Recollections of the Anti-slavery Conflict: An Address Delivered in Louisville, Kentucky, on April 21, 1873
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY CONFLICT:
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY,
ON 21 APRIL 1873
Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal, 22 April 1873. Another text in Louisville (Ky.) Commer-
cial, 22 April 1873.
In April 1873, Douglass traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, to participate in an
anniversary celebration of the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment spon-
sored by the city’s black community. A reception committee and a band
greeted Douglass at the Louisville train station on 19 April 1873 and escorted
him to the home of John Morris where he resided during his visit. The next
day, a Sunday, he attended both Methodist and Baptist church services. On
Monday, Douglass participated in a “lengthy” procession through downtown
Louisville that included over “one hundred vehicles of all descriptions.” This
parade ended at Exposition Hall where Douglass intended to read his lecture
on “The Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict” at 3 P.M. The “incessant
stir” of the audience, however, forced Douglass to abandon his manuscript
and instead deliver “an off-hand kind of talk.” At 8 P.M. Douglass returned to
Exposition Hall to deliver the originally planned lecture. Despite renewed
difficulties with the hall’s acoustics, the Louisville Commercial pronounced
the speech “an intellectual treat” and Douglass “a man of great intellect and
power." The day’s festivities concluded with a reception and ball at the
Exposition Hall. The next evening Douglass delivered his “Self-Made Men”
lecture at Judah Hall to a largely black audience. Not all of the local white
press treated Douglass’s visit as kindly as the Commercial, however, and
Douglass later complained of the “contemptuous malignity” of one editor’s
comments. Douglass nonetheless stated that he recalled his visit to Louisville
“with sincere pleasure. I shall not soon forget that many of the best citizens of
Kentucky dared to treat me with respect and to call upon me, notwithstanding
I was the guest of an humble citizen of my own race.” Douglass read the
“Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict” to numerous audiences during
his speaking tours in 1873 and then revived it for deliveries in 1886 in Boston
and in several English cities while visiting that country. See Appendix A, text
9, for precis of alternate texts. Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal, 16, 19, 23
April 1873; Louisville (Ky.) Commercial, 21, 23 April 1873; NNE, 1 May
1873; San Francisco Elevator, 17 May 1873; Douglass to Dr. Griffiths, 3 May
1873, in NNE, 15 May 1873; “X” to “Mr. Editor,” 30 May 1873, in ChR, 19
June 1873.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN—Perhaps there never was a revolution in the
sentiment and structure of any nation so comprehensive and so complete as
the revolution we are met this day to celebrate in the goodly city of Louis-
ville. The change in the condition of the colored people is so vast—so
wonderful that I for one have no words to characterise it properly. Almost
all other revolutions that have taken place in the history of the world have
been more or less incomplete—fallen short of the objects sought by the
revolutionists themselves. There has been greater extravagance of demand,
perhaps, in other times, but such revolutions have generally fallen short of
their objects. For one, I was content for years to ask for the race to which I
belong, simply emancipation from chattel slavery, satisfied that if that were
obtained gradually other concessions and rights would follow. It never
entered my mind in the earlier days of the anti-slavery struggle that the
negro would by one movement as it were by one great act of our Govern-
ment, be lifted into manhood, to be a man among men, and at last lifted into
citizenship, completely enfranchised. This was more than I looked for, but
it has come, and I have lived to see it, and am here to rejoice with you in this
complete realization of hopes.
The struggle that brought this great revolution to its present condition
dates far back in the history of this nation and far back in the history of the
world. It had the advances and its retreats, its action and its reaction.
Perhaps the darkest and least hopeful period in the history of this tremen-
dous struggle for the freedom of our race was the year 1850. We had
attracted attention to the subject of slavery by holding anti-slavery meet-
ings all over the North; by the publication of anti-slavery papers, resolu-
tions, and speeches, and the good and true of all persuasions were rapidly
allying themselves to the anti-slavery cause, and laboring to promote it.
But at an unfortunate moment there came a chilling and discouraging
reaction, out of which came what is known as the Fugitive Slave Bill—a
bill enabling a man to pursue his slave into every State of the Union, and
made every citizen of the Northern States an interested party in the arrest
and return of the bond man. This bill carried consternation to the hearths
and homes of thousands of fugitives who had taken refuge in the free
States, for there was not a valley so deep, no mountain so high, no glen so
secluded, no spot so secret in all these States, as to secure the hunted one in
his right to his own body.
The negroes fled from the Northern States in darkened trains,1Douglass alludes to the Underground Railroad. escap-
ing from under the Star Spangled Banner—running away from our boasted
republic in pursuit of liberty that was denied them in this republic. I found it
necessary myself, being a runaway, to leave the State of Massachusetts and
go to Europe.2Fearing recapture by his Maryland master after the publication of his autobiography, Douglass left his family in Massachusetts in August 1845 for an extended antislavery speaking tour of Great Britain. He returned home in 1847 only after abolitionist friends had purchased his liberty. Douglass, Life and Times, 259-87. I said that I was a runaway. There is usually a little odium
attached to running away, but for the life of me I never could feel in any
degree ashamed for being made to move Northward. I had an idea that my
legs were my legs, and nobody else’s legs, and that if I run away on my own
legs, and was careful to leave every body else in possession of their legs,
there could be no solid or reasonable objection to my going (laughter), and
so I went. But under the Fugitive Slave Bill I found it necessary to go
abroad for a while for my health. (Laughter and applause.) But
WHILE THERE I WAS PURCHASED.
Some good people over there found out who my master was—and a
very excellent master he was—and he had no business to be a master any
more than many other good men with whom I have met had a right to be
masters. They found who he was and wrote to him to know if he would sell
me, and if he would that they would buy me. And so $750 was sent over in
British gold and I was set at liberty, and by that means I was enabled to
return to the United States and pursue my anti-slavery studies and my anti-slavery
labors.3The ownership of Douglass had been transferred from Thomas Auld to his brother Hugh Auld on 13 November 1846. The latter signed Douglass's manumission papers on 5 December 1846 in exchange for £150 raised by a group of British abolitionists led by Anna and Ellen Richardson. Douglass, Bondage and Freedom, 373-76. I say the darkest time in this struggle was during the
enforcement of that bill.
Then came the sermons from the leading ministers of the Northern
States in support of that bill and its enforcement. Then came Mr. Webster,
Mr. Filmore4Daniel Webster and Millard Fillmore. and other great men, together with most of the religious
denominations in the land to urge upon the Northern people the duty of
carrying out the provisions of that bill, but nevertheless every slave that
was arrested only deepened and broadened, and intensified the anti-slavery
sentiment of the North. Every slave therefore brought back only served to
weaken the system which it was designed to uphold and sustain. One of the
most amazing things connected with the anti-slavery struggle is the attitude
assumed on the slavery question by the religious organizations of our
country. It will be hardly credited, although Dr. Albert Barnes stated that
there was no power outside of the American Church and clergy which
could sustain slavery for years,5Douglass paraphrases Albert Barnes, An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (Philadelphia, 1846), 383. had it not been sustained in the Church
using the very droppings of the sanctuary. Your own fellow citizen, James
G. Burney took the same view—that the American Church and clergy were
the bulwark of American slavery.6A reference to the title of James G. Birney's pamphlet The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery (London, 1840). It was hard to believe this in the days of
slavery struggle, and it will be harder still to believe it a hundred years
hence, when the churches all over the land will be claiming the triumph of
liberty in the United States as all the work of the church—or the result of
the prayers and preaching of the pulpit. Among the things of the future will
be a grand debate in this country, at which this very question as to whether
the religious organizations of the United States were in any wise responsi-
ble for the perpetuation of slavery. Some historian like Froude serious for
the truth of history, and some Father Burke equally zealous for the glory
and honor of the church will meet and thrill assemblies by their eloquence
and learning touching this very point.7Douglass alludes to a well-publicized dispute between English historian and editor James Anthony Froude (1818-94) and the Irish priest and lecturer Thomas Nicholas Burke (1830-83) over British colonial policy for Ireland. Educated at Oxford University, Froude was courted by the leading figures of the Oxford Movement inside the Anglican Church. Upon being enlisted by John Henry Newman to assist in the preparation of his “Lives of the English Saints," Froude found that he could not accept the legends and turned to the study of modern history and letters, soon breaking entirely with the Anglican Church. He had already read Thomas Carlyle with enthusiasm and, after meeting him in 1849, became his disciple. Froude worked for the better part of twenty years on a twelve-volume history of England in the sixteenth century, which was a great success. He wrote on other historical subjects as well, including Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus and eighteenth-century England and Ireland. Froude was editor of Frazer’s Magazine from 1860 to 1874 and commented on cultural, literary, and educational topics. Burke publicly assailed efforts to conciliate the Irish to British rule through land reforms or Protestant disestablishment. He also traveled in a semiofficial capacity to South Africa and the West Indies and made recommendations on British colonial policy. Burke was born in Galway, Ireland, and studied theology at Rome. He became a Dominican priest and for a time was prior of a monastery of Irish Dominicans at Rome. In 1872 Burke toured the United States, delivering lectures in which he attacked Froude's position on Ireland. DNB, Supplement, 679-87; John S. Crone, A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography (London, 1928), 22; John Foster Kirk, A Supplement to Allibone's Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1891), 1: 252.
This is the truth concerning it. There are two sides to it. There is no
question that in the earlier history of this Republic all religious organiza-
tions of the country were decidedly opposed to slavery. The Methodist
Episcopal Church denounced it as evil as early as 1780 and 1784, and down
to 1818. They organized committees for the purpose of petitioning the
Legislatures of the several States for the abolition of slavery.8The Methodist Episcopal Church's General Conference of 1804 repealed the call on Annual Conferences to lobby state legislatures for antislavery measures which it had passed only four years earlier. It was after 1804 rather than 1818 that the Methodists ceased strong antislavery efforts. Donald G. Mathews, Slavery and Methodism: A Chapter in American Morality, 1780-1845 (Princeton, 1965), 20-29, 299-302; John R. McKivigan, The War against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830-1865 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), 25, 46-47. The Pres-
byterian church was equally and unequivocally opposed to slavery. It de-
nounced slavery as man-stealing, and classed it with the highest crimes,
quoting that passage of scripture bearing on man-stealing: “Whoso stealeth
a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall be surely put to
death.”9Douglass quotes Exod. 21: 16, which the Presbyterian Church in the 1790s had appended to an answer in its Larger Catechism but removed in 1816. McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 22-26; Andrew E. Murray, Presbyterians and the Negro: A History (Philadelphia, 1966), 26-28. The Baptists were equally decided in their opposition to slavery.
Indeed, in the States of Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland, and in a
part of Kentucky, the Baptists were so anti-slavery that they were called
“Baptist Emancipation” as early as 1780.10A reference to the associations of antislavery Baptist congregations centered in Kentucky known as the “Friends of Humanity," or more popularly as the “Emancipators.” McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 26, 47.
Thereafter the Society of Friends were also opposed to slavery. The
leading statesmen of the Republic were opposed to slavery—Franklin,
Rush,11Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush. and even down to the time of your own great Henry Clay. I
remember reading one of the most eloquent outbursts of sentiment from
him upon this subject that I ever read from any source. He said if he could
be instrumental in erasing from his native State the hint of human slavery,
and from the State of his adoption he would not exchange the proud
satisfaction for all the laurels ever bestowed upon the most successful
conqueror. I do not quote his exact language, but he uttered such a senti-
ment as this. Such sentiments as this were uttered fifty years ago, so that
Abolitionism is no modern idea. The earlier history of anti-slavery is very
curious. Perhaps the very earliest book written of an anti-slavery character
only claimed for the negro one thing. It was a book written two hundred
years ago by Rev. Dr. Goodwin, of Jamaica written for the purpose of
proving that it was not a sin to baptise a negro.12Morgan Godwyn advocated this position in Negro's and Indian's Advocate. (Laughter.) It was a book
of two hundred pages. Dr. Goodwin argued the question coolly. The first
difficulty that met him was that baptism is an ordinance for a free moral
agent for persons who can determine upon their own course of conduct.
The negro could not. He was not a free moral agent, and could not decide
any question relative to his own action—what he
SHOULD EAT OR DRINK,
or wear, when to speak, who to speak to, when he should be punished, by
whom punished, when he should work, where and how much he should
work, and what use was baptism to such a piece of property as that? It was
said that since baptism belonged to free moral agents, that the thing to be
done was to
WELL BAPTIZE THE MASTER.
As he had the absolute control, and it was sufficient for the negro to get the
benefit of baptism by proxy. Nobody now doubts the propriety of putting a
little water on a negro, or of putting a negro in the water, and putting him in
very hot water in some places. But it was out of that discussion came the
germ of the struggle which gave birth to the freedom you now enjoy.
Dr. Goodwin, while he did not deny a slave was a slave, he insisted upon it,
that though a slave he was a man, and in granting him the right of baptism
opened the doors by which every other right belonging to man could be
claimed and insisted upon. Here we have
THE RELIGIOUS BEGINNING
of the anti-slavery movement notwithstanding it must be admitted that the
churches of our country were very cold on this subject.
We had men sold to build churches, women sold to support mission-
aries. The church and the slave-pen stood in the same neighborhood, and
the cries and groans of the bond-man was sometimes silenced by the tears
and prayers of the church. The
PULPIT AND AUCTIONEER’S BLOCK
Stood in the same neighborhood. The people expended the gold resulting
from the sale of human flesh in order to support the pulpit, and the pulpit in
return defended the system as a Bible institution.
But I am glad we have got by that. We can now afford to remember the
golden rule: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do
ye even so unto them.”13Matt. 7: 12 and Luke 6: 31. The movement by which abolition was brought
about in this century followed a very natural course of development.
BEGINNING OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY STRUGGLE.
The first part of the anti-slavery struggle we were engaged in was to
express the evils of slavery. I know the first proposition that I undertook to
sustain before an audience in the Northern States, was that slavery was an
evil. That was all—an evil to the master as well as to the slave, and
emancipation would be a joy to the master as well as to the slave. I
remember when Neal Turner started his insurrection in Virginia, poor old
man what he was.14That is, Nat Turner, leader of a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, on 21-23 August 1831. He came to his death by that rising, but that movement
sent a thrill throughout Southern society, and no man slept easily for years,
who slept on the quivering heartstrings of his slaves. You have no fear now;
you have no fear even here, even though a fugitive slave is running around
talking to the colored people about their rights, about their liberty, and
about their progress. Nobody is afraid. I ask you to rejoice with us. There is
no fear that you will starve to death because we don’t work for you any
more for nothing. I do not know that you can point to say five years in the
history of Louisville when this city has been more prosperous and sur-
rounded its name with a brighter and broader halo of glory than she has
done since the chains were stricken from the limbs of the slaves. (Ap-
plause.)
I have travelled far over land and seas. I have visited many cities in
every part of our glorious Union, and I must say that in no part of this
republic is there a grander and more beautiful illustration of the energy, the
enterprise, and the progressive spirit of the American people than is fur-
nished in the up building of this magnificent hall for the display of your
industrial products. This is all the fruit of liberty. I do not suppose this hall
would have been here if you had not got rid of slavery. (Laughter and
applause.)
One of the most valuable lessons left us by this struggle of slavery is
faith in man, faith in the rectitude of humanity, and faith in the all conquer-
ing power of truth as opposed to error—opposed to falsehood. The Aboli-
tionists believed that this was the secret of their power. If we measured their
faith by the magnitude of the work before them—if we consider the nature
of the system of wrong to be overthrown, how vast in wealth of power; how
it molded all political parties; how it controlled statesmen; what a vast mine
of wealth it was to those interested in it; how, as Mr. Clay once said, “five
hundred years of legislation have sanctioned and sanctified negro slaves as
property when we consider how it was linked with our institutions, the faith
that could meet this was at once heroic and something marvelous.” But the
abolitionists did believe, and persevered in their opposition to slavery,
meeting reproach, and enmity and sometimes incurring personal danger
which would have appalled most men. It was once said by Emerson that
“the eloquence of the Abolitionists was dog-cheap at anti-slavery meet-
ings.”15Douglass quotes an allusion in Ralph Waldo Emerson's address, “Emancipation in the British West Indies" (1844), to “a proverb in Massachusetts, that ‘eloquence is dog-cheap at the anti-slavery chapel.' " Emerson, Complete Works of Emerson, 11: 138. The secret of their eloquence was their faith. Like the great apostle
to the Gentiles, they believed, and therefore spoke because they believed,
and were therefore eloquent.16An allusion to St. Paul's evangelization of the Gentiles as recorded in Acts and the Pauline epistles. Douglass then paraphrases either 2 Cor. 4: 13 or Ps. 116: 10. But the Abolitionists were not long alone in
their faith in the power of truth. The South also believed in the power, and
demanded that they should put down this agitation in the North. The North,
while boasting at its freedom, so far forgot its dignity as to attempt by mob
violence to put down the discussion of the question of slavery. However, it
failed, and it could not be otherwise. Daniel Webster had said that the right
to canvass the policy of public measures was a natural right—a fireside
privilege, belonging to private life as a right that is belonged to public life
as a duty, and the people believed it and insisted upon the exercise of their
right of speech.17Douglass slightly misquotes Daniel Webster's speech on enlistments, delivered in the House of Representatives on 14 January 1814. The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, National ed., 18 vols. (Boston, 1903), 14: 25. In the exercise of it they made converts. Our persecutors
from the North endeavored for a time to make the South believe that the
abolitionists were an insignificant characterless crew. It was said that we
were only a handfull of hair-brained fanatics; that the church North was
sound on the subject, that the respectable people of the South and of the
North were sound on the subject, and that we could effect nothing. The
South would not believe, and they were right in not believing. They knew
the character of slavery, and they knew that its character was such that it
would not bear to be talked about—that it was like old Grisby’s char-
acter—only passed without censure when it passed without observation.18Actually a reference to a statement by John Manners, marquis of Granby. The Political Contest; Containing a Series of Letters Between Junius and Sir William Draper, 3d ed. (London, 1769), 29.
and they continued to demand the suppression of the right of speech.
One of the first anti-slavery speeches that it was my privilege to hear
after my escape from bondage, was delivered in New Bedford by a man
whose name you would not guess if you guessed until midnight. It was by
none other than by the Hon. Caleb Cushing.19Douglass often reminisced about hearing Caleb Cushing and other antislavery speakers at Liberty Hall in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Frederick Douglass, “Reminiscences,” Cosmopolitan, 12: 378 (August 1889).
Caleb Cushing was my first abolition preacher and teacher. He de-
fended John Quincy Adams in his anti-slavery course in Congress?20In his maiden speech to the Twenty-fourth Congress, on 30 January 1836, Caleb Cushing joined John Quincy Adams's defense of the abolitionists’ right to petition. Claude M. Feuss, The Life of Caleb Cashing, 2 vols. (1923; Hamden, Conn., 1965), 1: 181-85; Samuel Flagg Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Union (New York, 1956), 334-40. It was
glorious to hear him. But he was only with us for a while, and like some
other men he went off and we heard nothing more of him on the subject of
slavery on the right side of the question. I was more fortunate a few years
afterward in hearing the chief apostle of abolitionism21William Lloyd Garrison.—an apostle imme-
diate and unconditional, universally and everlastingly an emancipationist—
a leader more fortunate than Wilberforce,22William Wilberforce. and who lives to-day
to see in its glory the cause which he espoused in its reproach and shame.
When I first looked upon him I felt that he was the right man in the right
place. His speaking as I now remember it was not eloquent. He was not
fluent, but he realized to me a description of the true reformer given by
Emerson: “There was a man behind every word he uttered.”23In manuscript versions of this lecture, Douglass reported Ralph Waldo Emerson's statement as “It was not the utterance, but the silent man behind it." Speech File, reel 18, frame 191, reel 19, frame 113, FD Papers, DLC. He was then
young, though of venerable appearance. There was in him a strange blend-
ing of youth and age. The battle of life had already begun with him, and
early it was sharp and severe. He was then just entering upon the first
decade of his anti-slavery career. Bitter persecutions had poured out their
vials of wrath upon him. Two States had offered a reward for his head.24William Lloyd Garrison was no stranger to bounties when, in late 1835, an anonymous Marylander informed him of a $20,000 reward for his head offered by six unidentified Mississippians. On 30 November 1831, the Georgia legislature resolved to grant a $5,000 reward to persons responsible for his arrest and trial in that state. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (1885; New York, 1969), 1: 247-49, 517 (hereafter cited as Garrison Life); Merrill, Against Wind and Tide, 53-54. He
had been dragged through the streets amid the fury of a mob in Boston for
daring to plead the cause of the slave. He had felt the damp walls of more
than one prison. He had been threatened on all sides with death, and yet
there he stood, calm and serene and unmoved, showing no passion, no
violence, as proud in spirit as the morning star. When that man shall have
filled up the measure of his years, when he shall have finished his course on
earth, when his memory shall be gathered as a fresh incense, as it will be
among the emancipated millions down through future generations, we may
write over his sleeping dust the name of
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON,
The man to whom more than any other in this Republic we are indebted for
the triumph we are celebrating to-day.
ARGUMENTS FOR SLAVERY.
You may be curious to know what arguments were resorted to in
support of slavery in the early days when I ran away to the North. In all
these arguments one peculiar fact is noticeable, and that is the great friendship
shown for the negro. The profoundest interest was felt in our welfare.
It was said, for instance,
“THE NEGRO CANNOT TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF.”
But how do we find it? I have never had any difficulty in taking care of
myself, and I have passed pretty successfully, for a negro, through all parts
of the country. (Laughter.)
It was said they were better off in slavery. “They are contented and
happy and would not be free if they could,” they said. They argued that
they would all come North. They would not work without masters. Is that
so? (Cries of “no, no.”) I hope not. They said they were worse off in
Africa. I used to hear the gospel preached when I was a slave until 1 had the
back ache. They used to preach from one text namely:
SERVANTS OBEY YOUR MASTERS.25A paraphrase of Eph. 6: 5, Col. 3: 22, Titus 2: 9.
The negro can never be improved; the negro is only fit to be a slave.
That was the kind of argument that was used. You will never put down
slavery on God’s earth, was another kind of argument. You put back the
cause 50 years. You are only making their condition worse, and you had
better mind your own business. Why don’t you go South. Somebody asked
Wendell Philips, “Mr. Philips what are you doing?” “Well, I am preaching
against slavery.” “Why don’t you go South?” “Well,” said Mr. Philips,
“What are you doing?” “I am preaching the gospel.” “Well, why don’t
you go to —.”26Douglass recalls a story related by Wendell Phillips in which the latter encountered a minister during a lecture engagement in Cincinnati “in the old antislavery days.” Louis Filler, ed., Wendell Phillips on Civil Rights and Freedom (New York, 1965), xxiii-xxiv. (Laughter and applause.)
Many other arguments were used. What would you do with the negroes
if you had them all? Would you associate with a negro? Would you allow
your daughter to marry a negro? Would you turn them loose? They are all
loose enough to-day. (Laughter.) Well, it was said I hate slavery as bad as
you do, but 1 would leave the question with the South. I hate slavery, but I
am for gradual emancipation. Some said that they were sending the negroes
back to Africa where they came from, while others argued that the Bible
sanctioned slavery. These were the arguments by which slavery was sup-
ported, and scarcely a better service could be done the abolitionists than to
have one or two of these arguments jeered out at public meetings against
them. Our abolition meetings were our chief instruments in promoting anti-
slavery sentiments. These were very often queer kinds of meetings.
The noise in the building was so great at this point that Mr. Douglass
stopped, saying that he had a great desire to make his speech, but he was
afraid that he could not be heard but a few feet. He announced that if a
suitable hall could be engaged he would speak on Tuesday evening on an
entirely different subject—that of Self-made Men.27Douglass delivered his lecture “Self-Made Men" to a predominantly black audience at Judah Hall in Louisville, Kentucky, on the evening of 22 April 1873. Louisville (Ky.) Commercial, 23 April 1873; Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal, 23 April 1873. He continued as
follows:
I WANT TO SAY A WORD, HOWEVER,
To my colored brethren and sisters in view of their new relations to our
fellow-citizens. We have come up from the depths, and let us not forget the
new condition in which we are to-day. It has brought not only rights but
duties which we are equally bound to discharge. We have entered in the
laws of the land, our freedom. More than those that have been asserted for
us—equality before the law, and equality at the ballot box. Now, equality
here implies equality elsewhere. There is no power in the local legisla-
ture—no power anywhere beneath the sky outside of yourselves that can
make you the equal of your white fellow-citizens in point of intelligence, in
point of moral rectitude, in point of usefulness to society. We say we are the
equals of the whites. Are we? Are we at present the equals of the whites?
Equal before the law we are, equal at the ballot box we are, but we are far
behind our white brethren. Now in what are we behind. I do not undertake
to say why we are so, just yet, but I want all to feel and know that we are in
the rear and not in the front. If the white man can build a ship and navigate
that ship around the world, and we can only build a canoe, they are a whole
ship’s length ahead of us. If the white man can construct a bridge and fling
it across that magnificent river rolling along at the feet of this city28The Louisville bridge over the Ohio River, designed by the German-born engineer Albert Fink, had the longest channel span of any bridge in the United States at the time of its completion in 1869. Henry Grattan Tyrell, History of Bridge Engineering (Chicago, 1911), 176; Wilbur J. Watson and Sara Ruth Watson, Bridges in History and Legend (Cleveland, 1937), 200-01. and we
cannot do it, then they are a bridge ahead of us. If the white man can make
books and we cannot, they are books ahead of us. If the white man can
build magnificent halls like this29The organizers of the Louisville Industrial Exposition had a spacious building expressly constructed at the corner of Fourth and Chesnut streets for their annual event. Louisville Past and Present: Its Industrial History as Exhibited in the Life-labors of Its Leading Men (Louisville, 1875), 40. and we cannot, they are halls ahead of us.
I do not say that naturally we are unequal to the white man. I would not say
that, but the fact is that now they are in advance of us. What is our duty in
view of that fact? It is to build up, is it not? It is to use the opportunities that
we have for the improvement of our condition, for improving our intellect,
for improving our manners, improving our order, improving our punc-
tuality, and improving our integrity. We are called to the discharge of new
duties, and it won’t do to sit down in the chimney comers and say I don’t
know, when we ought to know—when we should be endeavoring to make
use of the opportunities that we have for knowing, and fill our minds with
something more than dressed up emptiness.
I would like to talk to you when there were no white people listening to
me. I would like to talk to you aside. When I go into a colored man’s house
now when they used not to allow you to have books, I begin to want to see
books lying around, I want to see papers there. I do not want it to be said if
the whole negro race were blotted out there would be nothing left in two
hundred years to tell they ever had an existence; that they never read any,
never labored any, they never published any books or periodicals, they
never made any advance in science or knowledge. They used to say that of
us, but this must not be said two hundred years hence. The doors of
THE SCHOOL-HOUSES ARE OPEN,
And we, we betide our race if we fail to embrace the opportunities for the
cultivation of our minds, for the improvements of our intellects. It will not
do to find the negroes twenty years after emancipation where they were
twenty years before. No power could sustain us in this.
Another thing we must have. We must have some money. We must
learn to save it and
MAKE OURSELVES INDEPENDENT.
That is a condition of responsibility. No people can be respected who are
not independent; a man may pity you if you have not got money, but he
cannot respect you. He may be sorry for you, poor fellow, and wish you
had some, but he has not respect for you. But the trouble with many of us
now is that as soon as we get money we want to travel. Ask a colored man in
Chicago how long he has lived there, and he will say about six months.
“Well, where did you come from when you came to Chicago?” He an-
swers, “I came from Detroit.” “How long did you live in Detroit.” About
three months. “Well, where did you live before you went to Detroit?” “I
came from Buffalo, N.Y., and lived there about three months. (Laughter.) I
have been traveling all over, and as soon as I got money enough I came to
this place.” Old age overtakes such a man and then what? Here it is
Ethiopia stretching forth his hand again.30Douglass slightly misquotes Ps. 68: 31. He is always stretching out his
hand. The only way you can make yourself respected is to get
SOMETHING SOMEBODY ELSE WANTS.
There are ways opening up for all of you. Let every colored man see in
it that if he gains five dollars per week that he will lay up one dollar of it; if
he makes ten dollars lay by two of them—put them in the Freedmen’s
Savings Bank where it will breed some more. There one thousand dollars at
the end of the year will gain sixty more. Put it in there where it is safe. I
believe in it. I have got a little money up there, and I am going to take some
from here and put in there.31The U.S. Congress had authorized the establishment of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company on 3 March 1865 to meet the growing financial needs of newly emancipated blacks. The bank eventually opened thirty-seven branches in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. In Life and Times Douglass reported that after moving to Washington, D.C., he had “entrusted . . . about twelve thousand dollars" in the Freedman’s Bank. The nationwide economic panic that hit in 1873 uncovered serious financial weaknesses in the bank owing to incompetent and corrupt management. A reorganized board of trustees appointed Douglass as the bank’s president in hopes of restoring public confidence in its solvency. At that time, Douglass loaned the institution a further ten thousand dollars. When the bank nevertheless failed in July 1874, Douglass shared the fate of fellow investors. He eventually received sixty-two cents on the dollar for the two thousand dollars he still had deposited when the bank closed. Douglass described his involvement with the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company at U.S. Senate investigation hearings on 14 and 19 February 1880. Douglass, Life and Times, 442-48; Carl R. Osthaus, Freedmen, Philanthropy, and Fraud: A History of the Freedman’s Savings Bank (Urbana, Ill., 1976), 183-99, 211-13. (Laughter.)
When I ran away and came North I worked for nine dollars per month
and saved money. For twenty-five years, or nearly so I worked for $400 per
year and saved money, and every man in this country, who is a man, can
save money if he will. But he will not save it by walking the streets and
smoking cigars. He will not save it by playing billiards on one of your back
streets. I dislike a miser yet a miser is more respectable than a spendthrift.
Let us take a lesson from the Jews. Perhaps a more despised, hated, and
persecuted set of people never lived than the Jewish people. In Europe they
were not allowed to live upon the same side of the city with other people.
They were allowed no privileges at all scarcely.
But now where is the Jew. At this hour the Jewish people dictate the
policy of the people of the North. Somebody, it is said, offered to make
Rothschild32Probably a reference to Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1808-79), the British financier. At the death of his father, Nathan Meyer Rothschild, in 1836, he succeeded to the management of the vast financial enterprises of the London-based branch of his family. His company made numerous loans to the British and other European governments. Rothschild also was active in efforts to ameliorate the treatment of Jews in eastern Europe. His election in 1847 as a Whig member of Parliament from London created a controversy about the eligibility of non-Christians to hold that office, which was not resolved in his favor until 1858. Richard Davis, The English Rothschilds (London, 1983), 27, 58-59, 68-74, 129, 133; DNB, 17: 304-06. the King of the Jews if he would advance so much money. He
preferred not to advance it, as he had rather be the Jew of kings than the
king of the Jews. They are respected now. Here we lift our hats and bow to
the Jew. Why? Because he has got money. Because he lives in a good
house. He does not put it all on his back. His windows are not stuffed with
old hats to keep the cold away. He saves his money. Now we have got to do
the same thing—there is no other way for us to do. It is not necessary that
every black man should be a rich man, but we must have a representative
class at any rate. There must be an actual number of representatives of
intelligence and wealthy men. We are not to blame for our present condi-
tion. No, no, no. We have come up from the depths, and I am not reproach-
ing you for being poor. How could we be otherwise than poor, starting as
we have? I am simply warning you that you may better your condition.
Some of us have been taught from boyhood to despise wealth. That is a
great mistake. Some say let my children do as I did; our ancestors did
nothing for us, and we will do nothing for those who come after us. The
first of Louisville was built one story high. The fathers died and left it one
story high. Their children put on another story and left it two stories high,
and their children put on another story, until now Louisville is five and six
stories high. If the first story had been left, there never would have been but
one story still. We must determine to leave our children in better circum-
stance than we found them. Some such feeling as this is necessary.
Now I leave you. I believe I have done my duty, although I have been
imperfectly heard. I rejoice that I have met with the people of Louisville. I
have found more intelligence, more refinement, more heart, more manly
character among the colored people of Louisville than I expected to find in
this State, where it cannot be denied that there have been restrictions
operating around you.33Although Kentucky’s Civil Rights Act of February 1866 spelled the demise of that state's slave code, it nevertheless denied blacks the right to sit on juries and to testify against whites. The resultant liability provided an argument for the continued presence of the Freedmen's Bureau within the state. Black Kentuckians also suffered discrimination in regard to the punishment legislated for those convicted of raping white women, the application of the Homestead Act, and the promulgation of a special poll tax to support black paupers and schools. By 1872 blacks had achieved legislative relief on these matters. But despite such reforms freedmen remained subject to the terrorist activities and depredations of whites who variously styled themselves “Regulators” and “Redeemers.” Du Bois, Black Reconstruction, 566-71; E. Merton Coulter, The Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky (Chapel Hill, 1926), 340-65; Ross A. Webb, Kentucky in the Reconstruction Era (Lexington, Ky., 1979), 36-61. I rejoice to find the intelligence, the manhood, the
dignity, the courage that I have found among the colored people of this city.
Go on, and ways will open before you by which you can improve your
condition and make yourselves useful, honorable, happy and prosperous
citizens.