She had inscribed her image and superscription on the bleeding 
 back of his budding manhood. He could say to all his compeers, great 
 as they were, "Are they apostles of freedom? I am more! Born of a 
 slave mother, herded in a slave-pen, shut behind the bolts of a slave 
 prison, in weariness oft, in hunger and thirst, the knowledge of letters 
 forbidden me, a type of Christianity pressed upon my soul that made 
 me execrate it, that made me execrate the hour of my birth, the day 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 199 
 
 wheu they said, 'A man-child is boru. ' " Ah! he had only to let the 
 fire of his imagination kindle, and it all came back ; that forlorn 
 infancy, that struggling boyhood, when sea-going ships as they passed 
 out on the bay seemed to beckon him with their white wings out to an 
 ocean of new possibilities; that young manhood, when for a time the 
 walls of his priKou-house began to shut him in, as in the contracting 
 compass of an inexorable cage; that flight for freedom, the first breath 
 of free air under the light of the North Star, when he could stretch 
 himself starward. He had only to let out the dimensions of his soul, 
 and speak what was in him ; to stand before audiences in New England 
 ind Old England, not as an angel hurled out of heaven for rebellion, 
 as Milton's was; but as a creature made in God's image, capable of any 
 angel flight of thought, capable of any masterful phrase of speech and 
 now taking the wings of the morning and pleading for himself and his 
 downtrodden race, that they might have a chance to show what God 
 meant bj making them. 
 
 Mr. Webster gave that definition of eloquence as a preface to his 
 imaginary speech of John Adams, urging the adoption of the Declara- 
 tion. Doubtless the eloquence was all there, as he described it. We 
 have all felt it there. It was a great soul pleading the cause of his 
 native land, in its sublime beginnings. Thus, too, O'Connell and 
 Louis Kossuth urged the claims of Ireland and of Hungary. But what 
 was the Stamp Act and the Tea Tax, what was Great Britain's tyranny 
 over Ireland, or Austria's injustice to Hungary, compared with the 
 cause of humanitj-, as represented in Frederick Douglass by Frederick 
 Douglass, aye, in millions of God's creatures, held by American law in 
 bondage! He was only a sample. The audience could sample him. 
 Well might he, as he heard the great Webster's impersonation of John 
 Adams, as he heard the fiery periods of O'Connell, the elegant phrases 
 of the fer\-id Kossuth, and saw how they were moved, and how they 
 moved their auditors — well might he remember what Hamlet said to 
 himself after listening to the plaj'ers: 
 
 "All for nothing! For Hecuba! 
 
 What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, 
 
 Th.'it he should weep for her? 
 
 What would he do. 
 
 Had he the motive and the cue for passion 
 
 That I have? He would drown the stage with tears. 
 
 And cleave the general ear with horrid speech. 
 
 Make mad the .guilty and appal the free; 
 
 Confound the ignorant and amaze; indeed 
 
 The very faculties of eyes and ears. ' ' 
 
 Do not misunderstand me. The love of country is the greatest theme 
 of the mere orator. It made Demosthenes eloquent. It has made all 
 his successors so. But there is something larger than countrj'. There 
 is something, without which country is only sterile acres of dirt. It is 
 
200 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 humanity. And this something else was the cause for which Frederick 
 Douglass lifted up his magnificent utterance. The love of country 
 is great, but the love of humanity is greater. One is human, the other 
 is divine. The love of country inspired the Hebrew lyrist to say, "If I 
 forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning, and let 
 my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." The love of humanity 
 awoke from the eternities that sweetest voice which earth ever heard, 
 "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will to men!" The 
 love of country has called together the sages of many a senate, the 
 heroes of many a battlefield; but the love of humanity has filled the 
 world with the signs and wonders which press everywhere and eternally 
 after the cross of the Man, Christ Jesus, the only conqueror who moves 
 without fleets and armies, without war or battle sound, and whose suc- 
 cesses and triumphs need no after treaties or arbitrations ; and when 
 the South surrendered, though it was to the commander of our military 
 forces, it was really to Him, whom the Almighty had made a leader 
 and commander of the people, of humanity's self; to Him, who 
 dwelleth between the cherubim, and who before Ephraim and Benjamin 
 and Manasseh had stirred up his strength and come and saved us. 
 
 When Frederick Douglass was twenty-seven years old, he was one of 
 the fifty thousand that stood on the slope of Bunker Hill, and heard the 
 stentorian voice and the majestic form of the great Constitutional 
 statesman, Daniel Webster. In Maryland he had beguu with the 
 "Columbian Orator," and here he was! What a day was that to this 
 fugitive from American slavery! Here was the man, the model orator 
 of the period, peerless among our great men, as a Mass'ichusetts senator 
 has lately said, "The solitary peak of great altitude between Washing- 
 ton and Lincoln," and deserving to be so classed; the man who did 
 more to make real the idea of American nationality, than all our other 
 statesmen put together. The serious, pathetic eyes of this young man, 
 Douglass, were looking up into his face. If no one else heard him, 
 this young man did. And when with his comprehensive delineation, 
 at the close, the speaker described the happy homes of freedom in New 
 England, with her school-houses and churches, think you this Maryland 
 boy, who had stolen his little education by scraps, and stolen his person 
 in bulk, did not think of the contrast? And when Mr. Webster closed 
 with the sentiment, "Thank God, I am also an American!" think you 
 Frederick Douglass had no sinking of heart? What a gulf and separa- 
 tion there was between them? A gulf which no thought could span! 
 The time is coming when the work done by Mr. Webster and the work 
 done by Frederick Douglass will be more closely united. History will 
 join them together, for one prepared the way for the other. 
 
 No being but God meant the freedom of the slaves by the civil war. 
 Let us tell the truth about it : Not the South, of course, not the North, 
 — Mr. Lincoln did not. The first enlisted soldiers did not. Arms were 
 taken up, battles were fought, to defend the life of the nation, to save 
 
FREDERICK: DOUGLASS. 201 
 
 the Union. Mr. Lincoln wrote to Horace Greelej-, "If I can save the 
 Union without destroying slavery, I shall do it." Mark that! Honor 
 to whom honor is due! And the cohesive power that held the nation 
 together more than two years, till its necessity became God's oppor- 
 tunity, was the very sentiment which Mr. Webster had so often incul- 
 cated : "Our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country !" 
 And this same President Lincoln, who had so written to Horace Greeley, 
 at length came to say in the second inaugural : "The Almighty has His 
 own purposes. Fondly do we hope, ferventl}' do we pray that this 
 mighty scourge of war may pass away. Yet, if God wills it to continue, 
 until all the wealth piled up by the bondman's two hundred and fifty 
 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood 
 drawn by the lash, shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was 
 said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments 
 of the Lord are true and righteous altogether !" ' That was ou March 4. 
 1S95. A few weeks later he had himself become the supreme illustration 
 of the reverent sentiment; fulfilling the prophetic word he had uttered 
 in Philadelphia, on his way to what became to him the altar of sacrifice ; 
 as though the nation's heart was smitten as one, when he fell. 
 
 Yes, in the matter of emancipation, God only was great. His thoughts 
 were not man's thoughts. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. 
 Frederick Douglass and his princely compeers were too fast. They 
 wanted the fruit, even though they had to cut down the tree. They 
 would have liberated the slaves at the expense of the life of the n.ition. 
 God kept back the hand of the Chief Executive till the time was ripe 
 for the deed ; till the hour when the nation could be recast ; could be 
 poured anew from the alembic of civil war, and come forth, not like 
 Nebuchadnezzar's image, a conglomerate, part metal and part cla}-. 
 Then John Brown's soul in the eternities could keep step to the music 
 of the Union, and still be marching on ; then the silver-tongued Phillips 
 could urge enlistments, could lift aloft his country's flag; then the poet 
 of peace and of the people of peace, could write : 
 
 "It is done! 
 In the circuit of the sun. 
 Shall the sound thereof go forth ; 
 It shall bid the sad rejoice; 
 It shall give the dumb a voice ; 
 It shall belt with joy the earth. ' ' 
 
 "Ring and swing 
 Bells of joy! on morning's wing: 
 Send the story of praise abroad; 
 With a sound of broken chains. 
 Tell the nation that He reigns, 
 Who alone is Lord and God!" 
 
 God looked to it that to Himself should be all the glory. Ah ! what an 
 hour was that ! The great Webster had gone broken-hearted, disappointed 
 
202 AV MEMO MIA 31. 
 
 to his grave. The people did not love him as h? loved them. They 
 knew he was great, but they thought that greatness could die alone. 
 We thought he did not know the day of our visitation. Whittier had 
 tried to cover up his shame. God had indeed spared to him the sight 
 he so much dreaded, as he expressed it in 1830, "the sun shining on 
 the broken and dishonored fragments of a glorious Union ; on States 
 dissevered, discordant, belligerent, on a land rent with civil feuds, or 
 drenched it might be in fraternal blood!" The same sad apprehension 
 haunted him in his oration on laying the corner-stone of the Capitol 
 extension. That Capitol, God did not intend should be completed, till 
 its crowning figure, the Goddess of Liberty, could no more look <lown 
 upon slaves; till the solecism in our civil fabric was burned and purged 
 away. Every stone of the new building was to be baptized in blood. 
 The extension went on. The dome went up, to the tune of Dixie; to 
 the mutterings of Confederate cannon ; almost to the shouts of the cap- 
 tains, they were so near; for, on Munson Hill the Confederate flag was 
 in plain sight. The old Capitol had echoed to the words of the Dred 
 Scott decision in the Supreme Court room ; to the parting phrases of men 
 who were going out from us, because they were not of us, on the field 
 and in the forum, to undo the work of the Continental fathers; had 
 echoed to the fratricidal blows that fell on the head and shoulders of 
 Charles Sumner. The new Capitol was to see the work of the fathers 
 completed; the Declaration of Independence no longer "a glittering 
 generality," a philosophic abstraction; amendments to the Constitution 
 itself, which should bring it into harmony with the Declaration, and 
 even representatives of the repentant si.ster-states, and clothed in their 
 right mind, and again contributing, with sable associates, lately in 
 slaverj', to the carrying on to the end of time of the annals of the 
 Great Republic. 
 
 The great orbs of our Jupiter Tonans, the nation's greatest debater, 
 never saw that horrible vision. But it came. His son's eyes saw it, 
 and within sound almost of the very Senate-chamber, where in 1830, 
 this greatest of all his father's pleas for the nation was thundered, that 
 son's blood stained the soil of Virginia. The nation saw it and was 
 not afraid, for she began to feel the shadow of the Unseen One lea<ling 
 her on. The nation saw it and did not see death. The world saw it, 
 and saw, too, the uprising, which at last swung open the golden portals 
 of freedom, and let in the light of God upon the souls of four million 
 bondmen, who had been crying, like the martyrs under the throne, 
 "Oh, Lord, how long!" 
 
 It has been said that Mr. Douglass hated religion, hated his countr}-. 
 The dilemma in which Mr. Douglass found himself was this: As to the 
 country, if the Declaration of Independence were true, in fighting the 
 slave laws of the land he was defending her against herself — protecting 
 her better self from her inferior self. As to the Church of Christ, of 
 Him, who came as the Great Comforter, and who said, "All things 
 
FREDERICK DOraiASS. 203 
 
 whatsoever ve would that men should do to )'ou, do vl even so to 
 them" — Who represented that Church better than he? Scheffer's 
 "Christus Consolator" embraces a group of sufferers, turning iniplor- 
 ingh' to Christ for help, among them a slave with broken chains. In a 
 certain prayer-book, given afterward to Mr. Beecher, the figure of that 
 slave had been maliciously cut out. That was what, to Frederick 
 Douglass, the Church seemed to have done. She had cut out the figure 
 of the slave from the group of suffering ones around the Son of Man. 
 Did he love his country less, when he urged against her, her own 
 ideal? Did he love the Church the less, when he reminded her of the 
 words that fell from the lips of Him who spake as never man spake? 
 He was called an infidel, a blasphemer. Have we forgotten with what 
 epithets the men of his day assailed the .Son of Man? What was Mr. 
 Douglass trying to do? He was trying to cast out the demon of .slavery, 
 not in his own name, or the name of the Church, but in the name of 
 the Head of the Church. He appealed from Christianity to Christ ! He 
 was trying to make the family possible, manhood, womanhood, child- 
 hood, possible: to make a place again for a colored man arouud a 
 Christian altar. 
 
 It has been said Frederick Douglass had no learning, was not a 
 scholar. WTiat is learning? Wliat is scholarship? Here was a man 
 who, without a knowledge of a single sentence in the original ever 
 uttered by Demosthenes or Cicero, came so to speak, as to .stand to his 
 own people, as they stood to theirs, to be their great model in secular 
 speech for all time. Here was a man, who, though he had never read a 
 line in the original of Heroditus or Thucj'dides, of Livj' or Tacitus, 
 knew so well the mastery of his native tongue, in which derivatives 
 from both of these languages abound, that few men ever wrote it better 
 than he; few men ever made it a more telling vehicle, whether of 
 logic, of irony, of wit, of all the arts of rhetoric. As to books studied 
 in the universities, doubtless Mr. Douglass was not learned. But wis- 
 dom is better than learning, and learning is useful only as it makes 
 men wise. The world is full of learned men that are fools. The more 
 they learn the less they know. Here was a man who picked up his 
 knowledge as the beggar picks up his pennies, or the rag-picker his 
 rags, one at a time, who became so affluent and accurate in the use of 
 words, that never charmer charmed more wisely in speech, than he. 
 Take an illustration : Frederick Douglass was in Faneuil Hall when 
 news came of the fall of Richmond. The whole population was alive 
 with joy. As was usually the case wherever he happened in a public 
 assembly, the people began to call for word from his sagacious lips. 
 He did not at once respond. When he arose, he was borne forward to 
 the platform on the shoulders of the eager crowd, and when his great fig- 
 ure was visible on the stage, the applause was like the thunder in the 
 heavens, and the roar of the sea when there is a great tempest. Few 
 were his words, his heart was so full, the occasion was so great. He 
 
204 IN ME3I0RIAM. 
 
 spoke less than five minutes, and he reached his climax when, compar- 
 ing the slave power to Dives and the poor slave to Lazarus, he con- 
 cluded : "And it came to pass that the beggar died and was buried, 
 and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom : the rich man 
 also died and was buried, and in hell he lifted up his eyes being in 
 torments and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. ' ' The 
 aptness of the comparison, the fitness of the allusion to the President, 
 captivated the audience, and that great tempest of jubilation broke 
 forth again and again. And who could come after the king? 
 
 The agency of Mr. Douglass in the enlistment of colored troops 
 should not be forgotten; it helped to bring 200,000 troops into the 
 Union army. In his Rochester paper, the North Star, appears this 
 appeal : ' ' Men of color, to arms ! When the rebel cannon shattered the 
 walls of Sumter and drove away its starving garrison, I predicted that 
 the war then and there inaugurated, would not be fought out entirely 
 by white men. Every mouth's experience during these dreary years 
 has confirmed the opinion. A war undertaken and carried on for the 
 perpetual enslavement of colored men calls logically and loudly for col- 
 ored men to suppress it. Only a moderate share of sagacity was 
 needed to see that the arm of the slave was the best defence against the 
 arm of the slave-holder. Henceforth with every reverse to the national 
 arms, with every exulting shout of victory raised by the slave-holding 
 rebels, I have implored the imperiled nation to unchain against her 
 foes, her powerful black hand. Slowly and reluctantly that appeal is 
 beginning to be heeded. Stop not now to complain that it was not 
 heeded sooner. This is not the time to discuss that question. Leave 
 it to the future. When the war is over, the country is saved, peace is 
 established, and the black man's rights are secured, as they will be, 
 history, with impartial hand, will dispose of that and sundry other 
 questions. Action ! Action ! and not criticism is the plain duty of the 
 hour. The office of speech now is only to point out when, where and 
 how to strike to the best advantage. There is no time to delay. The 
 tide is at its flood that leads on to fortune. From East to West, from 
 North to South, the sky is all written over, 'Now or never!' 'Lib- 
 erty won by white men would lose half its lustre. ' I have not 
 thought liglitlj' of the words I am now addressing j-ou. The counsel I 
 give comes of a great observation of the great struggle now in progress, 
 and of the deep conviction that this is your hour and mine. I wish I 
 could tell you that the State of New York calls you to this high honor; 
 but we can get at the throat of treason through the State of Massachu- 
 setts. She was first in the War of Independence; first to break the 
 chains of her slaves; first to make the black man equal before the law; 
 first to admit colored children to her common schools, and she was first 
 to answer with her blood the alarm cry of the nation, when its capital 
 was menaced by rebels. You know John A. Andrew. You know 
 Charles Sumner. I need not add more. " 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 205 
 
 I do not say thai this is equal to the speech which Mr. Webster puts 
 into the mouth of John Adams. I do not care to compare the two ; but it 
 is up to the height of the emergency. It is full of antithetic brilliancy 
 and fer\-or and power. Which emergency was the greater it would be 
 difficult to say : even historians will differ. 
 
 The Fifty-fourth Regiment, the first colored regiment raised by 
 Mr. Douglass' appeal, was commanded by Robert G. Shaw; for the Old 
 Bay State must be here, with her stars. In it were Mr. Douglass' two 
 sons. It was the only regiment the poet, Whittier, ever saw, as it set 
 out from Boston for the seat of war. Of this young hero, after his 
 death leading the assault at Fort Wagner, Whittier says: "As he rode 
 at the head of his troops, he seemed to me beautiful and awful, as 
 an angel of God come down to lead the ho.st of freedom to victory. 
 I am sure his parents would not exchange their dead son for any living 
 
 In his later years Mr. Douglass was ofteu urged to take up his resi- 
 dence in some black belt of the country, and seek a place in the halls 
 of Congress. He knew the danger of such an attempt too well. His 
 style of eloquence was after the highest models. He knew there was 
 not much market for this commodity in the Capitol. He knew noth- 
 ing of the supple methods of the modern politician. Think of this 
 man buying a seat in Congress! Think of him as corruptible and cor- 
 rupting! Think of a star buying a place in the firmament, diverging 
 one hair's breadth from the path of its orbit! It is true his figure 
 would have graced any legislative body ; his words of wisdom would 
 have weighed their full weight, where once Webster and Sumner had 
 spoken, and the robes of a senator would have become him well. The 
 Empire State could have given them to him, but when they offered him 
 this Saul's armor, he knew it was not fit for him, and though he had 
 bandied the sword of the conquered Goliath, he preferred to leave it 
 hanging in freedom's halls as a trophy. He was content to go down 
 to his grave in peace, modestly filling positions, to which spirits of a 
 far inferior make were amply competent. Madame Necker has said : 
 "Eminent positions are like the summits of rocks; only eagles and 
 reptiles can get there. ' ' Creatures that fly and creatures that crawl ! 
 Crawling never had been in his line, and he had folded his great wings 
 in the eyrie of freedom, and did not care to stretch them again for 
 such a flight as this. 
 
 One sad thing about the last days of great reformers is the fact that 
 the movements in which they have participated often seem to fall short 
 of their expectation, or move on beyond them, and leave them stranded, 
 like a disused vessel. Even Martin Luther when withdrawn from his 
 great life-work had his days of sadness. Daniel Webster retired to Marsh- 
 field, like another lion of Lucerne, with his wounded paw still on the 
 shield of the Constitution. Horace Greeley was tempted by the flesh-pots 
 of Egypt, lost his balance, and died under a cloud, and Charles Sumner 
 
206 JN ME MORI AM. 
 
 said once to General Howard that his life was a failure, and out of 
 harmony with the great constituency which had hailed him as their 
 expounder, with the hero and statesman, who had taken the perils of a 
 five years' war to make good his own brave words in the Sen ate- chamber, 
 he passed away. But, either from the more perfect poise of his nature, 
 or from his education of half a century in waiting, or the good provi- 
 dence of God, Mr. Douglass was more fortunate. He did not die 
 without the sight. There on Cedar Hill, Auacostia, in a substantial 
 Maryland mansion, to which his many friends often made a pilgrimage, 
 and whose hospitalities were always free, he waited till his change 
 came. 
 
 The waters of the Anacostia and Potomac greeted each other with 
 responsive flash beneath his gaze. Beyond and above him lifted to his 
 eye the dome of the Capitol. Daily he saw the sun from the East gild 
 the statue of Liberty on the summit, descending till all the snowy arch 
 was illuminated and the building flooded with light. It was a perpetual 
 parable of the manner in which the nation itself had been flooded with 
 glory. Daily, too, he saw the same orb go down in the West, and 
 thought of his own sunset of life, as he verged toward his four-score 
 years. There, in a domestic circle, full of large intelligence and true 
 Christian culture, a circle of which he was always the central attraction 
 and the radiant centre, might he well say, with Simeon of old, "Now, 
 lettest thou thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy 
 salvation." When he began life, he saw the very Church of Christ 
 inexorably involved in the coils of a system as unlike to Christianity, 
 as darkness is to light. He saw the Republic, which had proclaimed 
 to the world the truest evangel of freedom ever framed, feeding with 
 its mother breast the progeny of a great wrong that was taking its very 
 life-blood. He had seen the Church delivered ; the nation born again, 
 and now what remained of life? The majority were on the other 
 side. 
 
 A few weeks before he died, in the church where he statedly wor- 
 shiped — Metropolitan Methodist— for he had come back to die on the 
 bosom of that Jerusalem, that is the Mother of us all, Mr. Douglass 
 appeared at a concert, given by the friends of the family to a young 
 grandson about departing for Europe to perfect himself on the violin. 
 After a few well-spoken words on the power of music, in the last 
 number he accompanied this young man on the violin, playing a second 
 part to "Home, Sweet Home." The gray-haired veteran, the strong 
 young man — it was a moment of simple and touching grandeur; a duet 
 never to be repeated. Thus he, The Old Man Eloquent, entered into 
 the aspirations of the future, in the person of his grandson. This was 
 flesh of his own flesh, al)out to seek his fortune abroad. He was no 
 stranger to the instrument. It .sometimes had been to him as the harp 
 of David, the shepherd boy, to the evil spirits of King Saul. But, as 
 1 recall the scene, it has another meaning now. It seemed like the 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 207 
 
 orchestral overture, which preceded the chorus of the angels so soon to 
 break upon his ear in our Father's house of many mansions; in that 
 home, which, after long exile on earth, rises to the vision of the redeemed 
 soul with its celestial sweetness. For though this man's great battles 
 were all over, God took not away from him the pillar of the cloud by 
 day and the fire by night. With long life he had satisfied him. Ilis 
 former anti-.slavery associates, the later recruits that took up the battle, 
 public men, who had been prominent actors with him in speech and 
 deed, had nearly all fallen asleep. The land had been a generation at 
 peace. 
 
 Mellowed by age, modest over his wonderful triumphs, kindly 
 and forgiving, thus God took him. In a moment, in the twinkling of 
 an eye, the summons came. The great heart, that had beaten so 
 bravely, ceased. The strong man bowed himself. The tent was struck, 
 was folded together, and Frederick Douglass, the light of emancipation 
 on his brow, the trumpet-call of the emancipating angel in his ear, 
 surrendered his spirit back to God who gave it. Let us thank God that 
 he lived. 
 
 His influence on the great future has but begun. He is the typical 
 man to the .\fro-American, as Washington, as Lincoln, to the 
 Anglo-American ; the man that never dies. There cannot be another 
 Frederick Douglass. The mould is broken. My Maryland has no more 
 such clay. The voice of the oppressor is no more heard in her land. 
 But to the end of time there may be thousands of young men and young 
 women who have entered into his labors : who are noble, as he was 
 noble; heroic, as he was heroic; like him, patient and forgiving and 
 strong; abiding in God as he abode, and building themselves into the 
 certainties which are to come. This man lived a pure life, paid his 
 honest debts, left a name unspotted, was good as well as great. He took 
 no fragments of the Decalogue down into the grave. Put his figure in 
 bronze. Show the Titan whom God raised up, as he raised up his men 
 of old, took from a slave-pen of Maryland and set him on high, as her 
 greatest son ; whom God baptized in His own blood, drawn by the slave- 
 holder's lash, lest he ever should forget the companions of his prison- 
 house, or his great mission in their behalf; dowered with great gifts, 
 clothed with great honors, and finally from his own Christian home 
 translated so that he should not see death. Yes, put his figure into 
 bronze. Call your children after him, but repeat his life. Go abroad 
 upon sea and land, and wherever there is wrong, seek to right it ; 
 wherever there are chains, seek to break them; wherever there is lone- 
 liness and sorrow, bear the cup of consolation, and remember how only 
 in the Man, Chri.st Jesus, God has made "man more precious than fine 
 gold, even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. " Help to publish 
 that word of God, that evangel of freedom in all the earth. Thus will 
 Christ's kiagdom come and His will be done on earth, as it is in 
 heaven. 
 
IN MEMOniAM. 
 
 National Dovglass Memorial Meeting, at Fif- 
 teenth Street Presbyterian Church, 
 Washington, D. C, April 2, 1895. 
 
 Programme. 
 
 Prayer, Rev. Wm. V. Tunuell 
 
 Introductorj- Remarks, Robert H. Terrell 
 
 Resolutions, Frederick G. Barbadoes 
 
 Remarks, Dr. Chas. B. Purvis 
 
 Remarks, Rev. Alexander Crunimell 
 
 Remarks, Hon. John S. Durham 
 
 Solo, Mrs. Lena Miller McKinney 
 
 Tribute, Charlotte Fortin Grimkd 
 
 Remarks, Hon. John R. Lynch 
 
 Remarks, Hon. P. B. S. Pinchback 
 
 Remarks, Rev. Rush R. Shippen 
 
 Douglass in History Rev. Wm. A. Creditt 
 
 Benediction Rev. Francis J. Grimk^ 
 
 Accompanist, . . . Miss F. S. Bruce 
 
 Prayer by Rev. Wiluam V. Tunnell. 
 
 Almighty Father, it is but fitting that as we begin these exercises, 
 we should lift up our hearts and voices in praise and thanksgiving to 
 Thee, the author of every good and perfect gift, for Thy great benefits 
 to us. Thine own children. We adore Thee for Thy loving kindness 
 and for Thy many and great bestowments, and especially do we thank 
 and praise Thee for the gift to us and the world, of Thy late servant 
 whose life and influence and achievements, we are here to commemorate. 
 We thank Thee for his beneficent life and ser\'ices, for the high purposes 
 and aspirations with which Thou didst so richly endow him, for his 
 struggles and labors in the cause of freedom and human rights, for his 
 manifold endowments of body and mind, for the spirit of courage and 
 kindness, of streugth and generosity, and above all, for a soul which 
 loved truth and purity and honor above every other possession. Great 
 God help us to imitate him in all the nobilities of his character; fill us 
 with his antipathy against all wickedness and his warm and tender 
 sympathy with all that is good and true. Enable us to devote our 
 talents and powers to the same great cause for which he fought, struggled 
 and died, and help us to emulate his noble example and to follow in 
 the footsteps of his heroic and valorous spirit. Rai.se up for us, we 
 pray Thee, some EHsha, upon whom his mantle may fall, and may the 
 young of our race hold his life up before them as their ideal of struggle 
 and aspiration of purity and honor and as the gauge and prophecy of 
 
FREDEl^ICK DOUGLA!?S. 209 
 
 their own possibilities^. And when our lives are ended may we hand 
 over to surviving generations a memorj' and an influence as fragrant 
 and blessed as his, and may we meet him in a happy and blessed 
 mansion on the bright and shining shore. Then shall we see Thee as 
 Thou art and then shall we praise and worship Thee as we ought. 
 
 All these blessings we ask in the name of our Blessed Saviour, Jesus 
 Christ, our Lord. Amen. 
 
 Introductory Rem.\rks by Robert H. Terrell, Presiding 
 
 The life of Frederick Douglass is one of the brightest spots in the 
 realm of thought and fact in American history. A career like his speaks 
 for itself; it needs no encomium to keep the memory of its maker fresh 
 in the minds of men. We pay our simple tributes to Frederick Doug- 
 lass not because we believe that eulogy can heighten the glory of his 
 fame but because we would give expression to our gratitude that such 
 a man has lived and proved that ambition, genius and courage are gifts, 
 not of race or condition, but of God alone. 
 
 The great journals of our land have sung the praises of Frederick 
 Douglass, as a hero fallen; men everywhere have extolled his virtues as 
 a public man ; but our eulogies are uttered in a sadder tone and our 
 songs of praise are sung with a deeper pathos than theirs because we 
 lived with him from day to day and enjoyed the fragrant beauty and 
 quiet goodness of his private life. To us, residents of the nation's capital, 
 Frederick Douglass was at once a great man, a race champion and a 
 personal friend. 
 
 In America more than in any other country men begin life with 
 nothing but their hands and make their way to power, influence and 
 wealth. We never tire of telling the story of Lincoln, the rail-splitter; 
 of Grant, the tanner; and of Garfield, the tow-path boy. These men 
 started life with nothing but their hands, but those hands were theirs. 
 If we think their greatness is enhanced by the fact that from a state of 
 early disadvantage they became great men in a great country, what shall 
 we say of Frederick Douglass who owned nothing, not even his hands, 
 when he began the struggle of life? Frederick Douglass did not have 
 greatness thrust upon him bj' the adventitious aids of office and its atten- 
 dant prestige. But with those in high position opposed to the freedom, 
 enlightenment and elevation of him and his race — over all obstacles, 
 both natural and artificial, he made his way to a lofty place among 
 men. Instead of gaining glory by the virtue of office, the purity of his 
 life, the simplicity of his character and his radiant mental gifts, shed 
 a lustre on every position to which he was appointed. 
 
 God has a purpose in giving to the world great men. The intellect 
 
 of Bacon, the eloquence and knowledge of Mansfield, and the genius of 
 
 Napoleon, made their everlasting impress upon the world. God sent 
 
 Frederick Douglass to right a great wrong ; to teach a nation that crime 
 
 14 
 
210 IN MEM0RIA3I. 
 
 never pays and that every r.ian should he allowed every right and liberty 
 compatible with the rights and liberties of everj' other man. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was the pilot of his race as well as its spokesman. 
 It is hard to imagine what its future will be without his counsel and 
 leadership. I say with Emerson, "Our helm is given up to a better 
 guidance than our own; the course of events is quite too strong for any 
 helmsman, and our little wherry is taken in tow by the ship of the great 
 Admiral which knows the way and has the force to draw men and States 
 and planets to their good. " 
 
 Frederick Douglass deserves well of his country. His name will be 
 a household word among the American people, implying greatness, 
 purity and all Christian virtues. His memory will be cherished as long 
 as men worship at the altar of energy, intelligence and liberty. 
 
 This resolution was then adopted ; 
 
 Reiolved; That it is the sense of this meeting of citizens assembled 
 in representative numbers and capacity, at the capital of the nation, 
 that, in the death of Frederick Douglass, America has lost a most dis- 
 tinguished son, and the negro race a leader and champion whose whole 
 life was one of unswerving devotion to their redemption from slavery, 
 their rights as citizens, and their progress as a people. That fame and 
 honor from no condition rise, was exemplified in his life, more than in 
 that of any other man of his time. He was born a slave, yet he became 
 a chieftain in the army of anti-slavery men and women. For twenty- 
 five years his clear voice, in stentorian tones, rang out for the nation- 
 ality of freedom. His battle cry was, "Let my people go!" His 
 contribution to the anti-slavery cause makes a splendid chapter in its 
 history. 
 
 The storj- of his own sorrows and sufferings, no less than his 
 eloquence, touched the hearts of two continents, and did much toward 
 winning for the millions of bondmen in America, the sympathy of 
 Christendom. And when the emancipation and the enfranchisement of 
 his people came, he turned his attention to their preparation for 
 citizenship, with all its dignities and responsibilities. His voice and 
 his pen and his personal influence were always enlisted in the cause of 
 the oppressed. He believed profoundly in the brotherhood of humanity 
 and in the equality of races, and during his entire life, he never once 
 compromised his convictions to any expediency or policy for the purpose 
 of advancing his own personal ends. Everj-where in his speeches and 
 writings shine out noble sentiments and lofty standards of duty, — 
 indices of the purity of his thoughts, the greatness of his sou!, and the 
 beauty of his character. The lessons of his public career will be an 
 inspiration to the present and future generations of American negroes, 
 bean inspiration to righteous determination and aspiration for attaining 
 the highest possibilities of our country. His private life was such that 
 mothers will endeavor to teach their sons to emulate it and to keep it 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 211 
 
 constantly before them as an ideal. We mourn the loss to our country 
 of so great a citizen. 
 
 The Address of Dr. Purvis. 
 
 A/r. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 Six weeks ago, the good people of this community were shocked by 
 the announcement that Frederick Dougla.ss was dead. Although it has 
 been six weeks, it seems to most of us as though it were but yesterday. 
 I have not sufificient control over my feelings to voice the sentiments I 
 entertain in regard to him. I view with pleasure the outpouring of the 
 people here and elsewhere, who vie with each other in honest endeavor 
 to pay reverence and homage to the great citizen who has so recently 
 and suddenly been called from us into a new life. Although he lived 
 to a ripe age, still his death was inopportune. I cannot tix the timtf 
 when it would have been otherwise. 
 
 With his colleagues he has fought and won many battles in behalf of 
 outraged humanity, and yet there has been no final victory; his grand 
 self, his presence, his superb voice, his lofty thoughts, his logic, his 
 rhetoric, his incomparable oratory, seem to be as much needed to-day, 
 as they were fifty years ago. 
 
 I feel his going as a personal less. I am conscious, quite too con- 
 scious, that I shall never again interchange with him opinions on the 
 questions or topics of the day ; nevermore shall I gather from his field 
 of plenty, a rich harvest of thought and suggestion. Every man and 
 woman in this audience feels that they, too, have sustained a personal 
 loss; their leader, representative, adviser, advocate, is beyond their 
 reach, no longer in touch with them. 
 
 His going is a loss to this community, to the nation. He belonged 
 to no special class or race. He was essentially an American. He rep- 
 resented the nation's best. During his fifty years of labor, he voiced 
 the noblest sentiments of his country. It matters not what cause he 
 represented (and he represented many), in them all he displayed soul, 
 scope of intellect ; in them all he was intrepid. 
 
 We mourn his death, but he is not dead. We grieve because he has 
 gone away, but he has not gone. To such a spirit as his, there is no 
 death ; to such a life, so replete with marvelous achievements, there is 
 no going away. He lives, and will continue to live for ages to come. 
 His star will never set. His name will always adorn the pages of historic 
 biography. He will ever stand forth resplendently amid the galaxy of 
 great men grown upon American soil during the century. How could it 
 be otherwise? With every great reform he has been identified. Every 
 movement to preserve his country's honor, to lift it into a higher civiliza- 
 tion, to secure for it a purer Christianity, has found in him a pleader. 
 
 To know Mr. Douglass, to know his life, is to familiarize one's self 
 with the most intense chapters of American historj' ; not to know him 
 would be inexcusable ignorance, ill becoming any American. 
 
212 IN MEMO HUM. 
 
 He began life by telling the wrongs of slavery. The anti-slavery 
 apostles welcomed him with open arms. He was a splendid recruit, he 
 came equipped for battle ; he knew more, he felt more, he could tell more 
 about slaver}', than any other man : he could not exaggerate ; his 
 pictures were vivid ; they stirred the .souls of men, they converted them 
 to the cause of humanity, in spite of themselves. Upon one occasion, 
 after making a running recital of the greatness of his country, of its 
 .seemingly inexhaustible resources, its varied climate, its fertile soil, its 
 mighty .streams, its lofty mountains, its mines of wealth, — he paused 
 and to his audience, already hushed into silence, charmed by the vivid 
 picture, said "And yet, there is no mountain so high, no valley so 
 deep, no plain so extensive, upon which I can stand and call these hands 
 my own. ' ' 
 
 Upon another occasion when his soul was stirred to its depths and his 
 heart wrought with anguish, as he reflected upon his condition, the 
 condition of the mother who bore him, the condition of the millions in 
 bondage, he cried out in despair, "I would welcome a thunderbolt from 
 heaven or hell, that would dash the American Union to pieces." He 
 saw that, by the destruction of the Union, the slave could come forth 
 into the broad sunlight, a man and a freeman. He believed that, as 
 Lowell beautifully expressed it : 
 
 ' ' Man is more than Constitutions. Better rot beneath the sod. 
 Than be true to State and Church, while doubly false to God. ' ' 
 
 I do not think that Mr. Douglass was a special creation, designed for 
 a certain work. He was a unique creation, however. A man of his 
 heart, soul and brain, would have been great in any age. 
 
 His love for liberty was not narrow, or confined to any cla.ss or race. 
 He was among the first to stand by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stan- 
 ton, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Abby Kelley Foster and others, in 
 advocating and demanding equal political and civil rights for woman. 
 He was for Woman's Rights when many of the present advocates 
 were in doubt as to the wisdom and propriety of such demands. With 
 equal power he pleaded the workingmen's cause. He has pleaded for 
 Ireland and Irishmen ; he rose superior to the fact that, in the Irish- 
 man, the slave found a foe. 
 
 He cogently advocated the cause of temperance ; the emancipation of 
 man from himself, from a habit that destroys his moral nature, that 
 unfits him for the duties and responsibilities of life. A few years ago, 
 when statesmen with large political aspirations were vying with each 
 other in pushing the Chinaman to the wall, Mr. Douglass came forward 
 entering an able and eloquent protest. He cared not for the physical 
 or civil peculiarities of the Mongolian, he only saw that a wrong was 
 being done to a man and a brother. He needed no other incentive. 
 
 It is no hyperbole to call him a great man; we cannot measure him 
 by any modern standard. Men are called great by virtue of their 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 213 
 
 achievements, b)' what they have accomplished for a race or a nation. 
 While Mr. Douglass can be compared with any of the great public 
 characters of the country, no one of them can be compared with him. 
 We must estimate him from the depths from whence he came, as well 
 as by the heights he reached. He was born in the lap of oppression. 
 From infancy to manhood, he saw and felt only the sting and wrong 
 of a nature outraged. The future held out no hope ; there was no 
 incentive, nothing to inspire. State and Church, Society in general 
 were opposed to him. When he cried for bread, they gave him a 
 stone. And yet, this young man, threw from him the oppressors' 
 joke, and, at the age of twenty-five, leaped into the arena and defied a 
 nation. After fifty years of unceasing labor he lays down his life, in 
 obedience to a divine call, mourned by the noble and the brave 
 throughout the land, eulogized as one of the foremost orators and 
 reformers of the age. 
 
 Is such a man not great? Show me another who has accomplished 
 as much under the same circumstances, and I will point you to a 
 second Douglass. 
 
 To speak of him as an orator; — No finer has been born during the 
 century. Orators are not made by schools or colleges, Thej' are a 
 special creation to represent the wisdom of a generation. It is difficult 
 to compare him to anyone; possibly he was more like O'Connell than 
 any other. He had a similar cause to defend, and like him a race 
 oppressed for which to plead; both were thoroughly identified with 
 their cause. 
 
 It mav be invidious to compare him with any American and yet I 
 should like to. 
 
 Wendell Phillips was unquestionably the Cicero of the century; of 
 perfect mould, graceful to a fault, a ripe scholar, classical, the po.sses- 
 sor of an analytical mind, a vocabulary of great range, a voice of superb 
 tone ; he could make an audience think, cheer, laugh, and angry ; Mr. 
 Douglass could do all these and more, he could make an audience crj'. 
 He lacked Mr. Phillips' grace, finish, culture, but Mr. Phillips was a 
 trained man, of patrician blood; he had inherited everything; he had 
 wealth, was educated in the best university, and from birth was sur- 
 rounded by the culture of the land. Mr. Douglass inherted nothing; 
 he was a self-made man. In many respects he resembled Daniel Web- 
 ster; of the same majestic form, possessed the same sonorous voice, 
 with its wonderful flexibility. While he enjoyed not Webster's inheri- 
 tance, environment, training, he had tlie same cast of mind. Webster's 
 legal training and possibilities developed him into the marvelous man 
 he appeared to be, but, in originality of thought, of expression, in 
 epigrammatic sentences, Mr. Douglass was his equal ; in his ability to 
 personate a character, he was his superior. Webster once said, when 
 smarting under the criticism of his friends for his apostasy, his surren- 
 der to the slave power, his violation of the moral law, "It is foolish to 
 
214 h\ MEilORlAil. 
 
 attempt to re-enact the laws of God." Mr. Douglass, in reviewing 
 him, said, "It is wor.se than foolish to attempt to re-enact any other." 
 
 I have seen it stated that he was not a scholar. This is a mistake. 
 It is true he did not have the advantages of an early education, nor 
 had he perfunctorily passed through a college; nevertheless, he was 
 well traine<l. He had a comprehensive mind and soon .saw the impor- 
 tance of, and the advantages to be gained from, an education ; he 
 became a hard student, he employed tutors ; in the course of a few 
 years he mastered the language. He was well read, was an excellent 
 conversationalist, and liked to discuss religion, history, science and 
 politics. 
 
 For fifty j'ears he enjoyed the association of the most cultured men 
 and women in this country and in England; such was his education, 
 it was of the best. His lecture on "William the Silent" will take rank 
 as a literary effort. General Grant styled his eulogy upon Lincoln as 
 the best analysis he had ever heard, of the great President. 
 
 The study of Shakespeare was a pastime with him. Few amateurs 
 could excel him in the delineation of his characters. He would have 
 made an ideal Othello, if he had chosen the stage as a profession. 
 Salvini would have found in him a formidable rival. 
 
 No man in this community knew him better than I. From my boy- 
 hood I have followed and watched him. When I first saw him, he was 
 in the midst of the tempest of anti-slavery agitation. I have seen him 
 as the girded knight arrayed for battle. I have seen him in the quiet 
 of his home, where he always appeared to the best advantage, when 
 his golden thoughts fell like dewdrops from Heaven. I have seen him 
 as United States Marshal, when he was abused, persecuted, maligned 
 by the Press and the pro-slavery spirit of this community. I have seen 
 him as Minister accredited to a foreign country. It mattered not how 
 you saw him or where you saw him ; he was the same modest, well- 
 balanced man. His success, the fame so honestly won, the honors con- 
 ferred, never intoxicated him. He never sang his own praises to the 
 annoyance of his hearers. 
 
 We are too near the bier of Mr. Dougla.ss, to discuss his life and 
 character. I would that my honored father could be here to add a 
 word. He is the only survivor of the National Anti-Slavery Society, 
 but weight of years unfit him to follow the impulses of his heart. 
 
 Mr. Douglass has left each and every one of us a valuable legacy, — 
 the record of his life-work and example. The young man or woman 
 who will adopt his methods, will find their efforts crowned with suc- 
 cess. If we would emulate him, we nmst observe the example he has 
 set and, like him, be temperate, patient, cautious, urbane and chaste. 
 To-day the serious question presents itself, "Upon whom shall his man- 
 tle rest? Who will stand in his place, contending for justice to all?" 
 To succeed him, one must possess not only intellect and aptitude, but 
 moral qualities ; he must be ripe in head and heart, and sound to the core. 
 
FREDEKIVK DOUGLASS. 215 
 
 It is said tliat the spirit of Richelieu controlled France for forty 
 years. May the spirit of Mr. Douglass mould and control the public 
 sentiment of this country until all men and all women shall enjoy 
 equal rights before the law. 
 
 As Laniartine said of Wilberforce, "He appeared before the throne 
 of God bearing in his hands the shackles of eight hundred thousand 
 bondmen;" so it is with Mr. Douglass; he has gone to meet his co- 
 workers, carr}'ing with him the love and esteem of millions of his 
 couutrj-men. 
 
 Sleep in peace, with kindred ashes 
 
 Ot the noble and the true; 
 Hands that never failed his country, 
 Heart that baseness never knew. 
 
 Address of the Rev. Alexander Crummei.l. 
 
 Nothing can be nobler, nothing more generous, than the tribute of 
 men to departed worth and excellence. It evidences the fact that we 
 can rise above ourselves ; put aside our petty cares and interests ; ignore, 
 for the time, our sordid aims and desires, and rise to the contemplation 
 of character, and the estimation of superior worth. 
 
 It is just this purpose which has called together this large audience 
 to-night. We have met for the manifestation of our respect, and the 
 declaration of the high value of the abilities and the character of that 
 eminent man who, the other day, passeil so suddenly from the ranks of 
 the living, and left a vacancy in society, which it is impossible for us 
 entirely to fill. 
 
 In the brief space of time allotted me, I shall not attempt to traverse 
 the lines of his long life-service and activities, nor the wide circle of 
 his character and capacity. I have chosen one single peculiarity; that 
 is, his genius. Not indeed, that I feel able to gauge so large a topic 
 and so grand a quality ; but simply, as my tribute to his memory. 
 
 It is now fifty-three years since I first met Mr. Douglass. It was at 
 a convention of the colored citizens of New York, assembled at 
 Albany, for the purpose of securing the right of equal suffrage, advanc- 
 ing the cause of civil rights, and promoting the general interests of 
 our race. I was struck, at once, with the strong contrast of his mental 
 furniture to that of other men of the day, who, just at that time, were 
 treading the platform of the Anti-Slavery Society. Among these were, 
 especially, four eminent and eloquent men who, in their day, reached 
 celebrity. Remond and Garnet, Pennington and Ward, were distin- 
 guished advocates in the cause of freedom. It is a notable fact that 
 three of these men were Marj'landers, as was Mr. Douglass himself; a 
 State, by the way, which ^^ja^^roduced more eminent colored men than 
 any other State in the Union. There was ability in each and all of 
 them; in two of them a peculiar ability, which Mr. Douglass never 
 reached. Pennington and Ward were of an eminently logical mould. 
 
216 I A' MEJIOHIA.V. 
 
 and, with other grand qualities were distinguished bj- the prominence 
 of the reasoning facult}-. 
 
 There is, however, a characteristic higher than cold logic. The grand 
 peculiarity which differenced Mr. Douglass from these others, was a 
 certain unique and glowing quality which I feel justified in calling 
 genius. Let me dwell upon this characteristic. 
 
 First, you who have heard Mr. Douglass speak, must have noticed the 
 fact that, as an orator, it was nature, overflowing from deep, original, 
 native sources, both of heart and intellect, resident in the deepest ele- 
 ments and the strongest currents of his own being. I do not mean that 
 there was no forethought. There was great forethought, the forethought 
 of his life-being. I do not mean that there was no study. There was 
 the intensest study of a mighty brain. His soul had evidently been 
 brooding, all his earthly existence, upon his grand theme. But it was 
 always his over-soul, thrown out in grand speech, which made him the 
 orator he was. There was no artificiality in the man. There was noth- 
 ing made up; nothing that was the fruit and outcome of the schools. 
 Not the yield of any formal logic. His oratory was the outpouring of 
 the various original moral and mental qualities of his own strong being: 
 and these qualities, while robust in texture, were, at the same time, of 
 the finest nature. In his speech he was always lifted up far above lav- 
 ish declamation, which is generally a sign of weakness. His style was 
 somewhat severe; free from tropes and flowers; wonderfully direct; 
 abounding in clear, plain, simple English. He was always thoroughly 
 unaffected. He had mastered, as by intuition, the Saxon element of 
 the language. The simplicity of his utterance was the spontaneous 
 outcome of the simplicity of his nature. And thus it was that any 
 child could understand him; weighty and ofttimes majestic as he was. 
 
 Far more than style was the substance of his oratory. There was 
 always a philosophic basis underlying all his address. He struck, 
 almost invariably, the tones of grand common sense. By this I mean 
 that, although deficient in logic, he always rooted himself in strong, 
 self-evident, universal convictions. His ideas and sentiments were 
 such as were the common property of all men. Like all great orators, 
 he addressed himself to the great fundamental principles of human 
 nature. These principles had a deep abidance in his own nature ; and 
 hence they sprung up spontaneously, vividly, with great power and 
 impress in his soul, and struggled for utterance. He seemed to me to 
 leap, as it were, into great convictions, as though they had mastered 
 him ; and then, that he, in return, had thoroughly assimilated and 
 mastered them. Out of this tendency came the constant outcropping 
 of those wonderful appeals for Justice, Truth, Freedom, Equity, which 
 was the staple of his lifelong oratory; fused, all the while, with that 
 — what shall I call it? — that tremendous sensibility which thrilled, 
 astounded, nay, swept away his audiences; and which ofttimes over- 
 came himself with breathless emotion, and, not seldom, blinded his 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 217 
 
 own e3es with tears. Wonderful was the sensil)i!ity of this man! 
 What deep enthusiasm for humanity filled his soul! How his heart, at 
 times, overflowed with ardent emotions! And the glow of his senti- 
 ments, while thrilling his own being, swept, like a mighty wave, over 
 the hearts and sentiments of excited and sympathizing audiences. 
 
 There were two special elements of his intellect and oratorj-, which I 
 have never seen alluded to. I am not aware that he ever indulged in 
 verse; but his mind was evidently imbued with delicate, beauteous, 
 poetic sentiment. It came out constantly in tender touches in his 
 speeches. It came out in the resort, not seldom, of his mind, in grand 
 quotations from the great poets of the language, which adorned and 
 dignified his speeches. He was a poet without the numbers of the 
 poet. Some of you may remember the lines of Wordsworth: 
 
 " Oh ! many are the poets that are .sown 
 
 By nature; men endowed with highest gifts, 
 
 The vision and the faculty divine; 
 
 Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse, 
 
 Which, in the docile season of their youth. 
 
 It was denied them to acquire, through lack 
 
 Of culture and the inspiring aid of books." 
 
 This was the case of Mr. Douglass. In reading his biography, you 
 will see this rich strata of poetic gold cropping out all along through 
 his pages. 
 
 I remember one special instance; his fine apo.strophe to the gallant 
 ships floating down the Chesapeake, the emblem, in their free and 
 glorious sails, of the freedom which he, then a .slave, longed for, but, 
 in his state of bondage, could not command. 
 
 "You are loosed from your moorings, and free: I am fast in my 
 chains, and am a slave. You move merrily before the gentle gale, and 
 I, sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged 
 angels, that fly around the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O 
 that I were free ! O that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under 
 your protecting wing!" etc. Surely, this is poetry of the finest quality. 
 
 Second, there was .a stronger element than the poetic, which con- f 
 stantly showed itself. His dramatic power, in both its phases (tragic 
 and comic), was marvelous. When, under deep emotion; when carried 
 away with indignation; when the chords of memory were touched; and 
 the saddening scenes of his enthralmeut stood out before him; then 
 was seen a histrionic quality which no mimetic display on the boards 
 could possibly approach. I have seen, in my time, the younger Kean ; 
 I have seen the great Kemble; I saw Macready and Forrest, in their 
 prime; but I have witnessed passages in the oratory of Mr. Douglass, 
 which, for simple dramatic power transcended their finest efforts; and, 
 for the simple reason that they were acting; and his part was the 
 majestic outburst from the well-spring of a grand, broad, deeply moved 
 human nature. 
 
218 IN MKMORIAM. 
 
 That was the dramatic feature of bis orator)-, and it sliows what an 
 eminent tragedian be would have made, if that bad proven bis calling. 
 
 In these latter days, none of you have witnessed the comic side of 
 his nature. Indeed, as life flowed on its currents grew deeper, mo'e 
 serious, more grave. Perils, dangers, tragedies, became a rapid experi- 
 ence. So it came to pass that the humorous quality weakened. But 
 when he first began his work as a speaker, nothing could be compara- 
 ble to his imitation of slave-holding preachers. In his early anti-.slav- 
 ery addresses he ofttimes convulsed his audiences with his imitation 
 of their discourses to slaves. Now it would be a mock discourse on the 
 text, that servants should be -obedient to their masters ; delivered in 
 the drollest and most farcical manner. At another time he would 
 repeat, in the most ludicrous style, the reminder that "white people's 
 hands were made soft and delicate; but the bands of negroes were made 
 black and horny, so that they might work for their masters and mis- 
 tresses. " So perfect was the comic in his nature, and so keen was the 
 sense of the ludicrous, that he excited the greatest fun and laughter. 
 
 I have spoken, to-night, of Mr. Douglass as a great genius in the line 
 of oratory. I feel quite sure that I have not trenched upon the borders 
 of exaggeration in my attempted delineation of his powers. That 
 would be injustice to him, and also a wrong to you. At the same time, 
 I must not extol my own judgment of the man ; for that would be vanity. 
 I think I have, at least, approached somewhat near a just estimate of his 
 greatness as an orator. I may possibly have fallen short of its noblest 
 heights, but I do not think that I have over-rated, or unduly m.agnified 
 its quality. But let me say that it has been my privilege to hear some 
 of the greatest orators of the last two generations. I have felt the 
 majesty of Webster ; I have been entranced by the sweeping fire and the 
 subduing pathos of Wilberforce (the Bishop); I have been charmed by 
 the lofty power and beauty of Lord Beaconsfield ; I have been carried 
 away by the attractions and brilliancy of Blaine; I have been made 
 breathless by the fervor and power of Melville; but I have no hesita- 
 tion, when speaking of eloquence, in putting Douglass, not in the way 
 of comparison, but with the thought of effectiveness, beside these emi- 
 nent personages. He was a great genius ! He was a magnificent orator ! 
 
 He was more than this. He was a great man ; a man of large intellect ; 
 a man of strong character. All the elements of bis nature and his 
 intellect were colossal! He was a man of settled purpose. His career 
 shows splendid courage, and evidences the fact that he was not easily 
 turned from the path that he had chosen, or swerved from the great 
 objects he had set before him. Indeed, his tenacity at times astonislied 
 me! He began his career with a most definite but perilous purpose, 
 and he held on to it amid terrible trials and dangers; and never gave 
 it up. It is this which nuikes the man ! And a man, a true man, is a 
 greater being than an orator. But Mr. Douglass was both a man and an 
 orator ! 
 
FREDFRICK DOUGL.H^S. 219 
 
 Because he was such as I have described, I have spoken of him 
 to-night. Differing from him, as I have, upon many important topics, 
 it has given me gratification to-night, to set forth, in my feeble way, 
 his great genius, his exalted oratory, and his true and genuine man- ; 
 hood ! 
 
 Address of Hon. J. S. Durham, kx-Mini.ster to Haiti. 
 
 In Haiti, the men who have been Ministers Resident from the ITnited 
 States are remembered chiefly because of the acts which comprise the 
 records of their respective administrations. The}' are remembered as 
 Americans, as foreigners. I may be mistaken of course, but my judg- 
 ment is that Mr. Douglass was the single exception to this rule. In 
 Haitien estimate, his personality rose above even the dignified official 
 station which he occupied. To the minds of thousands who have never 
 seen him, he was more than the American minister, more than the 
 French plenipotentiary, more than the papal legate. He was to them 
 the type-hero of the great heroic epoch in the United States. He was 
 the bondsman in black, developed into all that makes the gentleman. 
 He was the slave made citizen. He was the visiting ambassador of 
 nine millions of negroes in this country. 
 
 The works of the Dumas charm the culture of Haiti and the eminence of 
 the two authors appeals to national and race pride ; but their work is in 
 a distant field and not confined to the color agitation to which the gov- 
 ernment and people of Haiti are devoted with patriotic fervor. 
 
 L'Ouverture and Dessalines were the makers of the Haitien Republic 
 and their memory is honored in tradition and history ; but theirnaraes are 
 so identified with questions now active that it would probably be difficult 
 to raise a monument to either of them in Port an Prince. Mr. Douglass 
 had been identified with but one matter affecting Haitien policy, and 
 his personality rose above the impression left by it. Indeed, I think I 
 do not exaggerate when I say that the Haitien of to-day, regarding the 
 Dumas with admiration and L'Ouverture and Dessalines with venera- 
 tion, looks upon Frederick Douglass as a nearer, closer, a more personal 
 hero and representative, the greatest negro of this generation. They 
 regard his romantic history and his picturesque personality as the most 
 convincing argument, not for the negro of this continent merely, but 
 for the negro of the world. He was the representative, the spokesman 
 of the black man everywhere — and he was that not because of any act 
 of his constituency but because of his wonderful powers and his genius 
 in using them. In a country where politics is a crowded profession, 
 the selection of Mr. Douglass as Commissioner to the World's Fair pro- 
 voked no considerable opposition; and the world accepted him as in 
 his rightful place. 
 
 If there could linger in our minds any doubt of the universal quality 
 of Mr. Douglass' representative character, I think it must vanish when 
 we remember his receptions in the great European capitals. He was 
 
220 AV MEMORIAM. 
 
 the one uegro of the world who could be classed with Gladstone and 
 Bismarck as a citizen of the world. I have often wished that Mr. 
 Douglass had taken a residence in London and spent a part of each 
 year in the British capital. The accuracy of the Haitieu estimate would 
 have been tested. The universality of his representative character would 
 have been demonstrated. 
 
 In the atmosphere of London society he would have outgrown the 
 things which his dearest friends regretted in him, things which were 
 the natural development of his experience and which were intensified 
 by the noisome Southern atmosphere which makes social standards in 
 this, our national capital, breathes through legi.siation, inspires injustice 
 at our White House and poisons the decisions of our Supreme Court 
 itself. 
 
 This atmosphere affected the character of Frederick Douglass as 
 it does the characters of all of us, white and black. The white American 
 and the colored American are the victims of this barbarous Southern 
 atmosphere. Because of it our nation has always fallen short of its 
 ideals. American manhood falls far short of its possibilities because of 
 it. It dwarfs both the oppressor and the oppressed. It is to-day the 
 greatest drawback to the success of organized labor. This impalpable, 
 noxious vapor which we call race prejudice is the most powerful force 
 for evil in the United States. It prevents American men from devel- 
 oping true manhood. It prevents American Christians from developing 
 Christianity. 
 
 Frederick Douglass suffered from this. It was not enough that he 
 should meet men like Justice Harlan and Senators Hoar and Chandler 
 and Cabot Lodge. Contact with them was always solace and an 
 encouragement to our leader. But he needed more. He needed 
 another atmosphere, other contacts, — those to which he was entitled 
 because of his means, his culture, his character and his service to 
 humanity. 
 
 There, he would have been the universal race representative indeed, 
 looking to the solution of the universal human question. There, he 
 would have .spoken for the Jew, and the Buddhist, black man and red 
 man ; and he would have impressed his eloquent appeal for the rights 
 of woman. He has done all that here, but there he would have had the 
 civilized world as his audience. There, even he would have grown. 
 There, he would have been beyond the petty annoyances incident to 
 negro leadership in the United States. 
 
 I often wished that he had had that experience in some European 
 capital ; but since his death, as I have talked with those of our young 
 men who were in frequent intercourse with him, I am impelled to think 
 that after all, Frederick Douglass did the great work of his later 3'ears 
 through the medium of his influence on young men. Even those who 
 were not entirely in sympathy with him were consciously or uncon- 
 sciously influenced by his personality. 
 
FREDERICK norGLA.%% 221 
 
 From the beginning of his anti-slavery agitation for all time. Fred- 
 erick Douglass has been and will be what the Haitiens believe him to 
 be. He is the fine, artistic nature, the great genius, the magnificent, 
 irresistible argument for humanity, the ambassador of the oppressed 
 everywhere and every heart that can respond to the thrill of human 
 fellowship, his embassy. 
 
 Tribute of Mrs. Charlotte F. Grimke-. 
 
 Deal- Mr. Terrell: 
 
 I thank you for your invitation to attend the meeting in memory of 
 Mr. Dougla,ss. I consider it a great honor to be thought worthy to 
 •write even a word for such an occasion. And I deeply regret that I am 
 physically unable to write worthily upon a subject so interesting to me. 
 Most gladly would I add my voice to swell the chorus of love and praise 
 which now rises from so many hearts all over this country. At some 
 future time I hope to express more fully my appreciation of my grateful 
 affection for our beloved leader. We must not weep for him. We must 
 rather dwell upon the blessed, the con.soling thought that be still lives, 
 and will live forever. 
 
 "Alike are life and death 
 
 When life in death survives, 
 And the uninterrupteil breath 
 Inspires a thousand lives. 
 
 "Were a star quenched on high 
 For ages would its light. 
 Still traveling downward from the sky. 
 Shine on our mortal sight. 
 
 "So when a great man dies. 
 For years beyond our ken 
 The light he leaves behind him lies 
 Upon the paths of men. " 
 
 And yet, so selfish are we that we can but mourn, — for ourselves, — 
 not for him. When I visited his home after he was gone,— that home 
 where I had spent so many happy hours in delightful intercourse with 
 him, and gazed through a mist of tears upon the many tokens of his 
 recent presence, within the house, and then upon the beautiful view 
 without, in which he took so much pleasure; the fine old trees, which 
 he loved like friends, the river, and the hills, and the city, all bathed 
 in a flood of golden sunlight ; and felt that indescribable thrill in the 
 air which betokens the glad awakening of spring — but saw him not, — 
 an overwhelming sense of loss took possession of me! And a few lines, 
 
222 IN MEMOEIAM. 
 
 written Ioiik ago on visiting the home of another noble friend of human- 
 ity, who had left us, came back to me as befitting that hour. 
 
 "Only the casket left! The jewel gone 
 Whose noble presence filled these stately halls, 
 And made this spot a shrine, where pilgrims came, — 
 Stranger and friend, to bend in reverence 
 Before the great, pure soul, that knew no guile : 
 To listen to the wise and gracious words 
 That fell from lips whose rare, exquisite smile 
 Gave tender beauty to the grand, grave face. 
 
 "O friend beloved, with longing, tear-filled eyes 
 We look up, up, to the unclouded blue. 
 And seek in vain some answering sign from thee! 
 Look down upon us, guide and cheer us still 
 From the serene height where thou dwellest now : 
 Dark is the way without the beacon light 
 Which long and steadfastly thy hand upheld ; 
 O nerve with courage new the stricken hearts 
 Whose dearest hopes seem lost in losing thee!" 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Charlotte F. Grimkb. 
 
 Address of Hon. John R. Lynch. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 Although we know it to be a fact, yet it is difficult for me to realize 
 that Frederick Douglass is dead! That his eloquent voice will be heard, 
 his strong and influential pen in defence of liberty and justice will be 
 used, and his familiar figure will be seen on our public street.s, no more 
 forever! It is a sad and serious fact! Frederick Dougla.ss was not only 
 a great colored man, he was a great American citizen. He was not only 
 a leader of his race, he was one of the leading men of his country. He 
 always took an active and leading part in the consideration and dis- 
 cussion of public questions. It was not his privilege to occupy a seat 
 in either House of Congress, or within the Council Chamber of the 
 Chief Magistrate of the nation, the duties of any and all of which 
 positions he could and would have filled with credit to himself, honor 
 to his race, and profit to his country ; but he occupied a position in 
 public estimation, that was more influential and potential than any one 
 of those to which I have referred. He was potential in making and 
 unmaking Senators and Representatives in Congress, and in making and 
 unmaking Administrations. His opinions were sought, his advice was 
 solicited, and his admonitions were frequently heeded by all Adminis- 
 trations during the active period of his useful public life. He enjoyed 
 the confidence of every Republican President we have ever had, and the 
 admiration and respect of the only Democratic President we have had 
 since the liberation of the colored race. It was my privilege to sit under 
 
FREDFJUCK DOUGLASS. 223 
 
 the soiuul of his eloqueiil voice wlieu he tlelivered his masterly eulogy 
 upon the life and character of General U. S. Grant. I shall never forget 
 the declaration made by him on that occasion, when he declared that 
 while Lincoln gave the colored man his freedom, Grant gave him a 
 country ; that while Lincoln saved the Union, it was Grant who, more 
 than any other one man, was instrumental in giving the colored man 
 the ballot. While Mr. Douglass admired Lincoln, loved Grant, adored 
 Conkling and idolized Sumner, yet, in my opinion, he was, in one 
 respect at least, greater than any one of these. When they spoke, they 
 represented the American people ; when Douglass spoke, he represented 
 a whole race, not of America only, but of the whole civilized world. 
 When they spoke and wrote, their words were read by the people of the 
 United States; when Douglass spoke and wrote, his words were read by 
 the people of the civilized globe. 
 
 The only thing ever said against Frederick Douglass by the few who 
 were disposed to criticise him and to iind fault with him, was that, in 
 his zealous defence of his race, he was sometimes disposed to excuse 
 and justify in a colored man what he would denounce and condemn in 
 a white man; but those who knew him intimately, as it was my privi- 
 lege to know him, would never thus accuse him. I shall never forget 
 a conversation I had with him upon a recent occasion, when he defended 
 himself again.st this unjust accusation. He said that he had come up 
 through great trials, tribulations, crosses and ups and downs; that no 
 man had felt the fangs of American prejudice and injustice, more 
 keenly than himself, and that, in speaking of his race, he therefore felt 
 it to be his duty to extol their virtues and leave to the enemies of the 
 race, the detection and publication of their vices. It was this that some- 
 times caused his position to be misunderstood, and his words to be 
 misconstrued. From my knowledge of him and intimate acquaintance 
 with him, I think that I can inform my eloquent young friend from 
 Philadelphia, Mr. Durham, why Mr. Douglass did not make his home 
 in a foreign couutr\'. No one knew and appreciated, more keenly than 
 Mr. Douglass, the superior advantages he would have enjoyed in London, 
 Paris or Berlin, or even in certain sections of our own country. I shall 
 never forget a conversation I had with him, several years ago, when 
 this subject was one of the topics about which we conversed. He stated 
 that lie could have remained at his New York home, where he was 
 respected, honored and loved, without being subjected to the personal 
 annoyances and inconveniences to which he found himself subjected in 
 Washington. But he was so entirely and loyally devoted to his race, 
 that he fell it to be his duty, after slavery had been abolished, not only 
 to continue the fight for the recognition of the equality of rights for 
 his race, but also to go where the battle raged thickest, — where he 
 would be likely to receive blows, as well as to give them. In other words, 
 he felt that it was his duty to remain with his people, to be with them 
 in the day of their adversity as well as in the hour of their prosperity. 
 
224 /A^ ME3I0BIAM. 
 
 It has beeu my gooil fortune to hear mauy of the able addresses of 
 Mr. Douglass, and to read nearly all of his published works, and I must 
 say that, unlike my venerable friend, Dr. Crummell, I have never read a 
 line in any of his works nor have I heard a word from his eloquent lips, 
 touching public questions, from which I ever felt called upon to dissent. 
 His judgment was sound, his reasons were logical, his arguments were 
 convincing, his mind was clear, his thoughts were pure and his language 
 was beautiful, charming and refined. 
 
 In politics Mr. Douglass was always a consistent Republican, but he 
 was not actuated by selfish motives or by personal considerations. With 
 him, the controlling motive in any Presidential campaign, was its effect 
 upon the race with which he was identified and of which he was the 
 recognized leader, champion and defender. Having satisfied himself 
 upon that point, his duty was clear to him and he never hesitated to 
 discharge it, regardless of consequences personal to himself. He recog- 
 nized the fact, as he had expressed to me on several occasions, that while 
 the Republican party had not done for the colored race all that it could 
 have done, should have done, and might have done, j'et it was through 
 the instrumentality of that organization that the race was in possession 
 of whatever rights and privileges it enjoys to-day. Inasmuch as that 
 party had been utilized for good, in the past, in spite of strong and 
 stubborn opposition, it was his belief that the same organization was 
 the sheet-anchor of the colored man's hopes, ambitions and aspirations. 
 
 The life-work of this great and good man is now at an end and it is 
 my firm conviction that he has gone to his reward. The golden rule 
 "As ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so unto 
 them, " was the rule of his conduct and the standard of his life. Per- 
 sonally he was good, morally he was pure, intellectuall}' he was strong, 
 and racially he was modest, cultured and refined. Such a man must, in 
 my opinion, occupy a seat upon the right hand of the Majesty on High ! 
 
 Wife! children and grandchildren ! Weep not for the loss of husband, 
 father and grandfather! My advice to you is, to emulate, as far as you 
 can, his example, and endeavor to meet him in that land where sickness 
 and sorrow, pain and death, will be felt and feared no more. 
 
 Address of Hon. P. B. S. Pinchbeck. 
 Ladies and Gentlfmen : 
 
 Mr. Douglass was a self-made man; a manly man; a pre-eminent 
 apostle of liberty. 
 
 Since his death the public prints of all descriptions and every shade 
 of opinion have told the story of his remarkable life, and it would be 
 superfluous for me to attempt to repeat it in the short time allotted to 
 me on this occasion. 
 
 I am simply here to add my mite to the world-wide tribute which has 
 been paid to his character and worth as a distinguished colored man and 
 an eminent American citizen. 
 
FliKDESICK DOUGLASS. 225 
 
 In all ages, great crises have produced great men who have com- 
 manded the respect and admiration of the people of their day and 
 generation; but in their origin, environments and achievements, none 
 of them are to be compared with him, — except the great Toussaint 
 L'Ouverture, and even he had advantages which our champion and 
 defender did not possess. Toussaint was a revolutionist, and he had 
 meu and munitions of war to enable him to obtain a place in history. 
 
 Most all of the other men whose records adorn the pages of history, 
 had not only the care of devoted parents, but the most thorough educa- 
 tion and training to fit them for the special fields of endeavor in which 
 they were to labor and obtain success and renown. It is true that some 
 of these men were of humble origin, but none of them were so poor in 
 this respect, as he was. Parentless to all intents and purposes,— and 
 worse still — a slave; denied by law the right to even learn the alphabet; 
 that he should reach the heights he did, stamps him at once the most 
 remarkable man the world has ever seen. 
 
 There can be but one explanation of this; he was born great. The 
 elements of greatness were inherent in him and he could no more be 
 confined to a life of slavery, than the ebb and flow of the mighty waters 
 of the ocean could be controlled by human agencies. His love of 
 liberty and flight to obtain it, and his thirst for knowledge, which he 
 acquired to such a remarkable degree, demonstrate that he was no 
 ordinary man. He would not only be free himself, but he must do 
 something to shatter the fetters which bound in hopeless bondage, 
 millions of other human beings. 
 
 Self-emancipated and self-taught, what a wonderful and .striking 
 object-lesson, to young and aspiring mankind everywhere, his life pre- 
 .sents in its march from the poor and unlettered slave boy, to the orator, 
 editor, statesman and one of the foremost men of his time! It forcibly 
 illustrates the marvelous possibilities of the human intellect when 
 afforded opportunities for development and the stimulus of a field for 
 employment. 
 
 It is a very common thing for writers and public speakers to declare 
 that opportunity is nothing ; that great men make their own opportunity. 
 The history of the world's great men does not, in my opinion, sustain 
 this assertion. Rare gifts, and even genius itself, remain dormant and 
 undiscovered, when subjected to the rust of inactivity. The human 
 mind and intellect must have constant employment to obtain their 
 highest perfection, — and there never was in the history of the world 
 a more inspiring cause than the abolition of American slavery, — the 
 cause in which Mr. Douglass labored and which wrought in him such 
 a marvelous development. 
 
 With the fall of slavery his occupation was not like Othello's, .gone, 
 
 its attendant evils, prejudice and hatred, wrong and injustice continued 
 
 to follow the race, and this kept him like a sentinel on the watch-tower 
 
 of public opinion, ever ready and willing to enter in dignified and 
 
 15 
 
226 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 manly terms, his protest against their encroachment upon his people. 
 It was this ceaseless demand upon his time and talents, which accounts 
 for his continuous growth and the colossal form he reached in the pub- 
 lic eye. 
 
 His life is picturesque and interesting from every point of view; 
 but in no way more remarkable than in its wouderful perseverance 
 and endurance. 
 
 It has often been said of Mr. Douglass, that he was not a leader ; and 
 in the common acceptation of the term, this is true. It was not his 
 province to lead men ; he soared away above such a leadership into the 
 realms of thought and reason. But in the broader, deeper and higher 
 sense, — the maker and moulder of public sentiment — he was a leader of 
 leaders, "The noblest Roman of them all." 
 
 The great men who preceded him, were all, without an exception, 
 the outgrowth of fortuitous circumstances or the descendants of illus- 
 trious ancestors. In their several fields of action they not only had 
 precedents to guide and assist them in their labors, but abundant 
 resources and an army of followers. Not so with Mr. Douglass. He 
 had nothing but his tongue and pen to advance the great cause in 
 which he was enlisted. The human brain and heart were the citadels 
 he had to siege, storm and capture. His own people were, in the 
 main, in the most abject slavery and utterly unable to render him any 
 assistance, and a large majority of the dominant class, — the people 
 before whom he must plead his cause — were strongly fortified against 
 him by race prejudice and hatred. On all sides trials and perils, with- 
 out a parallel in the world's history, confronted him ; but he never 
 faltered, and for over half a century, with more than Spartan courage, 
 he performed with his eloquent tongue and matchless pen, inestimable 
 service for his downtrodden and helpless people. 
 
 A born orator and possessed of rare eloquence, he also had an abun- 
 dance of that still rarer gift — common sense. It was this quality which 
 enabled him to avoid extremes and exaggeration in his public utter- 
 ances. Incessant and aggressive in his war on slavery, he made his 
 argument against it with such consummate judgment, that he com- 
 manded the attention of friend and foe alike, and acquired the fame 
 which has placed his name high up on the scroll of the famous men of 
 the world. Without a precedent or predecessor, he leaves no suc- 
 cessor. Both he and the occasion which developed him are gone 
 forever. 
 
 Measured by his humble origin, his limited opportunities, his pov- 
 erty of resources and the uncongenial field in which he had to labor, 
 he leaves an impress upon the civilized portion of mankind, unex- 
 celled by any other man in either ancient or modern times, except the 
 lowly Nazarene. 
 
 What a splendid panorama his life presents ! And how singularly 
 fortunate he was in living to see the fruition of his labor and the 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 227 
 
 realization of his dearest hopes, — the emancipation and enfranchise- 
 ment of the race for whom he had labored so long and earnestly. It 
 was a consolation and a joy vouchsafed to very few men. He was con- 
 scious of the fact and it mellowed and sweetened his disposition, 
 softened his heart toward all mankind and rendered him forgiving 
 and indulgent even to his bitterest opponents. 
 
 On his last day on earth, I had the pleasure of listening to one of 
 his charming conversations, in which he was always instructive and 
 entertaining. He was apparently hale and hearty, and deeply con- 
 cerned about the shadows which still lower over the future of the race 
 in this country. A tinge of sadness pervaded his conversation, but 
 it was relieved by the almost boyish glee and satisfaction with which 
 he spoke of the compliment he had just received from the Ladies' Con- 
 vention. It was a splendid compliment to a splendid man, and was 
 highly appreciated by him. 
 
 On that day, as ever before, the uppermost thought with him was the 
 betterment of the condition of his people; and it was while in the act 
 of going forth to speak words of encouragement to them, that the grim 
 monster seized him. The end was sudden, but Providential. It was 
 meet that his majestic form should be spared the ravages of disease and 
 decrepitude. It was with intellect undimmed, mind unimpaired, 
 strength vigorous, and armor still on, that he fell. Peculiar and extra- 
 ordinary in life, exceptional in death ! His absence from the affairs 
 of life leaves a void which I fear generation after generation will not 
 see filled. 
 
 It will require no statue of marble or bronze, or granite monument, to 
 perpetuate his uame and fame. His great services to humanity are a 
 living monument, and it will last so long as memory holds a place in 
 the brain of man. 
 
 Ricv. Dr. vShippen's Address. 
 Rev. Rush R. Shippen, of the First Unitarian Church of Washing- 
 ton, D. C, then followed in a short address in which he dwelt upon 
 the high character and personal qualities of Mr. Douglass, and illus- 
 trated these by several interesting reminiscent anecdotes. He related an 
 incident which took place years before in Chicago, on which occasion 
 Mr. Douglass provoked the anger of a large audience by his critici.sm 
 of Daniel Webster for his famous "Seventh of March" speech, when, 
 as Dr. Shippen said, Webster buckled and cringed to the slave owners. 
 It looked as if Douglass could not go on with his remarks, he had so 
 enraged the audience. But he waited till the din had ceased, then 
 recited a passage which he had committed to memorj' from one of 
 Webster's earlier speeches in which he pleaded so grandly for freedom 
 of speech. The effect was electric, and the audience cheered Douglass 
 as enthusiastically as it had before hissed and hooted him. Another 
 time, at a convention of abolitionists of the State of Illinois, a white 
 
228 JN MEMOEIAM. 
 
 mail made a speech saying that the negro was so thieving, so immoral, 
 so intemperate and untruthful, that it was impossible to redeem him, 
 even if he were made free. Douglass was called next, and he saw his 
 opportunit}'. "Our race," he said, "is simple; it is imitative — very 
 imitative. We do as we see our masters do. When the white man 
 ceases to steal, to drink, to lie and to be immoral, then we will have 
 hope for ourselves. ' ' The fine sarcasm of the retort aroused the great 
 audience to the wildest applause. 
 
 Another interesting incident related by the speaker was one which 
 transpired but a short time previous to the death of Mr. Douglass, when 
 Profe.ssor Carpenter, of Oxford, England, was passing through Wash- 
 ington, on his way to Cambridge, Mass., to deliver a course of lectures 
 before Harvard University. The occasion was a social one and its im- 
 portance lay in the eager desire of the English scholar to obtain from 
 Mr. Douglass his opinion concerning the real and prospective condition 
 of the colored people of the South and of the terrible lynchings so 
 generally practiced there, and the calm, dispassionate and philosophical 
 account which Mr. Douglass gave of that condition and of the causes, 
 history and unavoidable influence upon the country, of the Southern 
 lynching mania. 
 
 Dr. Shippen referred to the lecture by Matthew Arnold at the First 
 Congregational Church, Washington, twelve years before, when, after 
 the distinguished Englishman had concluded. Secretary Chandler, who 
 presided, called for remarks from the distinguished men in the audi- 
 ence. Seeing Mr. Douglass, he said : " I see before me the greatest 
 orator in America, and I call upon Frederick Douglass to speak. ' ' Mr. 
 Douglass arose and, in a fine manner, refraining from a speech, moved 
 the thanks of the audience to Professor Arnold for the pleasure his 
 lecture had given them. 
 
 Dr. Shippen was succeeded by Rev. William Creditt. 
 
 Address of Rev. William A. Creditt. 
 Frederick Douglass in History. 
 
 Carlyle, in his Essay on History, says, "History is the essence of 
 innumerable biographies." 
 
 Men who render great services to their race and country, will always 
 be remembered and honored by posterity. Nearly every- age has pro- 
 duced such men. They are, in a certain sense, the elect of God's prov- 
 idence on earth, whom, from time to time. He calls forth to open new 
 resources for mankind, and to point out new roads of activity for the 
 human mind. Every generation, as if by one common impulse, has 
 expressed its gratitude to them, either by written eulogies and orations, 
 or by monuments, in order to transfer to future ages, not only a record 
 of the exalted deeds of their great men, but also to show in what 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 229 
 
 manner they themselves acknowledge and appreciate the merits of those 
 whom Providence was pleased to place in their midst. 
 
 Every nation jealously guards the history of her great men. France 
 finds no language too rich to tell the history of her greatest general, 
 Germany finds no oration too grand to celebrate the great ex-chancel- 
 lor's natal day. America finds no marble too white for a monument to 
 the memory of Washington. But if it reflects great credit upon these 
 nations to have thus honored the men who distinguished themselves 
 in the service of their respective race and country, how much more 
 honor is due to that man whose life was a benefaction, not only to his 
 own race and country, but to the world of mankind? The man who 
 has, of all men, thus distinguished himself, is the one in whose mem- 
 ory we have assembled, — one of the world's greatest; one of America's 
 greatest; our greatest; Frederick Douglass! His life has been, and 
 shall ever be, an inspiration to suffering races; to men struggling 
 under national prejudices; and to aspiring manhood, wherever found. 
 His unfavorable, and yet favorable, birth; his intellectual capacities; 
 his great qualities of heart; his force of will; his nobility of character; 
 his untiring perseverance in the pursuit of his designs, a per.severance 
 which could be checked by no obstacle; his magnanimity and whole- 
 heartedness; his firmness in adversity; his goodness in prosperity; his 
 cheerfulness and amiabilit}- under all circumstances; the stirring events 
 of the period in which he lived; the need of an advocate for freedom, 
 who could, in his own personality, show forth the suffering of the 
 slave and the greatness of a noble soul; all alike declare that history- 
 shall record Frederick Douglass as a fit illustration of the possibilities 
 of our American institutions, when a truly great soul is upon the stage 
 of action. 
 
 John Lord says, in the preface to his work, "The Beacon Lights of 
 History, " "Inasmuch as the interest in the development of those great 
 ideas and movements which we call civilization, centre, in no slight 
 degree, in the men who were identified with them, I have endeavored 
 to give a faithful picture of their lives in connection with the eras and 
 institutions which they represent, whether they were philosophers, 
 ecclesiastics, or men of action. ' ' 
 
 He then undertakes his task, upon this plan, selecting a great central 
 character, — a Beacon Light, — and around this life he tells the history 
 of events and institutions that were, more or less, affected by this great 
 central character. America has her "Beacon Lights of Historj-. " 
 Washington might well be selected as a Beacon Light of our early 
 civilization. Grant, Sherman and Sheridan could easily gather about 
 themselves our struggles and victories upon the field of battle. Webster, 
 Calhoun and Clay may show forth the principles of oratory. Lincoln 
 would be the central figure of a great contest. Garri.son and Phillips 
 would tell of the abolitionists' movement. But no one of these Beacon 
 Lights, with the exception of Washington, can gather unto himself so 
 
230 7iS' MEMOKIAM. 
 
 luucb of America's historj-, as can Frederick Douglass! The many 
 years of American slavery, from its introduction, centre in his birth. 
 The longing hopes and struggles of the enslaved find their most illus- 
 trious example of escape, in his flight from Maryland. The abolitionist 
 movement gathers around him, as its illustration, as its soul, and its 
 most eloquent advocate, either in America or in foreign lands. The 
 agitation at the North ; the secession of the South, and the war of the 
 rebellion, were all more or less caused by the existence of the institu- 
 tion which Douglass represented. The great turning point in the 
 struggle was due to his advice to President Lincoln to ' ' arm the slaves. ' ' 
 Therefore the great victory thus achieved by the Union army, cannot be 
 written without the Douglass life, or can be best written with the 
 Douglass life as its Beacon Light. And should the Colored American 
 ever wish to transmit to generations yet unborn, their own struggles and 
 achievements, Frederick Douglass would be the great central character 
 around whch our greatest accomplishments, thus far, would centre, and 
 from which our greatest achievements in the fuli-.re, shall borrow their 
 inspiration. 
 
 The public schools of our city have already begun work for histon,'. 
 Last Friday young Colored America under the direction of its teachers, 
 told of the birth, early struggles, achievements and death of our hero. 
 This tells us that Frederick Douglass shall ever hold a place in the 
 heart of Colored America, and that Douglass Day is a certainty. But, 
 friends, should we assign to the Colored Americans alone, the place that 
 Frederick Douglass shall occupj' in history, we should do ourselves an 
 injustice ; we .should do Douglass an injustice ; we should do America an 
 injustice. True, he was one of us. We love to think of him as a 
 Colored American. He was ours and remained ours, but he became also 
 the honored representative of our common countrj-. He was proud of 
 being a colored man, but he gloried in being an American citizen. 
 America honored Douglass, Douglass honored America. He belonged 
 to the nation as well as to the race. Orators, essayists and historians of 
 the present generation may speak and write of him merely as a Colored 
 American. This will not, however, do him proper honor. Unborn orators, 
 essayists and historians will take him from this narrow confine and place 
 him as one of .America's greatest characters. The age in which Columbus 
 lived could not do him justice. The age in which Attucks lived could 
 not do him justice. The present age has placed them where the}- belong. 
 The Columbian Exposition gave full recognition to him whose name it 
 bore. The Attucks monument on Boston Common tells the world that 
 it was a sable hand which struck the first blow for American inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 The time will come when there shall be no distinction in America on 
 account of race or color. The time will come in America when history 
 shall be both written and read without prejudice. Then shall some 
 John Lord, writing upon the Beacon Lights of American History, place 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 231 
 
 Washington as the one who best represents the early years and stirring 
 events of our young country ; Grant, Sherman and Sheridan as the most 
 illustrious examples of military glory ; Webster, Calhoun and Clay as 
 models of American oratory; Garrison and Phillips as the leading spirits 
 of the abolitionist movement; and Lincoln as the emancipator of four 
 millions of slaves; then, reaching higher and still higher, for a beacon 
 whose light shall illumine the histoi-j- of the slave, from Jamestown to 
 the emancipation; one whose existence was coincident with, and a part 
 of, the most stirring events that have ever transpired in America ; whose 
 life-work was to advocate the noblest ideas and thoughts to men, and 
 whose life shall serve as an inspiration to millions yet unborn, he will 
 place, far above them all, the name of the slave, editor, advocate, 
 diplomat, hero and chieftain, Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Rev. Francis J. Giiuike, D. D. , then pronouncei'. the benediction, and 
 the meeting adjourned. 
 
 ADDRE.S.S OK Mr. I. C. WKAR.S, AT THE ME.MORIAk MEET- 
 ING Held ix Honor of Frederick Douglass, at 
 THE Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pa., 
 April 15, 1895. 
 
 FelloK' Cilizois : It is fitting, indeed I think manifestly appropriate 
 to the memory of one of the greatest of the apostles of human freedom 
 of our times, that the citizens of Philadelphia and its vicinity should 
 make some special public expression and acknowledgment of their 
 estimation of the character and value of the public labors of the late 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 
 It is fitting, first, because Pennsylvania, and especially Philadelphia, 
 was, for more than half a centur}', the breakwater against which the 
 surging billows of Southern slavery dashed with ever-increasing fury. 
 It was in this city that most of the legal, as well as the physical, battles 
 were fought for the uiaintenance of the personal freedom of its own 
 citizens. 
 
 It was in this city that pro-slavery arrogance and brutality mobbed 
 our citizens, both white and colored, burned to the ground our private 
 dwellings, our anti-slavery halls, our churches and even our orphan 
 asylums. It was in this city that the quiet and unoffending Quaker 
 citizen of Lancaster County, of this State, ' ' Castner Hanw.ny, ' ' was tried 
 for treason, because he declined to aid Gorsuch, a slaveholder, in the 
 recovery of what he was pleased to call his slave property. The several 
 weeks which have transpired since the demise of Frederick Douglass 
 will not only protect this memorial meeting from the insinuation of 
 being the outburst of mere emotions of sudden sorrow but will justify 
 
282 IX MEMORIAM. 
 
 the loftiest interpretation of a purpose to make honorable mention of 
 his name and transmit to posterity bis wondrous example of human 
 possibilities. 
 
 I must leave to those appointed to follow me the more attractive work 
 of weaving for this audience wreaths of eloquence, or the casting into 
 it bouquets of rhetoric. 
 
 My simple task will be confined to a concise statement of the prin- 
 ciples involved, as well as a brief recital of the events of history occur- 
 ring in this country, in the period of the manhood existence of the 
 great character whose matchless career we have to-night assembled to 
 honor and to endorse. 
 
 It is not among the possibilities of human effort that we may do any 
 kind of reasonable justice to either the character or labors of Frederick 
 Douglass, except by first presenting to our audience, as far as may be, 
 the field in which he labored and to some extent the beggarly facilities 
 which were at his command. 
 
 Those living in the present generation, whose life period measures 
 less than forty-five years (however intelligent they may be), have no 
 definite conception, no adequate means of realizing the dark and bewil- 
 dering reign of terror which preceded the years of iS6o and 1861. And 
 even a deliberate effort by one who lived in the midst of its agonizing 
 and soul-crushing potencies, may fail to present a faithful picture of 
 those perilous times. 
 
 Considerate politeness to others who are to address you, will prevent 
 my enlarging upon any topic I may present, or an attempt at extreme 
 exemplification of the ideas which legitimately appear within the 
 domain of my subject. 
 
 In painting the picture of the field in which this great man volun- 
 teered to labor, let me ask you to imagine, if 30U can, at this great 
 distance from the scene, four millions of human beings, in a country 
 under Christian government, doomed to incessant and unrequited toil ; 
 shut out from the protection of either sacred or of human law ; impris- 
 oned in a hopeless ignorance, and driven by the lash, the auction-block 
 and branding iron, beyond range of every civilizing opportunity 
 extended to others. Contemplate with me the disgusting spectacle, 
 that of the twelve hundred thousand women of this same class, not one 
 of them either was, or could be, a wife. By the very necessities of the 
 horrid system and its laws (and I quote the law), they were each of 
 them "held and reputed to be a chattel thing — personal to all intents 
 and purposes whatsoever, having neither the right to buy, bargain, sell 
 or exchange, but shall be held as any other property. ' ' They were, 
 therefore, all living in enforced concubinage. 
 
 Keep before your offended vision the penal edict, nowhere else under 
 civilization imposed, that from the cradle to the grave no one of these 
 millions should, under any circumstances, be taught to spell even the 
 name of the Judge of all the earth. 
 
fUEDEJUCK DOCOLASS. 233 
 
 And now to extend the field of your retrospection to a wider range of 
 observation, both as to territory aad to population, to the forty millions 
 of the so-called white freemen, and here you have a picture of that 
 other great class of bondmen, politically, civilly and religiously sub- 
 jected to the yoke of the Southern master. That they were slaves, the 
 facts of history indisputably exhibit. First, they submitted to the 
 humiliating demand that the master (in the ratio of Congressional rep- 
 resentation ) might count five of his chattel slaves as equal to three 
 Northern white men. 
 
 The Congress of the United States was at that period a fair miniature 
 representation of the whole national situation. Our Representatives 
 in Congress assembled in those days would, in the interests of the whole 
 country, present river and harbor bills, internal improvements, pro- 
 tective tariff measures, and instantly the representative of the slave 
 master would step forward and blot out the entire list by writing in 
 large letters the shibboleth "Slavery" over them. 
 
 These Southern masters, filled with wrath and mortification at the 
 succe.ssful escape of numbers of their chattel slaves, at once determined 
 to utilize the services of their white Northern slaves in order to recover 
 what they claimed as their property. Being themselves owners of blood- 
 hounds, they could and did use them in the South in pursuit of the flee- 
 ing bondsman, but north of Mason and Di.KOu's line another and 
 different kind of a hound must be used. Hence, in 1S50 they en.icted 
 the infamous "Fugitive Slave Bill, " which made every Northern white 
 man a slave hound in the unpaid service of their Southern masters. 
 
 It is important at this juncture that we recognize the fact that for 
 thirty years preceding the war there were in this country two distinct 
 anti-slavery or abolition parties. One was the Moral Suasionists, the 
 other was the Political Actionists. 
 
 The creed of the Moral Suasionists was, that the Constitution of the 
 I'nited States was pro-slavery — that it was "a covenant with death and 
 an agreement with hell, " and further, that to vote for any man who in 
 assuming the duties of office should have to swear to support said Con- 
 stitution, was an endorsement of said covenant, and hence they never 
 voted. The creed of the Political Actionists was, that the Constitution 
 of the United States was an anti-slavery document, a charter of human 
 liberty, and, if properly interpreted and faithfully executed, slaverj' 
 would cease to exist in this country by virtue of the organic law of the 
 nation. 
 
 The Moral Suasionists were headed by William Lloyd Garrison, 
 Wendell Phillips, Parker Pillsbury, Lucretia Mott and others. The 
 Political Actionists were headed by Garrett Smith, William Goodell, 
 Sanniel R. Ward, Joshua R. Giddings and others. 
 
 Frederick Douglass in his first public labors acted for years with the 
 former, but, convinced that political action was quite as important as 
 argument, he linked his energetic activities with the latter. He had 
 
234 7.V MEMORIAM. 
 
 witnessed the growing tendency of the Liberty party from 7000, in 
 1S40, to 60,000 for J. K. Bimey, in 1844. Being a voter at that period 
 in the State of New York, he readilj' joined with the above-named 
 abolitionists in forming the Free-Soil party, which in 1S4S polled 
 120,000 votes in the State of New York, thereby knocking that State out 
 of the Democratic list, and consequently defeating General Lewis Cass, 
 the Democratic candidate. Encouraged by the potenc}', which their 
 ever- increasing numbers gave promise of, their next work was to form 
 a party, including the championship of the national exclusion of slavery 
 from the territories. This was the origin and purpose of the great 
 Republican party. And we maintain that the history of the broad and 
 beneficent resolution which legitimately followed and has maintained 
 itself up to the present hour, victoriously vindicates the wisdom both 
 of the political philosophy and action which guided his footsteps and 
 secured his masterly services. 
 
 The truth of historj' justifies, aye, demands, the reminder that in the 
 midst of the hottest of this contest the brutal slaveholder was reinforced 
 and defended by the public efforts and arguments of a very numerous 
 and influential portion of the so-called Christian ministry both in the 
 Northern and Southern States. They ransacked and perverted Holy 
 Writ, from Genesis to Revelations, to produce incidents and precedents 
 to vindicate and justify the foul and cruel system of American slavery. 
 
 This action on the part of these prominent religious teachers, aroused 
 the antagonism of all real abolitionists against those bj' whom they were 
 assailed, and in the heat of the contest between the assailed and the 
 assailant, religion was made to suffer for the misdoings of those who 
 claimed to be its public promoters and defenders. 
 
 Frederick Douglass, one of the greatest advocates of human freedom, 
 marched into this fight and plied the scorpion lash of his caustic criti- 
 cism to the backs of the pro-slavery clergymen. He was charged by 
 them with being religiously sceptical. 
 
 Let me here say that for more than forty-five years it has been my 
 custom and my pleasure to both publicly and privately review, criticise 
 and antagonize in debate the doctrines of the religious sceptic, during 
 which period I have enjoyed familiar personal contact with Frederick 
 Douglass, and, although we have sometimes differed in some of the 
 metaphysical abstractions of theology, I do not hesitate to say that I 
 always regarded him as a great, good and religious man, whose Chris- 
 tian toilet had been somewhat soiled and disarranged by contact with 
 the chimney-sweeps and pro-slavery scavengers, who were at that time 
 passing themselves off as ministers of the Christian religion. 
 
 Allow me for a moment to repeat that, in the dark days of 1850 and 
 thereabouts, when, at the commanding behests of the slave power, the 
 Congress of the United States enacted the infamous "Fugitive Slave 
 Bill" which brought terror and trepidation into every society organiza- 
 tion, composed of colored people, secular and religious, in the Northern 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 235 
 
 States ; when the bold, brazen slaveholder, flushed with his recent leg- 
 islative victory, made the entire Northern States his hunting ground, 
 compelling even white Northern citizens to aid in the capture of the 
 fleeing bondsman; when Henry Clay rose in the Senate-chamber and 
 proclaimed that "seventy years had sanctified the institution of slavery 
 to the American people, and that the question of its continued existence 
 was settled, and, thank God, settled forever, "—it was then, in response 
 to that devilish announcement, in the Cimerian gloom which had 
 settled upon our country, that the prophetic soul of the great Douglass, 
 grasping a wider range of observation, and lifting his voice to inspire 
 with renewed courage the beleaguered armies of freedom, with trumpet- 
 tongued eloquence cried out: "I see an arm reaching down from God 
 out of the heavens stronger than any human arm, an arm stronger than 
 all human arms; I see an intelligence, higher and holier than all human 
 intelligences, they are guarding and guiding our cause and are making 
 auxiliaries of its enemies. I am willing to trust that arm. I am willing 
 to confide in that intelligence, that it will ere long bring our .storm- 
 tossed vessel to the desired port. ' ' 
 
 And I may here add that at that dismal period of the struggle there 
 was no such faith in God found among all that sanctimonious class who 
 boisterously stigmatized him as an infidel. 
 
 It was not the love they had for the Christian religion that prompted 
 these minions of caste and despotism to arraign this great and good man 
 as an infidel. It was rather their superserviceable readiness to ser\-e the 
 slave-holding power, which at that period ruled in Church and State. 
 
 "They die unlamented by people and laws. 
 Whose lives were but shadows on Liberty's cause; 
 They slumber unblest by futurity's star, 
 Who have blocked the track of humanity's car. 
 
 "Regarded when dead by the wise and the good, 
 As the shepherd regards the dead wolf in the wood. 
 They are only unhated when heaven shall efface 
 The memory of such from the souls of the race. " 
 
 The people of the Northern and Western States, availing 
 themselves of the opportunities which the territorial question gave them, 
 made through the ballot box, by the election of Abraham Lincoln, an 
 official and popular declaration of independence, thus saying to the 
 tyrant, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further!" . . . Smarting 
 under the humiliating threat of Robert Toombs, of Georgia, that he 
 would "yet call the roll of his slaves under the shadow of Bunker Hill," 
 the whole North rose in rebellion and threw from their necks the galling 
 yoke of the slave oligarchy by placing on guard the immortal Lincoln. 
 This political revolution struck ten-or into the ranks of the Southern 
 tyrant. They saw in that result that the abolitionists by their agitation 
 and by their educational agencies had set the entire North ablaze with 
 
236 /A" ME3WRIAM. 
 
 the sentiments and principles of political and personal freedom. They 
 the people of the South saw as we then saw the "anu," to which 
 p'rederick Douglass had pointed us just ten years before that period, as 
 "stronger than all human arms." 
 
 When the history of that period is read with care, it will be clearly 
 seen that theirs is an attempt to get away from a moral and political 
 conflagration, which they had no means of extinguishing and no other 
 means of avoiding. 
 
 We contend, therefore, the labors, the ostracisms and the sufferings 
 of the abolitionists, and the unprecedented revolution, which has freed 
 every man, white and black, North and South, and has buried the 
 auction-block, the branding- iron and enforced concubinage, stand in 
 the intimate relation of cause and effect. 
 
 This rebellion of iS6o, through the agency of the ballot box was the 
 first great national step for freedom in seventy-five years. 
 
 More than fifty years acquaintance with Frederick Douglass demands 
 of me on this occasion a brief mention also of some of his personal 
 characteristics. 
 
 First, then, let me say that during that extended period he was Ora- 
 tor Douglass, Editor Douglass, United States Minister Douglass and 
 Mr. Douglass. He not only fully and faithfully performed the duties 
 of each of these several departments while he honored them with his 
 intelligent services, but he was more permanently and delightfully 
 charming as Mr. Douglass, in his broad, brave, buoyant and beautiful 
 manliness, as seen and enjoyed by those who had the good fortune to 
 meet him, either in social or in civil life. 
 
 In blandness and urbanity, in unostentatious kindness and instinctive 
 generosity he seemed without a peer. He was easily approached by all 
 who had any legitimate claim on his time, his attention, or his services. 
 
 He had a supreme contempt for that haughtiness which distinguishes 
 small-minded men, when they find themselves in authority or in popu- 
 lar favor. 
 
 He entertained a supreme contempt for the pitiable race distinctions 
 tolerated by small-minded people in this country. 
 
 And we are proud to be able to say of him that neither his broad cul- 
 ture nor his ample material competence could lure him from the old 
 intimate and companionable relationship with that portion of the peo- 
 ple with whom he was identified by complexional classification. 
 
 However the public and mo.st of his friends and acquaintances may 
 have been startled by his sudden demise, some of those who knew 
 him more intimatelj' can affirm that for years he had made himself 
 familiar with his proximate and probable contingencies of sudden 
 departure from the scenes of his earthly labor. 
 
 Unlike many other great men, Frederick Douglass does not at this 
 time, nor in the near future, require the erection of expensive monu- 
 ments to remind us or our immediate posterity of the majestic grandeur 
 
FREDEIUCK DOUGLASSi. 237 
 
 of his incomparable life-work. Monuments in the shape of school- 
 houses in every considerable town and city south of Mason and Dixon's 
 line, the numerous colleges and other institutions of learning, the 
 practical personal liberties of the millions, who have reaped and are 
 in enjoyment of blessings so largely the results of his labors dwarf into 
 comparative and utter insignificance any mere structure of either brass 
 or of stone. 
 
 No man living, I .care not what may be the measure or character of 
 his intellect, is capable of making a just estimate of the character and 
 the work of Frederick Douglass in this country in the la.st fifty years, 
 who leaves out of sight the fact that he labored for the white man's- 
 liberty, as well as for the black, — for woman's freedom and enfauchise- 
 ment, as well as for man's. In this respect he has left his footprints 
 on every square mile of territor}- within the jurisdiction of this great 
 country. 
 
 Address of Rev. Dr. H. L. W.vyland, Delivered at 
 
 THE Memorial Meeting, Held at the Academy 
 
 OF Music, Philadelphia, Pa., on the 
 
 Evening of April 15, 1895. 
 
 A/r. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 1 cannot look upon the eminent citizen whose name is in every heart 
 this evening, simply as a public man. To me, he was a valuable per- 
 sonal friend. Forty-two years ago, while I was residing in Rochester, 
 I made his acquaintance, and was captivated by his brilliant and 
 admirable qualities. I had the opportunity of rendering him some 
 slight service, which he, with characteristic generosity, estimated at 
 far more than its real worth. I had the honor of introducing him to 
 three presidents of American colleges, a circumstance to which he 
 often alluded with pleasure. In 1854 he was invited to give the annual 
 literary address before what was then Western Reserve College, at 
 Hudson, Ohio, which has since been removed to Cleveland, and largely 
 endowed, and which now bears the name of Adelbert College. It was 
 the first time such an invitation had been given to him, or, I imagine, 
 to any colored man. He naturally felt a good deal of hesitation. I 
 urged him to accept the service. He did so, and, thinking that for a 
 college occasion, something of a scientific turn would be demanded, he 
 selected as his subject "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Con 
 sidered. " When he had read what was within his reach on the sub 
 ject, I asked permission of Dr. Martin B. Anderson, then president oi 
 the University of Rochester, an eminent and widely read student o 
 ethnology, to bring Mr. Douglass to his hou.se, that the latter migh 
 have the benefit of his great stores of information. The presid^n 
 
238 IN ME3I0EIAM. 
 
 kindly welcomed him, loaned him books, and afforded him the yet 
 more invaluable inspiration of his personal encouragement. The 
 address went off well, although Mr. Douglass was fettered by the use 
 of manuscript, to which he was unaccustomed, and probably was not 
 unconscious of his academic audience. He subsequently expressed the 
 opinion that he would nave done better to have spoken upon his great 
 theme, and to have let himself out. One incident in regard to the 
 addre.ss I recall. He quoted the opinion of some ethnologist, who 
 claimed that the negro was radically differentiated from the other 
 races, by his small, thin, weak voice. Mr. Douglass made no com- 
 ment, but simply declaimed this extract from the author in a voice of 
 thunder that made the rafters ring. 
 
 l,ater I was living in Worcester, the heart of the Commonwealth, a 
 community more true to liberty than any other city in America. I 
 fully agree with the sentiments that I have heard uttered by Theodore 
 Parker, that, if you tie a rope ten miles long to the steeple of the Old 
 South Church in Worcester, and use it as a radius, you will include 
 within that circle a higher average, intellectually and morally, than 
 anywhere else on the earth. Just after the crime of the Dred-Scott 
 decision, I arranged a lecture for Mr. Douglass in the Worcester City 
 Hall, and, for the first time in his history, he was introduced by the 
 Mayor of the city, who presided. After the lecture, there was a little 
 supper, at which, in addition to Mr. Douglass, the guest of honor, 
 there were present John Brown of Ossawatamie, later of Harper's 
 Ferry; Hon. EH Thayer, then Member of Congress; Hon. W. W. Rice, 
 later Member of Congress; Hon. J. N. Walker, present Member of Con- 
 gress, and other citizens. Pardon me for these details, which I do not 
 enter into from any personal motive, but simply to introduce an inci- 
 dent which took place twenty years later, while Mr. Douglass was 
 Marshal of the District of Columbia. I called upon him in his office. 
 His son came into the room, and Mr. Douglass said, "My son, this is 
 Mr. Wayland. Mr. Wayland was a friend to your father at a time 
 when your father needed a friend very much. ' ' The recollection of these 
 few words, touching in their simplicity, I prize greatly at this hour. 
 
 It would be very pleasant to spend the time which your courtesy allows 
 me in eulogizing the virtues of Mr. Douglass. There is little need to 
 speak of his eloquence. Coming upon the platform in a day when 
 Curtis and Sumner and Phillips were speaking, he occupied no second 
 place. Forty years ago, John G. Palfrey, formerly a professor in 
 Harvard University, from his place in the popular branch of Congress, 
 spoke of Mr. Douglass as speaking and writing the English language 
 "in a manner of which any member might be proud. " He had the 
 qualifications of a great orator. Eloquence comes from the heart It 
 is true of the orator, as of the poet : 
 
 ' ' Men are cradled into poetry by wrong ; 
 They learn in suffering, what they teach in song. " 
 
FREnEEICK DOUGLASS. 2H9 
 
 In order to be eloquent, there must be a great cause, a great experi- 
 ence, a great agony. 1 can but think it a wonderful adjustment of 
 Provideuce that in Mr. Douglass were united the burning experience, 
 with the gift of speech. I seem to hear him now, as, looking back to 
 the former condition of himself and those associated with him, he 
 exclaimed, "Oh, the depth, the depth!" The utterance of these words 
 cost him twenty years of slavery and a half century of sympathy. 
 
 Along with his eloquence and his brilliancy, Mr. Douglass united a 
 wisdom, a good sense, a good taste, that never allowed him to go 
 astray. I recall no public man who has made fewer mistakes. His 
 wisdom, together with his mental independence, was illustrated by his 
 relations to Mr. Garrison and others of the old abolition leaders. They 
 held that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document ; that it was, in 
 their own often-quoted language (which I think was printed every 
 week on the first page of the Liberator), "a covenant with death and 
 an agreement with hell. " They refused to act under the Constitution. 
 They abjured the exercise of the franchise. They set at naught force 
 and trusted only to moral appeal. But they did use words infinitely 
 sharper than the sword. Mr. Douglass' early associations were with 
 these men, who are to be honored for their bravery and their fidelity. 
 But in the course of time, with enlarging wisdom, he found himself 
 differing from them, and he was forced to protest against their funda- 
 mental principle and against their methods and spirit. He declared 
 that the Constitution was an anti-slavery document, and that it con- 
 tained resources for the universal establishment of liberty. Time 
 passed. Under the forms of the Constitution, the great emancipator 
 was elected. A President, constitutionally chosen, signed the Procla- 
 mation of Emancipation, and, through the armies of the United States, 
 and under its fiag, slavery was annihilated. 
 
 A striking feature in the character of Mr. Douglass was the absence 
 of bitterness. He warred against a system, not against man. That 
 was a very touching episode, his visit, late in life, to his old master, 
 from whom, fifty years before, he had run away. 
 
 Mr. Douglass had a broad humanity. His sympathies were not con- 
 fined to the advocacy of any single cause, or the champiouship of any 
 single class or sex. His voice was enlisted for all who suffered wrong. 
 
 It would be pleasant to dwell at length upon the character of our 
 honored friend. But I think we should do injustice to the occasion, 
 if we did not draw from the life that has closed, one or two lessons. 
 Especially here is an example in inspiration, for the young. I do not 
 know in all history a parallel. Here is a lad — bom a slave, not merely 
 a serf, of the same race and color of the master, and belonging to the 
 soil ; but bearing upon his brow the indelible problem of his .servitude, 
 and of the defencelessne.ss of his mother; liable to l)e brought to the 
 block at a moment's notice; knowing law only by the burdens it 
 imposed and the wrongs it inflicted. To teach him the five letters 
 
240 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 which spell the name of the Redeemer of mankind is a penal offence. 
 He has no property, no rights, no future. In childhood he sleeps on 
 the fioor, in a tow bag, which but partly covers him. He wears by 
 day a single tow garment, and he picks out of the dust the grains of 
 corn which the chickens have left. You heard him say, not long 
 ago, in this city: "The slave looked at his body, and they told him 
 it belonged to his master; and they told him that his soul belonged 
 to God, and so he had nothing. " He bore on his own body the marks 
 of the lash, and could not have protected his own sister, his own 
 mother, his own wife, from the vilest profanation. Robbed of every- 
 thing else, he has a soul, a will, a mind ; he has a sense of right and 
 wrong, he has something in him, which, like the magnetic needle, 
 eagerly quivers toward the North, and he dreams of the polar star. 
 
 After he had made his way to a land where slavery was forbidden, 
 he was yet under the ban. White workmen would not labor by his 
 side; in the steamboat, in the cars, in the place of amusement, not sel- 
 dom iu the house of worship, be saw or heard or felt the word.s, "No 
 niggers allowed here ! ' ' 
 
 This was the man who, later, was the friend of Lincoln, and of Grant 
 and of Sumner; who was chosen elector-at-large for the Empire State; 
 who repeatedly sailed upon national ships, sent upon errands of honor 
 by the nation ; who ranked among the authors and orators of America; 
 who was a welcome guest in many of the oldest and proudest homes of 
 Great Britain and of Europe; who, but the other daj', was borne to his 
 grave amid universal reverence; whose body lay in state in the cit}' of 
 Rochester, where for a score of years he had resided. The story of his 
 youth, of his manhood, of his age, unite in saying to evei-y young 
 man: "Nothing is impossible to him who wills." "Would you be held 
 in honor? Make yourself worthy of honor!" 
 
 And out of this life, there grows a lesson for every one of us. We 
 shall have conflict.s, obstacles, enemies; and the higher our aims, the 
 more generous our purposes, so much the more formidable the adver- 
 saries. We have to contend against the saloon, against the gambling- 
 hell, against the spoils system, again.st the fraudulent vote, against 
 ignorance, against superstition, against oppression, against race preju- 
 dice, against the lynching mob. Not seldom the conflict seems difTicult, 
 and success is invisible. We look at his history ; we see the changes 
 and the conquests which were compassed by the duration of a single 
 life; we see the system of slavery, which for generations ruled the 
 country absolutely, and which .seemed more enduring than Gibraltar, 
 now a dishonored fact in ancient history. We see an ami)' of dark-hued 
 children going daily to their schools. We see the colored adorning 
 almost every station and every profession, and we realize that despair, 
 that doubt, is a crime, which not humanity, and hardly God, can 
 forgive. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 An Extract fro.ai the Address of Mrs. Fannie 
 
 Jackson Coppin, Delivered at the Memorial 
 
 Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa., 
 
 April 15, 1S95. 
 
 "The picturesque figure of Frederick Douglass stands 
 vividly before us as one of the great spirits born in servitude and 
 nursed in sco'-n. He worked himself up to a position that any man in 
 the world might be proud to hold, but the one thing that most distin- 
 guished him, was his sterling character. Frederick Douglass lived to 
 see the great work for which he had labored fully completed. His good 
 opinion of the rights of women was also a striking trait in his 
 character. He held that women were not only capable of governing 
 the household, but also of elective franchise. We have lost the most 
 conspicuous advocate of our rights, by the death of Frederick Doulgass. 
 The matter of justice and right is being fought now, by only a few 
 colored people, but the principles of justice and freedom in this country 
 shall flourish over the graves of those who contend against them. F'red- 
 erick Douglass is dead, but his memory and his work will still live." 
 
 ADDRE.SS OF Mr. S. H. Taft, Delivered at the Memo- 
 rial Meeting held at Des Moines, Iowa, 
 ]\Iarch 6, 1895. 
 
 Jl/r. Cliainnan and Fellow Citizens : 
 
 On coming into your city to-night I learned, from the morning 
 papers, of this meeting, called to commemorate the great services which 
 Frederick Douglass has rendered to his race, to the nation, and the 
 world. While at once resolving to attend, I had no expectation of 
 taking part in the meeting, as one of the speakers. But in the absence 
 of your distinguished fellow citizen. Judge Wright, who cannot be 
 present, I should do violence to the spirit of the occasion should i 
 decline to accept the invitation to speak this evening. 
 
 Frederick Dougla,ss and I were friends in the olden days when con- 
 tempt for, and persecution of, the old line abolitionists, gave gre;'t 
 significance to friendship. We were often associated together in the 
 Liberty party campaigns. I first met Mr. Douglass at anti-slavery 
 meetings, where he was always in demand. When lecturing in Oswego 
 County, New York, he used often to make my father's house his home. 
 Mr. Douglass was a delightful conversationalist and one of the best of 
 story tellers. His stories were free from the taint of vulgarity, always 
 
242 IN MEMOBIAM. 
 
 mirth provoking, often instructive. When listeniuK to a narration of 
 his own adventures one was often at a loss to know whether to laugh or 
 weep, and would often do both before he knew it. No one who ever heard 
 Mr. Douglass tell the story of his first Sunday in church after his escape 
 from slavery, will ever forget it. I will venture to repeat the story as 
 I remember it. "On the first Sunday after my coming into a free State 
 I attended meeting at a Methodist church. Entering the church I had 
 proceeded but a little way up the aisle, when the usher touched me on 
 the shoulder, saying, 'The colored people sit up there, ' pointing up into 
 the gallery. I went up there and found the part of the gallery designed 
 for us, with verj' different seats from those occupied by the white people ; 
 the partitions between our pews being much the higher, so high that 
 none but verj* tall persons could see the preacher, when seated. I 
 remained through the service in no verj' devotional frame of mind. It 
 being cjuarterly meeting, the ordinance of the Lord's Supper was 
 observed. During the singing which followed the sermon, the altar was 
 twice filled and the communicants served, after which the presiding 
 elder said, ' If there are any more of our white brethren and sisters who 
 have not partaken of the sacred emblems, let them now come forward. ' 
 Not to exceed half a dozen came to the altar, leaving plenty of room for 
 all the colored members to be served at the same time, but this might 
 not be. After these few had partaken and retired, the presiding elder, 
 peering from the pulpit up to the retired corner occupied by the colored 
 people, and extending both hands in an inviting and pleading manner, 
 exclaimed, 'And now let our dear colored brethren and sisters come 
 forward ; come forward, brethren and sisters, come forward, and partake 
 of the sacred emblems, for God is no respecter of persons. ' I did not 
 go forward, for I felt like the simple fellow who, having applied for 
 admission to a Baptist church, and seeing that he was likely to be 
 rejected, quickly arose and withdrew his application, giving as a reason, 
 that he had changed his mind and instead of uniting with the church he 
 was going to join an engine company. ' ' 
 
 I had the honor to be one of the delegates representing the State of 
 New York, in the Pittsburg convention of 1852, which nominated Hale 
 and Julian as the standard bearers of the Free Democratic party. Among 
 the delegates representing the Empire State were Gerritt Smith and 
 Frederick Douglass. On our way home the cars halted for the passengers 
 to take dinner at a station between Pittsburg and Cleveland. The New 
 York delegation, with many New England delegates, among whom 
 were Charles Francis Adams, Amasa Walker, and General Wilson, 
 commenced gathering around a long table prepared for the occasion, 
 when the master of ceremonies seeing the stalwart figure of Douglass 
 approaching the table, called out to him, "You cannot come, we 
 don't feed niggers here." As Douglass went out the whole delegation 
 followed him, and crossing the street, we took dinner at a more hospitable 
 table. . 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 243 
 
 Mr. Douglass was a man of the highest oratorical power. He was also 
 a statesman of marked attainments, and bis statesmanship was of that 
 high order which led him to recognize the principle of law as proclaimed 
 by Blackstone, viz., "To command what is right and forbid what is 
 wrong." Fidelity to this principle of law, not only made him a foe to 
 American slavery, but also to all forms of monopoly, and especially to 
 the most heartless and murderous monopoly of all, the licensed saloon 
 trafEc. His conception of law represented under a Republican form of 
 govemment made him, of necessity, a defender of equal suffrage, which 
 cause he championed with masterly ability. 
 
 The sentiment of Terrance, a Grecian slave, uttered centuries ago, found 
 full expression in the life and work of Frederick Douglass, viz. : "Noth- 
 ing pertaining to the welfare of man is foreign tome." When he 
 came into the political arena, he found the Whig and Democratic parties 
 wholly dominated by the slave power, and he identified himself with the 
 despised band of abolitionists, known as the Liberty party. He remained 
 with this party until its place was first taken by the Free-Soil party, of 
 1S4S; next by the Free Democratic party, of 1S52; and finallj' by the 
 Republican party, of 1856-60. Well do I remember his terrible arraign- 
 ment and condemnation of the old political parties, for their guilty part- 
 nership with African slavery. On one occasion, after drawing a picture 
 of the nation's guilt, that made every cheek tingle with indignant shame, 
 he said, ' ' I welcome the bolt, come it from heaven or hell, that shall 
 break the power of these allies of American slavery. ' ' His resistless 
 power as an orator, on great occasions, was unsurpassed by any of all 
 the great men who have fought freedom's battles. At the time when the 
 representatives of slavery stood in the pulpits, presided in our courts, 
 mutilated our school books and made the laws of the nation, a meeting 
 of the persecuted friends of freedom was held in Tremont Temple, 
 Boston, Frederick Douglass being one of the speakers. He told the story 
 of the nation's shame and of freedom's betrayal. He spoke of the 
 anguish of his race, and of the humiliation of Northern freemen, who 
 by the Fugitive Slave Law had been transformed into bloodhounds to 
 baj- upon the path of the fleeing bondman. The expression of his face, 
 and the intonations of his voice, told of feelings too deep for utterance. 
 The audience had come into such perfect sympathy with the speaker, that 
 ever}' heart seemed ready to break with commingled feelings of humilia- 
 tion, indignation and despair, when the oppressive spell was broken by 
 Sojourner Truth, who cried out, "Frederick! is God dead?" That ques- 
 tion, like the affirmation of Garfield on the occasion of Lincoln's assassina- 
 tion, pierced the brooding night of despair, with the sunlight of hope. For 
 several moments, Mr. Douglass stood silent, then answered slowly and sol- 
 emnly : " No ! God is not dead! And it is because God is not dead, that I 
 speak!" Mr. Douglass was a deeply religious man. Believing in God, he 
 believed in the final triumph of right. In this faith he lived and 
 worked, and in this faith he triumphantly and peacefully died. 
 
244 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Mr. Douglass has been an important personality among American 
 reformers for almost half a century. What cause having for its object 
 the bringing in of God's kingdom upon earth, has he not advocated? 
 He ■tt'ill be greatly missed. Wliile mourning his departure, let us not 
 fail to temper our sorrow with the sentiment of gratitude, that he has 
 been so faithful in his service to humanity and God, and that the rich 
 fruits of his labors remain to bless the world. In sad sincerity I lay 
 upon memor>''s altar my tribute of respect and love for the genial, 
 faithful friend, the eloquent orator, the noble patriot, the wise statesman, 
 and the Christian gentleman, Frederick Douglass. 
 
 Remarks of Ju.stice John M. Harlan, of the United 
 States Supreme Court, 
 
 At the Memorial Meeting held in the Metropolitan A. 
 M. E. Church, Washington, D. C, Tuesday Evening, June 
 4, 1895, by the Bethel Literary and Historical Association, 
 of which Mr. Douglass was a member. 
 
 Justice Harlan, in taking the chair, said : 
 
 I accept without hesitation, the invitation to preside over this meeting, 
 and the more because I am always glad of an opportunity to testify to 
 my respect for the memory of the distinguished man whom we honor 
 here to-night, a man great in his physical manhood, but still greater in 
 his mental and moral organization. I do not hesitate to say that among 
 the orators that this country has produced, there was no greater than 
 Frederick Douglass, and in all my long enjoyment of his acquaintance, 
 I never met a man of loftier character. 
 
 The address of the evening was delivered by Hon. E. D. 
 Bassett, ex-Minister to Haiti. 
 
 The Address of Mr. B.^ssett. 
 
 In making up a judgment of Mr. Douglass we cannot stop with the 
 application of the facts, and only those are satisfactorily applied in 
 judging and weighing other men who like him have stood out before 
 the world as the great lights stand out in our Northern sky. The stand- 
 ards by which we may judge and compare other men do not cover his 
 case. It is evident that no just estimate can be made of his qualities 
 and achievements without a proper consideration of the estate of his 
 birth and early years, which is unlike that of other men grown great in our 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 245 
 
 historj-, and of the tlien existing and subsequent condition of things 
 affecting the current of his life and of events as the world saw them. 
 But there must also be taken into view the fixed conventional forces, 
 stronger and more difficult of change than the written law, because they 
 lie in the unreasoning, universal consent, or the preponderating acquies- 
 cence of sentiment beyond the reach of the mere lex soip/a, -which were 
 arrayed against him, but of which others with whom we might compare 
 him, never felt the crushing effect. Indeed it is believed that the his- 
 tory of the human species shows that an all-pervading race prejudice, 
 the soul and animus of the caste system, is one of the strongest forces 
 in the world, and I think that in our own country it is only a little less 
 un-American, or an infringement on the genius of our institutions and 
 the spirit of Christian civilization, than slaverj- itself. 
 
 "You must judge us, " as he himself was wont to say. "You must 
 judge us out of the depths out of which we have come, rather than by 
 any heights to which we have risen. ' ' 
 
 And those depths, hardly conceivable by one of the present genera- 
 tion, were the darkness of the tomb, the very shadow of death. They 
 constituted the system which engulfed him at his birth, and by which 
 men were counted as mere property, personal property, and in one 
 State (Louisiana) at least, they were held, I know not by what princi- 
 ple of accepted law, to be real estate. This form of bondage was not 
 merely theoretical ; " it was not, ' ' as Mr. Douglass once said of Dr. 
 Gardiner Spring's reference to slavery /er if and ipso facto, "any mere 
 Latin grammar slaverj-. ' ' But it was and was intended to be, a real 
 slaverj-, which bound the limbs in chains ; which seared the quivering 
 flesh ; which darkened the windows of the soul ; which burned out the 
 moral eyes ; which stifled the voice of conscience, robbed men of their 
 manhood by cowing the courage and crushing the instincts of manliness 
 and humanity, and subordinated by actual physical force and violence, 
 by the cat-o' -nine-tails and the thumb screw, the whole human existence 
 in all its possible aspirations to joy and happiness, to growth, divine 
 inspiration and preparation for the hereafter, to the absolute whim or 
 will of another. No account whatever could be taken of the slaves' 
 wishes. The deliberate purpose often, and the tendency always, were to 
 imbrute, to wear out or use up solely according to avarice and greed, so 
 that human life became a mere question of mathematics on the ledger 
 of the slave owner. I know that this statement has been hotly denied. 
 But it is nevertheless a matter of historical record that it was openly 
 avowed to be a sound principle of plantation management in some of 
 our Southern Stat-^s to work up gangs of negroes everj- seven years and 
 supply their places by new purchases, rather than to attempt to prolong 
 their lives by moderate labor.s. (See Brj-ant's U. S. History, Vol. IV., 
 p. 261. ) At any rate it was all darkness and ignorance and moral 
 death, wholly an abject animal existence, under constant coercion. 
 And there was a fixed determination, at least a concurrent understanding. 
 
246 AV MEMORIAM. 
 
 of State, of society, and of church, that the slave and his offspring 
 should be forever kept in the estate of their birth. 
 
 Now it was in the lowest depth of these depths, in this very mouth 
 of hell, in this Golgotha of human woe, this very darkest of obscurity, 
 that Frederick Douglass was born and spent the first twenty-one years 
 of his life. 
 
 His case appears without a parallel in that of any other man who has 
 climbed up before the world and won, as he won, the confidence of 
 civilization and the respect of mankind. For when we turn from the 
 revolting picture in the prison-house of despair, we see this man who 
 was there weighted down with chains and reared in hunger and degrada- 
 tion, in rags and scorn, risen to an eminence and esteem in the world 
 which has rarely been surpassed by any other American, however 
 favored by social or ofiicial station. If we recall the messages con- 
 cerning him that have recently appeared in the great journals through- 
 out our own and other lands, we may be persuaded that this is not the 
 language of exaggeration or extravagance. 
 
 Certain it is that his life was a romance. It was indeed stranger than 
 any mere fiction, more notable, more extraordinary than that of any other 
 man in the history of this country. No other man ever has touched or 
 ever can now touch against almost every phase of American life as he 
 did. No other man more than he could command the thoughtful atten- 
 tion, quicken the understanding or awaken the conscience of the great 
 public on any mooted question affecting the rights of man, or the 
 interests of humanity, fair dealing or good citizenship in this Republic. 
 And I think it can justly be said of him that on no other ground what- 
 ever than that of pure personal merit, he fairly impressed himself on 
 the times in which he lived as it comes to few of any estate or country 
 or epoch to be able to do. 
 
 It is true that he held public office. But this was after he was fifty 
 years of age, and, although he confessedly fulfilled with dignity, with 
 signal fidelity and ability every public trust confided to him,— it cannot 
 justly be claimed or pretended that mere official station added in the 
 least to the general esteem which he had already won or to his acknowl- 
 edged power anil influence among men. 
 
 It is in no way probable that the world will soon forget so prominent, 
 so striking, so unique a figure, a life that pre.'^ents such extra- 
 ordinary extremes and contrasts. Frederick Douglass will take his 
 place on the page of history as one of the most notable and honorably 
 distinguished characters, not only of our own country, but also of our 
 times. 
 
 We may well pause to inquire what were the masterly intellectual and 
 moral endowments, what the genius of inspiration, what the peculiar 
 personal traits, what the invisible force, what the condition of things, 
 —in a word, what were the secrets of this man's power, that permitted 
 and led to these marvelous achievements? 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 247 
 
 There were in him personal traits, habits of thought, mental pro- 
 cesses, lines of reflection, unwritten rules governing his conduct, hopes 
 and aspirations, all lying somewhat back of those which the general 
 public knew of him. 
 
 I am persuaded that all his fixed habits, all his springs of action 
 and conduct, his speech and his conduct itself, carried to their min- 
 utest scrutiny in his ordinary, everyday life, as I saw them, were cast 
 on the highest and purest plane. I believe that if they could all be 
 spread out upon canvass before us here to-day, not one of us would fail 
 to honor and esteem him more than ever before, or to be inspired to 
 nobler motives and longer life. 
 
 WTiile it is altogether probable that Mr. Douglass' great abilities 
 many remarkable qualities, and his distinguished energies would, under 
 any circumstances, have pushed him to the front in any free community 
 however great, it is still also probable that neither he nor any other man 
 would have reached the heights that he reached, if there had not been 
 after all in the spirit of the times, in the cotemporaneously existing 
 conditions, in the trend of things, some favoring elements, some smoul- 
 dering fires in the public conscience, which, however hidden from view 
 or lulled into temporarj- silence, he seemed bom to touch and rekindle 
 into activity. 
 
 I once asked him if when he was in New Bedford working on the 
 wharves, he had any idea of the possession of powers and abilities which 
 the world has since recognized in him. He assured me in the mo.st 
 impressive manner that he not onh' had at that time no idea whatever of 
 any such possession, and could hardly realize the fact as late as when I 
 put the question to him, but that his only ambition and wish were to 
 be permitted to enjoy the fruits of his hard manual labor as a freeman. 
 
 In the same sense General Grant tells us in his ' ' Memoirs' ' that in 
 1861 he felt grave doubts as to his ability to command a single regiment 
 of soldiers, and Bonaparte was at the age of tw-enty-five years denounced, 
 put under arrest and disgraced for manifest ignorance and incompetency 
 as a mere inspector of artillery. 
 
 So imperfectly do men sometimes know themselves, and so much do 
 great achievements depend on existing conditions and responsibilities. 
 
 "I know very well," said Napoleon in the zenith of his power, "I 
 know very well that my son cannot succeed me; I could not succeed 
 myself. " 
 
 Before Mr. Douglass had gained his freedom slavery had been abol- 
 ished in the British Antillean colonies, and the avowed public policy 
 of the government and the sentiment of the people of Great Britain, as 
 well as of the European countries, were arrayed against slavery. The 
 South American States, too, in throwing off allegiance to the Spanish 
 crown had also thrown off the incubus of African slavery. All tliis 
 constituted a tremendous moral force for freedom and against African 
 slavery. 
 
248 AY MEMORIAM. 
 
 There were also certain other irresistible, uiidergrouud currents slowly 
 but s\irely underiniiiing oppression everywhere. One of them was the 
 forces set in motion by the French Revolution, which even the selfish 
 and hypocritical, but powerful, "Holy Alliance" could not wholly arrest; 
 another was the very fundamental character of our own government; 
 another was the steady growth of intelligence ; another was the theo- 
 retical acceptance of the Christian religion, and still another was the 
 existence all along and everywhere among us, of certain deep-seated, 
 though dormant and suppressed, moral convictions and humane instincts, 
 which were creditable alike to our common humanity and especially to 
 the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 As a logical outgrowth of all this, there had sprung up in several of 
 the States anti-slavery societies, which were never wholly suppressed. 
 But the expression against slavery became timid and receding, just in 
 proportion as slavery became bold, defiant and aggressive. 
 
 In 1791 Jonathan Edwards advocated immediate emancipation. There 
 was almost no response and he withdrew. But forty years later a further 
 outgrowth of all the culminating forces was the coming forward to the 
 front of a bold, determined man, the very embodiment of the anti- 
 slavery idea. 
 
 In 1831 William Lloyd Garrison unfurled the banner of the immediate 
 and unconditional abolition of slavery as the right of the slave and the 
 duty of the master. Amid a sea of difficulties and everj' possible phase 
 of discouragement, he hoisted and held the banner aloft. It stood out 
 as a beacon light to the enslaved: it formed a nucleus around which 
 could cluster all the bold, determined, aggressive anti-slavery convic- 
 tions of the period. 
 
 It must not, however, be forgotten that slavery and contempt for the 
 negro race were now more active and exacting than ever. A careful 
 American writer has stated that about that time in this country slaver>' 
 was more powerful than the English throne was in 1625, monarchy in 
 1780, or the English aristocracy in 1800. On the one side were the 
 overshadowing influence of a great government, power, wealth, social 
 standing, the press, the pulpit, the courts of law, a united public senti- 
 ment and very great material interests; all in hostile array and armed 
 with a fierce determination to stifle every anti-slavery utterance and put 
 down every anti-slavery movement. 
 
 On the other hand stood a single man of Puritan stock, inspired with 
 a holy cause, armed only with a sense of duty and an unshakable purpose 
 to speak the truth in peaceful appeal to the understanding and the con- 
 science of his fellow men. He stood his ground amid every invention 
 of tyrannical wrath, fiendish mobs, personal violence and brutal ostra- 
 cism, and facing death at every turn. 
 
 After ten years of battle with the slave power, victory seemed for him 
 less possible than at the beginning. Slavery appeared to think that 
 it had hedged him about so as to limit and minimize his power to harm 
 
FREDERICK DO Ua LASS. 249 
 
 its interests. There was a lull in the battle, and a sort of general 
 apathy on the question of slavery had >,'radually spread over the country. 
 Anti-slavery societies had begun to disband, and the people to tire of 
 slavery agitation. 
 
 It was just at this juncture that all unexpectedly and by the merest acci- 
 dent, Mr. Douglass came upon the scene. It was like many another mere 
 incident that has proved the beginning of important events in history. 
 
 He was iu the full vigor of early manhood, being then in his twenty- 
 fifth year, of tall and manly presence, possessing powers of intellect, 
 eloquence and courage, which he and his small circle of acquaintances 
 and friends then little suspected. But it was the man and the hour. 
 
 Almo.st before he knew it he had buckled on his armor and was ready 
 for the conflict. The audacious, defiant, dominating presence of slavery, 
 of which he had himself been so recently a victim, roused all the latent 
 power of his being and at once lifted him to adequate expression. He 
 had suffered intensely in slavery, and he would from the beginning 
 burn into the understanding and heart of others both the facts and the 
 cause of his sufferings. As he spoke of the dreadful wrongs of slavery. 
 his eye glowed with intensity and his whole being seemed to be lighted 
 up with inspiration from on high. 
 
 As he now went from city to city and from .State to State, his powers 
 developed rapidly. He soon began to appear to those who heard him, 
 like a revelation, a fiery meteor, clothed with almost superhuman powers 
 let down from the skies to stir up the human heart against slavery, — 
 the first small wire stretched over the chasm separating the two races 
 and he was in truth an entirely new element flung into the scales 
 against slavery. He was like Bliicher at Waterloo, — Sheridan at Win- 
 chester. The fame of him spread rapidly after that extraordinarj' 
 impromptu outburst at Nantucket in the summer of 1841. Forthwith 
 interest in the Garrisoniau crusade began to revive. To Mr. Douglass 
 more than to any other man, was due the revival of interest iu the anti- 
 slavery agitation from 1841 and onward. It was a great, singular and 
 marvelous regeneration. 
 
 There was this man — this unlettered negro, just escaped from slavery, 
 who somehow, in spite of the unpopularitj- of his color and his cause, 
 could and did command attention and provoke discussion wherever he 
 went, — here was this messenger from the dark land of slavery, a living, 
 overwhelming contradiction to all the specious pleas of the slaveholder. 
 He told such a straightforward story, he spoke with so much sense and 
 force, with so much courage and genius, that even men who despised 
 and condemned, could but listen, and to listen was to be stirred and 
 moved. 
 
 Ingenious devices, threats of kidnapping and actual personal violence 
 were put into requisition to silence him. But it is a most remarkable 
 fact that every attempt to discredit him, to cow, coerce, or coax him 
 into holding his peace, seemed in some mysterious way to be in the 
 
250 IN ME MOB I AM. 
 
 end turned to his advantage. Indeed, he himself modestly says in his 
 autobiography that he was often more indebted to his enemies than to 
 his own skill or the assistance of friends for whatever success attended 
 his labors. It is a literal fact that in the height of the anti-slavery 
 struggle he actually drew the eyes of two continents upon him. 
 
 As I look back at it all now, it seems as if he really were an apostle, 
 inspired and sent of God to proclaim through the darkness the glad 
 tidings of a coming emancipation. 
 
 Again and again men asked, Whence hath this man knowledge, 
 having never learned, and being only a negro? 
 
 I very much doubt whether there is in our country to-day any man 
 that could command the public attention now, as Mr. Douglass did then. 
 At any rate there is not now, and I hope there never will be again, any 
 such mooted question to touch the heart and stir the instincts of human- 
 ity, as slavery did. 
 
 What was there in this man which enabled him thus to tower above 
 others of the same faith, over others who like himself had escaped from 
 slavery, and, I may ask, over men of the more favored race, gifted with 
 faith, courage and eloquence, who had called him to their side? In the 
 first place, nature and early training seemed to have equipped him in 
 a special manner for his life-work. No college or university, however 
 moss-grown its shades, ever sent forth a graduate more aptly fitted for 
 a useful or special calling than Mr. Douglass was for the fulfillment of 
 his mission. His was indeed a hard school, but it did its work 
 thoroughly. 
 
 You may well smile when I speak of his training, j-et it may be 
 fairly presumed that his running wild in childhood, his hard out-door 
 work and light diet in youth, helped to develop that powerful, finely 
 knit frame, and to lay the foundations of that remarkable capacity of 
 endurance, courage and abstemiousness, which characterized all his 
 subsequent life. 
 
 Mr. Dougla.ss' physical equipment left little to be desired. The tall 
 and manly form of singular grace and vitality ; the erect carriage that 
 had something majestic about it; the searching but kindly eye ; the 
 whole cut of that strange, strong face, set off with the semblance of a 
 certain scornful expression which told of the gall of early trials to a 
 proud and sensitive nature like his; the never-to-be-forgotten flowing 
 locks; the striking intelligence beaming in the look; the apparently 
 unconscious possession of reserved forces; the perfect self-poise ; the 
 rare and happy blending of affability and modesty with dignity of 
 bearing — all this gave him a distinguished appearance, a truly impos- 
 ing presence, which everywhere stamped him as a man of mark, and 
 were of no mean advantage to him from the beginning to the end of his 
 career. 
 
 His faculty of observation and perception was singularly clear and 
 keen, and his memory was phenomenal. He saw everything and 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 251 
 
 remembered ever>-thiiig. About the only reference I ever heard him 
 make to his many striking gifts of intelligence was when he saia to 
 me some j'ears ago: "Ah yes, Bassett, nothing escapes me, nothing 
 escapes me." He was not artificial and it was difficult for him to con- 
 ceal whatever was uppermost with him. But it was this faculty of clear, 
 keen observation, coupled with his just appreciation of things that 
 enabled him to profit in so marked a degree by the cultivation and 
 refinement with which he came in contact. lie could not assume a 
 semblance. He had to absorb and make his own before he could use 
 what he desired. 
 
 He possessed the power of rapid induction and sustained inward 
 reflexion to an extent that is altogether beyond the ordinary, even 
 among the most irtelligent; and the same estimate may be placed upon 
 his strong, penetrating intuitions. These together gave him the power 
 to see, to weigh, to compare, with surprising and unequivocal accuracy, 
 and to seem often to leap over intervening steps, from phenomena and 
 facts to their cause and just relation. It was thus that he was ne\er 
 caught unawares or put in a place that he could not fill. 
 
 When I was a lad I used to hear the lawyers say of Chief Justice 
 Marshall, that he first gave his decisions by a sort of intuition and 
 then called upon Mr. Justice Storj' to hunt up the authorities, after- 
 wanl. What set the country lawyers to talking about it was that the 
 Justice's law, dug up with infinite pains, and the Chief Justice's intu- 
 ition.s, generally agreed. It always seemed that Mr. Douglass could 
 have just as safely trusted his intuitions. 
 
 His grasp of thought, resting on broad and solid base, led him to new 
 and often striking and brilliant generalizations. Common sense, which 
 Trench declares to be the common bond of all others, he possessed in a 
 very high degree. In him it seemed overpowering, and it never forsook 
 him. It acted as a balance wheel to his other faculties, and with them 
 gave him the power to look on all sides of things in such a way that he 
 seldom got them out of their real or relative proportions to one another 
 Whoever knew him to offend good tastes? Whoever heard him say an 
 altogether foolish or preposterous or wholly unreasonable thing? And 
 who that knew him well or heard him often can have failed to note or 
 can easily forget the telling sense of humor which seemed so natural to 
 him, and which sometimes led him to point an argument with the 
 reductio ad absurdum, and often to seize upon incongruities and con- 
 trasts? Sometimes he could condense a whole case in these ways. 
 
 He sent a train of thought running through the country when he 
 stood up before the American people, at the great gathering at Pitts- 
 burg in 1852 and proclaimed that "the man who is right is himself a 
 majority." He caused the Republican heart to rejoice when at an 
 opportune moment he coined two expressions that saw the length of the 
 land and saved many a vote to the Republican party. "The Republican 
 party is the ship — all else is the sea, ' ' is one of them, and the other is. 
 
252 JN MEMOS J AM. 
 
 "Every road out of the Republican party leads direct to the Democratic 
 camp. ' ' 
 
 Of his homely epigrammatic sayings, two, and many more probably, 
 "He is whipped oftenest who is whipped easiest," and "I never could 
 see the wisdom of going into a fight without a reasonable prospect of 
 whipping somebody," caused many an average man to smile and say, 
 just as it was said of Franklin's maxims in the last century, "Why, 
 yes, that is so, but I never thought of it just that way before. ' ' 
 
 His astonishing reputation as an orator was made wholly by extem- 
 pore speaking. But in later years, after the reporters took to following 
 him up, and criticisms loud and deep persistently carped after him, he 
 gradually fell into the habit of careful preparation. Thereafter the 
 habit grew upon him until he became painstaking and somewhat 
 cautious in his speech. 
 
 It was thus that ordinarily, when he was unexcited by unforeseen 
 occasions calling for a sudden display of strength, his mental powers 
 appeared rather slow, but they were remarkably — sometimes even 
 marvelously — clear, searching and wide in their scope. Some of his most 
 extraordinary flashes of soul-stirring eloquence, in which, however, he 
 always carried with him the understanding and the good sense of his 
 hearers, were called out by these unexpected occasions. Still it 
 was in the careful preparation that his masterful breadth of intel- 
 lect, his great powers of application and his eloquence shone out most 
 brightly. 
 
 I remember especially that when on one of these unforeseen occasions 
 it seemed not only as if he were speaking as never man spoke before, 
 but as if, had he continued, his hearers would have almost burst 
 asunder, as though overcharged with electric fluid, the great audience, 
 moved by an inexpressible, common impulse, all rose from their seats, 
 rushed toward the platform, and bore him off in their arms. We have 
 read of such scenes under the inspiration of Henry Grattan and Daniel 
 O'Connell, but I was an eye-witness to the case just related of Mr. 
 Douglass. 
 
 Gifted as he was by nature with fluency of speech, he came, strangely 
 enough, at last to a lack of full confidence in himself to speak in public 
 without somewhat of special preparation. Still he was always a logical, 
 captivating, off-hand extempore speaker. Indeed it is to be doubted if 
 America has ever produced a more effective and eloquent orator than he. 
 It was he, rather than Phillips and Quincy, both gifted sons of wealth 
 and of Harvard, or Gerritt Smith or Mr. Garrison, of world-wide fame, 
 that drew the multitude around the anti-slavery platform after 1S41. 
 
 It would be difficult to draw a parallel between him and our recog- 
 nized great orators of the last generation and the present, to both of 
 which he belongs; not merely because of the gulf of dissimilarity 
 between him and them in point of opportunity, but also because most 
 of them had behind them organized parties. It was their good fortune 
 
FREDERICK DOUG L ASK 253 
 
 to give expression to the views of larger bodies of men, governing 
 masses, entrusted or hoping to be entrusted with the wielding of great 
 policies of state, with the shaping of great public interests; others of 
 them, trained in the best schools, were lifted to eloquence by voicing 
 traditional and established institutions of church, of society, of power- 
 ful concurring sentiment and opinion. 
 
 Any comparison between them and Mr. Douglass, who had against 
 him both an unpopular cause and an intense race prejudice, would be 
 wholly unfair, unless all the circumstances be carefully considered. 
 
 Professor Goodrich, after having heard Daniel Webster in the famous 
 Dartmouth College case, wrote to Rufus Choate that the one thing that 
 he had learned from the occasion was that true oratory consists not so 
 much in what is said as in him who says it, and you remember that 
 JMr. Webster himself said that oratory consists in the man and in the 
 occasion. 
 
 Whenever and wherever Mr. Douglass spoke he had a theme which 
 was always for the betterment of mankind. He knew how to be effec- 
 tive without recourse to what are called the "tricks of oratory." He 
 had a serious, solemn mission to fulfill, and as it was to be effective ou 
 that that he spoke, he scorned every appearance of subterfuge or evas- 
 ion. His aim was to impress and convict. 
 
 I remember that when in July or August, 1S54, he was delivering his 
 oration on "The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered," 
 before the literary societies of We.stern Reserve College, coming to a 
 passage in which some ethnologist, I think it was Gliddon or Nott, 
 offered, as one proof that the negro was radically differentiated from 
 the other races, the assertion that "the voice of the negro in the male 
 sex is thin, hoarse and weak," Mr. Douglass read the passage in a 
 voice of clear, ringing, thundering tone that almost lifted the rafters 
 and shook the ceiling and passed it over without a word of comment. 
 This adroit treatment of the learned ethnologist was, under the circum- 
 stances of the moment, more effective than any other argument could 
 have been. 
 
 Mr. Douglass was pre-eminently a man of character. We may be 
 sure that no man could possibly stand up as a public speaker before the 
 two great English speaking peoples of the world, for more than fifty 
 years, and be more sought after at the end than at the beginning of 
 his career, unless he were of unimpeachable sincerity and solid, ster- 
 ling character; nor unless he had something to say, and said it well. 
 Character, true, virtuous, manly character, lies at the basis of all genu- 
 ine oratory, and courage and a good cause are its adjuncts. 
 
 We all know that Mr. Douglass was by nature an eloquent, off-hand 
 speaker, and yet he told me that not unfrequently he had sat "trem- 
 bling in every limb, " as he expressed it, when he was momentarily 
 expecting to be called up before an audience. I fancy that that was a 
 feature in his make-up that was little suspected by the public. 
 
254 IN MEMO RI AM. 
 
 Frederick Douglass will take his place on the pages of history as one 
 of the very few of the truly notable orators that America has ever pro- 
 duced. You have just heard the eminent Justice (Harlan) of the 
 Supreme Court, whom I believe to be held in as high esteem as any 
 man that ever sat in that exalted tribunal, — you have heard him say 
 that America has had no greater orator than Frederick Douglass. 
 
 I was surprised to find him a singularly slow reader. He apparently 
 read but to digest and absorb. The scholarly habit was innate in him, 
 and it gave him a wide sweep of accurate knowledge, particularly of 
 contemporary men and events. He had evidently made a careful study 
 of the Bible, and he knew more of the current and permanent litera- 
 ture of our language than would be supposed. His ever faithful mem- 
 ory placed all that he read at his command, and he could, as occasion 
 required, make a just estimate and fair use of all that he knew. 
 
 Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon in all of Mr. Douglass' 
 rare gifts, was his clear, accurate, elevated style in writing and speak- 
 ing. His syntax, his choice of words and construction of sentence.s, 
 were models of accuracy. His style was clear, lucid, and wholly 
 within the rules of good taste, and his manuscript bore every mark of 
 coming from a trained scholar. 
 
 I should say that Mr. Douglass' crowning intellectual endowments 
 were perception, memory, intuition, induction, reflection, wit, an 
 unfailing common-sense, and power of patient, sustained application, 
 all of which he possessed to an unusual and some of them to an extra- 
 ordinary degree. 
 
 Striking and extraordinary as were Mr. Douglass' physical and intel- 
 lectual endowments, I thiuk that what may be called his moral quali- 
 ties were of quite as high an order. 
 
 All his convictions and inspirations, his fixed habits of thought and 
 lines of action, and his standards of judgment, ran in very high moral 
 grooves. His confidence in the strength and certain triumph of what- 
 ever is just and right in all things, was simply sublime and all-pervad- 
 ing. It gave him a majestic selfhood, an unshakable will to speak and 
 act out the right always, and enabled him to hope on, hope ever. It 
 made him habitually sunny and cheerful, bold and courageous, frank 
 and candid, even-tempered and above board in whatever he did. 
 
 In all of those darkest of dark days and trying times, from 1850 to 1861, 
 I never knew him to falter in his confident belief that slavery in the 
 South was so essentially wrong, so full of unutterable atrocities, so 
 diametrically opposed to the spirit of the times and to the moral con- 
 stitution of the universe by which all things must ultimately square, 
 that it could not possibly endure. 
 
 In an article that he wrote for his paper in 185S or 1S59, entitled 
 "Watchman, What of the Night?" and which attracted unusual atten- 
 tion, he said : "We are well on in the beginning of the last half of the 
 nineteenth century, and yet the end of American slavery no man can 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 255 
 
 tell, but let us be assured that 'couie it must and coine it will for a' 
 that. ' ' ' 
 
 From the moment, when, in .September, 1838, he landed a free man 
 in New Bedford, until the first of January, 1S53, the one controlling 
 aim and desire of his life were the abolition of slavery. To this end 
 he bent his best energies and devoted all his remarkable powers. We 
 may well wonder now at the manly, moral courage, the heroic devo- 
 tion, which sustained him in all this struggle. A determined hostile 
 public sentiment which despised him as a negro and hated him for his 
 cause, angrj- mobs, sticks, clubs, vile missiles, personal danger, fierce 
 denunciation, threats of death and of being kidnapped by night, — all 
 fell in vain upon him. They never shook him from his lofty purpose 
 to stand up for the cause which he had espoused. 
 
 In 1S31 William Lloyd Garrison, said, in the teeth of an infuriated pro- 
 slavery mob thirsting for his blood and determined to strike him into 
 silence: "I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I 
 will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." And he kept his 
 word almost single-handed through an unrelenting battle of thirty-two 
 years. I know of nothing like it iu our day. Under the circumstances 
 it was heroic, it was sublime, it was an epic poem. Heroism is not 
 unknown to the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 
 But Frederick Douglass was a negro, and he stood up without a 
 falter, for more than twenty years, to all the heroic and lofty lines of 
 action proclaimed by Mr. Garrison in the beginning of his anti-slavery 
 career. 
 
 It was this singleness of purpose, this heroic devotion to principle, 
 through the Red Sea of obloquy and trial, of danger and death, that 
 must never be forgotten whenever and wherever the name of Frederick 
 Douglass is mentioned. 
 
 In spite of all his countrj- failed to do for him, in failing to give him 
 the common inheritance of a citizen at his birth, and in failing also to 
 open to him the gates of opportunity so freely opened to others, Mr. 
 Douglass will take his place incur historj' as a type of honorable, high- 
 minded, gifted, dignified American manhood, which ought to be the 
 emulation of his countrj-men everj-where and forever. 
 
 It seemed to me that he never harbored — I am almost sure that he 
 never nursed or cherished, the baser thoughts of malice and revenge. 
 Neither did plotting for merely selfish ends find abode with him. 
 
 I wish to bear my testimony on this point, and I invite j-our special 
 attention to it, that although he went in and out before the public a 
 marked man, known and read of all men for more than fifty years, and 
 although for a good part of that time it would have been to the temporal 
 advantage of important social and material interests, to weaken his 
 influence and undermine his good standing as an honorable man, and 
 although he was beset at many a turn, as it is inevitable that a man 
 like him must be, by artful, crafty, insinuating temptations, }'et to the 
 
256 J.\ MEMORIAM. 
 
 best of my knowledge and belief, and let it be hung up before the eyes 
 of our young men, no serious charge of dishonor, or double dealing or 
 impuritj', was ever so much as whispered against him by any responsible 
 or impartial person or power. It is my unqualified belief that no 
 human power could induce him to touch one penny that he did not 
 believe to be fairly, squarely and openly above board his. 
 
 His ideas and estimates of women were very high and very pure, and 
 he was fond of their society. In the social circle he bubbled all over 
 with life and wit and ready knowledge, and was altogether a more 
 captivating talker there than on the platform. But I do not believe 
 that anybody ever heard from his lips a single indelicate or questionable 
 utterance. He despised and recoiled at coarseness and vulgarity. 
 
 I never saw him cross or petulant or unreasonable. His limitless 
 faith in whatever is reasonable and just not only added to his firmness, 
 but it appeared to me to put him above mere ill temper. 
 
 It is proper to add that every one of his official acts were approved 
 at Washington, and that his term of service was regarded at the White 
 House, and is on record at the State Department, as altogether creditable 
 to himself and honorable to his country. 
 
 Mr. Douglass' view was that the final solution of the so-called negro 
 problem will be found, on the one hand, in the nation's growth in 
 wholesome intelligence and the controlling sense of justice, and on the 
 other hand in the complete absorption by the negro himself of the 
 Christian civilization and of the ways of honorable existence by which 
 he is surrounded. 
 
 Mr. Douglass felt satisfied that no candid, impartial person of intelli- 
 gence could deny that the negro has already made a reasonable begin- 
 ning in what is required of him, or that his aims, his aspirations, his 
 aptitudes, and the aggregate of his tendencies, as we are bound to 
 interpret them from the best element of his members, all lie in the same 
 direction. 
 
 ^nd to this beginning and tending Mr. Douglass believed that we 
 must add the spirit of the times in which men live, the prevailing trend 
 of things toward that which is best, the growing concern for the general 
 welfare, the increasing insistence in the interest of that general welfare 
 that in our country (in which by the law every man is free and every 
 freeman a voter, being thus just as much of a political unit as every 
 other man and no more), the law shall prevail, fair play shall be the 
 rule, and every man who pitches his tent beneath the broad shield of 
 the Constitution, shall have and shall enjoy the unquestioned, untram- 
 meled right to become a good citizen, to make the most of himself, and 
 thus contribute his full share toward the well-being of his neighbors 
 and of the whole community. 
 
 If now, reasoned Mr. Douglass, we duly consider these two forces, the 
 one within the negro himself urging him to go up higher, and the 
 other in the steady march of events, the unerring trend of things toward 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 257 
 
 development, progress, betterment, inviting him and sweeping him in 
 the press forward, we can hardly fail to see ground for reasonable hope 
 and belief that the day must surely come when there will be no denial 
 of rights or of public privileges to any class of men, and no negro 
 question in our land. 
 
 Frederick Douglass is no more with us in the flesh. We shall see his 
 noble form no more among us. We shall miss his dignified and welcome 
 presence, his wise counsels, his thoughtful candor in advice, his manly 
 voice pleading in behalf of honorable fair play before the nation, before 
 the tribunal of enlightened Christian civilization. He was our sound 
 and loyal frieud : he was our beloved father: he was our uncrowned 
 king. We cannot but mourn for him. 
 
 The name and fame, the life and work of Frederick Douglass are ours 
 forever, and we will hold up the great works that he wrought for truth 
 and justice to all men, the noble words that he .spoke for right and 
 freedom, the example of the unblemished, devoted and useful life that 
 he led, — we will hold all these up as our proud inheritance from him 
 to mankind, to our children and our children's children, as long as 
 high character and honor and virtuous achievements are held in esteem 
 men. 
 
 An Extract from a Discourse by Rev. Dr. Louis 
 
 Albert Banks, Delivered in the Hanson 
 
 Place M. E. Church, Brooklyn, N. Y, 
 
 February 25, 1S95. 
 
 If I were asked what person in the present century had fought against 
 the greatest odds and won the struggle of life at most points, I should 
 answer, Frederick Douglass. 
 
 The story of his life is the most romantic in all modern times. No 
 man began so low and climbed so high as he. 
 
 Frederick Douglass had many elements of greatness, and one of the 
 greatest was his power of grim perseverance. He had the power to 
 patiently, ploddingly whip himself through any hard work that must 
 be done. It was once said by an opponent of Sir Walter Raleigh : 
 "He can toil terribly !" Frederick Douglass had, in a remarkable 
 degree, that "terrible," irresistible power of the toiler. 
 
 Frederick Douglass had great ideals. He never compromised with 
 himself for anything less than the best that was possible. Nothing 
 short of being the best type of man and the most noble orator that it 
 was possible to produce out of his circumstances and gifts, satisfied 
 him for a moment. 
 
 These lofty ideals alone made it possible for him to achieve the great 
 triimiphs of his life. For, after all, the greatest triumphs in Douglass' 
 17 
 
258 rN MEMORIAM. 
 
 life are not to be found in his glorious success as an orator, or as a 
 political leader, but in the splendid moral fibre of the man, that enabled 
 him to live a life which is not only a precious heritage to his own race, 
 but an inspiration to men of all races, throughout all times. 
 
 Think of the fearful odds he had to fight against in order to produce 
 such a moral character! Milton says: "It is a long way out of hell up 
 to light!" Think of the hell of lust and iniquity into which he 
 was born! He was born in the midst of that enforced tendency to every 
 vicious passion and unholy appetite, that springs from the world, the 
 flesh and the devil. But, in spite of it all, he developed a strong, 
 robust manhood which he kept clean and spotless throughout half a 
 century lived in the public gaze. Frederick Douglass did for his race 
 no greater thing than that. 
 
 Douglass' oratory gained much of its power from the superb manhood 
 that was behind it. I once heard him in Music Hall, Boston, deliver 
 his great address on John Brown. His discussion of the law of retri- 
 bution was the strongest that I have ever heard. As he stood there on 
 the platform, giving us the evolution of John Brown, he filled one's 
 ideal of the old Hebrew prophets. He reached the climax in these 
 words: "The cry that went up from the startled and terrified inhabi- 
 tants of Harper's Ferry, was but the echo of that other cry which began 
 two hundred years before, when the man-hunter first set foot in the 
 quiet African villages. The raid on Harper's Ferrj- was contracted for 
 when the first slaveship landed on these shores. ' ' 
 
 "The question has been often asked," said Douglass, in that great 
 address, "Why Virginia did not, with a grand magnanimity, spare 
 John Brown? But they had a thing down there which could not stand 
 the life of John Brown. Her own Patrick Henry loved liberty for the 
 rich man and the great. John Brown loved liberty for the poor and the 
 lowly. It was not white man dying for white man ; it was white man 
 dying for black man!" 
 
 Here the orator's voice and presence became electric. Nothing could 
 surpass the majesty of his presence as he thrilled our souls with the 
 splendid utterance that followed: "He came down from the heaven of 
 New England liberty to the hell of African slavery! He gave his life 
 as the best gift he could lay on the altar of human liberty!" 
 
 Frederick Douglass was a broad-spirited public man. He was too large 
 a man for any bitter, bigoted partisanship. His declaration about some 
 public affair, not long ago, in a letter which has been printed, in which 
 he says: "I am a Republican, butnot'a Republican right or wrong ; ' " 
 shows the breadth of the man. And it is well to notice in connection 
 with this fact, the marvelous growth in Frederick Douglass' time, 
 in toleration of freedom of principles and speech, which is illustrated 
 in the House of Representatives of the North Carolina Legislature 
 adjourning in honor of Frederick Douglass, on receiving the news of 
 his death. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 259 
 
 It was very appropriate that the last appearance of Mr. Douglass in 
 public should have been on the platform of the Woman's Council, on 
 the very day of his death. To no other cause had he given more sincere 
 devotion than to the equality of rights and privileges between men and 
 women. I heard him one time in an address on woman suffrage, in 
 reply to the suggestion that the pool of politics was too dirty to allow 
 women to come into it, ask with stinging sarcasm, "Who made the 
 pool dirty? No woman has been playing in it!" 
 
 A career like that of Frederick Douglass is at once an honor and an 
 inspiration to humanity. 
 
 In such a man the kinship of all races is demonstrated. All men 
 instinctively agree, in the presence of such a personality, with John 
 Boyle O'Reilly's song: 
 
 The trapper died— our hero — and we grieved; 
 In every heart in camp the sorrow stirred. 
 "His soul was red!" the Indian cried, bereaved; 
 "A white man he;" the grim old Yankee's word. 
 
 So, brief and strong, each mourner gave his best; 
 
 How kind he was, how brave, how keen to track; 
 And as we laid him by the pines to rest, 
 
 A negro spoke, with tears: "His heart was black!" 
 
 Address of Professor W. H. H. Hart, of the Law 
 
 Department of Howard University, 
 
 Washington, D. C, 
 
 Before the Students of that Department, at a Memorial 
 Meeting in honor of Frederick Douglass, held by them on 
 the Evening of March 19, 1895, and presided over by Pro- 
 fessor B. F. Leighton, Dean of that Department. 
 
 It is impossible, on this occasion and at this time, not to be deeply 
 impressed with the brevity and uncertainty of life, and of the inexorable 
 end of all the living ; — all, all, must enter, at last, the narrow house that 
 awaits the children of men. 
 
 The human heart, conscious of its place in nature, pulsating with life 
 and thought and treading the rounds of the hours and of the seasons, is 
 seldom reconciled to the inevitable and desolate fate of silence, death 
 and decay. This feeling is intensified when a strong man is stricken 
 and falls in his place, and, as we look upon his inanimate dust, or 
 behold the solemn cortege which conveys it to its last resting-place, the 
 great questions of man's origin, man's life, and man's destiny, instinc- 
 tively spring up within our minds transfixed by the Great Mystery. 
 
260 JX MEMOEIAM. 
 
 Finding no stability in his own nature and constitution, man seeks 
 to preserve his ephemeral life from utter annihilation, by making it a 
 part of the enduring universe which lies beyond change and illusion, 
 self and sense, appetite and passion, and inheres in truth and virtue, 
 and justice and love. Virtue is the summum bonum; "the essence of 
 the highest manhood ; the only source of a noble life. " " It is goodness 
 that is victorious through trial, through temptations and conflict." 
 
 An eminent Chinese, standing beneath the tender dreamy blue 
 of the Oriental sky that seems to lift the mind up and out into infinity, 
 was moved to exclaim — "What thought is so high as it is? What mind 
 is so wide?" A similar feeling possesses me as I approach the subject 
 of this evening's memorial and endeavor to set before you, in the brief 
 period allotted me, some reflections upon the life and character of the 
 great dead in whose memory we are met. 
 
 In the contemplation of the rich, varied and heroic life which has 
 come to its period, and which we are entitled to regard, for the greater 
 part, as our priceless possession, I am at a loss to determine what por- 
 tion of it can be most profitably celebrated on this occasion. The 
 beginning of it was so humble, the power of it so marvelous, and the 
 fruits of it so extensive and substautial, and the end of it so noble and 
 luminous, that one knows not, for very profusion, where to make a 
 beginning, and, having begun, where to make an ending.' The grand, 
 useful and practical career of Frederick Douglass is full of interest and 
 instruction to all men, but to the young men of our caste and condition 
 passing, in a measure, through the fiery furnace of his own experience, 
 it is a priceless heritage, both as an ideal of excellence and as a proof of 
 capacity, — the value of which no words can estimate, no time diminish 
 and no tongue disparage. One lesson of surpassing and permanent 
 importance, which the young may find clearl}' and completely exem- 
 plified in the life of Frederick Douglass, was, the virtue of the man. 
 By virtue I mean "moral goodness; the practice of moral duties and 
 the conformity of life and conversation to the moral law. " 
 
 Hutcheson, the founder in modern times, of the doctrine of a "moral 
 sense," resolved all virtue into benevolence or the pursuit of the happi- 
 ness of others. This goodness which we call virtue, is a twin sister of 
 wisdom, and springs from a protecting and preserving benevolence, 
 whose very esssence and mission is to destroy and extirpate vice, 
 oppression and disorder from the earth. Whatever connects itself with 
 power for the destruction of liberty, of equality, of common rights and 
 of common prosperity, is an offence which the virtuous man will 
 denounce and oppose to the last limit of his life. His indignation at 
 guilt will never be extinguished while he lives. 
 
 The idea of Right, — moral obligation and moral right — held con- 
 trolling place in the mind and motives of this great leader of men. To 
 render to every man what is due him ; and that every man should do 
 unto others as he would have otliers do unto him, constituted the law 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 261 
 
 and shaped the course of his life. These principles comprehending the 
 whole moral law, were, to him, self-evident truth. His personal fidelity 
 to them rendered him just, honest and benevolent, and his genius and 
 courage in proclaiming and urging them upon society, rendered him 
 powerful, beloved and famous. 
 
 No greater illustration of the sure and saving value of moral integrity 
 can be presented, than is exemplified in this character and life of Fred- 
 erick Douglass, — whether regard be had to mere personal and private 
 domestic relations, or to the wide field of public and political affairs in 
 which he was a conspicuous figure holding important and responsible 
 public trusts always administered with distinguished ability and 
 scrupulous honesty. Wherever the course of his romantic and eventful 
 life led him, his fair fame was untarnished, his honor unblemished; 
 faithful and true in ail things, — no trust betrayed ; no worthy confidence 
 disappointed. 
 
 The moral worth is, after all, the real worth of the man. Mere 
 brilliancy of intellect is a vain will-o'-the-wisp, without solid moral 
 culture to ballast and direct it. What availed the splendid intellectual 
 endowments of Byron and Poe, in comparison with the sweet and 
 inspiring poetic graces, the saving moral excellence of Whittier and 
 Lowell? Locke said "Instruction is but the least part of education. 
 What a father should desire for his son is virtue before every-thing else. 
 Knowledge occupies but the second place, ' ' and Aristotle declared that 
 "the end of study is not knowledge, but conduct." The mind of 
 Frederick Douglass seemed, of its own natural vigor, to embrace and 
 embody these eternal principles of morality as attributes of his own 
 soul, and thus his lofty character was the pride and delight of those 
 who loved him, — furnishing at once a most powerful argument for the 
 friends of freedom, and a most damaging stultification to the advocates 
 of slavery. Its influence in the great contest which brought freedom 
 to the slaves and removed the greatest reproach from our country, was 
 hardly less potent than his wonderful eloquence; indeed, it gave 
 acceptance and weight and power to that eloquence. One of the rich 
 rewards of a virtuous life is that the individual himself finds in it that 
 personal and permanent dignity which ennobles and sweetens life, for, 
 accompanying the virtuous mind are a whole troop of those silent per- 
 fections of the soul, not discoverable to the knowledge of others ; purity 
 of thought, as Addison has it, which refines and sanctifies the virtuous 
 man ; secret rest and contentedness of mind which brings perfect 
 enjoyment of each moment of life; the inward pleasure derived from 
 doing good; that delight and satisfaction which he takes in the happi- 
 ness and prosperity of others. Senaca says "that a great and a right 
 mind is a kind of divinity lodged in the flesh, and may be the blessing 
 of a slave as well as of a prince. It came from Heaven and to Heaven 
 it must return; and it is a kind of heavenly felicity which a pure and 
 virtuous mind enjoys in some degree, even upon earth." There are 
 
»Aa\-- 
 
 262 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 moral altitudes which, accordingly as the miud and spirit of man 
 attain them, bring his conscience immutable rest, and to his mind, a 
 knowledge approaching infinite vision. From these heights the great 
 souls of the centuries look down upon us and beckon us onward and 
 upward to the serene higher life. These are the indicia of a virtuous 
 man, and the embodiment of these principles in the character of 
 Frederick Douglass, rendered his life a blessing to the world while it 
 lasted, and a priceless benefaction after it ended. 
 
 Moral excellence is so essential in its nature to the welfare of human- 
 ity, that the results of its culture or of the neglect of it, are almost as 
 apparent in the case of nations as in that of individuals. A more or 
 less correct apprehension of this truth will explain the tremendous 
 force and influence exerted by Frederick Douglass upon the age in 
 which he lived. . . . The doctrine of the universal brotherhood 
 of man, applied to States and enforced by law, needed to be exalted and 
 taught with a consuming zeal and enthusiasm, as men teach religion 
 and science. A great leader, — a unifier, — the lightning without which 
 the fuel never would have burned, — was needed to become the indispen- 
 sable saviour of his epoch." Where was such a one to be found? 
 Every country has its so-called great men who move along a well- 
 defined line of promotion from stage to stage of public service, 
 appointed by public favor until the summit is reached and the career 
 rounded. Their success, their pride, their power, prestige and applause 
 are well understood, and result from familiar and common causes. 
 But the prophet out of the wilderness, with his inspired message on 
 his lips and his staff in his hand, whence comes he? To what geStlftplAAul 
 does he belong? From what house does he spring? History answers Q 
 that these questions are ^important ; that a Carian was the mother of 
 Themistocles ; a Scythian, of Demosthenes; a Thracian, of Iphicrates 
 and Timotheus; that Galileo and Erasmus knew not their fathers, and 
 that slave mothers, the ' ' rejected and despised, ' ' gave the world Her- 
 cules, Theseus, Achilles and Romulus. Science unfolds to those who 
 seek her deeper meaning, the profound truth that man, in his ensemble 
 of character and power, is not made but self-fashioned to escape suffer- 
 ing and death. Under the pressure of pain we are chiseled and 
 shaped; and, so long as pain endures, must continue self-change, sub- 
 limation of character and self-development of soul and intellect ; while, 
 for every exigency threatening human welfare, some hero, a Garibaldi, 
 — a Toussaint L'Ouverture, — a Frederick Douglass, — a man equal to the 
 stress of the hour, will at the supreme moment, step forth to serve and 
 save his kind. Under travail and deprivation the hero will be disci- 
 plined and developed for the task which, in providence, awaits him. 
 So Frederick Douglass was shaped and chiseled by what he suffered 
 and by what he witnessed others suffer in slavery, and so he was devel- 
 oped and disciplined by this hard but effective experience, to portray 
 the agonies of the victims of that system "red in tooth and claw with 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 263 
 
 ravin," and the unutterable and brutal shame of those who maintained 
 and administered it. The world heard the pitiful story, and then 
 began that wonderful crusade which finally transformed our Republic 
 from a hunting ground for slave-catchers, into a government of free- 
 men, without a slave within its borders. But what a crusade, and 
 what a leader! While apologists excused the crime, and incompetent 
 statesmen faltered before it, and compromised with it, this incompara- 
 ble champion of human rights attacked and denounced it with the 
 sagacity of Ulysses, the courage of Achilles and the voice of Nestor, 
 until, throughout the length and breadth of these United States, — from 
 sea to sea, and across the seas, — his consuming eloquence awoke to battle 
 the slumbering conscience of the good people of the North and West. 
 
 The simple facts of the great anti-slavery crusade of which Frederick 
 Douglass was the central and colossal figure, and which culminated in 
 the civil war and the freedom and enfranchisement of the former 
 slaves, surpass and dwarf any and every single achievement of moral 
 and political reformation recorded in human history. The institution 
 which he attacked had its foundations deep down in the racial feelings 
 and selfish instincts and national habits and examples of the people of 
 whom he formed a part. Slavery was a feature of the Greek and 
 Roman social and political systems. It had a place in the scheme of 
 government originating among the Germanic tribes; it formed a part 
 of the English economy in the early centuries, as it was a part of the 
 Russian to the very middle of the present century. Every stream of 
 the Aryan race influence, contributed to the adoption and practice of 
 it. Teutonic, Celtic, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon and Slavonic subdi- 
 visions, either part or together, had approved the principle and pursued 
 the practice of human chattel slavery. It lay at the foundation of the 
 American social and political structure and entered into the national 
 life and character, finding expression in the pleasures, refinements and 
 luxuries of the dominant race, as well as in the development of its 
 countless industries ; and modifying and moulding into conformity with 
 it itself, the art, the literature, the manners, customs, conduct, ethics, 
 philosophy and religion of the people, in almost every phase of public 
 and private life. 
 
 It was this system, sanctioned by history and custom, buttressed by 
 law, and abounding in wealth for its supporters, that Frederick Doug- 
 la.ss essayed to overturn and extirpate. In its transcending importance 
 to humanity, — in its far-reaching influence upon society and upon the 
 American nation, comprised in the United States, and upon Russia in 
 Europe and Brazil in South America, the task assumed and accom- 
 plished was immeasurably beyond anything ever attempted by mortal 
 man ; whether he be ranked among the great warriors, the great states- 
 men or the great orators of the world. Measured by beneficent results, 
 there is not one of them who deserves to share the crown with this 
 foremost man of them all. 
 
2C4 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 But his glorious career did not stop here. A nation's habits are like 
 an individual's habits, — once fixed, they are difficult to be changed. 
 The fact and the habits of slavery had warped alike the oppressor and 
 his victim, from the noble and upright .stature of true manhood. 
 Strike down as he might in a day the trunk of the poisonous tree, its 
 roots would remain, and weary days must be spent in teaching the mas- 
 ter that he was no more than a man, and the poor, broken and 
 blighted slave, that he was as much as any man and no less, in right 
 or in duty. To break and remove the gyves which had been for cen- 
 turies bound about the mind and character and manhood of the slave; 
 to free him from the influence, as he had freed him from the fact of 
 slavery, was the task which fell to the later years of our great hero. 
 And right nobly did he address himself to this great work. To the 
 white people of the Republic he constantly said, "The freedmen are 
 men! Give them an opportunity such as men may of right claim !" 
 To the freedmen he as constantly said, " Go forward and be men ! " 
 and wherever a political or social lie reared its head to impede the 
 progress of the colored people to complete civil and social equality, 
 he struck it down, that the weight and force of his grand and inspir- 
 ing example might stand before us for emulation and imitation for- 
 ever. He claimed no right for himself which he did not concede to all 
 others, whether they were Jews, Celts, or Mongols, males or females, 
 Europeans, Africans or Indians. He conceded no right to any man 
 which he did not claim for himself and all other men, and in his fine 
 scorn of whatever was mean and ignoble, he resented the base injustice 
 which sought to deprive him of his proper and equitable share of the 
 benefits of our institution-s, confessedly founded on the principle of 
 the equality, in right and duty, of all the people. 
 
 If equality be predicated of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit 
 of happiness, it embraces the right of all persons to do, within the 
 meaning of the terms, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," 
 that which any person may do. 
 
 It is not competent to select certain essential rights included in the 
 phrase "the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," which 
 are declared to be inalienable, and denominate them "social rights," 
 and then proceed to strip and deprive certain citizens of them. This 
 is a rank violation of the spirit of our institutions and of the spirit of 
 the age. 
 
 \\\ the relations which men have with each other in the way of 
 maintaining themselves in society, are social. The fiction, in the 
 philosophy of the law, of an original agreement by which mankind 
 organized themselves into tribes or communities or states, is termed 
 "the social compact." All the rights and privileges and relations 
 growing out of the association of people into society or bodies politic, 
 are social primarily, in their origin and nature, and civil or political 
 or otherwise, secondarily. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 265 
 
 Our simple and noble republican institutions leave nothing to impli- 
 cation on this head; they plainly declare the unqualified equality of all 
 men in the matter of the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pur- 
 suit of happiness; it is therefore contrary to right and reason for one 
 class of the people to appropriate to itself the common benefits of our 
 institutions. It ought to be without the power of any men or set of 
 men to deprive any of their fellow citizens and equals in right and 
 obligation, of a just participation in the equal benefits of our common 
 society, because of any accidental differences either of race, color or 
 previous condition of servitude. 
 
 Whoever attempts to divide the common and essential rights of the 
 people into so-called social, but really anti-social, civil and political 
 divisions, and at the same time denies or abridges one class while pro- 
 fessing to concede the others, will find that, in the practical adminis- 
 tration of this rule of division, all the valued rights of citizenship and 
 manhood and womanhood, will be abridged and withheld. This result 
 will follow from whatever point in the entire body of equality of rights 
 the division and discrimination is made. It matters not whether the 
 dividing line be drawn through that portion of essential rights termed 
 social, or that portion termed civil ; the integrity of all rights will be 
 impaired. If men may, by law or custom, refuse to eat and drink with 
 you in the public inn, or to ride with you in the public conveyance, or to 
 learn with you in the public school, or to worship with you in the sacred 
 temple ; they may refuse to bargain with you in the market, to toil with 
 you .it the forge, in the field, or in any of the highways and byways 
 of life; and, at last, they will by law refuse to make place for you in 
 the courts of justice, the halls of legislation, and the circle embracing 
 those administrative positions of power and dignity upon which liberty 
 depends and through which alone it is assured. 
 
 To denominate essential rights of citizens and freemen "social 
 rights, ' ' and withhold them from a certain increment of the blameless 
 citizenship of the Republic, on the ground of those rights being thus 
 denominated, is to mislead the unwary and defeat justice with an 
 adjective. There should be but one standard of excellence and accept- 
 ance in the society of our Republic, and that should be a standard of 
 character, and all pretensions of either a private or public nature that 
 seek to fasten aristocratic and foreign doctrines of superiority of class 
 inferiority, merely as such, upon our pure democracy of freedom and 
 equality, should be rejected and abominated. Such unsocial and uure- 
 publican doctrines and devices have never, wherever adopted or practiced, 
 served any other than oppressive purposes. These destroy, not only the 
 liberty of the people, but their moral and physical vitality also, and lead 
 to national decline. They limit the field of individual development, and 
 restrict the law of natural selection, and are therefore contrary to the 
 very law of progress and evolution. That they are contrary to reason 
 and nature is evidenced by the facts of history that those people who 
 
266 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 apply them most rigidly, suffer most severely. Of that almost divine 
 race of Greeks whose monuments of art and literature remain at once 
 the delight and despair of modem times, not one little community 
 exists to-day. Of the order of Patricians, — increased from time to time 
 by the elevation of outsiders to its rank and protected by rigid laws 
 prohibiting intermarriage with plebeians, — not a single vestige remained 
 in Rome at the time of Livy. Of the five hundred titles of nobility 
 endowed and conferred upon his companions in arms by the "Con- 
 queror," not five have been perpetuated in direct line to the present 
 time. The decadence of India and Portugal is due to caste systems. 
 The neurotic condition of the hordes of gypsies and the Jews grow out 
 of the same causes. Nature will not tolerate such outrages upon her 
 laws. 
 
 ' ' Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret. ' ' 
 
 Let us heed the admonition of reason, nature and history, upon the 
 inevitable penalty attached to denial of justice and departure from 
 natural law. Individual freedom in all the relations of life, limited 
 only by such just laws as are devised and established alike for all citi- 
 zens, will result in giving to the world such superb types of physical, 
 mental and moral manhood as Frederick Douglass in himself proved 
 and promised. That malicious and designing persons or clas.ses are 
 allowed to perpetuate error and injustice in this matter of social dis- 
 criminations among men to the end that individuals or classes may 
 enjoy unfair advantages or reap unjust profits, is an unspeakable 
 calamity, and therefore, whoever strike at social discrimination again.st 
 the colored people of this country, renders to the whole country a most 
 valuable service. Upon this last stronghold of slavery Frederick Doug- 
 lass led the first assault and forged 
 
 "A hoop of gold to bind our brothers in." 
 
 and giving us an example whose light will be a perpetual illumination. 
 
 I am admonished that I must conclude and give way to others, but I 
 cannot refrain from dwelling somewhat upon the unswerving devotion 
 of Frederick Douglass to the people from whose loins he sprung and 
 upon his love for the land of his birth. Whatever touched them or it. 
 — despite his individual sufferings and ostracism, — touched his soul and 
 awakened its deepest interest. 
 
 There was no withstanding the power of his eloquence which he cast 
 like a "mantle of fire" upon those who would willingly perpetrate 
 wrongs and outrages against the weak and defenceless; but there was 
 no room in his great soul for personal malice. He hated injustice so 
 bitterly that he could be unjust to none. The entire circle of influences 
 exerted by him upon society and upon his country, was wholesome and 
 charitable. The good word and the good deed were what he commended 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 267 
 
 and comruanikd. Rancor and revenge found no tolerance from him ; 
 but to secure just and effective laws, to establish and promote liberty, 
 he would labor without rest and without reward. 
 
 He knew that the three principles upon which our government is 
 based; namely, that all men are naturally equal in rights; that people 
 cannot be taxed without their consent ; and that they may delegate their 
 power of self-government to representatives chosen by themselves; — 
 faithfully and practically embraced in all our policies, constitutions, and 
 statutes, both in the letter and spirit of the framing of them and of the 
 administration of them would realize for this people and nation a 
 beneficent and just government of ' ' Liberty under Law. ' ' Frederick 
 Douglass knew the inestimable importance of each of these three essen- 
 tial principles, both to the common and to the individual welfare, and 
 he gave his voice and suffrage, without stint and without price, to make 
 them of universal application and force. 
 
 He knew that municipal law is not stable and self-executive, like 
 natural law; that the common laws of the land are never finished and 
 ended, but are always in process of becoming, — by flux and reflux, — 
 taking form and substance from the varj'ing convictions, motives, 
 genius, habits and customs of the people, as occasion and agitation 
 offer. 
 
 He knew that the interests and prejudices of individuals and classes 
 are being constantly pressed forward for enactment into law ; that this 
 is unavoidable and grows out of the infirmity of human nature itself, 
 so that it long ago became a general maxim that "eternal vigilance is 
 the price of liberty. " He knew also that a people or a class of people 
 which is indifferent to the blessings of liberty and will not value them 
 and make exertions to retain them will not long possess them. 
 
 Valuing freedom thus, Frederick Douglass fought his way, step by 
 step, through the weary years, from the cabin of a slave, — the position 
 of a mere thing — a chattel, — into the heart and body of the supreme law 
 of the land, until now, the glorious amendments of freedom guarantee 
 every right which he claimed. 
 
 At what a cost that heritage was won ! The stripes that were borne, 
 the agony that was endured, the treasure that was poured forth, the 
 tears and the blood that was shed, in order that we might be free, — who 
 shall make the numbering thereof? 
 
 The Puritans owed us a pledge of freedom when Cri.spus Attucks 
 baptized the Revolution with his blood, and the worthy sons and 
 daughters of those same noble Puritans, have redeemed that pledge of 
 liberty. 
 
 The rare flower, the priceless jewel of this earth has been won for us, 
 and we are in part in possession of this boon of freedom. Those who 
 won it for us cannot preserve it to us. On ourselves alone will depend 
 the preservation of our liberties and the transmission of them in their 
 integrity to those who shall come after us. This imperative duty and 
 
268 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 the dangers accompanying it are very clearly revealed in considering 
 how, in the first instance, liberty was lost and slavery established. 
 Slavery was merely tolerated by the Constitution and in a very limited 
 degree supported by law, but those who desired to make slavery a part 
 of the national economy, persisted in their purpose of gradually devel- 
 oping and perfecting the system until it became firmly established as a 
 primal institution of the land, to check and destroy which, finally 
 recjuired, for nearly a century, the greatest exertions of the best people 
 of the whole country and the greatest civil war of all history. 
 
 To secure to the slaves this freedom, Frederick Douglass labored and 
 he lived to see that labor crowned with success in the guarantees of 
 liberty thrust by the sword into the Constitution. 
 
 This Constitution of the United States, through the vigor inhering 
 in its thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments, strike to the 
 ground, in its corrective force, any provision of State-Constitution or 
 statute in direct conflict with the substance of these Amendments as 
 interpreted and construed by the Supreme Court. 
 
 But are the friends of Liberty to rest here? Can they safely leave 
 attacks upon the principles of these Amendments unresisted and the 
 disparagement of them unnoticed? Will the aggressive spirit which 
 established and extended and defended slavery and which now, by 
 every available means of force and fraud, openly and confessedly opposes 
 and defeats the purposes and spirit of these Amendments of freedom, 
 remain without result upon our liberties? Or will it not ultimately, 
 in the practical operations of policy and the administration of the 
 political, commercial, civil and social affairs of this nation, break 
 down and override and render of no effect these constitutional safe- 
 guards of liberty? 
 
 Continued existence is not only a function, but also a warfare. An 
 element or organism is assured of continuity, or perpetuity, or survival, 
 only when, to the power to live, it adds the capacity and disposition 
 to assure itself protection and defence. Action and reaction, attack 
 and opposition, impact and endurance, must measurably equal each 
 other if equilibrium is to be maintained. If action be met by inaction, 
 attack by submission, impact by demolition, the equilibrium will be 
 destroyed, whether the principles involved be civil, political, moral or 
 social. The relations of men will be changed; the equality inhering in 
 a condition of liberty will be lost; the strong will become stronger, and 
 the weak weaker. Instead of men and citizens, we shall again find 
 masters and slaves. If this agreement be brought about by common 
 agreement, or by what amounts to the same thing, by common indiffer- 
 ence — against the letter and spirit of the organic law of the land — in 
 open defiance of constitutional provisions meant to prevent such 
 happening, soon that organic law will be changed from the ideal it 
 sought to enforce, to the actual situation it has to consider, and the 
 potent and irresistible statute of custom. 
 
 changed from the ideal it ■ . , ' 
 it has to consider, and '^^S,.4/vW|lJi^VX.O 
 with its s i i nplifieBtio tr'of V 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 269 
 
 agpe««fM>tjM*^ consent and authority, will emasculate and abrogate the 
 Constitutional Amendments which Frederick Douglass, more than any 
 other one agency in the world, made possible and real. To the lessons 
 of virtue, truth and justice, of faith, hope and love, of temperance, 
 patience and patriotism exemplified in the wonderful life and character 
 of Frederick Douglass, must be added the wisdom which everj'where 
 distinguished his career. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was not ouly a good man and a great man — a 
 reformer and a patriot whose genius at once both discerned the path of 
 duty and liberty, and by sweet persuasion brought the feet of men to 
 tread and abide therein ; but, to the student, he was in himself a most 
 complete and striking illustration of an educated man. 
 
 He was an educated man who had learned how to successfully use his 
 own faculties so as to make the hand cunning and skillful in work, the 
 tongue instructive and persuasive in speech and the pen attractive and 
 effective in composition. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was wise without the discipline of the schools. 
 He reached the goal of all mental culture without coursing the curri- 
 culum of the college. He was a close observer of men and things, and 
 ■was an earnest and honest student of the open book of nature, whose 
 study expands, enriches and exalts the mind and gives at last true 
 learning, strong reason and sound sense. There he sought the infinite 
 and eternal truth and when, in more or less full measure, he appre- 
 hended it, he felt the thrill of Kepler's exclamation, "O, Almighty 
 God! I think Thy thoughts after Thee!" 
 
 The favors of Divine Providence are ours in profusion ; brought into 
 our possession through the lives and labors of the devoted disciples of 
 truth of every age and clime. Amid all these immortal benefactors of 
 humanity, the majestic and heroic fi.gxire, the lofty genius, the mar- 
 velous power and the blameless life of Frederick Douglass will hold a 
 foremost place while mankind shall cherish the love for virtue, justice 
 and libertv. 
 
IK MEMORIAM. 
 
 An Extract from the Address of Professor H. T. 
 
 Kealing, President of Paul Quinn College, 
 
 Waco, Texas, 
 
 Delivered at the Memorial Meeting held at Waco, Texas, 
 March 27, 1895. 
 
 Standards of greatness vary as much as standards of 
 
 beauty, value or measure. 
 
 There is the military standard — the standard of blood — which follows 
 with breathless interest and approval Alexander from Macedonia to 
 India, Hannibal from Spain to Rome, Caesar from Gaul to Egypt, 
 Napoleon from Toulon to Waterloo. But the standard of blood is a 
 savage standard, and civilization, with all its arts, has failed to veneer 
 its horrors more than when a thousand years ago the brawny Saxon 
 drank wassail from the undried skulls of vanquished foes. 
 
 There is the diplomatic standard — the standard of cunning — which 
 takes by deception what war takes by force. Here are written high the 
 names of Metternich, Richelieu, Tallyrand and Palmerston. The stan- 
 dard of cunning is but a refinement of the standard of blood. The one 
 is a war of wits ; the other a war of weapons ; and both for selfish gain. 
 
 There is a third — the patriotic standard; higher because broader and 
 beneficent, which enthrones fidelity to one's own country, without ill 
 will to that of another. 
 
 But there is a fourth standard of greatness, to my mind, the truest 
 of all. It may be called the Cosmopolitan. 
 
 John Wesley hinted at it when he said, "The world is my parish." 
 Cosmopolitan greatness embraces the world in its sympathies and dare 
 rebuke one's country for one's kind. It has always courage to dare, 
 do and die for a principle; has wide knowledge of history and deep 
 discernment of its philosophy; it has courage to strike, patience to 
 bear, skill to confound and power to prevail. 
 
 Mr. Douglass had all this and, added to it, the gift of eloquence. 
 His endowments of intellect, will, purpose and of phj'sique were all of 
 the first class. But great qualities alone do not make great men. They 
 must be put to great uses. Just as the law takes no note of desires and 
 intentions until they become overt in action so the court of the world 
 registers no judgment against an unborn impulse or a sleeping power. 
 Nor even when great deeds are wrought can the real degree of greatness 
 be determined till the degree of resistance be known. Some men are 
 greater in having reached mediocrity, than others in having gained 
 distinction. Winkelried, breaking through the spears of the phalanx 
 and falling dead, was greater than his general, who passed through the 
 opening thus made, to victory. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 271 
 
 Mr. Douglass meets this test grandly. His slogan was, "One with 
 God is a majority. ' ' This saying was his own and has already taken its 
 place among the great epigrams of the world. 
 
 The lives of Gladstone and Douglass form a wonderful parallel. Both 
 devoted their lives to the battles of others. Both brought matchless 
 eloquence and resource to their aid. Both were of iron will. Both 
 were high minded and pure souled. Both were gentle in repose and 
 leonine in action. Gladstone is white and was born to freedom. 
 Douglass was dark in hue and born to chains. Gladstone shares with 
 those around him in the pride and advantage of being an Englishman. 
 Douglass was born an alien, isolated and despised. Gladstone found 
 the doors of Oxford open and inviting him to the pursuit of classic 
 lore ; Douglass found, not only every school but every book closed 
 against him, on pain of the lash. Gladstone had at his back a cultured 
 titled constituency ; Douglass fought to create a constituency. Glad- 
 stone entered the arena equipped for the struggle; Douglass armed 
 himself from the quiver of his energy as he fought. Gladstone con- 
 tended for political liberty, Douglass for liberty of body. Gladstone 
 contended with personal friends; Douglass with personal enemies. 
 
 Gladstone may have sometimes suffered from the sarca.sm of heated 
 debate, but Douglass was always sure of premeditated insult. Intel- 
 lectually Gladstone had a fuller quiver, but Douglass a stronger bow 
 arm. Gladstone's logic may have been weightier, but Douglass' speech 
 was more overwhelming. 
 
 Thus these two men, the one already accorded his place in the temple 
 of fame, though living; the other denied it by many, even after death, 
 are seen to be much alike in power and purpose, with the difference 
 that the American conquered more difficulties to become a man, than 
 the Englishman did to become a statesman. 
 
 Can I ever forget the summer of 1893, when the great men of many 
 nations assembled on the World's Fair grounds to receive the Spani.sh 
 captain who had just arrived with the three Columbian vessels? Seated 
 upon the platform were Secretary Herbert, Senator Sherman, Mayor 
 Harrison, representatives of the French, of the English and a number 
 of others, among whom was Mr. Douglass. The Spaniard spoke first, 
 painting the glory of Spain; then the Frenchman, the Englishman 
 and the American, each in turn responded, eloquently lauding their 
 several countries. The program was then finished, but there arose a 
 loud cry of "Douglass, Douglass!" Mr. Douglass shrank back and 
 waved his hand deprecatingly, saying, "Friends, I am not on the pro- 
 gram." But the cry arose more insistently, "Douglass, Douglass!" 
 till he stepped to the front. A great silence fell upon the throng as he 
 stood there, straight, tall and broad-shouldered, with his halo of snow- 
 white hair .gently waving in the breeze, and said, "It is a great thing 
 to be a Spaniard and be heir to Spain's splendid history; it is a great 
 thing to be a Frenchman, with all the honor of his country's past upon 
 
272 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 one; it is a great thing to be an Englishman, and feel the flow of that 
 unconquered blood ; it is greater still to be an American, of the 
 youngest, fairest, strongest child of time ; but greater, grander, incom- 
 parably more glorious than all, it is, to be a man!" That was all, but 
 how that crowd surged, yelled and tossed its hats in the air. It was a 
 sublime sentence, grandly uttered and to an audience from all over the 
 world. And it was the only sentiment of that day that was broad 
 enough to take in the world. 
 
 Eulogy on the Life and Services of Honorable 
 
 Frederick Douglass, by Professor George 
 
 W. Cook, of Howard University. 
 
 Delivered at Lincoln Memorial Congregational Cluircli, 
 Washington, D. C, Sunday evening, April 28, 1895. 
 
 In studying Mr. Douglass, we may be led into extreme enthusiasm. 
 If we are so led the subject is our apology. This is the time for eulogy 
 —this is the time for presenting those characteristics which will be of 
 benefit to us and lead to a higher plane of living. 
 
 As we consider what might be the theme for our remarks, so many 
 virtues of this man crowd upon our minds that we are brought to pause 
 where we shall first begin. 
 
 Let us then trace some lines of his character and come to some lesson 
 that surely must be there. 
 
 What use are we to make of such a character as Frederick Douglass? 
 Let his life be a lesson to all our children. Let his virtues be rehearsed 
 to future generations. Let not one of us forget to hold him up as a 
 pattern for young men in any station of life. Paul on Mars Hill is 
 not a more striking and valuable lesson than Mr. Douglass upon the plat- 
 form. They, both apostles, preached the doctrines of their Master. 
 The Pauline echoes have been intensified by the Douglass reverbera- 
 tion ; the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, was their theme. 
 Contemplate the Douglass character as you will, it is one of moral sub- 
 limity. His daring grand, his courage awe-striking. He stood 
 "where Moses stood and viewed the landscape o'er." Ever conscious 
 of his moral defence he could not be affrighted from his post. Xeno- 
 phon in his Memorabilia says of Socrates: "Of those who knew what 
 sort of a man Socrates was, such as were lovers of virtue continue to 
 regret him above all other men even to the present day as having con- 
 tributed in the highest degree to their advancement in goodness. To 
 me being such as I have described him, so pious that he did nothing 
 without the sanction of the gods; so just that he wronged no man in 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 273 
 
 the most trifling affairs, but was of service in the most important mat- 
 ters, to those who enjoyed his society; so temperate that he never 
 preferred pleasure to virtue; so wise that he never erred in distin- 
 guishing between better and worse, needing no counsel from others, 
 but being sufficient in himself to discriminate between them; so able 
 to explain and settle questions by argument; so capable of discerning 
 the characters of others, of confuting those who were in error, and of 
 exhorting them to virtue and honor — to me, I say, he seemed to be 
 such as the best and happiest of men would be. But if anyone disap- 
 proves of my opinion, let him compare the conduct of others with that 
 of Socrates and determine accordingh. " 
 
 Is there a line, a word or a sentiment in this extract not having 
 positive fitness in its application to Mr. Douglass? Is he not regretted 
 by those who love virtue? Have not his words and example contri- 
 buted to the advancement of good in others? What has Douglass done 
 without the sanction of the moral code? In that, he is pious like 
 Socrates. He wronged no man in trivial matters and was of service in 
 important affairs. So temperate that he always discountenanced 
 pleasure not virtuous. He distinguished between better and worse. 
 No matter how dark the encircling gloom, wisdom's kindly light 
 always led him, thereby making him sufficient in himself to discrimi- 
 nate between them. Able indeed in explanation and argument; pene- 
 trating in his discernment of the characters of others; capable to 
 confute the wrong and exhort to the right. To me, I say, he seemed as 
 the best and happiest of men would be. If any man disapproves of 
 my opinion let him compare the conduct of Douglass with that of 
 others and decide for himself. 
 
 Where in nature must we turn for a proper s)-mbol of Frederick 
 Douglass? If we seek it in the forest and view the giants there, as we 
 read their lessons we must talk for them to give expression to their 
 silent language. If we scan history, we fail to find the counterpart ; 
 for as lofty as may be the reality before us it does not fit the con- 
 ception of those who have known Mr. Douglass. 
 
 "Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar of Lebanon is fallen." 
 
 The cedar of Lebanon was held by the ancient Hebrew prophets and 
 sacred writers as of great importance for its adaptability as a s3^ml)oI 
 for manly virtues and its fitness for figurative application. Its longevity 
 is great; it towers skyward till its branches seem to kiss the blue vault. 
 It stands for power and teaches prosperity. Erectness is in its char- 
 acter. It is a type of rectitude, its bole being as straight as righteous- 
 ness itself. One or two of its strong arms rise higher than the rest, 
 while all present a protecting shade and covering aspect, with foliage 
 ever green as the eternal truths it typifies. Its roots are deeply im- 
 bedded in earth's mold. 
 
 Striking indeed is the poetic similarity between the cedar of Lebanon 
 and Frederick Douglass. Of a towering stature — blessed with a long life 
 
274 IN MEMOBIAM. 
 
 — a cedar in giant physical cast; emblematic of prosperity in his intel- 
 lectual and material growth, with integrity as pronounced as the shaft 
 of the cedar; his oratory and sage insight standing as counterparts of 
 the sky-piercing branches of the cedar tree. The foundation on which 
 Douglass built his enduring character is like the deep root embedded 
 in nature's gifts — drawing from her rich stores their sustenance, and 
 lending influences which are ever fresh as the rich and green foliage. 
 
 The Douglass education is not the so-called of the school, emanating 
 from the teacher. There is an education which includes in its elements 
 all the forces of nature, all the forms of social environments, all the 
 chance incidents of observatiou and all the imprints from whatever 
 source influencing that pliable composition called the soul of man. 
 Unlettered, with neither primary course or classics, Douglass was, by 
 his intellect and oratory, able, like the fisherman of old, to become a 
 profound thinker and to perplex the doctors. He sounded the depths 
 of the human heart and penned immortal works. His analysis and 
 insight into character were accurate. Born great, experience was his 
 school and God the director. In that school no lifeless words fall from 
 the Master's lips, no listless souls attend. Inspiration is the motive, 
 and justice promulgated to man the curriculum. "Some men are born 
 great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 
 them." Mr. Douglass was of the first class, and he achieved distinc- 
 tion through that gift of nature. Instead of needing stimulus from 
 others, he stimulated others. Injustice done to man nerved him for 
 the conflict. It was so when he incited the other slaves to join the 
 plot to run away, and that spirit of leadership dominated his whole 
 life. 
 
 Can we commune with our own thoughts and say that the validity 
 of our own knowledge of Mr. Douglass is unquestioned? Do we know 
 him? Is that mighty instrument of God more scrutable to us than the 
 genius of Shakespeare and the soul of Milton to their contemporaries? 
 I believe not. Time must alone reveal to man what the treasure is. 
 It is but the fate of man to be honored no more in his own time than 
 in his own country. Luther is known better to-day than in the fif- 
 teenth century. Milton is admired more now than when he penned his 
 immortal lines "to the height of the great argument, asserted eternal 
 Providence and justified the waj-s of God to man. " The debt of grati- 
 tude being greater than the ordinary, is no more understood in great 
 men's day than is the magnitude of his work. 
 
 Jesus Christ is honored more to-day than when Pilate found no fault 
 with him, even when a few believed that He spake as never man spake 
 before. The natural attitude of men truly great is interesting at first 
 view, then enchanting to study. They seem from their birth to force 
 antagonism. They are living challenges for conflict against all that is 
 vicious and strong and they are conspicuous examples as objects of ad- 
 verse attacks from social surroundings. Often they come into this 
 
FBEDERICK DOUGLASS. 275 
 
 world tasting the pangs of hunger, wearing the mantle of poverty, and 
 denied social advantages — all of which seem only to intensify their 
 natures to endeavor and make invincible their careers. With them every 
 rebuff brings forth a new power and a greater display of patience. 
 Every opposing obstacle displays heretofore hidden ability which leaping 
 higher clears away every bar to their progress. Great characters are of 
 more value for the future than the present. Douglass was maligned, so 
 was Christ. The flight into Egypt attests a principle. Mohammed 
 must needs seek safety in Medina. Luther found an asylum in Wart- 
 burg. It requires the development of ages to fit the hand and mind to 
 analyze a truly great man. He is always far in advance of his times. 
 Ordinary experiences give no instructions as to solving the thoughts of 
 sages. It is easier to tell who are great than to tell what is greatness. 
 It is less difficult to know the thing than to tell what the thing is. 
 Great men are not as frequent as was supposed by a recent Methodist 
 conference. Of the Douglass mold there are but a quartette in Ameri- 
 can history. 
 
 Of the Douglass personal presence nothing can be said to enlighten 
 the American mind. To view it is to have emotions and intellectual 
 experiences combined. "What apiece of work was this man. How 
 noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving, how- 
 expressive and admirable. ' ' To-day there are men who have hung as 
 transfixed by his presence and eloquence, who cannot fathom the spell 
 nor express the emotion. To the day of his death his appearance at 
 any place was as pronounced and irresistible an event as the presence 
 of the mighty Lear of Shakespeare. At once the grand central figure; 
 at once the magic presence, with such kingly mien to enrich the scene. 
 
 That snow-capped brow seated aloft upon an eminence of four-score 
 years, Jove-like with its verbal thunders, carried with it the halo of the 
 sage, a paragon among men, a conception from God. God made a gift to 
 man in the Douglass person. Born for no meaner purpose than would 
 challenge the gratitude of the world and make for itself a monument 
 in the hearts of an appreciative race. 
 
 By the mandate of an inscrutable Providence we are ushered into this 
 world. We play our parts, and are taken into the my.steries of the 
 great unknown. A little while here and all is gone — for a time the 
 prattle of infancy — then the joyousness and freshness of childhood — 
 the gayer hours of youth — the cares of manhood — the disappointments 
 and aftermath of age — then a few more sorrows and a few more joys, 
 and a few more tears and a few more smiles and all is over — our parts 
 are performed and all is past. 
 
 Various indeed are those parts, some roles are more pronounced — 
 some more prominent — some more creditable — some more reprehensible 
 than others ; but all to some purpose, all to some effect. Fortunate is the 
 man whose imprints are of good to others — unfortunate indeed is he 
 who sees the light of day, journeys through from early dawn to mid-day 
 
276 7iV MEMORIAM. 
 
 glare, glides into the twilight of waning manhood, and then falls 
 to sleep in the great hereafter without paying the debt of his being by 
 some good done — some profit brought to the aggregate of human 
 existence. 
 
 It is said that "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands 
 mourn." The opposite is equally true, that man's humanity makes 
 countless thousands glad. None deserve more the laurel wreath than 
 he who wins it through his sympathies for the human race. The 
 broader the circle of those sympathies the brighter should shine the 
 crown of reward. Judged by the most severe standard Mr. Douglass, 
 because of the catholicity of his sympathies, has now and will ever wear 
 a victor's adornment, undimmea by the dust of ages, and unharmed by 
 the ravages of time. Built as is his personality upon a pedestal 
 whose base is eternal principles of justice and fraternity, whose every 
 composing stone a setting from the inexhaustible quarry of God's 
 treasure house, one name is assured as a light of history to inspire the 
 weak and goad the lagging on to action. The entire category of higher 
 principles, every benevolent desire, every sentiment and emotion domi- 
 nating the human breast for man's welfare were expounded, defended, 
 encouraged and exalted in his life and hurled with effectiveness again.st 
 their opposites. Name the cause calling for strong arms to defend it, 
 words to encourage it, money to further it, that did not get its defence, 
 its encouragement, and its financial aid from him. The Irish cau.se 
 demanded his attention. The suffering of the serfs of Russia engaged 
 his favorable consideration. The negro problem, both here and in 
 Africa, drew forth the Douglass powers — none such were ever equaled 
 before — injustice to women elicited his endeavors. He was ever ready 
 to stand forth in his personality as an impress, to u.se his voice to per- 
 suade or dissuade, his means to further the elevation of woman as the 
 sure path to substantial human progress. 
 
 The Douglass oratory is unique. Born of nature; rugged at times, at 
 others melodious ; soft and pleasing at others ; suited to any purpose 
 desired. His voice possessed a rich diversity of intonations, running 
 the gamut for every shade of sentiment, every form of desire, every 
 grade of passion, every plane of pathos; a voice "that can swell the 
 soul to rage or kindle soft desire;" can melt the hardened criminal to 
 tears and make furious the gentlest woman. Mr. Douglass had a capa- 
 bility for every pitch of nature from wit and humor to sublime elo- 
 quence, and for every adornment of art. What he said of Garrison 
 may be said of him: "Mighty in words, mighty in truth, mighty in 
 their simple earnestness." "His words," as Melancthon said of 
 IvUther, "born not on his lips, but in his soul." 
 
 Time has proved Mr. Douglass a man of prophetic vision. In truth, 
 uo man is great without the touch of the inspiration of prophecy. 
 The wisdom that makes a man great is the power to see coming events 
 — that power which penetrates with mystical lore and gives reasonable 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 277 
 
 assurance of a triumphant cause. Wise men take present conditions; 
 decide for the future, not upon superficial grounds, but take the measure 
 not oidy of the probable but of the inevitable. No matter how dark 
 the way to the goal — ' ' sometimes the shadows how deep, ' ' yet they 
 never halt, seldom stumble and always follow a guide, though leading 
 through mires and bogs of opposition, even unto martyrdom ; yet with 
 a firm and abiding faith in the sure success of a course selected on 
 principle. Such a sage was Mr. Douglass. Did he not meet the most 
 pronounced opposition? Did he not suffer the most positive outrages? 
 Did he not risk his life aud receive bodily harm for a cause great to 
 humanity? 
 
 He might have escaped the tunuoil and horrors of the day by 
 remaining a fugitive, yet he accepted it all for principle's sake, 
 which sustained his personal courage aud placed him on a height with 
 no cloud about him but the nebulae of the acclamation of a thankful 
 people. What but a prophetic -soul could mount to such sublime 
 heights with such anchors on his wings? 
 
 Let us venture to make a reasonable prediction. WHien the questions 
 of this day cease to be agitated — whe.i the historian shall have fought 
 the battles incident to preserving the annals and biographies — when to 
 know of Lincoln will be through the printed page— when Emancipa- 
 tion will be only a theme for scholarly disquisition, and Recon.struc- 
 tion a problem to be viewed not by everyday experiences — when the 
 nmse of history shall have enshrined her heroes and set upon the 
 shelves the urns within which are written the history of the men of 
 our day — then the histrionic art will deal with Frederick Douglass as a 
 colossal character and the playwright make his fame by exercising his 
 genius on a dramatic personation of him. 
 
 If the historian be no harsher than the truth demands, and the facts 
 are prominent, that play will be easier to write than to set wheu 
 written. To teach the lesson of history from the life of Mv. Douglass 
 will require an acre for a stage, a multitude for the company, a nation's 
 interests as a theme aud a prophet from God as a hero. What must be 
 the mould of the man to personate the Douglass? He must stand as Saul 
 of old, from his shoulders up above his fellow-men. Symmetrical in 
 character and harmonious in outline. When standing before the 
 audience he must have the dignity of the lion and the strength of the 
 ox, the gentleness of the lamb, the tenderness of the mother. An 
 Ingomar he must be in patience, an Othello iu honesty, a Mark Antony 
 in persuasiveness, a Cicero in thundering ponderousness, a Demosthenes 
 in insinuating irony and caustic satire, black, but comely, a personage 
 fair indeed to look upon, an advocate to prize, an adversary to fear. 
 At once gentle in speech, yet terrible in philippics — able to melt to tears 
 or to exasperate to madness. A man of harmonious contradictions, 
 charitable and forgiving in his nature. In the play he must be the 
 noblest Roman of them all. 
 
278 IX MEMORIAM. 
 
 There may be grades of greatness considered from a convenient 
 standpoint, but philosophically there is but one greatness. Its differ- 
 entia are superiority, it is the superlative. When once recognized 
 none other can be considered. Greatness must not be measured by any 
 other standard than that graded and marked by ethical principle; that 
 is in the being of God. "God alone is great." As man shows 
 the imag« of his Maker is he great. The display of divine attributes 
 conditions the standard. Lincoln is great and more prominent than 
 John Brown, but John Brown is greater. Caesar is great, and stands in 
 the index line of secular history as the "foremost man of all the 
 world," yet Christ is greater. Daniel Webster stands as. the culmina- 
 tion of American institutions and the result of New England's advance- 
 ment and refinement, but as a true representative of the genius of 
 American philanthropy Douglass is greater. Webster made apologies 
 for the wrong. Douglass was as uncompromising as the nature of 
 truth, and as just as justice herself. 
 
 Prominence is not greatness. Sesostris, Alexander, Cffisar, Charle- 
 magne, all are great, but greater are Moses, Cicero, Luther, and Doug- 
 lass. That quartette ruled by might from physical forces. Their 
 empires went to pieces as their bodies disintegrated. Their achieve- 
 ments lasted only while they controlled them. Their works lived 
 because they lived. But this quartette were themselves controlled by 
 the powers by which they controlled others. Their conquests and 
 creations were in the realm of thought. They wrought in spirit and 
 in spirit they live. Their souls are marching on. Their preaching can 
 outlive principalities, empires, hammered brass, carved stone or moulded 
 bronze. These will pass to their elements, leaving no traces; but those 
 in the empire of thought carry the ever lasting and ever moving prin- 
 ciple and stamp of the Divine Nature. Products of physical sciences 
 are subject to the mutations of time and discovery. Spiritual results 
 are unchangeable. 
 
 A thorough study of the life of Mr. Douglass will prove a philosophy 
 of being worth the time. Environments may be forceful in the shap- 
 ing of character. Much is said about the depths from which he sprang. 
 Those depths were external to his soul. He was born in the heights, 
 and the depths could not contain that proud spirit. How else are we 
 to account for his ethereal flights? He soared without encouragement 
 and in spite of discouragement. ' ' Do men gather grapes of thorns, or 
 figs of thistles?" Can a fountain shoot higher than its source? Dong- 
 lass could not have been other than he was. 
 
 "Can it be that perpetual sleep re.sts upon Quintillius? When will 
 modesty and the sister of Justice, nncorrupted Faith, and naked truth 
 find any equal to him?" 
 
 He had that nice knowledge of men without which no man can be 
 great. His sense of justice was combined with and softened by bene- 
 volence. He loved his friends and they remained true to him until 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 27<) 
 
 death. Industrious, shrewd, great and brilliant in political life, a 
 penetrating student of politics, he followed the highest intellectual pur- 
 suits. 
 
 Mr. Douglass was truly sent of God. Human ingenuity could not 
 break his mission. The slavery drag-net for his apprehension failed to 
 catch the fearless champion, and had it done so he would have broken 
 through its meshes or have died the death of a martyr to a righteous 
 cause; but his soul, streughtened by its return to the God who gave 
 it, would have marched on mighty in battle, mighty iu victory. The 
 whole contemplation is too rich, too high, too beautiful for earthly 
 confines aloue. We must look for the outcome in the state of the soul 
 redeemed, entered into the joys of the New Jerusalem. "But now he 
 has come unto the Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God, 
 heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels . . . 
 and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made 
 perfect. ' ' 
 
 ' ' What needs, ' ' my Douglass, ' ' for his honored bones, 
 The labor of an age in piled .stones? 
 
 Or that his hallowed reliques be hid 
 
 Under a starrj'-pointing pyramid? 
 Dear son of memory, great heir of fame, 
 Wha/ needst thou such weak witness of thy name: 
 
 Thou, in our wonder and astonishment. 
 
 Hast built thyself a live-long monument. 
 For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring art, 
 Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart 
 
 Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book. 
 
 Those Delphic lines with deep impression took; 
 Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving. 
 Dost make us marble with too much conceiving, 
 
 And, so sepulchred, in such pomp do.st lie. 
 
 That kings, for such a tomb, would wish to die." 
 
 MEMORIAL. 
 In giving this expression in menioriam to-night, the history of a 
 great people, noted for their love of liberty, their pride of race, ancestry 
 and country, their devotion to the cause of humanity, their valor and 
 their sterling integrity comes to us as an inspiration. Such a people, 
 possessing such traits of character, must needs have produced great 
 men, who became noted in the annals of their country through the ac- 
 complishment of many magnificent and beneficent deeds. When in the 
 thirteenth century Scotland produced a Douglass, noted for his devo- 
 tion to country, race, liberty, right and justice, it seems to be a 
 repetition of history that America, in the nineteenth century produced 
 his parallel in Frederick Douglass. Both devoted their lives to the free- 
 dom of their respective people, with the difference that the one sought 
 by the force of arms to accomplish that which the other did accomplish 
 by calm and persuasive argument, appealing to the higher reason of his 
 
280 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 fellow-men. The one failed, the other succeeded and lived to enjoy the 
 fruits of his labor. 
 
 We come then to-night, under the shadow of this great grief that has 
 come to us, of his race, that has come to his nation, that has come 
 upon the world, and, as it were, lay flowers upon memory's casket to 
 this most unique character in history, the greatest negro of this or any 
 other age, who became the leader of his race before that race had a 
 suffrage. The eloquence of this "slave orator" was wholly original. 
 We know that words can never add to the fragrance of his memory, 
 which will live as long as human character lives and as long as history 
 enrolls the records of men and events. Encomiums cannot now add 
 an}' lustre to that life, crowned as it is with noble deeds, undaunted 
 courage, fortitude, zeal and duty, while battling for humanity under 
 the blazoned banner of "The Brotherhood of Man." 
 
 We present Frederick Douglass to the world to-day as an example of 
 the possibilities of the negro under favorable conditions. Especially 
 do we invite the people of these United States to view him in all the 
 numerous phases of that life — slave, mechanic, freeman, orator, author, 
 statesman, philosopher, diplomat, reaching and occupying, like Daniel 
 and Joseph, the exalted place next the king — the United States Marshal- 
 ship of the District of Columbia. We challenge here and now those 
 who in this fair land of ours detract from us, who ostracize and demean 
 us, to produce from their kind his equal or one near thereto. We 
 safely aiErm that mankind has never furnished his equal along all the 
 lines that he so faithfully pursued. 
 
 He was not a Caesar, not a man whose failings bear the imprint of 
 greatness, but a Douglass, whose standard of humanity was the highest, 
 and whose life was as pure and as just as the doctrine he taught. His 
 life, like a Greek tragedy, maintained throughout the same lofty and 
 measured dignity. 
 
 But Frederick Douglass is not dead. The good that a man does 
 lives after his bones have mouldered away. As an example of the 
 valor of the Scots, James of Douglass lives, and will live as long as the 
 world shall exist, so shall the memory of the grand achievements of 
 the negroes' Frederick Douglass go side by side with his in a blaze of 
 glory until memory shall perish from the earth. 
 
 ' ' For when the great and good go down, 
 Their statues shall arise 
 Within these temples of our own. 
 Our fadeless memories. 
 
 "For when the sculptured marble falls, 
 And Art itself .shall die, 
 Their forms shall live in holier halls, 
 The Pantheon of the sky. ' ' 
 
 To the young men of to-day we say, it was largely through his cease- 
 less and burning eloquence, his many sacrifices, his zeal, his great 
 
FREDF.S.J'^K DOUGLASS. 281 
 
 self-respect, his moral and stainless character, that you enjoy the liberties 
 you now possess. Though these liberties are shattered and fettered, 
 they are ten thousand fold better than Frederick Douglass possessed 
 when at your age. Upon you then devolves the preservation of these 
 liberties; upon you devolves the task of making them more full in 
 their enjoyment. Revere his memory as you do that of your progeni- 
 tors, and in all the coming years let the name of Douglass be an 
 incentive to high and lofty aims, to noble purposes and deeds. While 
 his death is not alone a loss to his family, immediate relatives and 
 friends, it is a loss to his race, to his country and to the world, for a 
 champion of all human rights against oppression has fallen and thus 
 by this touch of nature countless numbers are made to mourn. 
 
 Linked together are the names of Benjamin Lundy, William Wilber- 
 force, Daniel O'Connell, William Lloyd Garrison, Elijah P. Lovejoy, 
 Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, 
 of the dominant race, and of our own, the names of Samuel Ward, 
 Henry Highland Garnet, Charles L. Remond, William Whipper, Dr. 
 Bias, J. W. C. Pennington, Charles H. Langston, Bishop Daniel A. 
 Payne, until they form a pyramid of illustrious names, with that of 
 Frederick Douglass crowning the apex, with this phrase inscribed — 
 ' ' Exeg! Hlonumenlunt Aere PcrenntKS. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Great Sage ! Thou hast left behind 
 
 Powers that will work for thee, — air, earth and skies: 
 
 There's not a breathing of the common wind 
 
 That will forget thee; thou hast great allies: 
 
 Thy friends are great exultations, agonies. 
 
 And love, and man's unconquerable mind." 
 
 We not only extend our condolence to his widow and his family, but 
 to civilization; for Frederick Douglass belonged to the world. 
 JERE A. Brown, 
 P. M. Tyi<er, 
 
 WlLLI.'^M H. RONEY, 
 
 Riley F. Wii.li.\ms, 
 Frank P. Gii.i.i.\in.s, 
 Allen S. Peal, 
 
 Committee on Expression. 
 
^Tributes from tbe Iprees. 
 
TRIBUTES FROM THE PRESS. 
 
 From "The Evening Star," Washington, D. C, Febmarj' 21, 1S95.] 
 
 Of remarkable men this country has produced at least its quota and 
 among those whose title to eminence may not be disputed the figure 
 of Frederick Douglass is properly conspicuous — a fact that will be 
 accentuated by the sudden death of him who did so much for himself 
 and for the enslaved millions of his race who by force were compelled 
 to residence in this country. Born into captivity and constrained for 
 years by anti-educational environment he nevertheless achieved great- 
 ness such as rewards the conscientious efforts of but few, and now that 
 his earthly existence has ended his character assumes greater propor- 
 tions than those conceded it during his lifetime. It is not enough to 
 say that Frederick Douglass was a great man — the term has degenerated 
 and is frequently misapplied; it is but fair to show wherein his great- 
 ness was and of what it consisted. Self-elevated from the degrading 
 depths of slavery and ignorance to the highest plane upon which phil- 
 anthropic man may here stand, he retained to the last simplicity such 
 as is but rarely to be found in those who have come up through great 
 tribulation and are accorded place in the midst of the mighty. Always 
 deeply interested in political matters, he was ever with the better 
 element and was never accused of anj-thiug that .savored of moral im- 
 propriety; called to associate with those who were by the accident of 
 birth his social superiors, he built up friendships where a narrower 
 mind than his would have compelled lasting enmity; often brought 
 face to face with the officially powerful, he was yet regardless of what 
 a mere politician would have regarded as his personal interests — his 
 courage never faltered. It is therefore evident that the principal 
 feature of his character was its wonderful breadth. In the minds of 
 those who were personally cognizant of Douglass and his anti-slavery 
 campaigns he will always be the great orator, and as such to-day he is 
 remembered in thousands of English homes — homes that were thrown 
 open to shelter him when he fled, a merchantable fugitive, from his 
 native land. There he is yet spoken of as the one man whose language 
 had the simple charm which until the arrival of Douglass seemed to be 
 exclusively possessed by that powerful public speaker and unwearying 
 friend of freedom, John Bright ; each reached the heart of his many au- 
 diences with monosyllabic directness of the most uncommon yet most 
 magnetic sort. To the masses for whom he toiled so incessantly and 
 (285) 
 
286 IJf ME MO BUM. 
 
 risked so much, the memory of Frederick Douglass should be especially 
 precious, yet he cannot be regarded as wholly theirs; he was an Ameri- 
 can, of whom the whole people can truthfully say nothing but good and 
 of whose friendship no human being — no matter what his racial origin 
 — could be otherwise than proud. 
 
 From "The Boston Transcript, " Boston, Mass., Feb. 21, 1895.] 
 A NOTED AND NOTABLE MAN. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was, at his death, one of the best known men in 
 this country. This partially grew out of the fact that, like Abraham 
 Lincoln, his name was a household word among the colored people of 
 the South. He was, in very truth, a self-made man, having built 
 himself up from the condition of a human chattel, to that of a sentient 
 being endowed with all the faculties and aspirations of a full-orbed 
 manhood. His mission on this planet was evidently to demolish color 
 prejudice, and he did this with wonderful success by his example, his 
 patient self-sacrifice, his unflinching attachment to principle and his 
 never-failing cheerfulness. The political enemies that, on the stump, 
 he was wont to overcome, in the darkest slaver)- days, admitted the 
 charm of his manner even while he was holding them up to public 
 condemnation. He compelled respect — such was his unfailing sim- 
 plicity and candor — from the most bigoted pro-slavery men and Union 
 savers of that day. He had not been many years freed from the 
 shackles of slavery, before the Northern defenders of the "peculiar 
 institution" confessed that he was fully a match despite his early dis- 
 advantages, for their most renowned champions of wrong and op- 
 pression. 
 
 After slavery was abolished, Mr. Douglass became one of the eloquent 
 upholders of the principles of the Republican party. He was a stalwart 
 Republican of the old sort. In his own proper person, Mr. Douglass 
 might have been at one time cited as a proof of the divine character of 
 slaverj', provided that he could have attained the unmistakable 
 eminence while the property of another man, that he did as a free 
 man. 
 
 From the " Brooklyn Eagle, " Brooklyn, N. Y., Feb. 2r, 1S95. ] 
 
 Frederick Douglass was thrice an American. In his veins ran the 
 
 blood of three races — the races that owned the land, that found the 
 
 land, and that developed the land at the bidding of its discoverers: 
 
 the Indian, the white man and the negro. 
 
 The lesson of Douglass' life is that of self-trust and energetic action. 
 
 He was a grand illustration of what a man may do for himself, his 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 287 
 
 people and his country. With ever)'l/'"'S against him, he conquered 
 a place for himself where he was looked up to even liy his former 
 enemies. He was not a weak pleader or petitioner, but a man of 
 initiative. It was not because he advanced the interests of the negro 
 that men will honor his memory- to-day, but because, by advancing 
 the interests of the negro, he raised the level of all manhood, and 
 made the whole world better by living in it. 
 
 From the "Brooklyn Times," Brooklyn. N. Y., Feb. 21, 1895.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 It is not often that the inspired apostrophe of King David over 
 Abner, the son of Ner — "Know' ye not that there is a prince and a 
 great man fallen this day in Israel?"— is more conspicuously applicable 
 to current events in the United States than it is to-day, to the death of 
 Frederick Douglass. There are many distinguished and honored 
 citizens of African lineage in the United States but not one of them has, 
 not all of them have, done so much to advance the interests of this 
 important element in American citizenship as the great man who died 
 suddenly, last night, in Washington. 
 
 The superlative service which Frederick Douglass rendered to his 
 mother's race was to dispel forever the fiction of the inferiority of the 
 African race. America has produced many great men, but not one 
 who accomplished so much in the face of such a terrible handicap. 
 In Abraham Lincoln the United States possesses a splendid example of 
 what is possible to a man of brains and principle, even though raised 
 amidst the most discouraging environments, but the difKculties against 
 which Lincoln had to contend, were as nothing to those that encom- 
 passed young Douglass. Bom a slave, his only heritage the blood of a 
 race that was regarded as less than human, he was an outcast from the 
 common rights of humanity, and even the privilege of teaching him- 
 self to read was denied him. It was in this condition, rated only as 
 the equal of the mule and the ox, that the first twenty-one of his years 
 were spent. Then he escaped, and on free soil he soon vindicated his 
 right to equality with the ablest and the proudest of his compeers. It 
 was in England that his splendid qualities as an orator were first 
 developed and recognized, and it was his English admirers who raised 
 the money that purchased his freedom formally from a master whose 
 bondage he had shaken off, and made it possible for him to live in 
 America, free from the terror of the slave-catcher. An honorable 
 career was open to him in England, but he elected to return to the 
 United States and to devote his life to furthering the great work of 
 emancipation and to prove to the reluctant sense of a prejudiced people 
 that the tradition of the natural inferiority of the African race was a 
 
288 IN MEitORIAM. 
 
 wild fiction The Times regards the work 
 
 which Douglass rendered in this respect as the greatest of the services 
 he rendered to his race. The abolition work could have been carried 
 to a successful issue by Phillips, Garrison, Whittier, the Joys, Powell 
 and the other able and earnest white men who were enlisted in the 
 cause, but these could not have done the especial work that Douglass 
 did in proving the capacity of tlie race for freedom. 
 
 From the "Indianapolis Journal, " Indianapolis, Ind., Feb. 21, 1895.] 
 
 Frederick Douglass was the man who compelled a reluctant people to 
 admit that a man of African blood could be an intellectual force. In 
 the face of obstacles now not possible, the born slave rose steadily, step 
 by step, to the position of one of the really great men of the period 
 in which he lived. Long before the war, with an intellectual persist- 
 ence which was only less admirable than his high moral courage he 
 had won a reputation as one of the great orators to whom cultivated 
 
 audiences would listen In short, all his years of vigorous 
 
 manhood he has presented to his countrjmen of all races a character 
 and a career which all must admire, and which all can contemplate 
 with profit. He will hold a place in history among the greatest of 
 Americans. 
 
 From the New York "Mail and Express," New York, I'cb. 21, 1895.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLA.SS. 
 
 In the death of Frederick Douglass we lose the last conspicuous 
 figure in that brilliant and picturesque group of anti-slavery agitators 
 and orators who made so deep an impress upon their contemporaries 
 and who will be gratefully and reverently remembered by all future 
 generations. 
 
 Frederick Douglass occupied a position iu that fierce struggle that 
 was altogether unique. His relation to the curse of slavery was that of 
 both victim and victor. Beyond the wonderful eloquence of his words 
 he spoke with the wounds and chains of a slave. The combination 
 was irresistible. From 1S3S, when he made his escape from the South 
 to New England, down to Lincoln's immortal Emancipation Proclama- 
 tion, he never ceased to make war upon the barbarous system of 
 slavery. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was a prodigy of his race. He was cast in the 
 mould of true greatness. The color of his skin could not hide the glory 
 of his soul. His race extraction could not detract from his rank in 
 great talents and good deeds. He was a great orator, measured from 
 whatever standard. His distinction and standing in this respect woidd 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 289 
 
 have been neither increased nor dimiuislied by the possession of a 
 white skin. He did not shine with an artificial or a borrowed light. 
 His brilliancy was from within. It was a radiation and not a reflec- 
 tion. He was respected and consulted by the great anti-slavery leadens, 
 and was held in affectionate regard by both Lincoln and Grant. He 
 was an honor to his country and an example to his raca He linked 
 his life and his talents to noble causes in behalf of humanity. His 
 death is a calamity to his race and a loss to the couutr)-. 
 
 From the "Topeka Capital, " Kansas, Feb. 21, 1S95.] 
 
 Frederick Douglass was a man of high intellectual qualities. He 
 was a natural orator, spoke in pure English, fluently, gracefully and 
 with extraordinary power. \Vliat he did by his attractive address and 
 bearing, his personal character and his surprising natural talents, at a 
 critical period, for the good name of the negro race in America, it is 
 
 difficult perhaps to exaggerate In the last Republican 
 
 National Convention, Frederick Douglass was a conspicuous figure, 
 sitting on the platform behind the chairman, his tall form surmounted 
 by a still shaggy head of perfectly white hair. His entrance to the hall 
 was, at every session, the signal for general applause and cheers, and 
 he was persistently importuned to address the convention. 
 
 At the time of Mr. Douglass' death, he was hard at work in behalf 
 of the colored people of the South, and, on the very day of his death 
 the personal columns of the new.spapers contained a reference to the 
 work he was doing. The colored people of the United States may well 
 venerate his memory; not alone for what he did, but also for what he 
 was, the prophecy cf a coming race. 
 
 From the "Springfield Republican," Mass., Feb. 21, 1S95.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS DEAD. 
 
 In the person of Frederick Douglass, whose death occurred yesterday 
 at his home in Anacostia, a suburb of the National Capital, was em- 
 bodied the cause of a race and the highest development it has reached, 
 and his departure closes the era of African slavery in America with the 
 most powerful emphasis, while it affords a supreme example of the new 
 era of entire equal itj' which has begun, and despite all discouraging 
 incidents of transition, is to continue, until the brotherhood of 
 humanity on lines of character, cultivation and principle, is triumph- 
 ant over the petty and irrational prejudice of mere race antagonism. 
 
 Douglass was essentially a great man. Escaping from slaverj- when he 
 was twenty-one years old, in three years after he had begun in a Massa- 
 chusetts seaport town to be a leader of his race and an orator for the 
 19 
 
290 IN MEMOBIAM. 
 
 abolition of slavery : he became an associate of Garrison and Phillips, 
 of Stephen S. Foster, Abby Kelly and Parker Pillsbury, of the Buffums 
 and Tappaus, of Charles Remoud, Samuel J. May and Charles C. 
 Burleigh, in the great abolition warfare. He went to England and 
 stirred the moral sense of the English people, which so often compels 
 the allegiance of its politicians and statesmen in behalf of moral 
 causes. He became an editor as well as an orator, and one of the con- 
 siderable forces in awakening the dull consciences of the Northern 
 States to that sensitive pitch where Abraham Lincoln found it when 
 his declaration that the nation could not exist unless it became all 
 slave or all free struck the sure doom of the institution and its dough- 
 face supporters. Later, Douglass was the confidant of John Brown, in 
 his chimerical, but noble attack upon slavery in its stronghold ; and 
 since all this has been done, he has been honored with high public 
 office, as a Marshal of the United States, Recorder of the District of 
 Columbia, an ambassador and a special diplomatic agent. In every 
 position Douglass showed a capacity which justified his appointment 
 and service, even though he was not always successful, or always in 
 accord with the best thing to be done. 
 
 Frederick Douglass has thus shown as wide a scope of ability as any 
 man could be expected to reach, even with the advantages of free birth 
 and absence of all those prejudices, which gathered around his career. 
 He was a slave born in disgrace, suffering abuse and degradation, 
 friendless and alone, save for other slaves, as hopeless as himself. He 
 won recognition as a master of the rare faculty of eloquence, the 
 moving power over men which marks the orator from the days of 
 Demosthenes to our own. No one who has heard Douglass speak will 
 ever forget that most impressive presence. As a young man, his un- 
 common stature, his powerful physique, his strongly marked features, 
 and a certain repressed rage which spoke through them, together with 
 the wealth of native argument and ready illustration, which formed 
 the staple of his addresses, bore his hearers on a stream of irresistible 
 feeling. His oratory was no more notable than in this fact — that as the 
 day of success drew near his whole tone was changed to fit the new 
 prospect, and after the war had determined the freedom of his race, 
 stern, but calm argument was the staple of his speech, with only so 
 much of the intense fervor of the prophet's indignation as served to 
 show that the fire did not burn low, but was restrained by the states- 
 man's wisdom. This is not to say that Douglass was always wise. 
 He was wiser than his friend Wendell Phillips, but there were many 
 matters in respect to which he was in error. Nevertheless, it is to be 
 said that few men with the background of his bitter experience, the 
 character of his origin, the fate of his kindred, the ever-present 
 burden of his race, could have been so self-contained, so well con- 
 trolled, and so full of charity and consideration for the slow movement 
 toward equal justice and the end of cruel prejudice as Douglass was. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 291 
 
 His own race was often turned against him for a brief time by their 
 conservative quality, but it was generally recognized, nevertheless, that 
 Douglass held his offices and estimated his place as so much gained for 
 the cause of the uegro, and not as personal matters. He will be 
 regarded as the greatest man of the negro race. 
 
 From the 'Times, " Pittsburg, Pa., Feb. 21, 1S95.] 
 
 THE DEATH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 With the death of Frederick Douglass passes away an interesting 
 figure of even more than national prominence. Born to the color and 
 condition of his mother; with no name even, except one which was 
 the badge of slavery, he escaped to the free North, applied his mind to 
 study as he had opportunity and from his first oration of which we 
 have any knowledge, he claimed an equal place upon the platform 
 side by side with the foremost leaders of the most vital thought of his 
 time. Who can measure or guess how much the influence of his 
 splendid abilities in winning respect for the race of his mother had to 
 do with the spread of abolition sentiment, which was the vital im- 
 pulse of the war, and made the Emancipation Proclamation its natural 
 and acceptable fruit? No man who ever heard Frederick Douglass 
 speak in those days of his power could ever again believe that the 
 black man was fit for no place in the world but the place of a slave. 
 Other black men of exceptional ability there have been, and under the 
 new conditions there will be many more. But Frederick Douglass has 
 a place in history which is all his own, and the lesson that he taught 
 can never be forgotten. 
 
 From the " News, " Indianapolis, Ind., Feb. 21, 1895.] 
 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 The death of Frederick Douglass removes the most distinguished of 
 American negroes. In the great strides which the race has made since 
 the war of the rebellion, many men have displayed ability in various 
 directions; not a few have demonstrated capacity for business or for the 
 practice of the professions. But Frederick Douglass has not only 
 given proof of signal ability and great intellectual force, but his high 
 integrit}', sincerity and earnestness have always been recognized and 
 appreciated, and never questioned. It is not unfair to say that in the 
 instances of some other negroes who have been prominent in politics, 
 the same order of intellectual ability, steadfastness and integrity have 
 not been so happily combined. Mr. Douglass always enjoyed the 
 respect of the great body of the American people. He was keenly 
 appreciative of the many difficulties to be overcome in the elevation of 
 
292 IN MKMURIAM. 
 
 tht race. Others less just and sane have been abusive, but while Mr. 
 Douglass was, through inanj' years, a speaker and writer on topics 
 related to the advancement of his own people, he always viewed the 
 subject comprehensively. He was too sound a student of history and 
 science, and he knew too well his own people and their condition to 
 rush into abuse where conseri-ative coun.sel alone could advance the 
 causes dear to his heart. 
 
 Mr. Douglass' struggles and achievemeuts would have been praise- 
 worthy and admirable in a man of whatever race or color. In the 
 instance of a man who began life under the most discouraging circum- 
 stances imaginable they lift him to a high place among the men of the 
 time. We do not recall that the honesty of his motives was ever 
 doubted, or that he ever failed of any task assumed, or any duty im- 
 posed upon him. As a public officer he acquitted himself with honor 
 and credit, and socially he seems to have been pretty generally received 
 in circles which his talents and instincts entitled him to enter. The 
 perplexities of what is called, for the sake of convenience, the negro 
 problem, increase rather than diminish. Wise guidance from men of 
 high character among their own people could be of great help in the 
 solution of these puzzling questions. It would be well for the country 
 and for the American negro if there were manj- such men as Frederick 
 Douglass to address their talents and influence to completing the work 
 of which emancipation was only the beginning. 
 
 From the " Bee, " Sacramento, California, Feb. 21, 1895.] 
 A DEAD BLACK LION. 
 
 One of America's great men is no more. Frederick Douglass, with 
 the blood of Ethiopia in his veins, was successful in raising himself 
 above his station, and in carving out for himself a name that will last 
 in history. Douglass was not what could properly be called a remark- 
 ably brilliant man, but he was endowed with something far above 
 mere brillianc}'. He had purpose, vigor, energy ; he fought for a 
 grand cause which he grandly championed. He was soulful. He put 
 his whole heart into his work. His speeches were rugged in their 
 English— good and pure, but not polished; rather the rough, reliable 
 granite. But the auditors always knew that back of his words were 
 his heart throbs — and therein lay his power A man may erase and 
 erase, polish and polish, change synonym after synonym, until what 
 he is to speak swings and sways with its melodious rhythm, enchanting 
 the hearers as it falls musically from the tongue of the orator. Yet, if 
 the soul of the speaker, his conscience, the indomitable energy of an 
 honest purpose, are not back of the words, they will fall as soothingly 
 on the ear as the tinkling drops of a fountain, and with about as much 
 
FREDERICK DO I'd LASS. 293 
 
 effect. There was no emasculation in the speeches of Douglass; no 
 effeminacy. They broke in upon his auditors like blasts from an old 
 war bugle in the days that tried men's souls, and not with the perva- 
 sive and peaceful harmony of a cornet solo in a music hall. Men who 
 looked at him, who listened to him, knew that his heart, his soul, his 
 manhood, his conscience, every fibre of his being were pulsating in 
 the burning words he flung forth. They knew he was honest and 
 sincere; therefore he commanded respect, attention, admiration, even 
 though he frequently evoked bitter opposition. 
 
 The directness, the honesty of purpose, the unswer\-ing devotion to 
 his ideal, which characterized this man throughout his life, are fruits 
 which it would be well for the rising generation to study and to 
 emulate. Whatever they have to do, let them do with all their might 
 and main, with all their heart and soul. Let them detest flabbiness of 
 purpose, as they would hypocrisy. Let them say what they have to 
 say honestly and ruggedly. Let them have an object in life; let that 
 object be worthy and honorable and let them champion that object in 
 the face of any and all opposition, in the teeth of sneers and threats. 
 Men who are without courage are absolutely worthless as factors in 
 any scheme of civilization. 
 
 From the "Washington Post," Washington, D. C. , Feb. 22, 1S95.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was one of the great men of the century, meas- 
 uring magnitude by the influence which he was enabled to exert 
 through a long and memorable contention. He may not have been at 
 all times discreet, adroit or diplomatic in the formulation of policies 
 on which to conduct the cause to which he consecrated himself at an 
 early period in life, but he was for many years the heart and soul of 
 that cause and indomitable in its prosecution. In the .shaping of 
 events which finally culminated in the triumph of the abolition 
 crusade, no leader in the fight was more potent. 
 
 It is hardly worth one's while to undertake an analysis of the forces 
 or the motives by which the original anti-slavery agitators were in- 
 spired. The agitation had to be. It was written in the book of fate. 
 Call it what you will, manifest destiny or the ordination of an over- 
 ruling Providence, it had its inception and ran its course and did its 
 work as though by some inexorable mandate, and it is well enough to 
 leave the question there. To the results that followed, no exceptions 
 are now taken. 
 
 Dougla.ss, of course, lacked the scholarship of Wendell Phillips, and 
 the masterful rhetoric of Lloyd Garrison, but the eloquence which he 
 did possess, and which was felt in two hemispheres for a generation 
 
294 7.V MEMOIilAM. 
 
 or more, was of well-nigh apostolic earnestness, and in quaint and 
 rugged fashion asserted over the sympathies of mankind an almost 
 resistless spell. Even sectional prejudice was moved, if not melted 
 by it. 
 
 As to his education, such as it was in that strange youth of his, it 
 was gained in a school to the portals of which his Northern com- 
 patriots were strangers. It was of such a character, so far as imparted 
 to him by others as was only to be obtained at the hands of a master oi 
 overseer at the end of a lash. So far as self-acquired, it was acquired 
 by stealth. Later in life, Mr. Douglass became one of the best-read 
 men of the day, and few were his superiors in mental equipment. 
 But it was his Maryland education that gave to him his wonderful 
 impressiveness as an object lesson upon the rostrum. He who had 
 been a whipped slave was capable of sending a thrill of emotion 
 through the very platform upon which he spoke. The end came at 
 last. Frederick Douglass retired from the front. He became a thrifty 
 man of affairs and accumulated valuable property. He conducted 
 himself with a manly independence of bearing. He was a faithful 
 official and honorable citizen. And he never lost his interest in the 
 cause of human suffrage as having no limitations in color or sex. It 
 may be that on the very last evening of his life — to the very last act 
 of his sentient being — the venerable old man caught a glimpse of the 
 promised laud and of the suffrage for womanhood that remains to 
 make of it a land of universal liberty. 
 
 From the " New York Tribune, " New York, N. Y., Feb. 22, 1895.] 
 A PRECIOUS HERITAGE. 
 
 Frederick Douglass' eloquence as an orator and his power as a 
 political leader lent dignity and honor to the black race. In his own 
 career of self-development he illustrated the possibilities of intellectual 
 progress among his own people. No child could have been either less 
 promising or more ignorant than the Maryland slave boy, yet he 
 became the representative man of his race in America by virtue of self- 
 help. The child who studied the carpenter's mark on the planks in a 
 Baltimore shipyard, was father to the man who in his best estate was 
 regarded by good judges as the equal of Phillips, Everett, Sumner, 
 Beecher and Curtis, as an orator. The youthful ardor which inspired 
 his escape from slavery, and his self-education in New England, was 
 the iftme invincible force of character which directed his career as the 
 intellectual leader of a despised race. The inspiration of such a life 
 ought not to end with death in an honored old age. 
 
 What Frederick Douglass did was to embody in his own life the 
 philosophy of the injunction : "Go teach the hands to work, the mind 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 295 
 
 to think and the heart to love ! " Self-made and self-trained he dis- 
 closed the potentiality of nobilitj- in the obscured and despised slave. 
 Life for him was the best thing that could possibly be made of it; and 
 because he acquired distinction by talents and accomplishments which 
 were regarded as exclusively the gifts of white men, he opened a wider 
 and higher destiny for his race. For twenty years before the outbreak 
 of the war he taught from abolitionist platforms the great truth that 
 the slave had a mind worth educating, a soul predestined for liberty. 
 He survived the war period by a long generation and helped to keep 
 alive the idea that a black man, whether free or slave, is capable of 
 intellectual development and moral and social progress. 
 
 How flippantly this truth is denied by cynical Southerners to-day ! 
 It is the commonest thing to hear in the cotton belt such expressions as 
 these: "The negro is ruined by education ! " " The old negroes who 
 were slaves and have remained ignorant are trustworthy, but the young 
 negroes, who have grown up since the war and have received the 
 advantages of education, are worthless!" "Teach a black child his 
 letters and you unfit him for honest, self-respecting labor !" There 
 are to-day thousands of white men in the South who profess to believe 
 that the young generation of blacks is inferior to the old generation, 
 which was born and bred in slavery, and that education is spoiling 
 what might otherwise be an efficient and industrious working race. 
 This, happily, is not the general belief. If it were, school appropria- 
 tions would be cut down and negro illiteracy would be allowed to 
 increase. 
 
 The fame of Frederick Douglass is the heritage of millions of 
 negroes who, little by little, and hand over hand, are struggling to 
 work out their destiny, and to justify their emancipation as the 
 crowning result of the fratricidal war of which slavery was the cause. 
 It is like a still small voice rising above the idle chatter about the 
 evils of education and ' ' the good old slavery times, ' ' above the fury 
 and turmoil of election mobs, lynchings and the atrocities of "slave 
 hunting." It silences the stupid lie that slavery can ever be better 
 than liberty, or that ignorance is safer than intelligence for any human 
 creature made in the image of God. 
 
 From the "Indianapolis Sentinel," Indianapolis, Ind., Feb. 22, 1895.] 
 Frederick Douglass as a man of native ability stood at the head of 
 his race in this countrv". His attained acquirements in their earlier 
 stages were more creditable than those of white men who have arisen 
 from lowly position because he had not only the obstacles of poverty 
 to struggle against, but also the obstacles of prejudice and law, which 
 opposed any education. An invincible will, developed even in child- 
 hood, carried him over all impediments and gave him in early 
 
296 JN ME3I0EIA3I. 
 
 manhood the friendship and respect of the great abolition leaders. 
 Throughout his life he held the esteem of the prominent men of the 
 nation with whom he was thrown in contact. His life-work was for 
 the benefit of his race in this country, and it may be doubted that any 
 one accomplished more for it than he. His people should always hold 
 his memory in the highest honor. 
 
 From the "Weekly Astonisher," Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 28, 1895.] 
 
 Wliat Gambetta was to France, Gladstone to the Britons, Bismarck 
 to the Germans, and what Blaine was to every true American heart, 
 but poorly expresses to our friends Mr. Douglass' true station to the 
 negro. His name is to-day a part of history. Few of us accorded to 
 him in his lifetime that meed of praise that was due him as a man 
 and a Christian. We have often said, and are still of the opinion, 
 that few of ns ever appreciated the man's real worth. We truly 
 believe that he was really the greatest negro who ever lived, and we 
 feel that time will bear us out in our assertion. His aims were lofty 
 and he made it the aim of his life to lead the negro to this higher 
 plane. Often we refused to see as he did, but that did not for one 
 moment stop him in his noble work. "Come up higher!" his actions 
 always said to us, and if we did not follow, he kept right along. He 
 never lowered his standard one inch. He bad lifted himself from a 
 station as low as ever man held. Liucobi, Wilson and Johnson came 
 up from poverty, but with advantages of freemen ; but Douglass, a 
 black slave boy, lived to be honored with them; and this through his 
 own energy. 
 
 He was orator, journalist, statesman and worthy of the praise of all 
 people. His life was a most blameless one and one worthy all emula- 
 tion. To our children, the name of Frederick Douglass should have 
 the same influence for good as has the name of George Washington. 
 In Mr. Douglass we have the possibilities of the race clearly brought 
 out ; with him there was no negro problem, and he was right. He 
 has made the way; let us walk therein. 
 
 From the "Chicago Tribune, " Chicago, 111., Feb. 22, 1895.] 
 
 DEATH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 By the death of Frederick Douglass there has passed away the most 
 illustrious representative of the negro race in the United States, and a 
 well-known figure so highly esteemed by the white people that his 
 entrance into their midst upon any public occasion was always the 
 signal for an enthusiastic pensonal greeting. No man, bU^ck or white. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 297 
 
 has been better known for nearly half a century in this country, tlian 
 Frederick Douglass. 
 
 While Mr. Douglass' death will cause widespread regret among 
 people of all classes, it is among his own people that he will be most 
 sincerely mourned. He was, in an eminent sense, the ideal of the 
 possibilities of his race and a type of which it was proud. He rose 
 out of the conditions of human slavery, and by his ow^n exertions 
 attained to high positions in the service of his country and made his 
 reputation for intellectual and oratorical ability world-wide. He 
 began his efforts to know something, to learn to read and write, and to 
 fit himself for higher conditions, even while he was the chattel of his 
 master. How he learned he hardly knew himself, but ambition grew 
 with knowledge, and at last he made good his escape. He was no 
 longer a chattel, but a free man, and, once free, the possibilities of 
 his nature and his intellect were made known and recognized. Living 
 in the free State of Massachusetts, he was brought in contact with the 
 leading agitators of the time, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, 
 William Lloyd Garrison and numerous others, both men and women, 
 and was warmly welcomed by them as a co-worker. Under their 
 auspices he soon took a leading position as an antagonist of slavery 
 and a champion of his people, and as such he was recognized both in 
 this country and in Europe. 
 
 With the details of his remarkable career, his struggle against 
 slavery, his eloquence with pen and tongue, his long, earnest labors 
 for his people, whether free or slave, and the successful accomplish- 
 ments of his life, the public is familiar. The most glorious part of 
 his career was that in which he was fighting the battle of freedom for 
 his own people. From that point of view they have every reason to be 
 proud of him and of his record. In his later years he was more or less 
 associated with politics, and he was more or less human in that con- 
 nection, but this will be considered as of little account when placed in 
 contrast with his great achievements for his race, and with the mag- 
 nificent example he set them of what indomitable will, high ambitions, 
 restless industry and nobility of purpose can accomplish. 
 
 From the "Chicago Herald," Chicago, 111., Feb. 22, 1S95.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 Douglass was undoubtedly a great factor in hastening the progress of 
 public opinion in the United States toward emancipation. Mastering 
 the English language until he possessed almost a phenomenal elo- 
 quence, in which the impetuosity of one strain of descent commingled 
 with the logic of the other, few orators of the age surpassed him in 
 persuasive power over a popular audience. 
 
298 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 He probabl}' more resembled O'Connell in scope than any other 
 haranguer of the century, except that he had none of the great Celt's 
 humor. Douglass was bitter where O'Connell was jocular. The 
 depressed social state of the race to which the Celt belonged never 
 affected its constitutional gaiety, which enabled its victims to smile 
 at their miseries where they could find no other alleviation for them. 
 
 Douglass was deficient in this resource as an orator, although he was 
 a good story teller off the platform. 
 
 Douglass' appearance on the rostrum before the emancipation ques- 
 tion was settled iu the Federal law, was always the most significant 
 incident of an evening. Black enough to proclaim his mother's 
 classification, he possessed the strong body, the well-poised head, the 
 dominating self-control that command attention, and his torrent of 
 invective, his overwhelming story of personal dangers, of blood- 
 hounds, sale of women and children, barter of womanhood to bestiality 
 among masters, enforced degradation of even house servants, who 
 happened to be black, together with an alternative talent of entreaty 
 and inspiration, made him easily one of the foremost personages iu 
 the movement he powerfully led. 
 
 From the " Daily News, " Strand, London, Eng. , Feb. 22, 1S95.] 
 
 The history of Frederick Douglass belongs to the great day of 
 Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison, of John Brown and Harriet 
 Beecher Stowe. He was born a slave; he died as full of honors as of 
 years. He was an ex-Minister of the United States, and he had held 
 other offices of only inferior dignity. At one time he was a familiar 
 figure on the Engli.sh platform, and he was regarded on both sides of 
 the Atlantic as a representative of all that was best in his race. The 
 purity of his life and the brilliancy of his talents as an orator, and a 
 man of letters, were in themselves, and without regard to the noble 
 ends to which he made them subservient, among his highest services 
 to the negro cause. They showed of what the negro was capable under 
 freedom, fair advantages and generous treatment. In his early ex- 
 perience he stood for everything that was most tragic in the fate of the 
 slave; in his late career of public honor and of public consideration he 
 showed to what eminence of every kind the despised race wanted only 
 opportunity to attain. The war at length brought him to his final and 
 conclusive reckoning with the enemies of human liberty, and its 
 triumphant tennination gave him the full freedom of the soil in the 
 land of his birth. His place in public life was waiting for him. He 
 rose rapidly in honors and in dignities. He was sent on a mission to 
 San Domingo, appointed a member of Council, and subsequently 
 Marshal of the District of Columbia, and a representative elector for 
 the State of New York. In later years he was appointed United States 
 
FREDEIUCK DOUGLASS. 299 
 
 Minister to Haiti. No great public celebration of national importance 
 was considered complete without him. As au orator, or as a writer for 
 the press, his utterances reached to the furthest extremities, not only 
 of his own country, but of ours. He had but one great theme — the 
 amelioration of the lot of his race. He pleaded with them as well as 
 for them, and he never ceased to teach them the precious lessou of 
 .self-help. "I have aimed," he .said, "to a.ssure them that knowledge 
 can be obtained under difficulties; that poverty may give place to 
 competency ; that obscurity is not an absolute bar to distinction, and 
 that a way is open to welfare and happiness for all who will resolutely 
 and wisely pursue it ; that neither slavery, stripes, imprisonment, nor 
 proscription need extinguish self-respect, crush manly ambition, nor 
 paralyze effort; that races, like individuals, must stand or fall by their 
 own merits, that the fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we 
 are underlings, and that 'who would be free, themselves must strike 
 the blow.' " His final efforts on behalf of his race brethren were 
 devoted to that anti-lynching crusade, of which Miss Ida Wells in 
 America, and Miss Florence Balgarnie and other ladies of position in 
 this country, are the generous champions. One of his latest literary 
 labors was an article on that cause in the American Church Review, 
 which was justly described as a splendid specimen of impassioned 
 eloquence. From first to last it was a noble life. His own people 
 have lost a father and a friend, and all good men a comrade in the 
 fight, not only for the legal emancipation of one race, but for the 
 spiritual emancipation of all. 
 
 From the "Tribune," Salt L.ike City, ITtah, Feb. 22, 1S95.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 The colored people owe him loving remembrance, for he did very 
 much to exalt his race. He wore his life out in trying to make the 
 path easier for them to tread, and to convince the .'American people 
 that the colored people not only had co-equal rights with white people, 
 but that they possessed intellect to maintain themselves and be good 
 citizens if given the chance. Dougla.ss was about the last of the old 
 race. Garrison, Phillips, Sumner, Wade, Andrews, the whole band of 
 immortals, who devoted the best of their lives to the redemption of 
 this country from the .stain of slavery, are all dead, and with the 
 death of Douglass that page in the history of our country closes. 
 There are other forms of slavery upon the people now, and while we 
 let the dead past bury its dead, the work which these men performed 
 ought to be our inspiration to try to cure what is still wrong, and keep 
 this land secure, that her freedom for human intellect and liberty of 
 action under the law may be secured to all the generations to come. 
 
300 IN MEMO RI AM. 
 
 From the "Times," Oakland, California, Feb. 23, 1895.] 
 
 Few living orators surpassed Frederick Douglass in declamatory elo- 
 quence. He was not argumentative or so logical as many of his con- 
 temporaries, but few living men of his day ever produced a more 
 powerful impression upon an audience. His manner was wonderfully 
 eloquent, and his language copious and impressive. He stood before 
 an audience a natural orator like the African Cinque who, without the 
 aid of schools, poured forth with burning zeal the thoughts which 
 crowded his brain. His voice was good, his form manly and graceful, 
 and his electric words leaped forth like the flashes of lightning, 
 clothed with beauty and power. 
 
 The writer of this listened to him when a boy, and was spellbound 
 with his bold imagery, pictures gorgeously beautiful, voice as musical 
 and deep as the organ and captivating as the songs of the sirens. He 
 held his audience entranced from start to finish. He was a wonderful 
 man, more wonderful from the contrast with his early life of bondage 
 and chains that bound body, mind and soul in their fetters of hopeless 
 darkness and moral and intellectual death. 
 
 In his old age a Republican president conferred upon him an official 
 position of United States Marshal of the District of Columbia, which 
 he honorably held until Mr. Cleveland came into the presidency, when 
 he was removed. 
 
 A great free people have progressed beyond the false idea, born of 
 human slavery, that the color of the skin is the sign manual of a man 
 and a gentleman, and honor the name of Frederick Douglass, strong 
 in mental powers, as was the Black Douglass of Scotland in physical 
 powers, and with a chivalry of character, like unto his namesake. 
 
 Peace to the ashes of the great orator and liberator of his race. 
 
 From the "Press," Philadelphia, Pa., Feb. 24, 1895.] 
 DOUGLASS HERE AND IN FRANCE. 
 
 The death of Frederick Douglass has been followed by wide public 
 notice of the honors he had received, the consideration with which he 
 has been treated and the positions he has filled. 
 
 But it is worth while remembering in the interest of justice and 
 equality, twin duties of the Republic, that these honors and this con- 
 sideration were both infinitely less than he would have received in any 
 other civilized country in the world, though more than one American 
 goes through life imagining that "the Republic is opportunity" for 
 all its citizens in a better sense than in other lands. As a matter of 
 fact, it is not, where color is concerned. 
 
 In England, with his ability as a speaker, Frederick Douglass would 
 have unquestionably become a member of Parliament, and he might 
 
FREDERICK DOUdLASS. Wl 
 
 easily have been knighted, as men darker than he have been. In 
 France he would have found Dumas, a man darker than himself, 
 honored through life in every social circle, and after death one of the 
 few whose statue stands in the Theatre Franfaise. If, as might easily 
 have been the case, Douglass had been elected to the French Academy, 
 he would have found there, now and in the past, men of his race. In 
 no corner of France and in no part of Europe would he have found 
 the hotel, the theatre, the railroad car, the school or the home in 
 which he would not have been accepted on his merits as a man and 
 his manners as a gentleman. 
 
 This -simple equality and justice exists in all other civilized nations. 
 Wlien like even-handed justice is dealt here the negro question will 
 be solved, and no other solution can give peace, because no other 
 is just. 
 
 From "L'Eclair," France, 24 Fevrier, 1893. L'Actualite.] 
 FREDERIC DOUGLASS, CHAMPION DE L'ABOUTIONNISME. 
 
 Dans le champ de I'^ternit^ — pour parler le langage de I'auteur de la 
 Case de I'oncle Tom — ^dent d'arriver Fr(Sderic Douglass. 
 
 Ce Frederic Douglass fut une maniere de grand hommc noir, un peu 
 rO'Counell des negres. . . . 
 
 En secret, il avait appris a lire et a ^crire. A vingt et un ans, il met- 
 tait a execution un project concu depuis longtemps. II s'enfuit d New 
 York, puis a New Bedford, ou il v^cut de son travail manuel pendant 
 deux ans. 
 
 II ne faudrait point croire que sa fuite passa inapercue. Elle fut .sig- 
 nalee par des avis insercs en bonne place — avis qui n'ont point chang^ 
 depuis qu'il y a des esclaves au monde. Quelle difference voit — on entre 
 Vavis de la fuite d'un esclave que relate un papyrus ^gyptien accroch^ 
 ala muraille du Louvre, et celui-ci qui est coutemporain de Frederic 
 Douglass. 
 
 C'etait plus que sa liberty qu'il entendait conquerir, mais celle aussi de 
 ses fr^res traites conmie des betes de somme. 
 
 Le jeune esclave s'etait mis en tete que ses pareils ne seraient ni vendus 
 comme des betes, ni battus, ni tyrannises. Des 1841, il commen^a son 
 oeuvre abolition uiste. En les Etats du Nord il prononga d'ardents dis- 
 cours en faveur de cette cause. II se montra si (Eloquent, si entrainant, 
 si chaleureux, qu'on lui offrit d'etre I'agent de la Societe anto-esclavagiste 
 du Massachusetts, avec mission de pr^cher publiquement I'abolition. 
 
 LE PREDIC.\TEUR. 
 
 II conimenga par precher d'exemple, en publiant I'histoire de .sa vie. 
 II fallait a cette cause gagner de libres et fiers e.sprits. 11 vint en Angle- 
 terre, dans les principales villes ; noir Picrrc-rErmite, il organi.sait la 
 
302 I^ MEMORIAM. 
 
 croisade sainte, pour I'emancipation de ses freres dans les chaines. 
 C'^tait dans le meme temps que I'admirable Beeclier-Stowe coucevait la 
 Case de I'oucle Tom, cet evaugile fraternel des nouveaux cieux. On 
 craignit que ce predicateur dout I'eloquence dtait si dangereuse ne fut 
 expose a ere renchaine. On paya sa rani;on. D^sormais, il ^tait libra. 
 
 De cette liberty, il ne se servit que pour la poursuite de I'id^e. 
 Esclave affrauchi, il porta tout de suite la guerre vers les esclavagistes. 
 II fonda la Feuille de Frederic Douglass, un journal hebdoniadaire. l,e 
 succes de cette feuille dtait d'autant plus grand que beaucoup d'esclaves 
 — on ne salt comment— avaient appris a tire. 
 
 Sa croi.sade porta ses fruits. EUe mena le peuple des noirs dans la terre 
 premise : au pays de la liberte. 
 
 Etourdis de cette independence, comme un enfant par un vin capiteux, 
 ils manacerent d'eij faire un usage facheux. Douglass intervint, leur 
 remontra que leur force dtait dans leur sagesse et qu'ils avaient le de voir 
 de se montrer dignes de la liberty qu'ils avaient conquise, en travailleut 
 sans d^sordre. 
 
 On I'ecouta. 
 
 LES PRINCIPES DE DOUGLASS. 
 
 II savait langue riche, imagee, ardente. II s'exprimait avec une veri- 
 table largeur de vues, philosophe sense et profond. En novembre, 1865, 
 il adressait au Pliare de la Loire cette lettre : 
 
 " La cause de la liberty et de la justice est grande comme le nionde. 
 EUe u'est limit^e ui par le pays, ni par le climat, ni par la couleur. 
 Celui qui y coopdre par une bonne action, celui qui prononce une parole 
 digne pour son service, n'est plus un Stranger, mais un compatriote, un 
 homme de la meme famille, un a\\\€, un frere cheri. . . . 
 
 "La doctrine qu'une race puisse etre eievde par la degradation d'une 
 autre a refu une refutation puissante dans la guerre terrible qui vient de 
 se terminer dans ce pays. Cette guerre nous a appris la grande le^on que 
 les nations, de meme que les individus, doivent respecter les droite de la 
 nature humaine. La cliaine au pied de Vesclave est altachte au cou de 
 
 I 'oppresscur. 
 
 "J'ai appris avec plaisir le fait que la plupart des esprits superieurs ont 
 embrasse notre cause. Les noms de Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Louis 
 Blanc, Schoelcher, Edgar Quinet, ceux des ministres du gouvernement 
 provisoire de la Rdpublique sont des noms que les hommes de couleur 
 deivent partout cherir et honorer." 
 
 L'homme qui s'exprimait ainsi, zdlateur d'une noljle cause, arbitre 
 ecoute, poiemiste vibrant, administrateur des biens gendraux, soldat 
 meme, a acheve sa vie precieuse. II a droit au bon repos, bien gagnd. 
 
 II a droit aussi au souvenir dmu et des noirs qu'il affranchit et. . . . 
 de leurs maitres — car il deiivra ceux ci de la honte d'opprimer, car il les 
 deberi-assa de cette chaine qui, pour employer son energique expression, 
 les rivait par le cou au pied de leur propre esclave. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 303 
 
 From the "Post," Boston, Mass., Fel). 24, 1895.] 
 RACE AND HEREDITY. 
 
 The death of Frederick Douglass has served to call attention to the 
 fact — which no one thought anything about when he was alive — that 
 he was half white. From a mingUng of races sprang this man of 
 genius and power. 
 
 It is easy to say, as has been carelessly said by some in coumienting 
 upon Mr. Douglass' life and career, that the intellectual power, the 
 ambition, the talent which he displayed, were inheritances from his 
 white father; that the colored strain disappeared except as it gave the 
 hue to his skin ; and that to all intents and purjjoses Frederick 
 Douglass was a white man. But this is not fair or reasonable. It may 
 flatter the pride of race, which all Caucasians feel, to assume the 
 dominating force of that blood in combination with others; but in the 
 case of Douglass it is taking too much for granted to claim him 
 entire for the white half of his origin. 
 
 Equally unjust is it to refuse to him the place of a representative of 
 the colored race. It is said that his mental processes were those of a 
 white man; that in logical persistence, in foresight, in perseverance 
 toward high ideals, in the intellectual and moral, rather than in the 
 material world of the senses, he showed himself fully controlled by the 
 influences characteristic of the white race. But this also is asking 
 too much. It is not imaginable that the results of heredity can be 
 thus exactly assigned to one source or another; and it is preposterous 
 to assume that all the good and noble in human nature is to be found 
 in one color, and all that is detrimental in another. 
 
 The fact is that Douglass represented iu himself the possibilities of 
 development of the race whose color he bore, as clearly as he also rep- 
 resented certain characteristics of the white race. It was not as a 
 white man that he took his place in the world; it was as a negro, and 
 as such he won his way to leadership and honors in two hemispheres. 
 He was superior intellectually to the vast majority of the colored race. 
 So were Daniel Webster, Wendell Phillips, Abraham Lincoln superior, 
 on much the same lines of superiority, to the vast majority of their 
 race. In each case, it is the development of the individual which 
 produces the exception. The racial possibility exists; the single 
 personality demonstrates its existence. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was a truly great man, of a greatness with which 
 his color had nothing to do. He was phenomenal in his gifts. But 
 throughout his character there were observable traits which mark the 
 colored race unmistakabl}', and which forbid the claim so flippantly 
 made of the predominance of the white strain in his blood. He was 
 emotional and enthusiastic in a remarkable degree, as well as capable of 
 communicating enthusiasm to others. He was faithful even to blind- 
 ness, in his friendships. He was unselfish in his devotion to sentiment, 
 
304 IN MEMORIAil. 
 
 and fearless of consequences in bis pursuit of what he felt to be 
 right. He was in every respect the finest example this country has 
 produced of the possibilities of the colored race; and no intricate 
 problem of heredity can be set up to take from that race the honor of 
 producing such a representative. 
 
 From "La Justice," Paris, 26 Fevrier, 1S95.] 
 
 VARIETE. 
 
 Un Champion de I'Abolitionnisme, 
 L'esclavage aux Etats-Unis. — Mort de Frederic Douglass. 
 
 Vers 1841, un jeune homme parcourait les Etats du Nord de 1' Amerique, 
 prechant rabolition de l'esclavage. Son eloquence entrainante, I'ardente 
 conviction qu'il mattait au service de sa cause, lui acquirent bientot uue 
 notoriete considerable. 
 
 La societe anti-esclavagiste du Massachusetts qui commenj ait alors 
 sa campagne abolitionniste songea a s'attacher cet auxiliaire puissant. 
 Elle ofirit a Fr^d(5ric Douglass — c'etait le nom du jeune prddicateur — de 
 devenir son agent et de precher pour elle. Celui-ci accepta et reprit avec 
 ardeur sa mission humanitaire. 
 
 Desireux de gagner les grands esprits a sa cause, Douglass viiit en 
 Angleterre, et parcourut les principales villes, organisant partout la 
 croisade sainte pour I'emancipation de ses freres dans les chaines. 
 C'etait dans le menie temps que I'adniirable Beecher-Stowe concevait la 
 Case de roncle Totn, cet evangile fraternel des nouveaux cieux. On 
 craignit quece predicateur dont I'eloquence ^tait si dangereuse ne fut 
 expos^ a etre renchaine. On pays sa ran?on. D^sormais, il etait libre. 
 
 De cette liberte, il ne se servit que pour la poursuite de I'id^e. Esclave 
 afiTranchi, il porta tout de suite la guerre vers les esclavagistes. II fonda 
 la feuille de Fr^d(Sric Douglass, un journal hebdomadaire. Le succes de 
 cette feuille dtait d'autant plus grand que beaugoup d'esclaves — on ne sait 
 comment — avaient appris a lire. 
 
 Sa croisade porta ses fruits. Elle aboutit, apres plusieurs annees de 
 lutte a I'afFranchissement des noirs. 
 
 On sait que ceux-ci, etourdis par cette independence menac^rent d'en 
 faire un facheux usage. 
 
 Douglass intervint alors : il fut I'arbitre entre les affranchis et leur 
 maitre d'hier. 
 
 En apprenant aux nouveaux hommes libres le noble usage qu'ils 
 devaient faire de leur liberty, il servit une fois de plus a cause de la phil- 
 anthrophie. Tel vient de terminer une vie bien remplie. Son souvenir 
 ne mourra pas. 
 
 Frederic Douglass a sa place marquee parmi les grands bienfaiteurs de 
 I'humanit^. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 305 
 
 From the "Democrat and Chronicle, " Rochester, N. Y. , Feb. 26, 1895.] 
 DOUGLASS AND LEE. 
 
 It was to be expected that howls would be raised in some parts of the 
 South over the action of the North Carolina legislature in adjourning 
 out of respect to the memory of Frederick Douglass, and in refusing to 
 adjourn on General Lee's birthday. The New Orleans Stales comes 
 forward with a wail and a protest, saying that the members of the leg- 
 islature have "violated decency," earned the "contempt of the whole 
 country," and "insulted their ancestors." 
 
 It continues thus: "The tribute of respect which they have paid to a 
 negro, whose life was .spent iu attacking and vilifying the white 
 people of the South, and the brutal insult offered to the memory of 
 General Lee, one of the grandest and noblest characters in American 
 history, will, we are quite sure, do the Populist cause no good, for the 
 reason that it will impel self-respecting white men in North Carolina 
 to revolt against Populism and stamp it out. " 
 
 This, and all talk like it, is out of date. The name of Frederick 
 Douglass stands for freedom, and can never be separated from the 
 deliverance of this nation from the disgrace of maintaining traflSc in 
 human beings. The name of Lee stands for a great rebellion, designed 
 to disrupt this Republic, for the purpose of perpetuating and extending 
 the system of slavery. Lee's "grand and noble character is one 
 thing; his significance in history is another. It was right for 
 the North Carolina legislature, whether it was composed of Popu- 
 lists, Democrats or Republicans, to show respect for the man who 
 had been a leader iu a campaign for liberty. There is not much sense 
 in interrupting public business on every birthday of a soldier who 
 fought for a bad cause that was lost. It is well to keep sight of the 
 cold facts of the case and of their meaning in the life of this nation. 
 
 FROM THE SAME PAPER AND ISSDE. 
 
 This morning all that is mortal of Frederick Douglass will be 
 brought from his home on the banks of the Potomac, to be placed at 
 rest, in the beautiful Mount Hope cemetery, on the banks of the 
 Genesee. 
 
 It is eminently fitting that the remains of the great apostle of human 
 freedom should find their resting place in the city which was for so many 
 years his home. It was here that he passed the early years of his 
 manhood, and where the greater part of the work to which he devoted 
 his life was accomplished. Here, before the war, which resulted in 
 the emancipation of his race in America, he toiled ''onstantly for the 
 cause of human freedom, and he has never quite ceased to be regarded 
 as one of Rochester's citizens. It cannot be said of Frederick Douglass 
 that he was without honor in his own city, and the city which he has 
 honored in his life will be honored as the place of his burial. It was 
 
306 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 here that he saw the light for which he had been so many years 
 watching break over the land of bondage. It was here that he read 
 the immortal Proclamation of Emancipation, which, at one stroke, 
 broke the chains of millions of his oppressed race, and made this 
 land, for the first time in truth and deed, the home of the free. The 
 stalwart and dignified form, so familiar to the people of Rochester, 
 has fallen, and the tongue, whose eloquence has thrilled hundreds of 
 thousands of auditors, is stilled, but his work is done, and all that 
 remains is to honor his memory. 
 
 In accordance with arrangements that were made by the committee of 
 the Common Council, the remains will lie in state in the city hall, 
 and the three upper grades of the public schools will be closed during 
 the forenoon to enable the children to view the face of one who is so 
 closely identified with the history of their city and country. 
 
 It is too early to write the obituary of Frederick Douglass. The 
 people of the United States are not far enough from the events attend- 
 ing the work to which he was engaged to appreciate that work in its 
 entirety. That he .suffered much and accomplished much is known 
 and read of all men, but the final results of that suffering and that 
 ceaseless labor no man living to-day can measure. Born and reared in 
 slavery, it was vouchsafed to him to see the auction block banished 
 from the land, but the future of his race, for whom he toiled so 
 unceasingly, was hidden from his view. In the later years of his life 
 this problem of the future of the colored race in the United States was 
 very close to his heart. With a wisdom which was greater than that 
 of most men, he recognized the difficulty of the problem to the full. 
 He believed that it is through education alone that the welfare of his 
 race can finally be achieved, and the benefits of freedom fully realized. 
 With this idea he worked until the last. To-day Rochester is proud 
 to honor the memory of its distinguished citizen. Children, who this 
 morning gather around the bier of this truly great American, will 
 cherish his memory in the coming years, when the prejudice which 
 moved a Senator of the State of Maryland to object to his remains 
 lying in state in the National Capitol, shall be obliterated. They will 
 read the history of Douglass in a better light than the present affords; 
 read it when a measure of justice shall have been meted to his race so 
 long held in bondage ; read it when his grave shall have become a 
 shrine, which shall be the object of the pilgrimage of lovers of free- 
 dom throughout the civilized world. For the name of Frederick 
 Douglass will go down to posterity with that of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 307 
 
 From the "Journal de Rouen," 27 Fevrier, 1S95.] 
 FREDERIC DOUGLASS. 
 
 La Mort tie Frederic Douglass a ravive les controverses tant de fois 
 agitees apropos des aptitudes intellectuelles des uoirs. Assez peu connu 
 en Europe, le personnage qui vieut de disparaitre etait cdlebre de I'autre 
 cote de I'Atlantique. Tous les uegres du Nouveau-Monde le consideraient, 
 a bon droit, comrae I'honneur et la gloire de leur race, et en apprenant 
 qu'il venait de rendre le dernier soupir, la Chanibre des representants des 
 Etats-Unis a leve la seauce en signe de deuil. C'est en vain que, pour 
 faire echouer cette manifestation, les deputes de ceux des Etats du Sud 
 ou les Wanes ont conserve la majorite, out opposi5 Washington a Doug- 
 lass. La motion o\i ils c^lebraient la gloire du fondateur de la R6publique 
 Aniericaine a ete repoussee par 32 voix coutre 25. Le Pere de la patrie a 
 ^te battu par un negre. 
 
 C'etait peut-etre exagdrer les mdritcs de Frcddric Douglass que de le 
 niettre au-dessus de Washington a .sept voix- de majorite, mais il n'en 
 serait pas moins injuste de ne pas rendre honimage aux hautes qualites 
 morales de cet ancien esclave qui a si puissamment'contribud a reniancipa- 
 tion de sa race. 
 
 Les generations actuelles, obligees de vivre sous les armes, dans une 
 legitime defiance k I'^gard de toutes les nations, ne peuvent se faire une 
 idee des gen^reux entrainements qui se manifestaient autrefois en Europe 
 en faveur de I'abolition de I'esclavage. 
 
 Fr^d^ric Douglass a continue par la parole I'oeuvre que Mme. Beecher 
 Stowe avait commenc^e par la plume. 11 a d^fendu devant I'opiuion 
 publique, la cause des noirs. 
 
 From the •■ Independent." New York, Fel). 28, 1S95.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was the one great negro representative of the 
 abolition campaign. He was not only one of the great orators for 
 freedom, but he was the brilliant example of what was the genius 
 hidden in the negro race and of what was the atrocity of keeping such 
 men in slavery. 
 
 He belonged to a mixed race and his life does not at all confirm the 
 theory that the product of such relations between those of the most 
 diverse race depreciates the moral, the intellectual or the physical 
 character of the offspring. He was a man of massive figure, great brain 
 power and strong moral perceptions. Magnificent, tall and strong. 
 In the later years of his life his large head, covered with pure white 
 hair, made him a striking figure in any public place. In the company 
 of men, who, for twenty years or more labored for freedom against all 
 
308 IN MEMO HI AM. 
 
 obloquy, Douglass deserves a high rank ; among the cultivated and 
 forcible orators of the country, he was the chief representative of the 
 colored people of the country, their pride and example, a man of 
 noble purpose, grand achievement, wise counsel and pure life. His 
 death takes from us the most picturesque figure which has come down 
 to us from the days of the fathers. 
 
 From the "Christian Register," Boston, Mass., Feb. 28, 1S95.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 "With a great price, " Frederick Douglass might have said, "pur- 
 chased I this freedom." Yet, though slave-born, the instincts of free- 
 dom were born in him. They early asserted themselves, and were 
 with him a controlling influence during his whole life. It was fore- 
 seen by the slaveholders that slavery and a high degree of knowledge 
 and intelligence could not exist together. The laws in all the Southern 
 States prohibiting slaves from learning to read and write were enacted 
 as a safeguard of slavery. To-day, when schools and colleges for the 
 education of the colored people are springing up everywhere in the 
 South, protected and fostered by State laws and crowded by eager 
 throngs of colored youths, it may be hard to realize that Frederick 
 Douglass had to learn to read and write by stealth, and that he was 
 violating the laws of the State of Maryland in acquiring this knowl- 
 edge. He likewise refused to regard himself as a piece of property, 
 and added to his criminality by running away. The interesting 
 details of his early life he has told in his autobiography. 
 
 Frederick Douglass had the joy not onl)' of gaining his own free- 
 dom, but of seeing the enfranchisement of his race and its remarkable 
 progress in the last twenty-five years. Yet race hatred dies slowly. 
 There are States in the South in which it would have been unlawful 
 for Mr. Douglass to ride in the same car with white men, his inferior 
 in ability, knowledge and decorum. And one of his last addresses in 
 Boston was directed against the evils of lynching in the South. 
 
 As Mr. Douglass saw that liberty was too great and too sacred a 
 blessing for his own selfish enjoyment, he saw likewise that civil and 
 political freedom could not be bound by sex any more than it could be 
 bound by race. He became an earnest advocate of woman suffrage. 
 He spoke in favor of temperance and other moral reforms. He was 
 benevolent in spirit and progressive in ideas. He was a striking and 
 commanding figure, especially in later years, when the large bronze 
 face was crowned with hair like snow on the summit of Oljrmpus. 
 
 Douglass wrought in no spirit of vindictiveness. It cost him some- 
 thing to obtain his freedom. It cost the South something, too. But 
 it was worth to Douglass all that he paid for it, and worth to the 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 309 
 
 South vastly more than it cost ; for there is nothing clearer than that 
 the emancipation of the colored man was necessarj' to the emancipation 
 of the white man. The South will some day erect monuments to 
 Garrison, Phillips and Douglass, or, if it does not pay the debt in this 
 way, it will be paid more fully by the perfect consummation of the 
 liberty for which these men wrought. 
 
 From the "Advance, " Chicago, 111., Feb. 28, 1S95.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 And so another "grand old man," for years the mo.st picture.sque 
 and historically significant personality in America, is gone. The 
 great American negro will always remain one of the mcst distinctive 
 and heroic characters in American history of the now closing century, 
 at least so long as men care to remember that the youthful American 
 Republic, boasting of matchless freedom, imagined that the mocker>' 
 might continue and itself be "half slave and half free," until the 
 conscience of the North was, at last, awakened, as it were, from the 
 dead, enough to make it inevitable that the long " ' impending crisis' ' 
 be settled by war and crowned by the immortal act of emancipation. 
 
 There has been no more heroic personage in the new world ; none whose 
 life and lifelong contention stood for more. The difference between 
 what was and what is seems well-nigh incredible; a monstrous gulf 
 spanned by this one life. To think back hardly fifty years ago to the 
 condition of things in our own country, in New England even, when for 
 a man, however otherwise honored and loved he might be, to stand up 
 before his brethren and declare human slavery to be a wrong and a 
 wickedness, a flagrant contradiction of the first principles of our gov- 
 ernmental theory, and something that ought to be abolished, was to 
 subject such a man to the special contumely, and likely as not to be 
 chased out of town by ill-odorous eggs, if fortunately he escaped the 
 coating of tar and feathers, now seems like peering back into prehis- 
 toric ' ' dark ages. ' ' 
 
 But all of this Douglass saw and much of it he was. That he lived 
 through it all and was permitted to see the consummated victory, and 
 to be himself, though once a slave, one of the most universally honored 
 and esteemed men in the nation, and to go on still pleading the rights and 
 the hopes of his brethren of his own race, and to champion in various 
 ways the cause of reform for the whole people, %vith that unique effec- 
 tiveness of eloquent speech, that has but rarely ever been surpassed, 
 all this appears now to have been a piece of poetic, rather than of 
 providential justice. 
 
 To name Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Dougla,ss in one breath 
 does no injury to the memory of either. Should the people of his 
 
310 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 own race, North and South, unite by the gift of but a penny a piece 
 for the erection at the Capital of the nation of a monument to his 
 memory, not over pompous in size, but one fitted to last forever, all 
 the world would applaud them for it. 
 
 Should the government itself be moved to erect some other memorial 
 to match it, it would be an object lesson of perpetual and beautiful 
 significance and moral usefulness. And one of the particular lessons 
 which it would be fitted to be forever impressing on the minds of 
 those observing it, would be this, that the world, at all events the 
 Christian world, ought, sooner, to see the great open secrets of God's 
 justice and of man's duty toward his brother man. 
 
 From the "Evangelist," New York City, Feb. 2S, 1895.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 The splendor of a great name borne by one who was born a slave and 
 put himself in the front rank of philanthropy and patriotism, beside 
 such men of mark as William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, 
 who made friends of poets like Whittier and Lowell, of Emerson, the 
 philosopher and critic, of Holmes, most brilliant of modern essayists 
 and of Sumner, the Bayard of anti-.slavery reform, is the sufficient 
 eulogy of one who has lately passed from life in the fullness of years 
 and the ripeness of well-earned renown. Douglass was a free man 
 before the war of emancipation. He was already named as one of the 
 great abolitionists, when by a law of the Congress of the United States 
 he fell under ban as a fugitive .slave and was ransomed like a recent 
 plantation rvmaway. This redemption of a man who had fought his 
 way up from the lowest grade of bondman to the dignity of champion 
 and advocate of his race before the whole civilized world, proved 
 what Sumner had propounded in the Senate as the essential, intrinsic 
 barbarism of slavery. When Anthony Burns was taken by slave hunters 
 in the streets of Boston, and Dred Scott was handed over in Missouri 
 to his captors, by a Supreme Court decision, the end of forbearance 
 had come, the limit of endurance was passed, the slave power had 
 humiliated the nation. In those days it was necessary for politicians 
 to "trim ship" with extraordinary vigilance and adroitness. To them 
 Douglass seemed a spectre of defeat. If he lifted those once manacled 
 arms before the people, even before they caught the tremulous tones of 
 his magical voice, they were swayed by uncontrollable emotion. Once 
 in the old Broadway Tabernacle, filled up to the dome, as Douglass 
 was announced, the vast crowd sprang up as one man, and the Mar- 
 seillaise hymn, with a refrain "free soil, free speech, free press, free 
 men," rolled out through doors and windows, blocking the street with 
 lingering listeners for a hundred yards either way. Meauwhile 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 311 
 
 Douglass stood with bowed head, great tears coursing down liis cheeks. 
 "It is the angel of divine compassion and forgiveness!" sobbed one 
 of the fifty vice-presidents of the meeting. But the avenging angel 
 was on the way. Less than five years after that day the Massachusetts 
 soldiers marched by, singing: 
 
 "He hath sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat, 
 He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat, " 
 
 while the whole city held its breath and strong men wept aloud. 
 
 In this way we can call Douglass the forerunner of emancipation. 
 The great and terrible Civil War was to vindicate our unity as a 
 nation. But the way for Lincoln was made clear by Douglass, and 
 those who stood with him for freedom. He was no Spartacus. He fought 
 Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry with all his might. He was for aboli- 
 tion by law and not by force. He had the sublime patieuce which 
 made Lincoln and Washington so strong and so triumphant. He knew 
 he was right and he could aiford to wait. Now all men can see how 
 State sovereignty and slavery, which it strove to defend, went out 
 forever. 
 
 There was a certain moral grandeur in the position of Douglass 
 which imparted a peculiar elevation to his character. He was an 
 interesting study up to the end of his long life; but in the times 
 which naturally pushed him to the front, he was something the like 
 of which we had never seen before. Whence hath this man wisdom, 
 whence these majestic traits? Heredity could not answer, for he never 
 knew his parentage. He sprang from the depths of slavedom to be a 
 witness against the system and for the slave. The freedmen owe more 
 to Douglass than they can know. Our people were not blind to the 
 perils of emancipation, nor to the difficulties of the problem we are 
 still trying to solve. Whatever constitutional rights the freedmen have 
 to-day were granted on the faith we had in such manhood as Douglass 
 developed before our eyes. He was a sort of Colossus, over whom, as 
 fulcrum, the friends of the negro threw the lever of citizenship in 
 order to uplift the race. And now our appeal to them is not on the 
 ground of their color or their previous condition, as if this or that 
 gave them inalienable claims against all obligation of virtue and char- 
 acter, but it is on the fact of such a man and such a life, to be their 
 model and inspiration. There is no citizenship without obligation. 
 What Douglass did in spite of outward ob.stacles, the men of his race, 
 in their way, must do against indolence and indulgence, if they would 
 prove their birthright and wear liberty's crown! 
 
312 Ii\ ME3T0RIAM. 
 
 From the "Christian World, " Strand, London, England, Feb. 28, 1895.] 
 DEATH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 Millions of colored people throughout the United States are mourning 
 the sudden death of Frederick Douglass, ex-slave, great orator and 
 fearless champion of his race. His funeral took place in Rochester, 
 New York. All business was suspended and the whole population, 
 with thousands who had flocked in, were among the mourners. 
 
 I saw Frederick Douglass at Chicago two summers ago, and I thought 
 then, as I think now, that the human race can scarcely have produced 
 a nobler specimen of humanity in any age or nation. Imagine a 
 figure, tall, dignified, commanding, a great head, in shape not alto- 
 gether unlike that of John Bright, but seeming to be much more 
 massive, surmounted by thick bushy hair, as white as the driven snow, 
 and showing with such striking effect against the dark brown of his 
 smiling face. As we sat side by side in the Unitarian church, listen- 
 ing to the not unmusical voice of Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, lecturing 
 us on "Zoroaster," the warm sunshine of that beautiful morning 
 seemed all the brighter for the sunny presence of this royal man in 
 whom two races had combined to equip a hero. 
 
 ■ Modern history affords no parallel to the career of Douglass. A 
 slave, lashed and scarred, without a name, merely one amougst a herd 
 of animals, beasts of burden, on the estate of the lordly planter — 
 United States Marshal, entrusted with the care of the President and 
 the President-elect, in the most important ceremony of American life, 
 and Minister of the great Republic to a distant State — truly the con- 
 trast is startling and wonderful. Riches, honor and power failed to 
 spoil him ; big and brave and tender-hearted, his later life was as beau- 
 tiful in its modesty and quiet strength, as those early years of storm and 
 stress and passion were splendid with battle and with victory. His 
 letters to me, to the very last, have been charged with an affectionate 
 gratitude to the English people for all their sympathy with an op- 
 pressed people, and have breathed a cheerful faith in the good time 
 coming for his race. 
 
 Great-souled champion of a distressed but noble people, that voice 
 which no tyranny which ever yet defied high heaven could silence, 
 when right was to be defended or wrong defied, is not yet dumb ! It 
 was the name of Douglass which opened the hearts of the British 
 people to Miss Wells, when that lady came to us unfriended and un- 
 known. And as the weak are crushed down by the strong, as often as 
 the oppressed cry to us for succor, whenever men with black skins are 
 foully treated by men with white, in the Southern States by Ameri- 
 cans, or in South Africa by Englishmen, the spirit of Frederick 
 Douglass will inspire our demand for liberty and right. What Words- 
 worth said of Toussaint L'Ouverture, the hero of the Black Republic, 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 313 
 
 dying broken-hearted in that dreary Besaiicon dungeon, we say of this 
 great soul, whose memory is the heritage of the world ; 
 
 "Thou hast left behind 
 
 Powers that will work for thee, air, earth and skies! 
 
 There's not a breathing of the common wind 
 
 That will forget thee; thou hast great allies 
 
 Thy friends are exultations, agonies. 
 
 And love and man's unconquerable mind. " 
 
 Charles F. Aked. 
 
 From the "Freeman, " Indianapolis, Iml., March 2, 1895.] 
 FRIiDKRICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 "The front of Jove himself; 
 
 An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; 
 
 A station like the herald Mercury, 
 
 New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; 
 
 A combination, and a form, indeed. 
 
 Where every god did seem to set his seal. 
 
 To give the world assurance of a man. "—Coriolanus. 
 
 "How long thine ever-! 
 
 "He gave his honors to the world again. 
 
 His blessed part to heaven — and slept in peace." — Henry I'lII. 
 
 "His was a giant's robe, who shall put it on?" 
 
 In the death of Frederick Douglass, the family of mankind, regard- 
 less of race, geographic division, form of government, creed or flag, 
 has suffered a loss. 
 
 When, nearly eightj' years ago on the eastern shore of Maryland, he 
 was ushered into existence, the progeny of a slave mother and the 
 chattel of a free father, it is nowhere on record that his birth was 
 heralded by the clang of bells, the blare of trumpets, or other cere- 
 monies usually resorted to in announcing the successful accouchement 
 of an heir of royalty. Yet the world has long .since reached the con- 
 clusion and so recorded it, to be known of all posterity that at that 
 time there was born in a slave's cabin in Maryland, near the Atlantic's 
 ceaseless roar and break, a king of men ; copper-colored, of matchless 
 symmetry of limb and brawn, big-boned, big-hearted, his baby 
 cranium crow'ned with a suit of hair like "any lamb's wool," and 
 whose plain title after the ceremony of naming had been attended to, 
 was merely "Frederick Douglass" — for short, Fred Douglass. 
 
 You ask where, upon what page in the list of heraldry, as declared and 
 prepared by man, his name may be found and his antecedents vouched 
 for, and we answer, this dead scion of nobility had no need of 
 
311 IN MEMORJAM. 
 
 vouchers of this ilk, he was noble "bj' the right of an earlier crea- 
 tion," a king "by the imposition of a mightier hand" than that of any 
 man. The business of his soul, the theme to which the mission of 
 his life was attuned and consecrated, was as broad as humanity, and 
 in touch with all the woes that beset and pursue the children of man- 
 kind of whatever hue, sex or clime. 
 
 He loved his race, sympathized with its woes, compassionated its 
 sorrows, and strove unremittingly through all the years of his respon- 
 sible existence to alleviate its distresses and release it from the thongs 
 that bore it down ; not alone because he was born a slave and felt his 
 country's guilt in his hampered life and unfortuitous environments, 
 but more; that in his nature, the springs that gave it direction, the 
 grains that composed its quality, he was an animated, breathing, living 
 protest against wrong. 
 
 Had he been of the dominant race, blessed with the same masterful 
 humane intellect, the same fine equipoise of soul, feeling a stain like a 
 wound, the same lion heart and prescience of vision that marked him 
 as the foremost man of his race, we do not believe but that the course 
 of his life, the trend of his opinion and action, as regards the great 
 moral questions to which his name is inseparable, would have been 
 the same. 
 
 The statesman differs from the politician, the mere serving man of 
 party expediency, in that, while the plaudits and praises of the crowd 
 are apt to be quickly and fulsomely bestowed upon the latter, they are, 
 if not entirely withheld, grudgingly extended to the former. 
 
 Above any other man of his race, living or dead, Mr. Douglass was 
 worthy to don the toga of statesmanship, and for many years in his 
 life the penalty exacted of him by his own people for this distinction 
 was such, that a smaller man would have long since been broken- 
 hearted, crushed and forgotten. 
 
 Among the, not a few, members of his race who, within the last 
 fifty years, have won for themselves certain degrees of prominence, 
 deserved and otherwise, this man, around whose grave, within a day 
 or two, a nation has expressed its lamentations and a race shed its 
 tears of grief, was the most abused of any of his contemporaries, the 
 most maliciously misunderstood and pursued with malice, envy and 
 downright cussedness aforethought, of any negro called upon to bear 
 the travail of race, pleading as it was not possible for any of his 
 fellow battlers to plead, at the bar of human sympathy for respite and 
 relief. 
 
 "Foul libel slimed him o'er with its exhalations. 
 
 And he . . . suffered unmoumed, 
 
 The envenomed sting of double distilled calumny." 
 
 Recent panegj'ric has dubbed him the "saviour of his people," the 
 "Moses of his race," the "negro's greatest friend," etc., but the 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 315 
 
 servicts of his grand life, if apparently invoked for a class, were, 
 after all, a boon to all. He was, in a sense, just as much a saviour, a 
 Moses and friend of the white man in America, joined like Ephraim 
 of old to his iniquities and selfish conceptions of justice, as he was to 
 the race that to-day guards his ashes as its own. No more reassuring 
 spectacle has been afforded the friends of right in the new world 
 since the landing of the kidnapped Africans at Jamestown in 1619, 
 than the picture of the members of both races in our great common- 
 wealth, vieing one with the other in doing honor to the memory of 
 an ex-slave and member of a broken and maimed race. There is, 
 however, no aristocracy of genius or special classification based upon 
 color and condition among the throng who kneel at its shrine. Like 
 death, it 
 
 ' ' Levels all ranks. 
 And places the shepherd's crook beside the sceptre." 
 
 It is not probable the race will produce a successor to Mr. Douglass, 
 for the reason that for the mission he seemed born to discharge, no 
 successor is needed. The conditions once surrounding the negro iu 
 America, that aroused the young lion of his tribe, moving his soul 
 with indignant fervor and his lips with the power of an eloquence 
 weird and irresistible, has passed, never to return. 
 
 Men of the stamp of Frederick Douglass, commanding, overshadow- 
 ing, "really great," are, compared to the breathing, teeming millions 
 of earth, few and far between. They seem to be vouchsafed, for a 
 brief space, to come and go in the haunts of men, about one in a 
 hundred years, to either mark the beginning or close, or both, of an 
 epoch, and by their life-work and consecrated devotion blaze the way 
 for coming generat'ons. 
 
 In the new emancipation that must come to the negro in America, a 
 freedom from the tyranny of commercial and labor caste, which to-day 
 confronts and challenges at every turn bis right to earn his bread iu 
 the sweat of his brow, God grant that somewhere in the ranks of the 
 race a second Douglass may be forthcoming, all puissant, armed cap- 
 a-piCy and that we the people, whose rights and dues he shall contend 
 for, will be constrained not to wait for the presence of death's sable 
 messenger to crown him with flowers and sprinkle him with perfumes. 
 W. Aluson Sweeny. 
 
316 IN MEMOBIAM. 
 
 From the " Strassburg Post," Strassburg, Germany, March i, 1895.] 
 
 ^rebcrid ^augla§. 
 
 ein ©rinnerungSblatt Bon 2lffcf[or Dr. $ir|ci? in Slltfirc^. 
 
 aim 20. 5ycbruor 1895 ift in 3(nocoftia in ben Screinigtcn Staaten eincr bet 
 intereffanteftcn unb Serbienteften S3iirgcr bcr grofecn transatlantifc^cn ;Hcpublif 
 gcftorben, Jvrcberict, ober TOie man ifjn briibcn mit SBorliebe nannte, Jreb 
 Souglafe. ©ie icerbcn ben Sianien bcS 2)lanne§ TOotjt noc^ nic gclefen f»oben, 
 oerebrter Sefer ; ebenfc crging eg inbeffen aucfj mir big jum ©pmmer beg 3a^«^ 
 1893, l»al;rcnb bcffcn ic^ mic^ getegentlic^ eineS mefjrmonatlic^en Slufcntljaltcg 
 in ben Sereinigten Staatcn aug (jotjularcn ®cfcJ)icf)tglBetfcn iibet entlDicfhmg 
 unb ^olitit biefcg Sanbcg ju belcbren ^udjte. 33ei biejcr ©elegen^cit fiel mit 
 ein bidcg 33ud) in bie |)dnbe, bctitcit ,,The Great Men of the United States." 
 ffiagfelbe tear gcjiert mit ben Silbern bet berii^mteftcn 3(mericaner, beren 
 Sebenggefc^i^te in turjen 3Borten erjci^It trurbe. 9tuf einem bet Ic^ten SIdttet 
 befanb fic^ bag 33ilb cineg 5)hilattcn, eineg ,, coloured gentleman." Sci bet 
 grofecn Stntitsat^ie, toelc^e bie ?)an!ecg gcgen bie Sof)ne SIfricag l^egen, mufete 
 biefeg SBilb felbftBerftonbtid; belonbcrg auffaUen. 
 
 3cb lag bie Sebengbeld^reibung, beren furjer 5"^alt cttea barin befte^t, bafe 
 S)ouglo6 im 'Ja^re 1817 in ben SSereinigtcn ©tauten alg ©o^n eineg weifeen 
 Slnfieblerg unb eincr Jlegerftlatiin geborcn, bann Son feinem eigenen Sater in 
 bie ©flaDcrci Derfauft iDurbe ; feinem .'oerrn, bcr ifjn mit ^priigeln unb 5(5eitfdjen= 
 ^ieben ttactirte, enttief ; mit Jpilfe guter 2)!enfc^en norf) (Jnglanb enttam, bort 
 burdf feine geiftoollen Sortrage iibcr bie ©tiabenfrage otigemeincg 3luffc^en 
 crregtc unb fic^ bie TOittel berfd;afftc, fid; logjutaufen. Sm ^afjre 1845 nad^ 
 atmerica juriidgefc^rt, Wirtte er in SBcrt unb ©c^rift fiir bie ©ttatienbefreiung, 
 unb alg bann ber ©ieg bet Jiorbftaatcn bie ©!Ioberei fiit immer befeitigt l^atte, 
 tDurbc er, ber frii^ere ©tlaDe, ju ben pdiften (Jfjren berufen. Gr iBurbc nadjf 
 cinanber 3)iitglieb beg Ccngrcffeg, StaatSfenator, SBaMmann fiir bie $rafi= 
 bentent»af)l, Weneraleinne^mer unb fc^liefjtid; ©efanbter in §al;ti. 3Ug gefin= 
 nunggtreuer J(et5ubIifoner muf,te er, atg ber Semofrat Elebelanb im 5J!arj 1893 
 bag 31mt beg iprdfibenten antrat, fcinen ipoften serloffen. ©oroeit bie £ebeng= 
 bef(^reibung. 
 
 3m Suit 1893 lag i(^ in einet ei(>icagDer Sfi'ung «i"^ f"i^3« ''"tij/ bafe bag 
 ©taatggebaube don £)at;ti im SlugfteUunggpart unter entfprec^enben g-eierlic^f eiten 
 bur^ eine grijffnunggrebe beg Eomniiffarg grebcrirf Souglofe inaugurirt Ivorben 
 fei. Sa bie Dieger — unb bie Gintoo^ner toon ^a\)i\ finb, »ie bctannt, jum grogten 
 Scile 3Jeger — bie ®eloo^nl[>cit ^aben, fid^ nac^ grofecn flidnnern ju benennen, 
 fo na^m ic^ an, bag ber betreffenbe Gommiffar ein unfreiluilligcs ^atentinb bon 
 5^reb ©ougla^ fei. ©(jdter aber bbrte ic^ ganj jufdltig, baft bie 3Kdnner Bon 
 ^laBti, bie ,, darkies," bcncn oud) Gonful SBiinj in Gl^icago, IBcldier Borl^er in 
 ^oliti Seutfdilanb Bertrcten fiatte, ein rii^mlidjeg Bcugnig augfteUtc, ben 
 friiberen americanifcben Siiilomatcn mit ibrer Settretung auf bcr World's Fair 
 bcauftragt l^atten. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 317 
 
 ta e§ mid) intcreifirtc, bic t)erfiinlicf;c SBctanntfdjaft biefcS Uebetbleibfcld 
 eincr fdjmad^uoUen 3cit ju madicn, bcgab xi) mic^ eiiicd XagcS in ben ^!al>itIon 
 Don .ftatiti unb lief; burd; ben ticfeufiroficn fdmiarjen 2f)iirfteber nieine fiartc fiir 
 Souglafs abciebcn. SLUiglafe empftnci niidi in fcinem Salon, einent grcjien, 
 einfac^ aber mit ©eidjniad eingeridUcton Siaunic, bcffen ^Jfbbel nu§ loeftinbi(d)en 
 .■pijljern gefertigt tuaren unb beffen grbfite^ iStiid cin mrtdjtiger, hjie mir 
 2>pugla6 tm Saufc ber Untcr^altnng erjii^lte, ebcnfal!^ in .^aliti nngefertigtev 
 JVIiigel bilbete. SouglaJ! bcgriif>tc mid) mit ben ffiorten, et fteue fid), eiiieu 
 3Kann bei fic^ ju fe[;en, tvcldjer in Seutidjlanb ).iromoBirt ^abe, ift bed), loic er 
 mir fagtc unb tvie id) toabrenb meineS 3lufentl)iiltes btiiben mc^r a\^ etnmal 
 beftiitigt fanb, ber Soctcrtitel in 3lmcrica burd) bic ii'ie ^ilje em^orfc^iegenben 
 bortigen Uniuerfitiiten ftart in 9J!ificrebit getcmmen. 
 
 aSafircnb luir un§ iiber bieg unb jeneei unterl)ielten, nal)m id) (yelegenl?cit, 
 Souglajj gcnaucr ju betrad)ten. S!on f)iic^ragcnber, uom Slltcr nid)t gebcugter 
 ©eftalt Hon rocnigftcn^ 1,90 a)Jeter .'i>lihe, mit fc^necmeifiem Sollbart, langem 
 tuallenben i.'odent)aar unb einem tabcllofen, blenbenb loeiftcn Webifi, mad)te cr 
 cfier ben (Sinbrud cine^ angcljenben ®cd)§3iger§, a\i eincS Sec^'ounbftcbensigs 
 jcibrigen. 
 
 Son beiben (Sltern f)atte er djarafteriftifd)e SJiertmale ; loar fein gonjeg ffiefen, 
 namentlit^ bie ftolje iio\ji ©rfdietnung ganj bic cines Stautafiere, fo Derrict 
 onberfeitg bie tiefbraune (SJcficf^tSfarbc unb bie c^arotteriftifcbe, iflaiit 9tcgernafe 
 bie africanifcbc TOuttcr. 
 
 S)ougla^ ift, trie bie meiften gebilbeten Slmcricancr, bSufig auf 9!eifen ges 
 Wefcn. 3luf;er Gnglanb tannte er Jranfrcid) unb Stalien genauer. Seine 
 6c^luarmcrci nbcr loaren @ried)cnlanb unb 3lcgii^iten. 3n bcibcn Viinbern 
 l)atte cr toicborbolt geiocilt, beiber Gie(d)ic^tc unb 3lntifen luaren i^m genau 
 betannt. 
 
 3c^ fragte xtyx, ob cr in Seutfd)lanb gcioefen fei, wai er wrnciutc, loicipot)! 
 er fd)on auS bem (Srunbc gerne l)ingeretft luare, um auf bcutjc^em iBoben ein 
 bcutfc^es Sieb unb bcutfdjc Shifit ju tjbrcn. ,,£ic miiffcn tniffcn, licbcr Soctor, 
 fiir "Biufif bin id) felbft ein Scutfdjer." 'Jn "^Jarentbefe barf Wot)! aucb barnn 
 crinnert wcrben, bafe bie Slmcricaner in i^rer gro§en fic^rficit son aufriditigcr 
 Scgciftcrung fiir beutfcbe lllufif erfiiut finb, beftimmte bod) aud) ber 
 im 'Jabre 1893 burd) 3]!brbcrt)anb gefallcnc Siirgcrmciftcr Don G[)icago, (Sarter 
 Jgorrifon, cin SoIIblutamericancr mit alien Sorjiigen unb iveblern eineg 
 fold)en, unter ben Sl'langen eineg beutfd)en CiebcS jur le^tcn 9!ube gebettet ju 
 reerben. 
 
 aSaljrcnb icir ung unterl^iielten, betrat cin pbfc^er junger 3J!nnn ton etnm 25 
 Sabrcn tai 3tmmcr, ben mir Souglag ol§ ben ^yiiann eincr (Snfelin BcrftcUte. 
 S)er jungc 3Jiann loar ouc^ ein , .coloured gentleman," namlid) cin Duarterone 
 (anifc^ling bon aBcipen unb aUitatten). Sic Sicgierung Don §at)ti b""*' U'" 
 feincm ©rogbater attod)irt, unb bas erfte, wonon cr fprad), ivaren Scutfd)-- 
 lonbg Grfdge auf ber l5olumbifd)cn Jlusftellung. fiiiernn fc^log ficb bann 
 unmittelbar cine iSd)ilberung ber G'rfolge A^antis. ®er juiige TOnnn Helt mid) 
 ftugenfc^einUc^ fiir einen Scijorter wni' tvoUtc nid)t Berfclilcn, mir einen SBlid 
 Son §a^ti§ 3)Jad)t unb §crrltd)fett ju gcbcu. 
 
318 JN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Unlet fetner unb 3)ougla6' giil^tung Wutbe bann ein Slimbgang burc^ bie 
 SlusfteHung von §aljti gemod^t. Sid ju feftcn gab c3 aHerbingg nic^t, STaffee= 
 fvicJc, ^roben Hon lBcftinbifd;cu §bljcrn, jpeciell 9)Jal^agom, ^alao- unb labat- 
 t)fUingen morcn bo3 Sffiic^tigftc. Sanu faf; mon cine Sanbfarte mit ben 
 lU'rbinbungSwcgen Don .^al^ti, bci SJctradjtung bcrcr mir Souglafe bemonftrirte, 
 biifj man mtttelS eine^ ©d^neUbampfer^, roic ftc fiir bie tronsatlontifc^cn Ja^rten 
 im Gcbrauc^ finb, in brei Jagcn toon 91eH)=9)ort nai) ^sort^au^^rince, ber 
 j^ai^itftabt toon 6al;ti, gclangcn tonne. a>on ^ort=ou=^rince felbft, beffen 
 yafcn einc frapijante 3lef)nli^feit mit bem Son SJeapel ^ot, ^ing ein prac^tiger 
 iUan im $at)iUcn. 
 
 i^d) war grabe boran, midj bei ben bcibcn §etren fiir i^te licbenSroiitbige 
 5it()ning ju bcbanfcn, o[§ ein cttoa 20 '^a'i}:i alter ?)an(ee ouf ^reb Souglag 
 ^erantrot, itjm in impertinentU'crtraulidjet SCeife aitf bie ©coulter tlofsfte unb 
 jagte : „.t>e, farbiger ©entlcman, ©ie finb IDO^I angeftcUt (engaged), um I)ier 
 bie Sac^en ju jeigen. ^t\%tn ©ie mir boc^ au(^ ettoag t)on bem Srempel 
 (trash)." 
 
 ®a6 Souglafe ben (yiegcl mit SBiirbe unb $o^eit abfertigte, bcbarf WobI nod^ 
 bem, maS id^ iibet ibu beric^tet ^abe, feiner toeiteren ermdi>mmg. ^ntcrcffant 
 luar mir abcr, ttiie bag im ^fal'iUon aniDefenbe ^publicum bem Siingling juricf : 
 „2Bif|en ©ie nic^t, bafe biejer Joert greb Souglafe ift?", unb bag ber Surfc^e 
 fcuertot wurbe, feincn fiiut tief objog unb fic^ yd;leunigft au§ bem ©taube mad^tc. 
 
 Sie Grfa^rungen, bie Souglafe gemad^t ^at, l^aben i^n, tropem er }h>eimal 
 mit loeifeen g-rauen tjet^eiratct l»ar — feine SBitrce ift, toenn \ij nid)t irre, einc 
 ti-ngldnberin — immcr mi Sagcr ber g-arbigen, beren berebtefter g-iirfprec^er cr 
 allc 3eit geinefen ift, jnriidgetrieben. Slls folc^er ftel^it er aUen benen, bie i^n 
 auf ben uieten Gongreffen lud^renb ber SluSftcUung IJiaben rebcn ^'ixtn, in leb^ 
 I;aftcr Grinnerung.*) 
 
 %m 9. Stuguft 1S93 [)iert in (E^icago ber IjSrofeffor SBeeK uom Xtinit^ Cottege 
 in 3iortb=6arolino auf bem (Songreg fiir allgcmeineg ©timmrec^t einen Sortrag 
 iiber bag ©timmredt^t ber Sieger in ben ©iibftaaten. ©eine SRebe gij)fcltc in ben 
 ©a^cn : 
 
 „Gs War ein votitifdjer J^eljlgriff, ben 9}egcrn ©timmre(^t ju geioabrcn, benn 
 fiir bie ffieigen ift bie ©timmfugcl ein Hampfmittel, fo ju fagen ein jcitgemager 
 Grfa§ fiir bie 5'intentugel. Slnber'o ftobt ee mit bem Sieger. Gr ift feine 
 Wampfnatur. 2)er Slngclfac^fe ift nidjt ber Hiann, ber fii^ untevroirft. Gt 
 luirb nidit regicrt, fonbern er regiert felbft. Unb fo roirb e« audb in ben ©iib= 
 ftaatcn fein. Scr aScifee tuirb unb mufj regieren. Gr fudbt fid^ bie ©ewolt 
 buni) lautcre 3J!ittel ju fic^crn, abcr ivill unb mirb fierrf^en." 
 
 Unb ba§ allcg tjcrtrat ber Iprofeffor mit Gifer unb Uebcrjcugung, Weil nad^ 
 gijttlii^cm 9ied)t bie weif>e 3(affe jnm 5Ueberrfdien ber SBelt anserfetjen ift. 
 Souglafi fafe an bem SorftanbStifdj. 3(!§ SCeeK feine ©a$e Bortrug unb bon 
 ber Grbarmlid)feit ber Jtegcrraffe ju reben begann, ba flammten bie 3lugen be§ 
 ©reifeg unb a\i nac^ ©djlug Bon aCeef? 9Jebe ber SBorfi^cnbe Souglag bag 
 2Bort erteilte, ba fdiien er trie ein Some, ber aug bem ©(^lafe geftort tuorben ift. 
 ©eine 77 '^a.'iixi isaren bergcffen, unb er trat an bie 5!cbnerbii^ne, fo line er eg 
 
 *) Has folgcnbc ift eincm SK-ricbt ber ..(SDicn.io 2\mii'' uom 10. Slusufl 1893 eiitncmmen. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 319 
 
 vox 30 3al;rcn getJjan ^attc, o.\i n bcU ^ettigcr 33cgcifterung fiir bie G-inoncit)a= 
 tion feiner SHoffe ba^ SttJort crgriff. (St nannte bcti 2lnttag bou SSccfS cine 
 fii^Ie, troFitubctlcgte SScrteibigung ber groBten 9!tebertrdc6tigfcit, bic jcmalS an 
 bcm SBi^rfc bcriibt t»orben fei. 'Jn jiinbenben SBottcn jerglicberte ct bie ganje 
 Sicbe bon 2Bcct§. ©r fagtc : 
 
 „5c^ ijaU iba^reub mcineS langen ScbcnS bie Crfa^rung gcmac^t, bag, wcnn 
 immcr einc Sac^c jn niebrig unb ju gcmcin erfdjcint, urn mcnjc^lic^ 311 fein, 
 bann tbrc atnl;dngcr fie mit gottlic^em Sicctft bcgriinbcn. '^trcfcffor 2BeeK fagt 
 iinS, bajj bie Serrfdjaft bed luciSen S)lannc§ burc^ bie giittlidjc SBeltorbnung 
 bcftimmt fei, unb befc^reibt bie 9)iittel, Wic ba§ gijttlidie Siec^t U'ieber 511 ®[;ten 
 gebrac^t iverben lann. (St fagt, bie Skger tcnnen nidit Iant))fen 9iic^t 
 tdinpfen ? Unb bod; loar tio.% erfte Slut, ba§ fiir bie greifjcit ber 9Iation auf 
 Sun!er §ia (§iigcl bet SBoftcn, anf bent am 17. ^uni 1775 eine blutige Sc^Ioci^t 
 jiBifdjen aintcricanern unb Gnglanbcrn ftattfanb) bergoffen n.nirbe, ba§ eineg 
 5varbigcn. 3)a§ erfte Shit, tbClcficS in ben Stra^en bon Siofton in ben lagen 
 ber Slebolution bcrgoffcn wurbe, tbar ba§ eine>3 "Jarbigen. Unb atg bie 9Uebcr: 
 lagc unbcnneiblid; erfcbien, al5 ber DJorben cntmutigt unb berjagt tbar tmb al§ 
 ^srafibcnt Sinccin feincn ©ilferuf an bie ^arbigen crge^en liefe, ba fatnen fie 
 ^cran, jtbeimaltjunbcrttaufenb ilijpfc ftart." 
 
 Unb fo berteibigtc ber (5irci§, erregt bis ing innerftc ©emitt butd^ bie SBortc 
 beg (Segnervo, mit feinev Cuergie bint bamalg ben Jteget unb feine 9Jknfc^enred;te. 
 Sie grofee §c>rer)c^aft ibar uicbt UH'niger ergriffen als ber Sicbner fclbft, unb oIS 
 er bon ber Sergangen^icit fj^rad), bon ben Jiclbentfjatcn ber 3ieger, ben Seiben 
 unb Cunlen, bie i^nen Si^^Icrglaubc unb SBornirt^eit auferlegt fatten, ba 
 toarcu alle, 3)2anner unb g-raucn, ju Itjranen gerii^rt utib fpcnbeten bem gott= 
 bcgnabetcit SJebner ftiirmifcbcn Seifall. 
 
 31un ift ber berebte 9Jhinb fiir immcr gefc^Ioffen, unb ber tbaderc Strciter fiir 
 bic grei!;eit beg 3J!enfdicngcid)Ied)ts ift abberufen reorben in jeneS feme tanti, 
 ibo ber SiSeifee nidjt lucbr gilt als ber garbige. 
 
 From the "Outlook," New York City, March 2, 1895.] 
 
 A race is to be measured, not by its lower strata, nor even by its 
 average men, but by its exceptional geniuses. If we wish to know 
 what the French nation is capable of, we turn to the lives of Voltaire, 
 Mirabeau, Napoleon, Moliere, Victor Hugo. If we ask of what the 
 Anglo-Saxon race is capable, we turn to the lives of Bacon, Shakes- 
 peare, Milton, Cromwell, Gladstone. If we ask of what the negro 
 race is capable, we turn to the characters and the careers of such men 
 as Toussaint L'Ouverture and Frederick Douglass. The latter has estab- 
 lished for all his race, the capacity of the negro to receive and benefit 
 by education, to be more than slave or serf, to l)e orator and journalist, 
 to be a man of power and a gentleman of refinement. >Such a career 
 as his is worth more in answer to the question, "Of what is the negro 
 race capable," than volumes of cynical and pessimistic theory. 
 
320 JN MEMORIAM. 
 
 From the " Methodist, " Philadelphia, Pa., March 2, 1895.] 
 
 The career of Frederick Douglass was one of the most notable in our 
 history. In person he was tall and broad-shouldered, his skin of an 
 olive color; dignified without affectation, courtly but natural in man- 
 ner; his eyes dark and brilliant, his forehead well shaped, but not 
 distinctive; his nose long and nostrils distended. The entire expres- 
 sion of his face was an epitome of good will to men. The first time 
 we heard him speak was in the delivery of his lecture on "Our Com- 
 posite Nationality." The discussion of his theme was on a high plane 
 — comprehensive, analytical, clear, dispassionate, patriotic, forcible. 
 The last time we saw him was at the New University reception in 
 \V;ishington, D. C. , during the session of the Ecumenical Conference. 
 Age had marked him, but not hardened one genial line of his 
 countenance. His work was done. It remains but to recognize it as 
 well done. 
 
 From the "Boston Pilot," Mass., March 2, 1895.] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLAvSS. 
 
 He was a self-taught man, and rose to high distinction as an orator 
 and writer. He held important offices, and compelled the respect for 
 his mental ability, which was denied him because of his color. We 
 have had many and striking instances of what may be achieved in this 
 free country by men who began the struggle at the very foot of the 
 social ladder. Abraham Lincoln being most conspicuous of all; but 
 here was a man who began limitless depths below the bottom ruiig far 
 down beneath the lowest layer of the social surface as defined by the 
 sacred mark of color. No thanks to our free institutions that he 
 emerged from that subterranean abyss. But for his undaunted energy, 
 he might have lived and died a poor degraded beast of burden. 
 
 Human slavery is abolished forever, and its abolition was slow 
 enough in coming. Some day in the remote future, men will be as 
 much a.shamed of recognizing distinctions of color or race, socially, as 
 they would be to-day of advocating a restoration of old-time slavery. 
 Prejudice dies hard, and the most inveterate prejudices are those which 
 have the least rational excuse for being, that founded on the tint of 
 skin being the most abominable and absurd of all. 
 
 Editorial from the Detroit "Tribune," Michigan, March 4, 1895.] 
 DOUGLASS. 
 
 He has ranked with great statesmen, great orators, great reforme 
 and leaders of great social movements. 
 
 He was the friend of Sumner; he was sought in counsel by Lincob 
 he was appointed to honorable station by Grant, and sent abroad 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 321 
 
 our national representative by Harrison. What a remarkable chattel 
 ■was this! What a millennium stretches between 1S45 and 1895! He 
 stood then as one of four millions of like chattels, who, as was 
 decided more than ten years later, had "no rights which white men 
 were bound to respect." Four millions of men and women without 
 legal family ties; without lawful claim to the fruits of their own labor 
 or of their own bodies; without the possibility of ownership of prop- 
 erty, or the control of their personal liberty. The bodies of their 
 women at the disposal of their lustful master; the children subject to 
 be torn from the arms of the mother, and sold on the auction block ; 
 the men who sought to make real the doctrine of our great magna 
 charta that "all men are created equal," hunted down by blood- 
 hounds, and lacerated with the cruel lash. Such was American slavery 
 fifty years ago, protected by the Constitution and the laws. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was one of the orators of the volcano that was 
 even then boiling and seething beneath the American republic, 
 destined soon to rend the nation and overflow in a fiery flood of 
 scorching and consuming lava. He was more. He was himself one 
 of the forces that brought on the upheaval. He was the voice of one 
 crying in the wilderness, crying prepare ye the way of the Lord, make 
 his paths straight. Few things and few men had more to do with the 
 awakening of the conscience of the people against the infernal system 
 of slavery than this living, speaking, burning chattel, arisen out of 
 the depths of its infamy. Between that bill of sale and the honors 
 paid to that chattel in these last days stretches the greatest halfcentury 
 of the world's history. In the procession of the years we see the forms 
 of many great men — now passed away — and many great events now 
 crystallized into the world's progress. Much of it he was. And when 
 his work was completed, how gently the messenger came ! Still in 
 the full possession of his powers; still busy with his great plans for 
 the progress of his race, suddenly he was summoned. Millions, not 
 only of his own race, but of the race that oppressed his people, honor his 
 memory. What an epoch it marks ! 
 
 From the "Presbyterian Journal," Philadelphia, Pa., March 7, 1S95.] 
 The death of Frederick Douglass removed the most prominent Afro- 
 American of the land. He had a most remarkable record. As has 
 been said "He rose from the slime of the sea with a stone on his head 
 and a shark at his back." He came to exhibit some of the noblest 
 qualities of the two races from which he sprang. He was among the 
 first of the colored race to be listened to by white audiences. This was 
 over fifty years ago, and when only a short time out of slavery. His 
 words of silvery eloquence made him a telling and forcible orator. It 
 was his passionate utterances, arousing enthusiasm wherever he went 
 
322 m MEMORIAM. 
 
 that to a great extent kiudled the anti-slavery spirit in New England. 
 He was the forerunner of emancipation and did much to prepare the 
 way for it. And it is true that the freedmen owe more to Douglass 
 than they can know. He was at the time of his death, which occurred 
 February 20, seventy-eight years of age. We read that, not since the 
 unveiling of the Lincoln Emancipation statue, in 1878, has there been 
 such a popular outpouring of colored people to pay tribute to a bene- 
 factor of their race as was witnessed in and about the Metropolitan 
 African Methodist Church, of Washington, where the funeral services 
 were held. All the leading colored men of the city took active part 
 in the ceremonial observances. Mr. John Hutchin.son, white-haired 
 and white-bearded, the last of the famous Hutchinson family of Abo- 
 litionist singers, who, with his sister, accompanied Mr. Douglass to 
 England on his mission against slavery, took part in the services, and 
 told some touching little stories of his life-long friendship with the 
 deceased, and then sang two requiem solos. 
 
 From the "Chicago Western Newspaper Union," Chicago, March 16, 
 1895-] 
 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 
 Physically, mentally and morally, Mr. Dougla.ss was a grand specimen 
 of manhood, and any race might be proud to claim him as a represen- 
 tative. Notwithstanding his unpopular complexion, he was decidedly 
 good looking, and was one who would attract attention under any 
 circumstances and in any crowd. As an orator and thinker he ranked 
 among the best in the land, though slave-born and excluded from the 
 advantages of education, and he had a command of the English 
 language that was marvelous in its perfection. Few persons can write 
 and speak equally well, and still fewer excel in both writing and 
 speaking. Mr. Douglass was one of the latter. Many of the greatest 
 authors utterly fail when they attempt to make a speech, and there 
 are orators who lose all their power when they put pen to paper. In 
 Mr. Douglass was found a pleasing combination of the author and the 
 orator. He entered the arena of reform with Garrison and Phillips 
 and Rogers and Gerritt Smith, and in debate he was the peer of the 
 strongest men who dared to measure lances with him. Sneered at, 
 hissed, mobbed, stoned, assaulted, he stemmed the tide and came off 
 conqueror. When it was dangerous for white men even to speak the 
 truth on the question of slavery, he did not equivocate or palliate the 
 evil, with soft words. He lifted up his voice like a trumpet, and 
 told the people of their transgressions. He lived to see the fruition of 
 his hopes, to see the slaves freed from the chains and to see them 
 vindicate their manhood, their courage and their patriotism, in the 
 field. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 323 
 
 Durine; the war he was one of the safest counsellors of Abraham 
 Lincoln, of all of whose counsellors, none, probably were more welcome 
 than Douglass. Through the latter's efforts, Massachusetts was the first 
 to put colored soldiers in the field, and the first colored men to enlist 
 in the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth colored regiments of that State were 
 two of Mr. Douglass' sons. 
 
 After the close of the war the great question before the people was, 
 "What shall be done with the freedmen?" And to the solution of 
 this question Mr. Douglass devoted himself most assiduously, knowing 
 that every advantage would be taken of the defenceless — because 
 ignorant — condition, by the scheming politicians. His efforts were, 
 in the main, devoted to bringing order out of the chaos that existed in 
 the States in late rebellion and which were overrun with men and 
 women but just now getting their first taste of freedom. He sought to 
 impress upon those in power the necessity for preparing the manu- 
 mitted slaves to enjoy the blessings of citizenship, by inculcating the 
 spirit of industrial independence. 
 
 From the Topeka "Daily Capital," Topeka, Kansas, March i6, 1S95.] 
 
 The death of Frederick Douglass suggests the oration of Wendell 
 Phillips on the great negro soldier Toussaint L'Ouverture, and it has 
 called forth, as was to be expected, much discussion of the progress 
 and place of the colored race in the last thirty years. 
 
 Much has been said of the negro as orator and politician ; much of 
 what has been done for him and what he has achieved for himself in 
 education and in adjusting himself to his .surroundings as a man and 
 a citizen; but we have seen nothing about the negro as a soldier. 
 
 Yet there is no line in which the colored race in this country has 
 shown greater adaptability than the line of military life. The best 
 soldiers that the United States has to-day are its colored troops. They 
 are the least addicted to the liquor habit. They are the cleanliest 
 soldiers in the army; they are not behind in discipline; they have a 
 splendid pride in the service; they are obedient, courageous and 
 cheerful. 
 
 At the close of the Chicago .strike in 1S94, Colonel Burt of the 
 Twenty-fifth United States Infantry, said of the conduct of the colored 
 regiment detailed for duty during the strike: 
 
 ' ' I never saw such detached service as these colored men rendered 
 during the strike. But one man had to be even reprimanded during 
 the whole month of that trying service. They did their duty as sol- 
 diers, and obeyed orders implicitly. They did not talk but referred 
 everybody to their ofiicers, and behaved under the trying circumstances 
 better than I have ever known white troops to do. In fact they are 
 ideal soldiers, and all their officers are vei-y proud of them. There 
 
324 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 were many reckless men in the strike trouble who thought that they 
 could intimidate the negro soldiers, while others thought that they 
 could easily manage them by treating. lu both attempts they failed. 
 The colored soldiers knew their duty and they did it so courageously 
 and so courteously that they soon won the respect even of the strikers. 
 
 ' 'As for fighting, they will follow an officer wherever he leads and 
 they will do whatever they are commanded, without fear. I could 
 march these four companies into certain death, and not a man would 
 flinch or hesitate. 
 
 "As for discipline, I can but refer you to the report of the Acting 
 Inspector General of the Department, made last October. He made 
 official report to the commander of the Department, expressing the 
 belief that this colored battalion is one of the most effective bodies of 
 infantry in the country." 
 
 Army oflBcers are not in the habit of publishing fulsome praises of 
 their men, and this tribute from Colonel Burt is high testimony to the 
 worth of the colored soldiers. Their conduct during the exasperating 
 circumstances of the Debs strike, has been applauded by others besides 
 officers. The colored soldiers of Uncle Sam are not only a credit to 
 their race, but to their country also. 
 
 From the "Christian Recorder, Philadelphia, Pa., April i8, 1895.] 
 
 In whomsoever true greatness or excellence inheres, it is remark- 
 able to what extent the hero-loving instinct of men will assert itself. 
 This impulse is both indomitable and universal. From time im- 
 memorial it has had its exponents, even though it be necessary at 
 times to overleap caste barriers or uproot race prejudices in order to 
 secure them. It is for this reason that Moses has not been left for the 
 Jews alone, but for that larger humanity he blessed to do him honor. 
 The same is true of Socrates and pre-eminently true of that Sovereign 
 Benefactor whose life, in the event of its being lifted up, was pledged 
 to draw all men unto himself. 
 
 In this universal fact of the meeting of the race varieties upon some 
 plane, broad and royal enough to afford each a footing while uniting 
 the whole in a common bond of taste and sympathy, is evidence 
 enough that duty rather than separateness was the Divine thought in 
 the plan of creation, and that the whole rather than the parts should 
 concern men, as it has concerned their Maker. 
 
 Representing so much of transcendent worth as he did, it is not 
 strange that the world should claim Frederick Douglass. He was 
 cosmopolitan, and not metropolitan ; hence it is equally befitting 
 whether his fellows adorn his name with wreaths, or memorialize the 
 same in brass or marble. That America, his native land, should even 
 in its most illiberal sections, eulogize him as her son, rather than as a 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 325 
 
 serf, shows her sensitiveness to the eternal fitness of things, and her 
 disposition, though tardy, to exalt character in preference to color. 
 Though late in coming to her senses, it is better than never; but to 
 Mr. Douglass is due the credit after all, of her willingness to depart 
 from the mourner's bench. 
 
 There is one phase of the estimate of Mr. Douglass, to which the 
 better thinking of all varieties will take prompt exception, and that 
 is, the imputation of his greatness to the Caucasian element of his 
 make-up and the dissociation of the negro from all that made him so 
 remarkable. These truth dodgers would, in his case, reverse the facts 
 of history, and present to the posterity of their conception, a Frederick 
 Douglass of Anglo-Saxon identity. Of this, however, there need not 
 be the slightest misgiving. Our race hero has ineflaceably stamped 
 his impress upon all succeeding time. With his own hands and 
 through generations of patient and pains-taking toil, he has reared a 
 monument which no canker-worm can undermine, nor moth or rust 
 corrupt. 
 
 Frederick Douglass' faith in God and the final triumph of the right, 
 was the basis of his great moral strength. His religion was not a 
 religion of creeds, churches, hymnals and prayer books, but he believed 
 in precept, the life and practice as taught by the Master of "doing 
 unto others as we would have others do unto us." It was the "cups of 
 cold water in His name," "feed the hungry," "clothe the naked," 
 not in professions of church phraseology and beautiful song, but in the 
 example with love to our fellows and our neighbors as ourselves, 
 which, after all, is the greatest and only evidence of our love to God. 
 He believed that the professed religion of the American church was 
 but a license not to practice the teachings of Christ, and hence, a 
 mockery. To him there was a want of connection between the dialect 
 of its religious phraseology, the sweet songs, the beautiful words and 
 its outward life practice toward the poor and outcast, especially of his 
 race. To him, all of Christ's teachings referred to life, and, if not in 
 the example here, of no avail hereafter. 
 
 From the "Review of Reviews," April, 1895.] 
 
 The death of Frederick Douglass leaves little to be said. It has 
 come in the fulness of time at the end of a rounded and noble career, 
 the dignity and worth of which had won complete approval every- 
 where. Mr. Douglass was one of the group of great American platform 
 orators and reform leaders of the period when Phillips, Garrison, 
 Beecher and the other giants of the anti-slaverj' movement were at the 
 height of their work and fame. The fact that he had been a slave lent 
 something of the same peculiar power to his impassioned appeals 
 against slavery that John B. Goiigli's temperance addresses gained 
 
326 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 from his own confessions of former subjection to the slavery of drink. 
 Mr. Douglass was one of the earliest and most constant of the workers 
 for woman suffrage; and he and Susan B. Anthony might well be said 
 to represent the hi.storic link between the anti-slavery and the suffrage 
 movements. Mr. Douglass had been honored by the United States 
 Government with several positions of dignity and emolument, and 
 had, in every capacity, private and public, won the esteem of all who 
 knew him. Throughout his long career he remained the constant and 
 solicitous friend of the negro race in America, and his advice was 
 almost invariably wholesome and shrewd. He was far more desirous 
 to see the negro advance in education, moral strength, industrial 
 capacity and the accumulation of property than in political directions. 
 
IReminiscences. 
 
 (327) 
 
REMINISCENCES. 
 
 From the "Methodist, " Philadelphia, Pa., March 2, 1895.] 
 THE IvATE FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 A Reminiscence by Rev. J. H. Hargis, D. D. 
 
 Now that over the newly -made grave of this essentially great man, 
 even the Picayune, of New Orleans, calls in question the general 
 estimate that he was the most eminent man of the negro race, which 
 America has ever produced, only because of the white man's share in 
 the claim to his greatness, by reason of the Saxon strain in his blood, 
 conceding at the same time the undisputed proposition that Frederick 
 Douglass was eminent as an orator, one may be pardoned, as an 
 "Eastern Shore" Marylander, for pride in the rise and progress of 
 Douglass, born a slave away down there at Tuckahoe, as he was. 
 
 It was through another Eastern Shore man, the Rev. John D. Long, 
 whose "Pictures of Slavery" had long before been published, that as a 
 college student, passing through Philadelphia during the holidays of 
 1S67, I was privileged, for the first time, to see the majestic form, and 
 hear the eloquent voice of this uncrowned king, the Frederick the 
 Great of his race. His lecture was on "The One Man Power," a 
 phillipic against President Johnson, whom he accused of "sacrificing 
 the only true friends we had in the South during the war to make 
 peace with our euemie.s. " 
 
 A sibilant sound from the far-off corner of the old National Hall on 
 Market street greeted this utterance of the orator of the evening. In 
 an instant Mr. Douglass' wrathful tones turned into pathetic appeals, as 
 he caused, by the turn of his tongue, to pass before the minds eye of 
 the immense audience a panoramic view of the battlefields whereon 
 ' ' the colored troops fought nobly. " "A h/ack wall of flesh then stood 
 between your own peaceful firesides, my friends, and the fusilade that 
 had followed the rebel yell." And so, in complete command of him- 
 self and his audience, he went on to the climax in these words; "Ah, 
 you are silent now {thrice repeated, ab into pcdore). Would to God 
 the American people could learn to be true to the black boys in blue, 
 even as they were true to you. When the very life of this nation was 
 at stake, then there was room under the ample folds of the J!ag of the 
 free hearts, hope for all its defenders." 
 (329) 
 
330 JN itEiWSIAM. 
 
 The profound silence of the assembly was suddenly broken by cheer 
 after cheer. 
 
 On that occasion Douglass retrieved, out of seeming defeat, a 
 decisive victory. His reception at the close was simply an ovation. 
 No wonder that such a capable critic as my friend, Professor Trickett, 
 was constrained to exclaim, while we wended our way out of the hall, 
 "God set the seal of greatness on that man, and slavery could not stamp 
 it out. ' ' For my part I have always been glad that I took notes that 
 night, especially after a score or more of years had passed, and I 
 heard, for the last time out here in Germantown, ' ' the old man elo- 
 quent, " in his lecture on John Brown, to whom he paid tribute in 
 this sententious style: "I could speak for the negro; John Browu 
 could and did die iax him. " And when only the other day, the news 
 was brought us that, on the announcement of his death, the legislature 
 of a Southern State adjourned, came to a stand-still, I thought of the 
 soul of Frederick Douglass, as like that of John Brown, marching on. 
 
 From the ' ' Narragansett Times, ' ' Providence, R. I. ] 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 A Reminiscence by Isaac P. Noyes. 
 
 My knowledge of Frederick Douglass commences with the campaign 
 of i860. In the fall of that year he came to Providence in the interest 
 of the Republican ticket. There was some prejudice against color 
 then and but for this prejudice he would have spoken in the larger 
 Howard Hall, or perhaps at the depot, that was so much utilized 
 during the Fremont campaign of 1S56. The committee evidently had 
 a delicate and even difficult course to steer. They wanted to utilize 
 every person or factor that would tend to make the campaign a 
 success. Douglass was then coming to the front and as a veritable ex- 
 slave, with a personal experience, he was quite a noted character. 
 Had the people realized what a treat was before them they would 
 readily have crowded Howard Hall, the largest hall then in the city ; 
 but Douglass suffered from being a new man and negro, as well as ex- 
 slave; and not much in the line of oratory was expected from a negro 
 slave. Douglass being the man he was the committee evidently did 
 not want to ignore him, nor treat him with disrespect ; so he was 
 given the "Richmond," or smaller Howard Hall. 
 
 At that time Douglass was quite slender, which made his tall form 
 show to advantage, as he was also very straight and commanding. His 
 hair was more after the type of the Indian than the negro; that is, it 
 was black and long, and not much if at all like the genuine Africau 
 hair. His dress was very plain, and the whole manner of the man was 
 that of a worker. The polish that he acquired later in life he did not 
 
FREDERICK DOVGLASfi. 331 
 
 then have, but there was polish enough. He did not suffer on that 
 account nor in comparison with the many able speakers of that memor- 
 able campaign. He had something to tell the people of Providence, 
 that was of deep interest to them. When he first entered the hall there 
 were a few disrespectful remarks, in rather a quiet tone; as though 
 feeling their way, the parties were ready to become boisterous if their 
 little labors should prove successful. 
 
 No more manly form ever stood on a public platform ; and could we 
 have had kodaks then I would have given a fabulous price to have 
 had the picture of Frederick Douglass as he then appeared on the plat- 
 form of Richmond Hall. Naturally he referred to slavery and to the 
 slave, but did not confine himself to that point. He launched out into 
 as fine an analysis of public men as I ever heard or read of. We of 
 the east had not heard much of Lincoln. We became interested in his 
 contest with Stephen A. Douglass. Frederick Douglass was perfectly 
 familiar with these men and their speeches in that memorable contest 
 for the United States senatorship. Lincoln's speeches he said were 
 replete with wisdom and originality ; for every occasion he had new 
 thoughts and new treatment of his subject; whereas, he said Douglass 
 had the same old speech every time ; and as he humorously expressed 
 it, he sometimes commenced at the beginning, and went through to 
 the end ; sometimes he commenced at the end and went backward ; 
 sometimes in the middle — and sometimes at both ends! liut it was 
 the same old speech every time. 
 
 Almost all over the North and West they have, within the i>:i.st 
 twenty-five years, seen and heard Douglass. Some have undertaken to 
 compare him with Phillips and Sumner, and the other great lights of 
 slavery times. He was like none of them. He was Frederick Douglass. 
 He followed no type, nor did he ape any man. His style was free, 
 natural and dignified. Sumner himself was not more dignified. 
 
 As for scholarship, he was the peer of the ablest. He had evidently 
 been a good reader of the best English literature; he never lacked for 
 a good, apt and elegant illustration ; his mind was well stored, and a 
 grand dignity presided over the whole man. This dignity gave him 
 character with the world. 
 
 He was highly honored, yet he bore his honors without ostentation, 
 and every act revealed the cultured gentleman that he was. The very 
 best born of the land could not have conducted themselves with more 
 dignity, or with more gentlemanly bearing. He was a natural gentle- 
 man as well as natural orator. Nowhere but in America could such a 
 character have developed itself. Some of his training was in England, 
 and he undoubtedly received much from the old countr\-. But his 
 work was here, and here he developed the grand character that nature 
 endowed him with. The great work of .slavery existed. He was 
 earnest in condemning it and in doing all in his power to help drive 
 it from the borders of the great republic; and this honesty of purpose 
 
332 IN MEMO RI AM. 
 
 only added to his character, and the more elevated the man before the 
 world, and gave him such a standing and rank as fell to the lot of 
 few men. 
 
 For years he stood in the front rank with the peers of the land ; and 
 on the platform before the most polished audience he was able to, and 
 <Ud obtain the most flattering attention for gifts that made him on 
 that platform the peer of the best men that at times stood there. 
 
 His life was grand, from beginning to end. The old prophet said, 
 it was well for a man to bear the yoke in his youth. He bore a heavy 
 yoke — yet that yoke, nor all the adverse surroundings of the years was 
 not able to keep such a spirit down, and it 'rose and 'rose until it 
 became one of the mighty spirits in the land; and one that was always 
 true to itself, and ever labored for the advancement of men. Frederick 
 Douglass was a grand character and he well deserves all the honors that 
 he has or shall receive. I. P. N. * * * 
 
 Washington, D. C. , Feb. 2S, 1895. 
 
 From the "New Englander, " 1S50. ] 
 
 FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 
 A Reminiscence. 
 
 I went to the Fugitive Slave Convention at Cazenovia the other day 
 for the purpose of daguerreotyping the world-known man whose name 
 is at the head of this article. The meeting was held in a pleasant 
 orchard, owned by a friend to humanity, who kindly permitted the 
 colored Kossuths, Garibaldis and others, to meet under her vine and 
 fig tree where no tyrant dare molest them or make them afraid. At 
 the proper time for the commencement of the services of the meeting 
 a large number of persons of every sect in religion, of every party in 
 politics, and of even,' shade of complexion, met in this magnificent 
 temple of nature. The golden chandelier in the blue roof above shone 
 down like the smile of God upon that happy group of beautiful women 
 and brave men — for though some of them were black, they were comely. 
 There was Loguen, a noble, portly, dignified looking black, who 
 escaped from slavery several years ago. He is now an acceptable and 
 popular preacher of the gospel. There were the beautiful Edmonson 
 girls, who were recaptured on board the ' ' Pearl, ' ' but who have now 
 found a safe and welcome asylum here at the North. They are 
 emphatically bright mulattoes, with even features, soft voices, perfect 
 forms and eyes radiant with intelligence. Woe be unto the men who 
 hold .such beings in bondage! 
 
 Their chivalry is cruelty, their gallantry licentiousness, their hospi- 
 tality the benevolence of free-booters. Gerritt Smith, the Great Heart 
 of his party, was present and Miller, his son-in-law, acted as secretary. 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 333 
 
 while that king of fugitive slaves, that black Demosthenes, Douglass, 
 occupied the chair. It must have been extremely mortifying and 
 humiliating to the slaveholders present, who came to the convention 
 to hunt up their runaways, to see the chair occupied by a man who 
 was once a slave, but who is now a freeman able to defeat any slave- 
 holder in the land in a debate on the question of abolition. 
 
 Frederick Douglass is nearly six feet tall, and well proportioned. 
 He is a mulatto, not much darker than some of the slaveholders of the 
 South. He has crisped hair which is marked with a few silver 
 threads; a square brow, which does not indicate the giant mind of its 
 possessor; an aquiline nose; a wide mouth and compressed lips which 
 show the unyielding firmness of the man. He has a habit of twitching 
 the muscles of the mouth when he becomes excited, as though a speech 
 was breaking out of it in silent syllables. He dresses neatly, moves 
 about deliberately and gracefully, and is courteous and gentlemanly in 
 his deportment. He is perfectly free from affectation. The honesty 
 of his intentions shines transparently through his actions. As an 
 orator, he ranks with the best speakers in Congress. Indeed there are 
 but few men in the Senate whose language is as pure and forcible as his. 
 One of the most eminent reporters in this country observed that he 
 never heard but two speakers whose impromptu addresses were fit for the 
 press as they came fresh from the lips of the orators — and these two 
 persons who speak so accurately are the Governor of Canada and 
 Frederick Douglass. Wliile but few of our educated men have such a 
 command of classical English as Mr. Douglass, a still smaller number 
 can equal him in eloquence and originality. His glowing logic, 
 biting irony, melting appeals and electrifying eloquence astonish the 
 multitudes that throng his meetings. 
 
 It is universally admitted by the literati of Europe and America that 
 Douglass is a great man, whose mind bears the unmistakable stamp of 
 true genius. Yet this man, who had sufficient ingenuity and courage 
 to escape from the prison-house of bondage, who has talent enough to 
 make a name that will not die, who was received into the best society 
 of the old world, is not permitted to sit at the same table with a white 
 man, is insulted on board of our steamboats and rail-cars, and driven 
 from our omnibuses and stage coaches, because of his complexion. 
 Not long since he was mobbed in the city of New York, because he 
 walked in the street with some white ladies of distinction who had 
 crossed the Atlantic to pay him a visit. Since that time a band of 
 ruffians assaulted him in the capital of Ohio, because he was black. 
 Shame on the people who, by their voice and their votes, will sanction 
 such an outrage! Shame on the church that remains dumb when she 
 should crj- aloud and lift up her voice like a trumpet against such sins! 
 
 Let us for a moment look at the wickedness and alwurdity of this 
 prejudice against color. A few months ago Douglass was grossly 
 insulted by the spruce captain of the "Alida. " \Vliy did this white 
 
334 IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 fellow treat his passenger with such indignity? The latter paid his 
 fare, treated all present with the utmost respect, did not assume any 
 pompous airs, committed no crime and obeyed the rules which white 
 people are requested to observe. The only fault in him was the color 
 of his skin. Now place these men side by side, and look at them! 
 Douglass is the more perfect model of the two, and decidedly the 
 better looking man. In a personal encounter he would prove to be 
 more than a match for his fair, or rather unfair, brother. But we say 
 that the mind makes the man. Give to each of these a pen and paper 
 and ask them to write an essay on whatever subject they may choose 
 to select. The captain could only write a few dull commou-place, 
 disjointed sentences, that would fall like feathers in a vacuum, whilst 
 the fugitive slave would write ' ' thoughts that breathe and words that 
 burn, ' ' and his rich essay would make the grand tour of the press, 
 eliciting the admiration of men and women of taste and talent in both 
 hemispheres! 
 
 Lead them to the platform to address the masses. Let the captain 
 speak first. He trembles, his tongue thickens, he cannot collect his 
 thoughts, although they are not numerous, but he speaks "words, 
 words, words," nothing but words, and they are neither constructed 
 according to the rules of grammar, nor pronounced properly. He says 
 that he is done, and the people shout "Amen !" Douglass is called. 
 He rises deliberately. Owing to his color you cannot tell whether the 
 blood rushes to his face or recedes from it, but the trembling of his 
 hands, the twitching at the corner of his mouth and the shake of his 
 voice, betray his embarrassment. He is modest, humble and unassum- 
 ing. His fine figure and manly tones command the attention of the 
 people, and they have almost forgotten that he is a colored man. He 
 appeals to their sympathies and stout men weep like children; he 
 argues, and they are convinced that it must be so ; he touches their 
 mirthfulness, and the sunshine of good humor lights up every counten- 
 ance. He says that he must stop — ' ' Go on, go on, ' ' exclaim the 
 hearers from all parts of the house. Off he goes again. "How chaste 
 his language!" says one; "What a sublime thought!" observes 
 another; "Did you ever hear such sublime eloquence?" inquires a 
 third. 
 
 Now permit me to ask, Ought Douglass to blacken that captain's 
 boots, and eat off his dirty plate at a second table? Is he such a con- 
 temptible creature that he ought to pay cabin fare and then be kicked 
 from the table into the steerage when he answers the bell that calls 
 others to their meals? Must he be compelled to sit outside the stage 
 coach in the storm, because inside there happens to be a white man 
 with such a wooden head and such a wicked heart that he cannot 
 endure the presence of his black brother? Shall we exclude him from 
 our division rooms because a few tyrants at the South (and a few 
 trucksters at the North), whose dwellings are cemented with the sweat 
 
FREDERICK DOUG LASS. 335 
 
 and blood of the slave, insult their Maker by trampling upon what he 
 has made? These plebeian pale-faces who condemn a man because of 
 his complexion, show an obtuseness of mind and a hardness of heart 
 which fit them for no other place than that now occupied by the slaves. 
 Place them in the rice and cotton fields, let them cultivate crops of 
 sugar and tobacco, and they will never <lo anything to secure their 
 own emancipation. Shall such men as Douglass be returned to chains 
 and slavery? 
 
 The English people have paid a large sum of money to the man 
 from whose clutches Frederick Douglass escaped. They did so to 
 prevent his being recaptured. Now suppose that Douglass was a 
 fugitive, and that no money had been paid to secure his liberty. He 
 visits Massachusetts at a time when a number of Southern senators are 
 visiting a distinguished man at Marshfield. "There goes Douglass!" 
 exclaims Clemens. "Let us give chase and catch him !" replies Foote. 
 Douglass will not run. There he stands, like a lion at bay, before 
 hounds that dare not whet their fangs in his blood. They approach 
 him with bowie-knives and pistols. He knocks the weapons from 
 their hands, and, grasping them by their coat collars, puts their heads 
 closer together than they ever were in Congress. They cry "enough!" 
 and consent to argue the case in Faneuil Hall. A public meeting is 
 called. The slaveholders speak first; the fugitive follows and answers 
 their arguments. He batters down their hiding-place and builds a 
 fortification for himself with the ruins. Even these men reluctantly 
 acknowledge his power, and would deem it no disgrace to be beaten 
 by a white man of equal ability. 
 
 Douglass has imperfections. He is sometimes ferociously severe. 
 .Some of his plans are impolitic and impracticable. His firmness 
 amounts to unbending obstinacy. He does not give due credit always 
 to the staunch friends of the slave that are not found within the pale of 
 his party. He is the editor of the North Star, a paper which deserves 
 extensive circulation. Few men have greater versatility of talent than 
 Mr. Douglass. He can write a splendid essay, deliver an eloquent 
 speech, labor a strong argument, mimic the mountebank jugglery and 
 tomfoolery of politicians in search of office, and scourge with the lash 
 of sarcasm the Priest and the Levite who pass on the other side when 
 the slave is bleeding in chains. 
 
 Cr.won. 
 
Biootapbical Sl^etcb. 
 
 (337) 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 Slave, fugitive, crusader, champion achiever of truest 
 success, statesman, wielder of vast usefulness, commander 
 of the world's respect, yet with all of his honors humble, 
 gentle as are all of the truly great — such was Frederick 
 Douglass. In his immense ascent from the lower depths 
 of condition where the masses were reached not even by 
 the faintest glimmer of hope, to the heights of meritorious 
 and even majestic triumph ; in his vast compass of 
 experience, his strivings and failures, his noble aspirations 
 and persistent upward mountings, his final complete and 
 serene success, the life of this man affords one of the most 
 satisfying illustrations of high human realization, that 
 appears in the whole history of the world. And beyond 
 all this his character and career were distinctly and dis- 
 tinguishedly unique. He was to the Afro-American what 
 Washington and Lincoln were to the Anglo-American. 
 
 Frederick Douglass was bom a slave in Tuckahoe, near 
 Easton, Md., on the plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd. 
 He never knew the exact time of his birth, but it was 
 probably in February, 1817. The identity of his father 
 was also a matter unknown, but he was unquestionably a 
 white man. His mother, a slave, was Harriet Bailey, one 
 of the five daughters of Isaac and Betsey Bailey, whose 
 mere possession of a surname is evidence that they were 
 one of the oldest and best class of slave families in 
 Maryland, as it was not customary to allow any but such to 
 bear surnames, and the superiority of the mother over the 
 majority of her race in that time is further attested by the 
 (339^ 
 
340 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 fact that she was the only colored person in the whole 
 village who was able to read. She called her son Frederick 
 Augustus Washington Bailey, but after his escape he took 
 the simpler name which he made famous. His life was 
 not dissimilar from that of other child slaves. Placed at 
 work as early as his services had any value, he toiled on 
 incessantly until he found freedom, seeing meanwhile with 
 his own eyes, day by day, all of the details of slavery, the 
 whippings, the outrages, the " grievous burden of life," and 
 too, the little softening amenities, for such of course there 
 were. He pondered upon the injustice of the " peculiar 
 institution " as a million of his class had before him, but 
 with a mind of far finer native fibre than the masses of his 
 fellows he perceived far more than the>- — realized more 
 acutely — and we have his word for it spoken when he was 
 near the meridian of his life, free and educated, that he 
 became "just as well aware of the unjust, unnatural and 
 murderous character of slavery when nine years old, as I 
 am now." Among the few bright spots in the slave boy's 
 plantation life was the kindness of his master's daughter, 
 Mrs. Thomas Auld, and later he was the recipient of 
 valuable favors from Mrs. Hugh Auld, of Baltimore, to 
 whom as his new mistress he was taken in 1825, soon after 
 he had begun his ninth year. She taught him to read, or 
 at least gave him rudimentary instruction in that medium 
 of knowledge until her husband forbade, and this forbid- 
 dance being in the hearing of the boy and coupled with a 
 remark that education was a dangerous thing for a slave to 
 possess, set the shrewd boy to thinking, with the result 
 that he soon saw clearly the vast value of being able to 
 read and sought to acquire the art with tenfold his former 
 zeal, though surreptitiously, and he made rapid progress 
 from that day forth. Education and freedom became 
 coupled in his mind as a means and an end and he dili- 
 gently worked his slow, hard way along the road toward 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 341 
 
 his great objective point. By the time he was fifteen yeare 
 old, the comparatively easy life of the boy was exchanged 
 for one of hard labor in Mr. Auld's shipyard in Baltimore, 
 and by the death of his mistress soon after he became the 
 property of her husband who removed in 1833 to St. 
 Michael's, a fishing village on the bay about forty miles 
 from Baltimore. In the meantime our hero had made 
 some good friends, had got larger glimmerings of the light 
 of possible freedom, had gleaned fragments of knowledge, 
 grown in mind, and had become converted to the creed of 
 Christianity. He endeavored to study and also in a small 
 way to teach, even organized a little school of black boys, 
 which was quickly dispersed by his master and was threat- 
 ened with the lash and with bullets if he did not desist. 
 His master finding that there was danger he would rise in 
 spite of all his efforts, surrendered the completion of the 
 obdurate young slave's industrial education to one Covey, 
 who was famous alike for his devout religion and his 
 success in breaking unruly slaves. By this man he was 
 overworked and ferociously flogged for what it had been 
 beyond his power to prevent. Again and again this chas- 
 tisement was repeated during a period of six months, and 
 the sterling, strong, courageous spirit which finally pre- 
 vailed and became the champion of his race as well as the 
 corrector of his own wrongs, was, for the time being, 
 thoroughly cowed. Douglass has said that, if at any one 
 time more than another, it was then that he was " made to 
 drink the bitterest dregs of slaverj'. ... A few months 
 of this discipline tamed me. ... I was broken in body, 
 soul and spirit. . . . My natural elasticity was crushed ; 
 my intellect languished ; the disposition to read departed ; 
 the dark night of slavery closed in upon me ; and behold 
 a man transformed into a brute ! I had neither sufficient 
 time in which to eat or sleep, except on Sunday. ... I 
 spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleeping 
 
342 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 and waking under some large tree. ... I was some- 
 times prompted to take my life and that of Covey, but was 
 prevented by a combination of hope and fear. . . . The 
 overwork and the brutal chastisement, combined with that 
 ever gnawing and soul-devouring thought ' I am a slave — a 
 slave for life — a slave with no rational ground to hope for 
 freedom,' rendered me a living embodiment of mental and 
 physical wretchedness." But a great change — a revulsion 
 and revolution — was near at hand. 
 
 It soon came about that he was again most brutally 
 assaulted, kicked and clubbed by Covey. He fled to his 
 master. Captain Auld, who ordered his return to the over- 
 seer. He obeyed, but there had grown up in his heart a 
 fierce and determined spirit of resentment and resistance in 
 place of the submission which he had been taught was the 
 only proper attitude toward the oppressor. The oppor- 
 tunity for exercise of this newly engendered heroism was 
 not delayed. No sooner had he met the overseer than 
 that individual proceeded to punish him for his absence 
 and his appeal to his master. Instead of meekly receiving 
 chastisement, the slave stood up manfully and a terrific 
 fight followed in which Covey and those whom he ordered 
 to his assistance wdre vanquished. The overseer never 
 tried again to inflict punishment upon Frederick though 
 he had opportunity and even provocation within the few 
 following months. Douglass called this the "turning 
 point in his life." It made him a man instead of a timid 
 boy, or, as he says, " a freeman in fact while I remained a 
 slave in form." 
 
 He was four years more in bondage, but was never again 
 whipped, although it was several times attempted. For 
 two years after that, in 1835 and 1836, he was hired out by 
 Covey to a neighbor who treated his slaves much better 
 than had been Frederick's lot for some time previously. 
 Even the comparatively humane treatment that he 
 
FKEDERICK DOUGLASS. 343 
 
 received, however, was not sufficient to put to sleep in his 
 soul the idea of freedom, and it was not long until the 
 restless spirit was engaged in an attempt to escape to the 
 North. This proved abortive and he was sent, in the latter 
 part of 1836, to serve as an apprentice in a shipyard at 
 Baltimore. He had been there before as a boy, but he 
 returned now as a man — at least in physical and moral 
 stature and stamina — and his education which had stood 
 still for the most part during the interval of his absence, 
 was again resumed under those meagre advantages which 
 he could command. Young freedmen of the city permitted 
 him to enter a club, the East Baltimore Mutual Improve- 
 ment Society, from which other slaves were excluded. He 
 met, too, during this period, Annie Murray, a free woman 
 of color, with whom he fell in love and whom he eventually 
 married, though he made no effort to then, because he was 
 resolved to be a freeman before he took a wife. 
 
 And now came the realization of the purpose he had 
 secretly cherished for a dozen years. It was upon Septem- 
 ber 3, 1838, that he made his break for freedom and became 
 a fugitive instead of a slave. A sailor's passport was ob- 
 tained through the kindness of an old free negro, which 
 allowed the bearer to go wherever he liked. Provided with 
 this, disguised as a seaman, under the assumed name of 
 Stanley, and with the command of all the odds and ends 
 of knowledge as to a seafarer's life which he had picked up 
 about the shipyard, he took a train for the North and after 
 several times escaping recapture, enduring trepidation and 
 an agony of suspense, he at last reached New York City 
 and breathed with comparative ease and a sense of inmui- 
 nity from danger. He went to the house of a colored 
 preacher who had previously been made acquainted with 
 the plan and there waited for a few days until the arrival 
 of his betrothed, to whom he was soon married by his 
 clerical friend. 
 
344 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 It was not until many years later, indeed after the abol- 
 ishment of slaver}^ that Douglass talked freely of the 
 manner of his escape, though often pressed to do so, but 
 when his revealing of the facts could no longer imperil the 
 chances of other fugitives, because there no longer were 
 such, he told the whole story. The marriage proved a most 
 happy one and it may be remarked in passing, was blessed 
 with offspring. (Rosetta, born June 20, 1839 ; Lewis Henry, 
 October 9, 1840; Frederick, March 3, 1842; Charles 
 Remond, October 2, 1844, and Annie, March 22, 1849.) 
 The fugitive and his wife journeyed in the middle of Sep- 
 tember to New Bedford, Mass., where he had reason to 
 believe he could have employment in one of the great 
 shipyards. In that old seaport town, the ex-slave received 
 the name he was destined to make world-famous, adopted 
 at the suggestion of a free colored man named Nathan 
 Johnson, who greeted him on his arrival hospitably, and 
 entertained and befriended him through the years of his 
 greatest struggling. Johnson suggested the name of Doug- 
 lass because it was fresh in his mind from reading of Sir 
 Walter Scott's hero, and it was not an inappropriate name 
 for the man who was to carve out such a career as did the 
 one time slave and the future champion of his race. 
 
 His life was full of vicissitudes and both himself and 
 wife were obliged to go out to service when other employ- 
 ment failed him, and it was when he stood behind a chair 
 as a waiter he first heard the conversation of one of the 
 great men with whom he was to be a co-worker, Robert C. 
 Winthrop. He carried on his studies with new zeal and 
 greater advantage, now that he was a free man, and made 
 corresponding advancement. He became somewhat noted 
 in a year or so as a speaker to colored people, and in the 
 beginning of August, 1841, in an assemblage at New Bed- 
 ford, heard for the first time William Lloyd Garrison, Parker 
 Pillsbury and other leading abolitionists, and later in the 
 
FREDERICK: nOUGLASf!. 345 
 
 same month, going to Nantucket to attend another series 
 of meetings of the same nature, was called out for the first 
 time in his life to address a white audience. He spoke in 
 fear and trembling, but according to the testimony of sev- 
 eral of his distinguished hearers, with fine effect. Before 
 he returned to New Bedford, he accepted an invitation from 
 the ageut of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to 
 enter into its service as a lecturer and travel to and fro 
 with him narrating his experience wherever he could find 
 an audience. He accepted reluctantly, doubtful of his 
 ability, and for a period of only three months, but that was 
 the beginning of more than fifty years of public pleading 
 for his race, — a score of years for the overthrow of slavery, 
 and that being accomplished, more than a score and ten 
 years for the betterment of the blacks by other measures, 
 political, humanitarian, religious and educational. He fast 
 mounted to the position of a great power in the cause 
 which he espoused. He became a strong factor in the van- 
 guard of freedom's soldiers and was a constant, brave, 
 effective fighter through the whole long struggle, — a crusa- 
 der until he stood among the champions, and then enlisted 
 over again for still other crusades. 
 
 In 1845 ^1^ wrote his autobiography which exerted a 
 great deal of influence in the anti-slavery movement and 
 brought the writer into prominence. From that time on- 
 ward his career was before the greater public. It is a part 
 of the larger histor)^ of the United States, indeed of free- 
 dom in the world. Its details are too innumerable for 
 mention within the limits of a rapidly drawn outline such 
 as is the province of this work. His life henceforth belonged 
 to the people and grew larger and nobler and more xtseful 
 in the ken of the masses. He was invited to deliver a 
 series of lectures in England and was absent on that errand 
 for about a year. Upon his return in 1847, he established 
 in Rochester, New York, the Norfk Slar, with money given 
 
346 BIOGBAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 him for the purpose by friends whom he made in England. 
 Its name was soon changed to Frederick Douglass^ Paper., 
 and for a period of seventeen years it was a prosperous and 
 influential organ of the propaganda of freedom, its publica- 
 tion being abandoned when slavery was abolished. 
 
 During all of that time he was a noted lecturer and 
 achieved great distinction, not alone by the righteousness 
 of the cause he fought for, but by the ability he developed 
 as a thinker and an orator. Immense crowds flocked to hear 
 him in the cities of the North, but not at once, for he had 
 to pass through the dark and even perilous days when anti- 
 slavery sentiments were far from popular. At length, and 
 in larger measure from his own efforts, the public conscience 
 was aroused and the majority were upon the side of the 
 erstwhile much hated pioneers of freedom. When John 
 Brown of Harper's Ferry fame came into the arena as one 
 of the militant forces in the " impending struggle," Doug- 
 lass had some connection with him — just how much was 
 not known at the time and has perhaps never been fully 
 shown. After Brown fled from Kansas charged with mur- 
 der and other crimes, he was for weeks in Douglass' house 
 in Rochester, while Federal officers were searching for him. 
 Douglass was aware of all of Brown's intended movements, 
 knew that he proposed to strike in Virginia, and that his 
 purpose was to run the slaves off to freedom without using 
 violence. Previous to the expedition, Douglass visited 
 Brown who was hiding in a secluded spot near Chambers- 
 burg, Pa., had several long talks with him, and gave him 
 considerable money. When news of the Harper's Ferry 
 insurrection came in 1859, Douglass' friends were uneasy 
 for his personal safety though he himself felt no uneasiness. 
 But his friends were wiser than he. They came to liim 
 with word to flee because officers were even then searching 
 for him. Realizing at last that he was in danger, Douglass 
 made his way by " underground railroad " to Canada and 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 317 
 
 thence sailed for England. There he remained nntil the 
 Virginia authorities were glad to nolle pros the indictment 
 against him, for he had been fonnally and legally indicted 
 for murder and would have been hanged if caught. All 
 through the war period which followed, Douglass was an 
 incessantly active force in pushing projects for the abolition 
 of slavery, and when that was accomplished, in aiding the 
 freedmen by the numerous schemes that were found imper- 
 ative and some of which resulted in lasting and great good. 
 In 1866 he was elected a delegate from Rochester to 
 the loyalists convention at Philadelphia. It was mainly 
 by his efforts that the convention declared in favor of 
 universal suffrage. In 1870 he went to Washington with 
 a modest fortune, and bought the Natioiial Era newspaper, 
 but it was never a commercial success, and after sinking 
 considerable money in his endeavor to make it so, he 
 relinquished his purpose. From that time on Washington, 
 or its suburb, Anacostia, was his home, and he was con- 
 spicuously identified with the life of the National Capital, 
 though often seen in the chief cities of the country. Long 
 before this Mr. Douglass had become a leader in politics. 
 He supported General Grant for the Presidency in 1S68 
 and 1872, and was elector-at-large from New York State 
 in the latter year, and to him more than any one else was 
 due the support of the great general by the colored vote in 
 the campaign of that year. The President soon afterward 
 appointed him a councillor or member of the upper house 
 of the legislature of the District of Columbia. He was 
 afterward a member of the Presidential Commission to 
 San Domingo. Making, as he did, almost constantly, 
 political, sociological and religious addresses, he maintained 
 in all a high average of excellence and great effectiveness, 
 but the zenith point in his achievement of this kind was 
 undoubtedly reached on April 14, 1876, when he delivered 
 in the presence of the President, Cabinet, Judges of the 
 
348 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 Supreme Court, Senators and Representatives, at Washing- 
 ton, an oration on the unveiling of the freedmen's statue 
 of Lincoln. President Hayes appointed Douglass Marshal 
 of the District of Columbia, and during the administration 
 of Presidents Garfield and Arthur he was Recorder of 
 Deeds. These several posts with that of Minister to 
 Hayti, to which he was appointed by President Harrison, 
 and all of which he filled with ability and distinction, 
 were his few ofiicial rewards for a lifetime of service to 
 principle and party. His greater reward was the honor of 
 the whole liberty-loving world, the consciousness of a noble 
 and most difficult duty satisfactorily performed. He labored 
 heroically for his race, with no hope or expectation of 
 reward, and from absolute singleness of motive — duty to 
 humanity. Upon his devotion to the interests of the 
 colored people and his views in regard to them, one of 
 their number has said since his death : 
 
 " Consistency was a strong feature of his character. He 
 never compromised his principles. During the darkest 
 hour of his career his patriotism never waned. America 
 he claimed to be the proper home of the Afro-American 
 and no other country could claim his fealty. An American 
 he would live, an American he would die. Therefore 
 every scheme of deportation, colonization, segregation of 
 the Afro-American met with his unqualified disapproba- 
 tion. He discountenanced any movement looking to the 
 removal of the negro from the South. The South, he 
 claimed, belongs to the Afro-American. It is his natural 
 habitat, he has enriched it by his labor, watered it with 
 his tears, and preserved it to the Union with his life's 
 blood. His attitude on all political questions and at all 
 times was consistent with those principles. . . . He 
 had also the courage of his convictions. Ever faithful to 
 his race throughout the changes and chances of political 
 life his indomitable courage knew no defeat, his bold spirit 
 
FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 349 
 
 knew no discomfiture. When other men quailed and 
 surrendered before the enemy, Douglass unfurled the black 
 flag and rushed in where the battle was fiercest. He never 
 allowed the wily later-day negro-philc to pose before him 
 as an apologist for Southern barbarism. The iron of 
 slavery had sunk deep into his soul and the rust rankled 
 there and roused in him on such occasions a fury of burn- 
 ing invective or biting satire." 
 
 And another writer adds: " Mr. Douglass believed in the 
 colored people. He believed that in this country there is 
 a great future for them and that they will ultimately justify 
 every prophecy for good made with regard to them. He 
 not only gave expression to his belief in their ability to 
 become capable men of business, if given a fair trial, but 
 he emphasized that confidence by contributing his money 
 liberally to help their industrial enterprises. Right here 
 in the city of Washington, he was the first president of the 
 Industrial Building and Savings Company ; a large stock- 
 holder in the Alpha Life Insurance Company, and one of 
 the heaviest depositors in the Capital Savings Bank — all 
 institutions controlled and managed by colored men." It 
 was as here indicated that Mr. Douglass continued to use 
 his ability and influence for his people even down to the 
 day of his death. 
 
 In the meantime, his domestic life had undergone a 
 change. His first wife died in 1882, and in 1884 he was 
 married to Miss Helen Pitts, a cultivated and intelligent 
 lady, a native of New York but who had resided for .some 
 time in Washington. His residence, well known to public 
 men and through the press to the people generally, was in 
 Anacostia. It was there that his remarkable life closed sud- 
 denly on the evening of Febniar>' 20, 1895. He evidently 
 died of heart di.sease after passing the day in usual health 
 and in the pursuit of his customary mode of life. The 
 announcement of his demise was flashed over the countr\', 
 
350 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 and the press of two continents the next morning contained 
 ample sketches of his phenomenal public career from slave 
 to statesman, and glowing tributes to the qualities of his 
 mind and heart. There were numerous public and private 
 testimonials of bereavement and tributes paid to his worth. 
 Most marked of all was perhaps the adjournment of the 
 legislature of North Carolina as a mark of respect called 
 out by his death. It was the more significant from the fact 
 that the action was taken in the legislature of a Southern 
 State and one in which but a short time before there had 
 been lost motions to adjourn in honor of Washington and 
 Lee. So it had surpassing significance to the people who 
 were watching intently for some of the passing away of 
 old conditions and the coming of the new. That an ex-slave 
 who had passed upward into fame and finally into " the 
 great security " should be thus honored in a former slave 
 State, was indeed one of the strange and thought-inspiring 
 events of this mightily changeful generation. 
 
 Frederick Douglass' career, his purity of character, his 
 allegiance to principle, his fearlessness, his unceasing fight 
 for freedom, his high ability, his sound and moving oratory, 
 his picturesque and noble appearance, his powerful 
 personality now fresh in the minds of the people will be 
 perpetuated in the history of the country and the heart of 
 humanity. Of him, it may be said in the words spoken 
 of another apostle of liberty : " He lived to see justice 
 triumphant, freedom universal, and to receive the tardy 
 praises of his former opponents. The blessings of the 
 poor, the friendless and the oppressed enriched him." 
 
 THE END.