Speeches_VolumeOne_Introduction
Introduction to Series One
Frederick Douglass assumed many roles in his lifetime—slave, fugitive, author, newspaper editor, civil servant, diplomat, and lecturer. Through them all he was primarily a reformer, and he believed that reformers did their best work at the lectern. Douglass's intensity as reformer and lecturer varied with time and circumstance, but perhaps reached its zenith during the twenty years preceding the Civil War. His reformist zeal did not abate with the abolition of slavery nor did his enthusiasm for lecturing decrease, but with changes in his life came changes in the type and frequency of his speeches.1Detailed biographical information on Douglass can be found in Benjamin Quarles, Frederick Douglass (1948; New York, 1969; hereafter cited as FD) and Philip S. Foner, Frederick Douglass (New York, 1964). Critical systematic treatments of Douglass's oratory are rare. There are, however, some suggestive theories in Robert T. Oliver, History of Public Speaking in America (Boston, 1965), 245-53; Frank W. Hale, "Frederick Douglass: Antislavery Crusader and Lecturer," Journal of Human Relations, 14: 100-11 (Fourth Quarter, 1966); idem, "A Critical Analysis of the Speaking of Frederick Douglass" (M.A. thesis, University of Nebraska, 1951); Cornelius A. Ladner, "A Critical Analysis of Four Anti-Slavery Speeches of Frederick Douglass" (M.A. thesis, State University of Iowa, 1947); J. W. Cooke, "Freedom in the Thoughts of Frederick Douglass: 1845-1860," Negro History Bulletin, 32: 6-10 (February 1969).
Douglass made his first address to a predominantly white audience in August 1841. Twenty-three years old and just three years out of Maryland slavery, he introduced themes which would consume him for the next two decades—southern slavery and northern racial prejudice. This first speech prompted an invitation to join the Massachusetts AntiSlavery Society as a lecturer. Fifty-four years later, Douglass returned home after attending a women's rights convention and died at his desk. During the years separating those events, Douglass advised presidents, edited newspapers, wrote three autobiographies and one novella, served as Recorder of Deeds and Marshal for the District of Columbia and Consul General to Haiti, and lectured literally thousands of times.
Douglass's speaking career resists comfortable categories. He usually spoke as an advocate, but he also gave scientific addresses; he stumped extemporaneously for abolitionism and Republicanism, but he also gave thoughtfully prepared ceremonial addresses. He was an underpaid antislavery lecturer, but later he commanded $200 per speech; yet in the intervening years he often spoke for expenses only. Many of his
early speeches were delivered out of doors, but he later found audiences in some of the finest churches and halls in America, England, Scotland, Ireland, Haiti, Egypt, and Italy.
There is little evidence that Douglass read many of the popular nineteenth-century guides to oratory. Instead, he derived his first rhetorical theories from the black preacher and the slave story teller. Douglass's apprenticeship as a speaker was in bondage. He heard ministers move audiences in black churches and at camp meetings in Baltimore, absorbed the tales of slaves, and participated in debates with six free blacks in the meetings of the East Baltimore Moral Improvement Society. These experiences and his reading of Caleb Bingham's (1797) helped to shape Douglass's earliest rhetorical ideas.2Frederick Douglass, (New York, 1855), 157-59; Caleb Bingham, ed., (1797; Boston, 1831); Washington (D.C.) , 6 July 1871. The contained short extracts from speeches by William Pitt, Charles Fox, George Washington, Thomas Muir, and Cicero, as well as plays and poems extolling patriotism, courage, education, temperance, and freedom. It was the dialogues, orations, and plays denouncing slavery and oppression that most impressed Douglass. More significant for Douglass's later career, however, was Bingham's twentytwo-page essay, "General Directions for Speaking."
Although Bingham asserted that the effective orator "must be a man," he placed considerable stress on the voice and gestures of public speakers. "Natural" was the word which appeared most often in his rules. Bingham urged the orator to employ natural gestures, to alter his facial expressions, to vary the cadence of his sentences, to repeat key words, to pronounce words naturally and distinctly. To avoid monotony, the speaker should vary the tone of the voice: "It rises, sinks, and has various inflections given it, according to the present state and disposition of the mind. . . . It is the orator's business . . . to follow nature, and to endeavor that the tone of his voice appear natural and unaffected." A speaker, Bingham contended, should "distinguish those words in a sentence which we esteem the most important" by placing vocal emphasis on them.3Bingham, , 10, 14. The tone of voice should change at each stage of a speech. "To speak low at first has the appearance of modesty and is best for the voice. . . . In the narration the voice ought to be raised to somewhat a higher pitch. . . . The proposition, or subject of the discourse
should be delivered with a very clear and audible voice. . . . The confirmation admits of great variety both of voice and gesture. In reasoning the voice is quick and pungent. . . . Where he introduces another person speaking, or addresses an absent person, it should be with some degree of imitation. And in dialogue, the voice should alter with the parts. . . . In the conclusion, both the voice and gesture should be brisk and sprightly."4Ibid., 25-27. Bingham was equally meticulous about a speaker's gestures; anger, sadness, levity, resentment, sorrow, pride, humility, and hatred could all be conveyed by movements of the head, hands, shoulders, eyes, and changes in facial expression. The speaker should be erect in posture and active, moving naturally about the platform: "The motions of the body should rise . . . in proportion to the vehemence and energy of the expression, as the natural and genuine effect of it."5Ibid., 20
Douglass's earliest antislavery speeches not only faithfully followed Bingham's oratorical rules but included a few of the phrases, the sentence structure, and the play on words appearing in the selections in the .6Douglass, , 157-59. Compare, for instance, various passages appearing in the , 72, 75, 105, 112, 240—42 with similar ones recurring in Douglass's speeches printed below. At the same time, he began to find new sources for his ideas and rhetorical theories. Chief among these were the popular lectures he heard while residing in New Bedford (1838-1842) and Lynn (1842-1847), Massachusetts, and Rochester, New York (1847-1872). Among the lecturers Douglass heard were Wendell Phillips, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Giles, and William H. Channing. In addition, Douglass was an avid reader, and he drew heavily on contemporary newspapers, pamphlets, the Bible, and Shakespeare for the content and style of his speeches. Henry W. Longfellow and John Greenleaf Whittier were his favorite poets, and he enjoyed the novels of Charles Dickens and Alexandre Dumas. He also read Edmund Burke, Alfred Tennyson, William Cullen Bryant, Robert Browning, William M. Thackeray, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.7P. Dolores Perry, "Frederick Douglass: Editor and Journalist," (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1972), 241-50; Jane Marsh Parker, "Reminiscences of Frederick Douglass," , 51: 552-53 (April 1895); (Philadelphia, 1897) 37, 214; Richard Greener, "Reminiscences of Frederick Douglass," , 1: 291-95 (February 1917); , 15 August 1844; , 2 December 1892.
The pages of Douglass's journals give the clearest evidence of his rhetorical theory after 1847. Commenting on speeches he heard in Rochester or penning editorials on those reprinted in his newspapers, Douglass analysed those elements he found appealing in oratory.8, 15 April, 11 November 1853; 9, 16 March, 20 April 1855. For similar rhetorical theories of other nineteenth-century orators, see Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "Hints on Speech-Making," , 73: 952-56 (November 1886); William A. Behl, "Theorore Roosevelt's Principles of Speech Preparation and Delivery," , 12: 112-22 (1945); Roy S. Azarnoff, "Walt Whitman's Concept of the Oratorical Ideal," , 47: 169-72 (April 1961); Glenn E. Mills, "Daniel Webster's Principles of Rhetoric," , 9: 124-40 (1942). Ennobling sentiments, "chaste" language, sincerity, moral heroism, and consistency were, he contended, essential for an effective speech. An orator should feel
himself supported by the Almighty, and by all the powers of the universe; and a conscious personal consistency as well. Thus armed, a worm can thrash a mountain; but without this, all speech is vain babbling. A good sermon from a bad preacher—a righteous denunciation from a bad man—a command to serve God emanating from the devil—an exhortation to give liberty to the oppressed by one not inspired by love for the oppressed, are unavailing and worthless.— There must be harmony between the speaker and the thing spoken, or there is no power, point or significance in the address.9, 6 January 1854.
Effective speeches were logical, clear, comprehensive, symmetrical, and revealed "quickness and carefulness of observation," and "a wide range of information, extensive research, with admirable taste and judgment." Douglass rejected ornate, "silvery speech" in favor of simple, direct, unadorned language. And he felt original ideas and organization were so important in speeches that "Lecturers should enjoy a copyright, as well as others."10Ibid., 11 November 1853, 8 December 1854. See also Washington (D.C.) , 11 October 1879.
For Douglass, part of the force and vigor of a good speech resulted from marshalling essential facts and communicating ideas in brief compass. His favorite model was the Sermon on the Mount, which said a great deal in a short length of time. Writing about the lecturer in 1854, Douglass asserted: "This distinguished and useful functionary is a modern invention, called forth by the increasing demands of restless human
nature. His office is to communicate knowledge to make men wise, happy and free.—Most honorable work, surely: He performs the work of instruction on a grand, yet economical scale, dispensing to thousands what before was only received by fifties, and doing in one hour what before could only be accomplished in weeks."11, 13 January 1854.
Reform orators needed special qualities: "strong nerve . . . , determined will, moral courage, strong powers of analysis, depth and breadth of concentration, indomitable perserverance, [and] correct judgment." They had to combine these qualities with a tongue that could "sting like a thousand scorpions" and a pen that could "manufacture words of fire" and be sustained by "superhuman energy and almost unearthly power."12Ibid., 29 June 1855. For some modern critical theories of reform orators, see Mary G. Edwards, "Agitative Rhetoric: Its Nature and Effect," , 32: 36-43 (Winter 1968); Paul D. Brandes, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1971), 1-15. Yet Douglass's reform lecturers need not be intellectuals: "men of heart rather than learning, are needed. The slave's cause requires no more learning to set it forth than was required to set Christianity forth. A few illiterate fishermen were the first preachers of the Gospel; and men as unlearned as they can preach the gospel of antislavery."13, 17 February 1854.
Although he embraced and encouraged all methods of generating "anti-slavery light," Douglass believed lecturing was the most effective abolitionist tool: "Speech! Speech! The live, calm, grave, clear, pointed, warm, sweet, melodious, and powerful human voice is [the] chosen instrumentality." He credited the printed word with effectiveness on some subjects, but "humanity, justice and liberty demand the service of the living human voice." Proslavery advocates in the North used the print media effectively ("Ink and paper have no shame,") he declared, but "the pro-slavery clergy and doughface politicians" were more affected by antislavery meetings and face-to-face confrontations: "they know that slavery is a poor orator when confronted by an abolitionist and they wisely keep silent."14, 23 November 1849.
Lecturing was a total experience for Frederick Douglass, not confined solely to his delivery of a speech and to crowd reaction. Equally important were the peripheral details: the homes visited and halls lectured in, friends who aided and enemies who hindered, mob violence,
snow storms, Jim Crow, dirty trains, rude conductors, and boring companions. Douglass drew strength from traveling and lecturing. "I am," he wrote in the spring of 1852, "cheered and strengthened" by "my lecturing tour."15, 8 April 1852. This theme of lecturing as a total experience—traveling and meeting people as well as speaking—was one to which Douglass returned throughout his life.16, 23 November 1849; Frederick Douglass' Paper, 13 May 1852.
Incidents from his travels affected Douglass's mercurial estimates of American prejudice. He met with discrimination everywhere. Stagecoach drivers, ship captains, and railroad conductors tried to separate him from white passengers; innkeepers and hotel owners denied him rooms; restaurant owners tried to force him to eat at a table set apart from those of whites. Douglass resisted these efforts, suing transportation companies, refusing to leave hotels and restaurants, and rejecting segregated seating arrangements for his audiences. He challenged whites to explain their prejudices, and appealed to sympathizers for support. When a proprietor attempted to justify barring Douglass from his establishment by claiming white customers would object to his presence, Douglass responded by finding whites who would accept him as a dinner companion or as a fellow passenger.17Syracuse (N.Y.) , 7 February 1872; , 17 June 1849; New York , 11 July 1850; Syracuse (N.Y.) , 21 September 1850, 31 May 1852; Concord (N.H.) , 15 September 1841; Beloit (Wis.) , 17 February 1859; Janesville (Wis.) , 14 February 1859; Cleveland (O.) , 5 September 1885; Washington (D.C.) , 20 April 1889; Detroit (Mich.) Plaindealer, 24 June, 26 August 1892. In a typical confrontation, when the proprietor of a restaurant refused him entrance, Douglass inquired, "Has any one any objection to Fred Douglass eating dinner here? A hearty and universal No" was the response. The proprietor capitulated.18Homestead (Pa.) Journal, 25 August 1852. Douglass fought discrimination by writing letters to local newspapers, calling for boycotts, and organizing protest meetings against offending businesses. He also referred to such incidents in his speeches.19, 17 June 1849; Washington (D.C.) , 1 February 1872.
Incidents of discrimination were so common as Douglass traveled from town to town that he regarded them as a genre. He was unable to travel anywhere "without calling forth illustrations of the dark spirit of slavery at every step," as he recorded euphemistically in his journal.
The fault, according to some, was Douglass's "saucy, insolent and presumptuous" posture and his assumption of "rights and privileges" usually denied blacks; if he traveled and acted with black proscriptions, his troubles would cease.20Beloit (Wis.) , 17 February 1859. Douglass agreed. But in his travels he demanded the same rights and privileges as whites "not merely because it is right," he wrote, "and not because I like to outrage public sentiment, but because it is highly expedient as a means of dispelling prejudice and of establishing sound views of human equality." Douglass continued to court those encounters, for he believed "prejudice is never weaker than when put upon its defense."21, 13 May 1852.
Douglass's reception during his lectures measured the progress of abolition sentiment. His judgments were mixed, but he was quick to praise towns and locales that welcomed him, or perhaps just let him speak—out in the provinces he took small victories where he found them, while continuing the pressure for larger gains.
Douglass perfected a technique by publicizing in the and the reception given lecturers. Prior to visiting Ithaca, New York, in the 1850s he recalled in his paper his reception there a decade past. "It was a dark place at that time," he announced—no home to stay in, no hall or church to speak in, and a local ruffian threatening him for trying to speak in the public square "where even the dogs are allowed to bark." But Douglass reported to his readers that he was well received on the return visit. A similar report came from Manchester, New Hampshire, which in 1855 Douglass heralded for its progress. Ten years before, for lack of a local abolition ist friend to promote his lecture and for lack of a lecture hall, he had been forced to go into the streets with a dinner bell to announce his outdoor speech. "Now the finest hall in the city is open and crowds attend." That was a benchmark of progress for Douglass: "Anti-slavery lecturers are becoming day after day, less and less, the victims of that relentless ostracism of which they have hitherto been the recipients."22Ibid., 16 July 1852, 3 February 1854, 29 June 1855.
The tour was replete with discomforts both physical and emotional. Douglass complained, for instance, of traveling by wagon in what he described as "one of those pinching, rasping and pitiless snow storms for which [New Hampshire] is famous." Nor did he relish the noise, dust, smoke, or jarring effect of train travel. But rail discomforts only
hinted at the drawbacks of public transportation. Douglass complained of being unable to pass "unnoticed and unobserved." He referred not to racial confrontations, which more often than not he turned to didactic advantage, but rather to " a queer sort of notoriety" which seemed to make him "fair game for every bore . . . who may have happened to have seen, heard or read of 'Fred. Douglass.' " In a generous mood, Douglass proposed that those encounters sprang from the public's overestimating his amiability; but on reflection he reconsidered. "It is not our amiable disposition so much as our dark complexion which allows anybody and everybody to claim a portion of our time and attention." The patronising air of these social interlopers offended Douglass as much as their intrusion into his time and privacy—"almost everybody appears to think that our Negro ship will be highly delighted by any marks of their consideration—that they will be pouring balm onto a wounded soul by allowing themselves to be seen giving us the most condescending recognization."23Ibid., 3 February, 11 August 1854.
Like the speeches of most nineteenth-century orators, Douglass's were long, averaging about two hours in length. Usually other orators preceded him with shorter addresses. Performances by bands and singers might begin an evening meeting starting at 7:30 P.M. and ending at midnight. Listening to orations was a favorite nineteenth-century pastime and even Douglass's longest addresses were sometimes too short for his audiences; standing in crowded halls, seated on uncomfortable benches, or gathered in the open air, they were held spellbound by his oratory. One reporter recalled, for example, that Douglass appeared in Philadelphia in 1852 and "spoke for two hours to an audience which filled every seat and packed the aisles. Ten o'clock came and he stopped amid the cries, 'Go on! go on.' He stopped and said: 'I don't often have a chance to talk to such an audience of friends. You who are standing are certainly wearied. We will take a five minute recess and allow any to retire.' The time was up and he spoke for another hour and a quarter, and not a man or woman left the audience."24Detroit (Mich.) , 10 February 1893.
Douglass's speaking style received considerable attention. Heralded as one of the finest nineteenth-century orators, Douglass was, by all accounts, naturally skilled, without affectation or studied moves and gestures. "His style," according to James M. Gregory, who wrote of Douglass as an orator, was "peculiarly his own," not imitative. When
speaking, Douglass was the "master of every weapon," effectively using a variety of oratorical tools and techniques: wit, humor, pathos, ridicule, satire, anecdotes, illustrations, and intellectual and emotional appeals; and he was apt to mix them all in one address.25James M. Gregory, (Springfield, Mass., 1893), 89; , 20 April 1849; Cork (Ire.) , 20 , 22, 27 October 1845; Limerick (Ire.) , 11 November 1845; Arbroath (Scot.) , 14 February 1846; London (Eng.) , 19 May 1846; Manchester (Eng.) , 5 December 1846. The Washington correspondent of the Philadelphia , J. W. Forney, reporting an 1864 Douglass speech, declared, "He is alternately argumentative and plaintive, pathetic and humorous, never declamatory, never placing himself in an oratorical attitude, and never making what are vulgarly called points. Easy, graceful, natural, I do not know when I have listened to a more agreeable and instructive public speaker."26, 10 December 1864. These superlatives can only suggest the effect he had on listeners.
Physically, Douglass commanded the platform. Over six feet tall (large by nineteenth-century standards), and more brown than black, he had an imposing presence—"bold," "manly," "striking," "massive," "colossal," and "majestic" were commonly used descriptions. Strong, broad-shouldered, and handsome, Douglass's features conveyed "repressed rage," self-control, dignity, and "unyielding firmness."27, 15 March 1844, 29 August 1849, 27 August 1850. , 186, 290, 307, 331, 333; William Stanley Braithwaithe, "I Saw Frederick Douglass," , 6: 36-39 (January 1948); Pauline E. Hopkins, "Hon. Frederick Douglass," , 11: 121-32 (December 1900); Ida Gibbs Hunt, "Recollections of Frederick Douglass," , 16: 202-03 (June 1953); Greener, "Reminiscences," 291-95; Newcastle (Eng.) , 1 August 1846; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "The American Lecture System," , 18: 55 (May 1868); Kenosha (Wis.) , 4 November 1854; Philadelphia (Pa.) , 18 October 1855. Ebeneezer D. Bassett, America's first black minister to Haiti, recalled that Douglass's
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 imposing 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.
J. E. Rankin, president of Howard University, said Douglass appeared on the platform "with the dignity and grace of a courtier, and the bearing of a king."28, 35, 198, 250.
A large part of Douglass's command of the platform came from his sonorous voice. Rankin called Douglass's voice "of unequaled depth and volume and power." Other contemporaries used such terms as "organ-like," "stentorian," and "thunderous" to describe Douglass's voice. He made full use of a variety of tones. The Akron (O.) reported in 1850, "His voice is full and rich, and his enunciation remarkably distinct and musical. He speaks in a low conversational tone most of the time, but occasionally his tones roll out full and deep as those of an organ. The effect is electrical."29Quoted in , 17 August 1850.
"There was no affectation, no claptrap in his manner or matter," the wrote of Douglass's platform style. "There was no striving after effect, very little gesticulation."30Ibid. Always nervous when he stepped on the platform, Douglass's manner at the beginning and the end of a speech contrasted sharply. When taking the lectern his hands frequently trembled. He used few gestures. Speaking slowly, almost quietly, capturing his listeners by making them strain to hear, he gradually increased the intensity of his delivery. Commenting on Douglass's platform manner, in 1855 a Philadelphia journalist asserted: "He usually commences his speech with true Virginia nonchalance, and proceeds as though entirely indifferent to what effects his remarks may have upon his audience."31Philadelphia (Pa.) , 18 October 1855.
The "nonchalance" reporters noted was a nineteenth-century oratorical convention: usually orators began a speech humbly by proclaiming their unfitness for the occasion, lack of training or new ideas. Douglass was a master of this introductory technique and used it effectively to establish rapport with his audiences. The apparent "indifference" was a misreading of the conversational tone and absence of gestures at the
start of a Douglass oration. An 1844 correspondent captured more of the essentials of Douglass's platform manner when he reported the fugitive had delighted a New Bedford audience. "He spoke calmly and deliberately at first; but as he went on . . . his voice grew louder, clearer and deeper."32, 15 March 1844.
The rising crescendo of Douglass's voice was matched by increasing gestures, changes in facial expression, and movements about the platform. After the first few minutes Douglass became bold, emphatic, and aggressive at the lectern—sure of his purpose and subject. Once warmed to the task, the muscles of his mouth twitched in excitement and "his whole frame quivered with emotion."33, 15 August 1844, 14 December 1861. As he approached his peroration, "his eyes flashed, his face lighted up, his voice rose and swelled like the notes of an organ and rang in stentorian tones over the audience, he moved more rapidly about the platform and his gestures grew more animated. . . . Then, stepping to the front of the platform with head thrown back, outstretched arms and voice that rang out like a clarion," Douglass concluded.34William H. Ferris, "Douglass as an Orator," , 1: 296-99 (February 1917).
Dramatic skill contributed heavily to Douglass's success as an orator. On the platform, he was a tragedian, a comic, a mimic, and an occasional singer.35, 18 February 1842; , 11 November 1847 , 22 February 1862; William Wells Brown, (London, 1852), 260. Throughout the antebellum period observers frequently noted Douglass's imitative powers; a favorite with audiences was his mimicry of proslavery ministers. Reporting on one meeting in 1842, the declared that when Douglass spoke of Southern white ministers, "he evinced great imitative powers, in an exhibition of their style of preaching to the slaves. . . . His graphic mimicry of Southern priestly whining and sophistry was replete with humor and apparent truth." Thomas Wentworth Higginson asserted that Douglass "was a perfect mimic. He could reproduce anything."36, 4 November 1842; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, (Cleveland, 1901), 87-89. See also William Robinson, 6 (Boston, 1877), 468-69.
Included in Douglass's repertoire were John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and a host of other public figures. In 1853 a reporter for the Washington (D.C.) penned a graphic description
of Douglass's impersonations during a Pittsburgh speech in the 1840s. At that time, Clay and Calhoun in the Senate, and Webster, as Secretary of State, were demanding that the British return the slaves who had rebelled on the and sailed to Nassau.
Douglass put them all upon the stage before us. . . . There in that charmed atmosphere the magician reared the National Capitol, opened the Senate Chamber, and represented to a miracle the men we had thought were without a model or a shadow. It was even terrible to our sympathies, so deeply enlisted, to witness the daring of that unlettered slave, attempting the personification of Clay, Calhoun and Webster, in action, thought, and utterance. Gracefully athletic in his flow of thought as Clay in his happiest mood, when he presented him arguing the right of restitution—terribly concentrative as Calhoun in vindicating the international obligation, and ponderously logical as Webster in expounding the doctrine of the demand. His astounding power of transformation, his perfect clearness of discrimination, and his redundant ability in the execution, more than justified the audacity of the design. To see one man with all the varied capacity of all these three, mixing them up, without confusion or mistake, in the puppet show of his imagination, and playing upon them at his pleasure, was verily a sight to see. But the better burlesque of the American Eagle, with the Secretary's missive tucked under his wing, pouncing down upon the British Lion, and screaming in his ears "not those words of mortal terror to the tyrant beast—all men are free and equal—so ruefully remembered; not the dreadful battle cry—Free Trade and Sailor's Rights—to start his recent wounds afresh; but—but—I want my niggers!" That capped the climax. . . .37Washington (D.C.) , 28 July 1853. See also , 217; Mary Church Terrell, "I Remember Frederick Douglass," , 8: 73-80 (October 1953).
A voice capable of great range in intonation and pitch, an expressive face, and a near photographic memory were the staples of Douglass's dramatic power.
A master satirist, Douglass quickly took advantage of what was contradictory, incongruous, and ludicrous in the comments of his opponents; was a favorite tactic. During an 1854 speech Douglass tried to refute many of the charges about the biological inferiority of the Negro. Referring to a passage from the work of one
scientist that "the voice of the negro in the male sex is thin, hoarse, and weak," 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."38, 253.
Throughout his career Douglass was acclaimed as a humorist.39, 18 November 1853; , 13 May 1852, 25 February 1865; , 12 December 1846. Providing relief for antebellum audiences saturated with heavy moralizing, his humor also made him an effective after-dinner speaker during the postbellum period. Lecturing on the unity of the races in Cincinnati, Douglass "claimed that the Negro exhibited all the elements of a man—he laughed, he wept, he walked, he knew the use of fire and he acquired and retained knowledge. No animal but man had these qualities. Even the dogs saw it, and followed the Negro as they did the white man, and in these days of doubt, a dog's testimony was worth something."40Cincinnati (O.) , 4 March 1856. Frequently mixing witticisms, jokes, and anecdotes, Douglass maintained a light refrain in his orations. Speaking at a women's rights convention in 1853, he said he "considered all this argument about woman's right to speak an almost waste of time—in view of the fact that it was so self-evident. It reminded him of a windy orator, who once got up and said: 'Sir: After much reflection, consideration, and examination, I have calmly, and deliberately, and carefully, come to the determined conclusion—that in cities in which the population is very large there are a greater number of men, women and children than in cities where the population is less.' "41New York , 16 May 1853.
Sarcasm, invective, and ridicule were constants in Douglass's orations. In the course of berating slaveholding planters, he often accused his audiences of truckling to the slave power and described them as hypocrites and cowards. While speakers often called northern sympathizers of the South "doughfaces," Douglass compared them unfavorably to dogs, buzzards, and asses. The barbs often drew pained responses, as, for example, during a speech in Watertown, New York, when he accused northern whites of being subservient to the slave power:
He said the South and the North might be compared to a master and his dog. The North want offices, and the South have them to sell for a vote in Congress. The master taking a bone (office) from his
pocket, calls (imitating with his lips the call of a dog) and the obedient canine comes cheerfully forward. Holding out the bone, the master says speak—and the dog speaks; stand up—and he stands up in prayerful attitude; now roll over—and he rolls over; now go and lie down—and he goes and lies down, while the imperious master puts up the bone in his pocket.
One of our most eminent professional men remarked the next day, that "he was never so humiliated in his life, to be told such palpable truths, by a negro, in so sarcastic a manner; yet there was no way of escaping the truth and force of the illustration."42Watertown , 4 October 1855.
Sincerity was a Douglass hallmark. Sometimes he was so overcome by emotion during speeches that he shed tears. Few who heard him doubted his commitment, his conviction. One observer saw in Douglass "apostolic earnestness." A writer in the Sacramento reported in 1895 that Douglass
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. . . . 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 pervasive 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.43, 292-94.
Douglass's use of words transcended that of the typical nineteenth-century orator. There was a touch of poetry both in the content and in the rhythm of his speeches. Many of his thoughts were expressed in powerful epigrams: "There is a meaner thing than a slave, and that is a contented slave." "He is whipped oftenest who is whipped easiest." "In the absence of the , there must be the ." "There is nothing slavery dislikes half so much as light." "Despotism is wakeful and
always on watch." "Justice can have no fellowship with injustice." "All great reforms go together." "Truth never dies or grows old." "The limits of tyrants are proscribed by the limits of those they oppress." "Power yields nothing without a demand."
The typical nineteenth-century oration was long, ponderous, and filled with stilted grammar, classical allusions, strings of rhetorical questions, Latin phrases, protracted perorations, and rich imagery. According to the student of public address, Leland M. Griffin, "the uncontested term, the taste for the generic, the lavish use of metaphor, epithet, contrast, dissimilitude, the penchant for the pathetic fallacy, the reliance on metonymy, synecdoche, metalepsis" were standard in antebellum orations.44, 56: 447 (December 1970); Ronald F. Reid, "Edward Everett: Rhetorician of Nationalism, 1824-1855," ibid., 42: 273-82 (October 1956); Howard H. Martin, "The Fourth of July Oration," ibid., 44: 393-401 (December 1958); Donald C. Streeter, "The Major Public Addresses of Lucius Q. C. Lamar During the Period 1874-1890," , 16: 114-24 (August 1949); Richard Weaver, (Chicago, 1953), 164-85. While Douglass's speeches shared some of these characteristics, especially the reliance on rhetorical questions, his contemporaries found them refreshingly simple. The Auburn (N.Y.) , for instance, asserted in 1849 that Douglass's "language is classically chaste, not groaning under the flowery ornaments of school boy declamation, but terse yet eloquent, like a piece of finished sculpture beautiful in every outline of its symmetrical and unadorned simplicity."45Quoted in , 29 April 1849.
Because of his felicitous language, graphic illustrations, and versatility, Douglass achieved considerable fame as an orator.46James G. Blaine, , 2 vols. (Norwich, Conn., 1886), 1: 22-23; Charles T. Congdon, (Boston, 1880), 170-73; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, (Boston, 1899), 267; Theodore C. Pease, ed., (Boston, 1894), 227; Laura E. Richards, ed., , 2 vols. (Boston, 1909), 2: 409; J. B. Pond, (New York, 1900), 29-30; Joseph Thompson, (Boston, 1877), 279; Joel Benton, "Reminiscences of Eminent Lecturers," , 96: 603-14 (March 1898); , 26 October 1850; Kenosha (Wis.) , 3 November 1854; New Bedford (Mass.) , 15 January 1855; , 17 February 1860; Cincinnati (O.) , 6 July 1850; Concord (N.H.) , 2 February 1854; Philadelphia (Pa.) , 19 October 1855; , 13 February 1864; , 21 September 1850; , 24 July 1845; New York , 11 July 1850, 7 July 1854. In 1859 the New York listed Douglass among the two hundred people who constituted America's "Lecturing Fraternity." The New York in 1893 asserted that Douglass "takes rank with the foremost orators in
this country." After the Civil War, the Afro-American press consistently placed Douglass first in lists of nineteenth-century orators.47, 10 January 1850, 17 September 1859; Detroit (Mich.) , 3 March 1893. Arguing that Douglass "has never had a superior, if an equal," the Detroit concluded he was "the greatest orator of modern times."48Detroit (Mich.) , 25 November 1892, 5 May 1893.
The orator most frequently placed ahead of Douglass was Wendell Phillips. Among black orators, James W. C. Pennington, Samuel Ringgold Ward, Charles L. Remond, Jermain Loguen, and H. Ford Douglass were occasionally described as superior orators to Douglass.49Ebenezer Davis, (London, 1849), 305-06. The editor of the wrote one of the most thoughtful comparisons when he contrasted Douglass and Pennington:
Douglass is frequently heavy and dull; but when excited, he is mighty. In such moods he bears a clearer resemblance to the cast of thought and style of expression of the late John Foster than any other man we are able to name, except Lord Brougham. . . . Pennington differs considerably from Douglass, while he has much in common with him. His cast of thought is remarkably English. Were he to be heard without being seen, he would pass for a thorough English speaker of a very high order. His leading characteristic, however, is weight,—solidity of thought, clothed in appropriate language. There is no burst, no blaze, none of the vehemence which characterizes the highest order of eloquence; but it is that which constitutes the basis of all real oratory,—judgment, sobriety, force of thought, conclusiveness of argument, aptness of illustration, which an English audience never fails to appreciate, and which, in truth, constitutes their favorite mode of address. In the speech of Pennington there is, moreover, a moving mixture of pathos, with an occasional stroke of pleasing humour.50, 6: 461-62 (1849).
In all of the contemporary reports one thing stands out: few of Douglass's rivals had his range or versatility. William G. Allen, a black professor at New York Central College, expressed this essential point in 1852:
In versatility of oratorical power, I know of no one who can begin to approach the celebrated Frederick Douglass. He, in very deed, sways a magic wand. In the ability to imitate, he stands almost
alone and unapproachable; and there is no actor living, whether he be tragedian or comedian, who would not give the world for such a face as his. His slaveholder's sermon is a master-piece in its line. When he rises to speak, there is a slight hesitancy in his manner, which disappears as he warms up to his subject. He works with the power of a mighty intellect, and in the vast audiences which he never fails to assemble, touches chords in the inner chambers thereof which vibrate music now sweet, now sad, now lightsome, now solemn, now startling, now grand, now majestic, now sublime. He has a voice of terrific power, of great compass, and under most admirable control.51, 29 October 1852.
Despite his high standing in the "Lecturing Fraternity," however, criticisms of Douglass's style and message were legion. Many nine teenth-century observers thought his strictures on American morals, manners, and institutions too severe, his condemnations too sweeping, and his language too harsh.52, 27 August 1847; New York , 6 February 1866; Springfield (Mass.) , 3 February 1848; Buffalo (N.Y.) , 16 September 1847; Syracuse (N.Y.) , 11 April 1849; New York , 12, 13 May 1847. The charged that Douglass attacked politicians, ministers, and "everybody else who does not subscribe to his views" simply "to make them mad." The described one address as "ferociously severe" and filled with "firmness [which] amounts to unbending obstinancy."53Quoted in , 4 January, 27 September 1850. Other critics felt Douglass was intemperate. The Concord (N.H.) claimed an 1844 speech was a mixture of "whim, sense, seriousness, and nonsense, very little however, but many bold and reckless statements."5416 February 1844.
Douglass's speeches rankled antebellum northern whites because he was both an abolitionist and a black. Many journalists described him as a "saucy negro," "the impudent negro," "an impertinent black vagabond," "that black disgrace to human nature," or "nigger Douglass." While William Lloyd Garrison, Lewis Tappan, and Wendell Phillips were " scum," "madmen," "miserable fanatics," and "lunatics," they were at least white. Douglass's severe language was doubly resented because of his color.55Kenosha (Wis.) , 6 November 1854; Madison (Wis.) , 2 November 1854; Cincinnati (O.) , 13 April 1854; , 12 June 1845; , 4 June 1847, 22 November 1850. Reporting on the presence of Garrison, Charles L.
Remond, and Douglass in Buffalo in 1847, the singled out the latter two for special attention because they were "blacks, and although they are very good speakers, it seems remarkably impudent to hear them denounce the white population of the South, and dictate to the North what course should be pursued towards our southern brethren."56Buffalo (N.Y.) , 16 September 1847. J. W. Forney recalled in 1864 that before the Civil War "denunciation and ridicule of Fred. Douglass was a potent and favorite pastime among my former political associates."57, 10 December 1864.
Some observers found Douglass's speeches uneven in quality, discursive, derivative, and undignified. After an 1847 Buffalo speech, a journalist concluded that "as a whole his speech was not brilliant, well connected, or calculated to convict. Occasionally he would indulge in a strain of the most impassioned eloquence, which was probably prepared for his use, and then again, he would take the other extreme, and degenerate to the most undignified raillery." In 1854, in Newport, Rhode Island, Douglass "lectured without notes and evidently without any preparation, for his address was a rambling one, with little connection, touching here and there upon a point and there upon another," an observer noted.58Buffalo (N.Y.) , 16 September 1847; Newport (R.I.) , 11 February 1854.
Many reporters found little to distinguish the content of Douglass's early speeches from the orations of white abolitionists. Indeed, when stenographic copies of his speeches began to appear in the metropolitan press, some charged him with plagiarism. In a scathing review of an 1854 speech, the Wisconsin contended Douglass had borrowed much of it from Gerrit Smith, Charles Sumner, and Truman Smith. The editor found little original or illuminating in the speech: "His information is limited, even upon the subjects of which he treats, and the fact of his being a copyist, is continually apparent, by the incompleteness of the facts he states, and his inconclusive, fragmentary logic."592 November 1854.
Superciliousness, braggadocio, egotism, and conceit were criticisms leveled often against Douglass as a result of his lectures. Richard Henry Dana, a Massachusetts lawyer, on hearing Douglass in 1843, concluded he was a "conceited, shallow-pated" young man.60Robert F. Lucid, ed., , 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 1: 161. The Northern
agreed: "Douglass lacks that modesty which is becoming in all public speakers, and especially one in his circumstances. He is altogether too self-sufficient. He smacks too much of the driver."61, 17 November 1847.
Abolitionists who felt the sting of Douglass's sarcasm and contempt also criticized him. Nathaniel P. Rogers, editor of the , for instance, was upset by Douglass's actions during the raucous 1845 meeting of the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society when he became embroiled in debate with John B. Chandler, a local abolitionist:
Douglass made some charge which Chandler deemed false, and he appealed to him to correct it. Douglass spurned his appeal with contempt. Chandler there upon renewed it. Douglass turned his back upon him, and raising his voice higher, continued his offensive charges against the friends of free meeting,—charging them with forming a plan to mob down the right of speech. Chandler reiterated his appeal. Douglass became more vehement in his contempt. Chandler called him familiarly and good humoredly by name,—not after the grave manner, to be sure, of a public meeting,—and not in a way to raise the self-esteem of Douglass, or flatter the selfcomplacency of any of us, there, as we were, in public assembly. It was quite trying to witness it,—but Chandler was evidently to me, not intending to insult Douglass,—but to overcome his haughty persistence, by good natured importunity. Douglass at length made mouths at him—mocked him, and fiercely demanded that he should be taken out of the house! . . . Douglass continued his harangue in the most offensive and abusive style,—and Chandler his quiet,— good humored, annoying appeals to him—until he finished.62Concord (N.H.) , 13 June 1845.
Appalled as he was by Chandler's actions, Rogers did not think they excused Douglass's conduct. Supersensitive and overbearing, Douglass acted, Rogers complained, "in a most aggravating, offensive character, and intended to brow-beat and put down the friends of freedom. It was very much, I thought at that time, in what I suppose the vein of a plantation slave with the overseer's whip put into his hands. The slave made master. . . . I was prodigiously, by Chandler's boyish importunity of Douglass. But I was indignant at the insolent tyranny of Frederick Douglass. . . . His having been a slave—or now being one—does not
entitle him to play the master—though it undoubtedly has a tendency to make him want to."63Ibid.
Afro-Americans were among Douglass's most severe critics. During the antebellum period black ministers frequently castigated him for his "sweeping denunciation" of American religion and his rejection of separate black churches.64Springfield (Mass.) , 8, 14, February 1848; , 24 March 1848. Blacks often criticized Douglass for his stands on African emigration, the role of violence in the emancipation movement, integration, and abolition philosophy. At a meeting in 1842 Douglass attacked black New Yorkers so ferociously a near-riot resulted. During his speech, the New York reported, Douglass "became very personal in his attacks—talked about the negro population of this city being prejudiced against the Abolitionists—mingled up in his speech malignity, blackness of heart, transcendentalism, squashism, woman's rightism, and all the other isms he could think of, and concluded by denouncing a negro, Julius Caesar, a Jerseyman, as having no heart." Thirty blacks in the audience jumped to their feet demanding to speak, and the reporter "thought that it would end in a riot, for no attention was for some time paid to the chairman by the excited negroes, who seemed as if they were both willing and able to eat their colored brother, Douglas[s]." When the chairman finally restored order, "Julius Caesar obtained the floor and spoke for about ten minutes in reply to the attacks of Douglas[s], repaying him in kind for the abuse he had heaped upon him, saying among other things, that 'he had been brought up on abolition pap,' and therefore he, Julius Caesar, who had 'suffered as a slave,' would not condescend to take any notice of him."65New York , 14 May 1842.
Douglass's black critics increased after the Civil War. Many of them argued that Douglass was more loyal to the Republican party than to blacks. By the 1880s, black critics were so numerous the New York in 1883 concluded, "It would appear that Mr. FRED DOUGLASS'S as a leader of his race is about played out."6629 September 1883. Younger men challenged Douglass as Afro-America's representative orator after the Civil War and criticized everything from his humorous anecdotes to his advice on education, voting, racial uplift, and integration. Any of Douglass's remarks might call forth a barrage of criticism. Few of his
speeches created as much of a storm in the black community, however, as his 1879 address on the exodus of blacks from the South. For months after this speech in which Douglass urged embattled blacks to remain in the South, critical editorials and letters filled the pages of black journals. Later modifications of his stance did little to quiet the storm.67Indianapolis (Ind.) , 15 June 1889, 5 September 1891; Cleveland (O.) , 17 November 1883; New York , 20 April 1889; New York , 29 September 1883.
In a thoughtful analysis, the placed the criticism of Douglass in perspective. Before the Civil War, the asserted, Douglass was
the foremost black man of the United States of America.
The hour and the man were united in him. He had no predecessor, no equal, he can have no successor: he stands preeminent and alone.
With the breaking out of the war new issues arose which culminated in emancipation and an amended constitution. Frederick Douglass still is the foremost name. . . . But as the antebellum anti-slavery agitator, he will be best known to fame.
His course on some public topics has not been generally approved; in fact he has been very sharply criticized. . . . While many of us will not agree with his present attitude . . . let us accord him at least pure motive and honest opinions.6829 November 1879.
But for all those who criticized Douglass, many more honored him as a symbol of the resilience of human nature and a testimony to the abilities of blacks.69Patrick W. Riddleberger, (Indianapolis, 1966), 89; Janesville (Wis.) , 12 February 1859; Chicago (Ill.) , 1 October 1853; Ithaca (N.Y.) , 14 July 1852; Watertown , 4 October 1855; , 17 June 1842, 29 December 1843, 14 June, 31 August 1844; , 18 June 1847; Washington (D.C.) , 23 August 1879; Cork (Ire.) , 22 October 1845; , 30 September 1847; Ayr (Scot.) , 26 March 1846. The Toronto argued that Douglass was "evidence in his own person of the falsity of the notion that the coloured race are incapable of high mental culture,"70Toronto (Can.) , 4 April 1851; Freeport (Ill.) , 21 October 1853. while the Freeport (Ill.) asserted that he "affords incontestible evidence of the capabilities of the African for intellectual culture." Many people testified to the accuracy of these journalistic assessments. When he appeared on the platform Douglass often confounded and converted the
prejudiced. A correspondent of the Nantucket reviewed the impact of an 1842 Douglass speech on his own attitudes toward blacks. Conceding he was "a bundle of prejudices" and a believer in the mental deficiency of blacks, he went "for amusement and for recreation" to hear Douglass; he arrived at the lecture hall expecting little. "But judge of his surprise to find a mental repast. Food for thought was showered on him like 'manna from heaven.' He left that hall with a mountain-load of prejudice tumbling from his back. Douglass was chaste in language, brilliant in thought, and truly eloquent in delivery. . . . He is a remarkable man. . . . The writer (which after all is saying little) would be proud of Douglass's talents. He is ready to honor any man of such abilities. He would be proud of his friendship, and would court his society."71Quoted in , 8 July 1842. For the story of a similar conversion, see Cleveland (O.) , 27 September 1884.
Personal acquaintance with Douglass often strengthened the very abstract egalitarian stance of white abolitionists, who discovered in him a non-stereotypical black. With Douglass the white abolitionists had to act on their principles: house him when he came to town, socialize with him, dine with him, and share the burdens of Jim Crow when he was discriminated against. White abolitionists who wavered in their egalitarian commitment were encouraged when they heard Douglass speak. For instance, after George W. Julian, an Indiana Congressman, met Douglass at an antislavery convention in Cincinnati in 1852, he confided to his journal: "I am glad I attended this truly Catholic anti-slavery gathering. I was delighted with the oratory of Douglass and with the man himself, and feel much strengthened in my desire to overcome the ridiculous and wicked prejudice against color which even most antislavery men find it difficult to conquer."72Grace Julian Clarke, (Indianapolis, 1966), 123.
Douglass spoke to all types of audiences. Many were antagonistic and some were violent. Throughout his career in America the range of audiences was impressive, from all-white lyceums to Negro conventions, small abolitionist crowds in the Indiana woods, colleges, political rallies, ceremonial events, and black agricultural fairs. Audience size ranged from a handful of the faithful to 7,000 people.
Throughout his antebellum lecturing career Douglass, like other abolitionists, experienced mob violence and intimidation. During his first years on the antislavery circuit Douglass, as a proper Garrisonian, was
nonviolent; this philosophy was abandoned in the fall of 1843 when a mob attacked him in Pendleton, Indiana.73, 230; , 17 August 1850; Syracuse (N.Y.) , 31 July 1850; Albany (N.Y.) , 8 February 1861; Albany (N.Y.) , 5 February 1861. Thereafter he seemed willing, if not eager, to raise a defensive hand. Need for that came regularly, and threats came even more regularly, but Douglass never paid tribute to intimidation or violence. In Boston's Faneuil Hall (dedicated to the exchange of free ideas and free-made products) Douglass responded to a noisy and obviously unsympathetic audience "by pointing his finger at them in a jeering and contemptuous manner"; that meeting, dragging on through a series of exchanges, was finally disrupted; Douglass avoided harm by escaping through a back door. Again in Boston, on the eve of the Civil War, when an abolitionist meeting had been preempted by a "Confederate majority," Douglass refused to yield the hall or the platform. He "showered ridicule so plentifully and so effectively [on] his opponents" that they tried to drown him out; when Douglass continued to speak, they rushed the platform, but Douglass refused to leave, rather he "fought like a trained pugilist" until he was pulled down the back stairs by police.74, 16 October 1858, 20 November 1850, 8 December 1860. See also , 15 February 1861.
Douglass occasionally received notes threatening bodily harm if he attempted to speak in a town and opponents sometimes organized anti-Douglass mobs. In 1861 he arrived in Syracuse, New York, and found the following handbill posted:
NIGGER FRED IS COMING!
This Reviler of the Constitution, and author of
"Death in the Pot!"
and who once in this city called George Washington a
THIEF, RASCAL AND TRAITOR!
is advertised to lecture on "Slavery" again on Thursday
and Friday evenings of this week, at Wieting Hall!
Shall his vile sentiments again be tolerated in this
community by a constitutional-liberty loving people?
Or shall we give him a WARM reception at this time, for
his insolence, as he deserves? Rally, then, one and
all, and DRIVE HIM FROM OUR CITY! Down on the arch-
fugitive to Europe, who is not only a COWARD, but a TRAITOR
to his country! RALLY FREEMEN! Admission, 10 cents.
The Syracuse mayor called out a special police force of seventy men and forty-five military cadets who joined the regular police in guarding the hall. Fixed bayonets and the arrest of a boy with rotten eggs and stones in his pockets, prevented any disturbances.75Syracuse (N.Y.) , 14 November 1861; Syracuse (N.Y.) , 14, 15, 16 November 1861; Syracuse (N.Y.) , 15, 16, 18 November 1861.
But regardless of size, composition, or disposition, Douglass interacted with his audience. He was apt to taunt and jeer a hostile crowd as he did the "Confederate majority" in Boston, and nothing pleased him more than to find among a friendly audience a vocal dissenter to use as a foil. Since the heckling of abolitionists was a popular antebellum pastime, he was rarely disappointed. The journalist Charles T. Congdon recalled a typical Douglass encounter in the 1840s:
Anti-slavery speeches were then frequently interrupted, but the sharpest of such intruders never meddled with Mr. Douglass without being sorry for the temerity. I recall an instance of his quickness. He had been speaking with more plainness than urbanity of Northern dough-faces and dirt-eaters, and had quoted against them the text, "And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." Pretty soon Mr. Douglass said something which provoked the inevitable hiss. Drawing himself up to his full height, and pointing to the place from which the sibilant sound had proceeded, he exclaimed, "I told you so! Upon thy belly shalt thou go, dust shalt thou eat, and hiss all the days of thy life." The interpolated words gave the text an additional point, and the gentleman who had hissed, hissed no more that night.76Congdon, , 172-73.
On the other hand, Douglass was quick to praise an attentive, responsive gathering. He described one hall full of people as "all apparently anxious to hear, and to be instructed." With such an audience, continued Douglass, "it was impossible to be cold and listless." That night he spoke for two hours and gained eight subscribers for his newspaper.77, 13 April 1849.
Douglass was sensitive to the racial composition of his audiences. Who invited him and where he was to speak were usually indications of
audience composition. Occasionally he would speak to a group of whites during one part of a day and to a black audience at another time. Although he courted mixed audiences and believed that most of the topics he spoke on touched "the whole human family," throughout his career Douglass made a conscious effort to meet and talk with black Americans and frequently addressed large, all-black groups.
Douglass's message was not always the same to black and white. Both heard antislavery speeches and lectures concerning the "whole human family." But he frequently chose topics of special concern when speaking to black audiences. Self-help was a favorite theme. In Ithaca, New York he lectured on "the importance of helping themselves and relying upon their own efforts for attaining an honorable position." He preached a bit, chiding some for having the "common miserable" habit of arriving late for meetings.78, 30 July 1852.
At times Douglass's reluctance to talk about topics of special interest to blacks in front of whites brought him trouble. He reported one incident when a large number of whites arrived at a black church, "contrary to [his] expectations," and he had to change his address: "There are some things which ought to be said to colored people in the peculiar circumstances in which they are placed, that can be said more effectively among ourselves, without the presence of white persons. We are the oppressed, the whites are the oppressors, and the language I would address to the one is not always suited to the other."79Ibid.
Douglass's career can be divided roughly into four stages. From 1841 to 1845 he was a paid lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. From 1845 to 1847 he lectured throughout the British Isles. His most independent and active years were 1848-60, and the latter years of his career, 1860-93, saw Douglass at his most formal and respectable.
As an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Douglass usually traveled with other antislavery agents and received assistance from local society members as he moved from town to town. He crossed and recrossed the states of the eastern seaboard and the old Northwest with William Lloyd Garrison, Parker Pillsbury, Stephen Foster, Abby Kelley, James N. Buffum, John A. Collins, and Charles L. Remond among others. Douglass's itinerary might include two and three addresses a day for as many weeks. Members of local antislavery societies
publicized the lectures on these prearranged tours, and obtained lodgings and lecture halls.80, 30 January 1845. See also John L. Myers, "The Early Antislavery Agency System in Pennsylvania, 1833-1837," , 31: 62-86 (January 1964); Itinerary.
But that was a fragile system. A winter storm, a conductor who ejected Douglass, an ill or timid friend who failed to make local arrangements, or any of a number of unpredictable problems could mean that Douglass might arrive in a town without lodging or a hall.81, 22 November 1848. Occasionally one but not the other could be found. Not infrequently, Douglass gave lectures in the town square. Occasionally when he arrived at a town to find no local arrangements had been made, he had to move on; to stop and make arrangements would take too much time, making him late for other scheduled addresses. Douglass's insistence on challenging racism where and when he found it also disrupted his schedule. His reluctance to eat in Jim Crow dining halls often sent him on his way hungry, and his refusal to ride in segregated railroad cars often caused him to miss his train altogether.82Arthur H. Gardner, "The Big Shop," (1916), 40; Parker Pillsbury, (Boston, 1884), 326; Lynn (Mass.) , 9 March 1895; , 20 August 1841.
Lecturing on the Garrisonian circuit during those early years matured Douglass. His first brief speech before the Garrisonian Bristol County Anti-Slavery Society in New Bedford on 9 August 1841 so impressed his audience that a group of abolitionists paid his expenses to Nantucket. Speaking at Nantucket two nights later, Douglass apparently said little that was memorable. On the morning of 12 August, although apparently ill at ease, he spoke eloquently. Arthur H. Gardner of Nantucket recalled that Douglass "commenced, stammering and hesitating," while Parker Pillsbury said "he evidently began to speak under much embarrassment." Quickly gaining confidence under Garrison's encouragement, Douglass spoke again on the evening of the twelfth and was "listened to by a multitude with mingled emotions of admiration, pity, and horror." Garrison again "eulogized" the fugitive and later persuaded Douglass to serve as a paid lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society for a trial period of three months.83, 27 July 1843, 31 August, 19 September 1844, 26 June, 14 August 1845; , 10, 24 September 1841. Most of the press accounts of these early speeches describe enthusiastic audiences.
Several factors contributed to Douglass's initial oratorical success. Being a fugitive slave was perhaps his greatest single asset. While white
abolitionists theorized, Douglass drew from his own experiences to produce graphic illustrations of the peculiar institution. He appeared as both victim and victor, exhibiting the nobility and intellect of blacks, and the contradiction that was slavery.84, 27 July 1843, 31 August, 19 September 1844, 26 June, 14 August 1845; , 10, 24 September 1841, 21 January, 11 February, 17 June, 8 July, 9 September 1842, 14 June 1844, 13, 20 June 1845; Albany (N.Y.) , 10 June 1845; Milwaukee (Wis.) , 1 November 1854; Richmond (Ind.) , 2 September 1843, 15 March 1844; Providence (R.I.) , 18 March 1843; Larry Gara, "The Professional Fugitive in the Abolition Movement," , 48: 196-204 (Spring 1965). In 1842 Theron Hall of Sutton, Massachusetts, expressed his delight at hearing Douglass, who could silence those whites who claimed the slaves were content. When white abolitionists tried to deny this, " 'Why (say they,) you know nothing of the condition of the slave—therefore, let him alone—he is happy in his present condition'! But when one comes to them with his back scarred by the ruthless lash of the slave-driver, can they say, 'he knows nothing of slavery'!"85, 9 September 1842.
Many fugitives, of course, could tell stories as interesting as those recounted by Douglass. Douglass was unusual because he did not use the halting, stammering dialect and malapropisms commonly associated with fugitives. Upon attending a lecture by Lewis Clarke, a more typical fugitive, a reporter found "the uncouth awkwardness of his language had a sort of charm, like the circuitous expression, and stammering utterance, of a foreign tongue, striving to speak our most familiar phrases. His mind was evidently full of ideas, which he was eager to express; but the medium was wanting." Another fugitive, when introduced to a meeting in 1847 "could not get the 'hang of the school-house' and sat down after a few remarks."86John W. Blassingame, ed., (Baton Rouge, 1977), 151; Lib., 4 June 1841. See also Patrick C. Kennicott, "Negro Antislavery Speakers in America" (Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 1967), 171-201. In contrast, the eloquence and "intellectual greatness" Douglass demonstrated only four years after his escape from slavery was "cause of absolute astonishment," an observer wrote from Northbridge, Massachusetts, in 1842. The "astonishment" of whites was a direct outgrowth of their limited contacts with articulate blacks. A Wisconsin journalist felt, for instance, that Douglass's oratorical skills were "a matter of wonder," because "we are so accustomed to mental stupidity and moral dulness in the blacks that an exception surprises and startles us."87, 17 June 1842; Madison (Wisc.) , 2 November 1854.
Whites who heard Douglass in 1841 and 1842 were clearly startled
and surprised by his good diction and clear enunciation. When Douglass gave a speech in 1841. Nathaniel P. Rogers found "his enunciation quite elegant." John A. Collins, Douglass's traveling companion during his first five months as an antislavery lecturer, concurred: "his enunciation [is] clear and distinct."88Concord (N.H.) , 3 December 1841; , 21 January, 8 July 1842; 29 April 1849.
While Douglass's skill in oratory is clear, there is much confusion surrounding other aspects of his early years as an antislavery lecturer. What was the content of his speeches during his three-month "trial"? How did he get along with his white lecturing companions? The answers Douglass gave to these questions do not always square with the accounts of others. Writing in 1855, Douglass claimed that during his novitiate white abolitionists encouraged him to assume the role of the "awful example," to retain his plantation dialect, to expose his whip-scarred back, to confine his speeches to personal experiences:
During the first three or four months, my speeches were almost exclusively made up of narrations of my own personal experience as a slave. "Let us have the facts," said the people. So also said Friend George Foster, who always wished to pin me down to my simple narrative. "Give us the facts," said Collins, "we will take care of the philosophy." . . . "Tell your story, Frederick," would whisper my then revered friend, William Lloyd Garrison, as I stepped upon the platform. . . . "Be yourself," said Collins, "and tell your story." It was said to me, "Better have a of plantation manner in your speech than not; 'tis not best that you seem too learned."89Douglass, , 361-62.
Douglass exaggerated the restrictions placed on him during his first months as an antislavery lecturer. Rather than urging Douglass to tell his simple narrative, white abolitionists constantly advised him not to give the details of his slave experience for fear that he might be recaptured. The private letters of white abolitionists and news accounts published between 1841 and 1845 furnish little evidence to support Douglass's assertions.90, 28 March 1845.
Generally, Douglass referred to a few incidents in his life to prove a larger point he was trying to make. Even then, he was most explicit when describing his life his escape from bondage. Rarely did personal
references constitute more than a fourth of a speech or provide more than a blurred outline of his life.91, 20, 27 August, 3, 10, 17 September, 26 November, 3, 10 December 1841; 17 June, 22 July, 19 August, 2 September 1842; , 9 June 1842, 26 April 1844.
Reporters could not have filled a column of newsprint with what they learned of Douglass's life as a slave from his early speeches. The meager data he furnished between 1841 and 1844 included the information that his mistress had taught him a few letters, his master forbade his education, bondsmen knew of the abolition petition campaign, relatives of his were still enslaved, his master was a Methodist class leader, and whites preached obedience to the blacks. These bits and pieces of information were scattered through hundreds of speeches.92New York , 10 May 1842; , 5 September 1844, 8 May 1845. After listening to Douglass make several speeches in November 1841, for instance, the editor of the Hingham (Mass.) had learned very little about him: "We are told is a feigned name, and that there are but two or three individuals to whom he has confided his story, as he well knows that if his old master learns his 'whereabout,' he must return to captivity. . . . His mistress taught him the letters, and went as far as , with him, when her husband, learning what she had done, forbid her instructing him any further. All the knowledge he acquired after that was such as he could pick up casually by his own care and attention. His master valued him at $ 2,000."9313 November 1841.
Journalists were unable to add much to the profile drawn by the Patriot editor during the next three years. Douglass devoted very little attention to the details of his slave experience in his speeches. During an 1844 speech in Concord, New Hampshire, for instance, "a part of his remarks referred to his early life and childhood, which were somewhat interesting, but he soon began to branch off upon churches, ministers, politics, Henry Clay, and a mixture of stuff," one of his auditors recalled. Speaking later in Byberry, Pennsylvania, Douglass related "his experience in the galling atrocities of slavery, which he did in a masterly manner, taking occasion to digress frequently into generalities, and to discuss principles."94Concord (N.H.) , 16 February 1844; , 19 February 1844.
The "personal experiences" Douglass narrated were shrewdly designed to conceal almost as much as they revealed. Douglass's speeches contained so little autobiographical detail that they confused the editor
of the Raleigh (N.C.) when he read reports of them. Misled, the editor confidently announced in 1845 that "This Frederick is a runaway negro, the property of Governor Dudley, of this State, who abandoned his master in this city, about five years ago, during his official term."95Quoted in , 5 September 1845.
The first time Douglass gave speeches which were, as he asserted, "almost exclusively made up of narrations of my own personal experience as a slave," was in 1845. Before and after that time it was his auditors, rather than white abolition leaders, who demanded that he tell the story of his life. "Almost everywhere I go," Douglass wrote in 1854, "I am strangely pressed to tell the story of my life; and if I responded to all the demands made upon me on this behalf, I would have time for little else. In whatever mood one finds himself, joyous, or sad, contemplative or talkative, one must tell his experience in slavery."96, 3 February 1854. Before publishing his second autobiography in 1855, Douglass often complied with such requests when he visited an area for the first time. He reported with satisfaction on one of these occurrences at Honeoye, New York in 1852: "This being my first visit to Honeoye, the friends of the slave thought it would be well for me to narrate my experience in slavery.—This I did, in my second lecture, and it was most gratifying to observe the evidence of sympathy, in old and young, as they listened to my simple story."97Ibid., 8 April 1852.
In retrospect, Douglass thought it somewhat demeaning that during those first years he was "generally introduced as a ''—a ''— a piece of southern ''—the chairman assuring the audience it could speak."98Douglass, , 360. Whatever his later regrets, Douglass appeared at the time to relish the role, knowing that he was introduced as a "thing" to force audiences to confront the shocking contradiction of a fluent black man subject to the lash. Realizing the effect this produced, Douglass frequently used the same terminology in referring to himself. In a typical meeting in 1842, when Douglass mounted the platform, "Garrison announced him, in his peculiarly arousing manner, as 'a thing from the South!' The idea seemed to fire the noble fugitive with the indignation of outraged nature. His eyes flashed as he spoke in tones of appalling earnestness and significancy, declaring that 'he stood before them
that night a thief and a robber! This head, these limbs, this body,' said he, 'I have stolen from my !' " Speaking to an Irish audience in 1846, Douglass exclaimed, "Persecuted, hunted, and outraged in America, I have come to England, and behold the change! The chattel becomes a man." In 1851 Douglass found being introduced by a Pennsylvania abolitionist as a chattel "a little amusing" and fondly reminisced: "His exhibition of me as a chattel, reminded me of some of the best performances in this line, of my old friend, James N. Buffum" in the 1840s."99, 18 February 1842; , 16 October 1851.
In the 1840s Douglass was a Garrisonian. By the 1850s he had broken with the Garrisonians and had begun a long series of angry exchanges with them. Douglass's later recollections of his lecturing experiences in the 1840s were colored by the animosity he then felt toward his former Garrisonian allies. Friends could introduce Douglass as a fugitive, a chattel, a thing, and be congratulated on their "performance," but by 1855 such introductions (or the memory of them) by his Garrisonian enemies were an anathema, smacking of paternalism and racism. For example, when a Garrisonian, Oliver Johnson, referred to him as a fugitive at a meeting in 1855, Douglass responded angrily: "Oliver Johnson 'thought' I liked to be called '.' Oh! the Dodger! Does any one believe that he applied the name with any reference to my likes? Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaketh.—Under his fair seeming regard for the slave, his native contempt for negroes is manifest; and it will out, despite his fair seeming sympathy, and flashy rhetoric."100, 2 February 1855.
While Douglass resented being cast as an example, he forced other blacks to play that role. Until the 1850s he went on lecture tours with recent fugitive slaves, introduced them the same way Garrison had in troduced him and made the same pathetic appeals after the "things" spoke. Douglass's first "example" was George Latimer, a Virginia fugitive who was arrested in Boston in 1842 and later purchased and freed by the abolitionists. In 1849 Douglass toured with a North Carolina fugitive, John S. Jacobs, and pointed to him as the exemplar of slavery. Introducing the Georgia fugitives William and Ellen Craft to a Boston audience in 1849, Douglass rose after they spoke and exclaimed, "What an exhibition! . . . What an appearance is here presented!
Are the slaves contented and happy? Here are three facts . . . that sweep away all sophistry of Calhoun, McDuffie, and other stout defenders of the patriarchal institution. Their escape shows they are worthy to be freedmen."101New York , 20: 90 (7 June 1849); Penn Yan (N.Y.) , 22 February 1849; Congdon, , 171-72; , 15 October 1841, 18 February, 18 November 1842, 12 May 1843, 8 June, 28 December 1849.
Douglass presents a contradictory and sometimes misleading picture of one other aspect of his early antislavery career: the extent of his understanding of antislavery philosophy. In his 1855 autobiography he implied that his training in antislavery began at the Nantucket convention and contended that after his first few months as an antislavery agent, "It did not entirely satisfy me to wrongs; I felt like them." 102Douglass, Bondage and Freedom, 361-62. In fact, Douglass denounced wrongs at the very beginning of his lecturing career. During his first year on the lecture circuit, Douglass discussed the proslavery character of American churches, freedom of speech, abolitionists and third parties, nonresistance, northern economic support of slavery, the right of petition, northern racial prejudice, black suffrage, the imprisonment of fugitive slaves, segregation in northern churches, and disunion. Indeed, Douglass's extensive knowledge of the antislavery movement was one of the primary reasons white abolitionists were so enthusiastic about his early orations.103, 29 March 1839, 9 July 1841.
By 1844, Douglass's oratorical skills and thoughtful analyses caused many observers to doubt him; some claimed he had never been inside the peculiar institution. Skepticism increased as Douglass refused to divulge his slave name or verifiable facts about his slave past for fear he would be kidnapped and returned to bondage. Since Douglass was unwilling to compromise his usefulness as a reform lecturer, he chose to tell the story of his bondage in his autobiography, . Published in 1845, effectively stilled the debate over Douglass's authenticity, but it increased fears that he would be recaptured and returned to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. This anxiety sent Douglass to Great Britain and initiated another phase of his speaking career.104The most extensive treatment of Douglass's tour of Great Britain appears in Gerald Fulkerson, "Exile as Emergence: Frederick Douglass in Great Britain, 1845-1847," , 60: 69-82 (February 1974); Douglas C. Riach, "Ireland and the Campaign Against American Slavery, 1830-1860" (Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 1975), 283-325; C. Duncan Rice, "The Scottish Factor in the Fight Against American Slavery, 1830-1870" (Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 1969), 291-360; Clare Taylor, ed., (Edinburgh, 1974), 236-321.
Planned since the winter of 1845, Douglass's trip began with much fanfare; a farewell meeting in Lynn and editorials in abolition journals launched him. Embarking in the on 16 August, Douglass arrived in Liverpool on 28 August 1845. The day before the ship docked, he became involved in a contretemps which generated much-needed publicity and sympathy for the relatively unknown fugitive. When he tried to deliver a lecture some of the Americans on board the tried to prevent him and precipitated a near riot. Though mild compared to what Douglass and other abolitionists had often faced in America, the incident became a cause celebre and succeeded, as Douglass later wrote, "in awakening something like a national interest in me, securing me an audience."105Douglass, , 368. See also Bristol (Eng.) , 6 January 1846; Dublin (Ire.) , 13 September 1845; Cork (Ire.) , 4 November 1845.
Even though Charles L. Remond, Garrison, John A. Collins, Nathaniel P. Rogers, Henry C. Wright, James G. Birney, Elihu Burritt, Henry B. Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and other American abolitionists had lectured in Great Britain in the 1840s, Douglass took the British Isles by storm. subscribers already knew of Douglass and had read rave reviews of his long before the docked in Liverpool.106, ser. 1, 1: 148, 282-83 (1 July, 4 November 1840); , 31 July, 21, 28 August, 2 October 1840; 9 July, 10, 17 September 1841; Riach, "Campaign Against American Slavery," 138-43; Rice, "Scottish Factor," 202-03; Clare Taylor, "Notes on American Negro Reformers in Victorian Britain," , n.s. 2: 40-51 (March 1961); Taylor, , 237;., 25 July 1845, 10 April 1846; , 3: 191 (31 December 1845). Letters of introduction, fulsome in their praise, began arriving during the winter from such American abolitionists as Wendell Phillips and Maria Weston Chapman. In a typical recommendation, Phillips wrote that Douglass was "the most remarkable and by far the ablest colored man we have ever had here. Language, taste, fancy eloquence, vigor of thought, good sound common sense—manliness are all his."107Wendell Phillips to Elizabeth Pease, 24 February 1845, Maria Chapman to Richard D. Webb, 16 August 1845, Anti-Slavery Collection, MB.
Douglass used his introductions wisely to plan an impressive tour
which was closely orchestrated by various antislavery societies. Before Douglass arrived in a scheduled town, several notices appeared in local newspapers, and placards were placed in prominent locations. A public usually initiated the lecture series. Newspaper coverage of Douglass's addresses in the larger cities led to notices in the provincial press and subsequent invitations from abolitionists in the smaller towns. Richard D. Webb of Dublin scheduled Douglass's initial lectures. Ralph Varian and William Martin of Cork, John Murray, Andrew Paton and William Smeal of Glasgow, William James, H. E. Smith, and John B. Estlin of Bristol, William Boultbec of Birmingham, Elizabeth Pease of Darlington, Mary Brady of Sheffield, Sarah and Blanche Hilditch of Wales, James Robertson of Edinburgh, and other abolitionists were active in arranging other tours. Occasionally Douglass followed the itineraries of Henry C. Wright who had been in Great Britain since 1842. A few of the societies paid Douglass a fee and housed him in local hotels, but more often he stayed with local abolitionists and paid his transportation costs by selling copies of his after his lectures.108Taylor, , 240; Rice, "Scottish Factor," 294-98, 308; , 24 October, 14 November, 12 December 1845, 24 April, 30 October, 20 November 1846, 26 February 1847; Liverpool (Eng.) , 6 October 1846; Leeds (Eng.) , 9 January 1847; London (Eng.) , 20 May 1846; Stockport (Eng.) , 13 November 1846; Liverpool (Eng.) Mercury, 16 October 1846; , 9 January 1846; , 3: 191 (31 December 1845).
"Oh what a speech Frederick made!" Mary Brady wrote enthusiastically from Leeds. "It was indescribably beautiful, sublime, pathetic and powerful. Often the enthusiasm of the audience knew no bounds."109 , 20 February 1847. Throughout Great Britain reporters characterized Douglass's addresses in similar terms. "Enthusiastic" audiences heard "eloquent" appeals filled with "pathos.110Cork (Ire.) , 20, 22, 27 October 1845; Limerick (Ire.) , 11 November 1845; London (Eng.) , 19 May 1846; Sheffield (Eng.) , 19 September 1846; Manchester (Eng.) , 5 December 1846; London (Eng.) , 26 May 1846; Taunton (Eng.) , 9 September 1846; London (Eng.) , 18 February 1847; Manchester (Eng.) , 13 March 1847; Gateshead (Eng.) , 2 January 1847; Arbroath (Scot.) , 14 February 1846. In a typical response, the London found one of Douglass's speeches "replete with thrilling statements, fervid denunciations and stirring and eloquent appeals. We have rarely listened to an orator so gifted by nature, and never to a man who more thoroughly threw his whole heart into the
work in which he is engaged."11126 September 1846. Several journalists commented on Douglass's clear articulation and flawless English. The Kilmarnock reporter, on hearing Douglass for the first time, asserted that he was "far from prepared for such a powerful appeal, couched, as it was, in the most correct language, clearly enunciated and eloquently reinforced."11227 March 1846. For similar reactions, see Glasgow (Scot.) , 18 April 1846; Taunton (Eng.) , 5 September 1846; , 27 February 1847; Stockport (Eng.) , 20 November 1846.
It was Douglass's status as a fugitive slave which packed British lecture halls and gave credibility to his statements. Lucy Browne of Bridgwater felt Douglass's declarations had "double weight, since drawn from his own painful experience: no Englishman however gifted could call forth the same kind of enthusiasm."113, 12 December 1846; Kilmarnock (Scot.) , 3 April 1846; B, 9 January 1846; Stockport (Eng.) , 20 November 1846; Aberdeen (Scot.) , 1 March 1846. 114. 114Lucy Browne to Maria Chapman, 15 October 1846, Chapman Family Papers, MB. Isabel Jennings of Cork, assessing Douglass after his first three months in Great Britain, wrote that he was "the first intelligent slave who has ever visited Cork and it is only natural that he should excite more sympathy than any of the others—we think we have got contributions from persons belonging to the Church (of England) who never could have been influenced except by a person who had himself suffered—we had no means of approaching them and the clergymen are silent. They have got our old anti-slavery papers and are determined to understand the subject—and to all who tell them—'indeed the clergymen are all against slavery', they say, 'Mr. Douglass said so and so—his authority is given—and who can know better than he?' "115Taylor, , 243-44.
For many of his British listeners, Douglass was irrefutable proof of the slave's humanity, of the black's equality with whites.116Glasgow (Scot.) , 18 April 1846; Bristol (Eng.) , 29 August 1846. Elizabeth Pease felt Douglass was "a contradiction . . . to that base opinion, which is so abhorrent to every human and Christian feeling, that the blacks are an inferior race."117, 26 March 1847. Sarah Hilditch of Wrexham asserted that Douglass was "a living example of the capabilities of the slave, and
though we do not expect to be gifted, he proves that what they have been mis-represented, mere chattels—with bodies formed for herculean labour, but without minds, without souls."118Hilditch to Maria Chapman, 31 October 1846, Weston Family Papers, MB.
Douglass was also increasing the appeal of British Garrisonians. They needed assistance. Douglass arrived in Great Britain at a time when British Garrisonians were decidedly overshadowed by a rival group of abolitionists, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society organized in 1839. Led in the 1840s by John Joseph Gurney, George W. Alexander, John Scoble, and Joseph Sturge, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (often called simply the Broad Street committee) had much more money, many more members, and considerably more respectability than any of the societies allied with Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society. Rejecting Garrisonian philosophy, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society lent its influence to and cooperated closely with the politically oriented American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.
The Garrisonians gained several practical benefits from Douglass's sojourn in Great Britain. First, foreign subscriptions to the Liberator increased.119, 27 March, 19 June 1846. Second, there was renewed interest among British women in contributing articles for sale at the annual Boston Anti-Slavery Bazaar which Douglass often mentioned in his speeches.120, 12 February 1847. Reviewing Douglass's activities in 1846, Richard Webb asserted: "There can be no doubt that much of the sweep of the Bazaar this year may be attributed to him—for from all I can learn the contributions from this side of the Atlantic will be finer than ever. I hear that in Bristol and Belfast they are splendid and doubtless they will be from other parts of England and Scotland."121Taylor, , 294. Third, Douglass provided the small body of Garrisonian abolitionists in Great Britain some much needed publicity.
Douglass brought new converts to the abolition cause in Great Britain. "Mr. Douglass is making a great impression in this country," Catherine Clarkson wrote in August 1846. "We have no pro-slavery party here," she continued, "but too many seem to think that having paid 22,000,000 to redeem our own slaves England has nothing more to do." Douglass created interest in abolition where apathy had reigned
before. After Douglass visited Dublin, for example, Richard Webb asserted: "His visit has occasioned deep interest in the anti-slavery cause, and many who never thought on the subject at all, are now convinced that it is one which it is a sin to neglect." Jane Jennings of Cork also emphasized the new converts Douglass was winning: "Never before have I known anyone who has excited such general interest as Frederick."122Ibid., 275; , 24 October 1845, 1 May 1846; Jennings to Maria Chapman, 26 November 1845, Weston Family Papers, MB.
Although Douglass found most of his support among Britain's middle and upper classes, two other groups, women and workers, responded enthusiastically to him. Women attended his lectures by the hundreds, and, moved by Douglass's oratory, increased their contributions to the Anti-Slavery Bazaar and formed new abolition societies.123Riach, "Campaign Against American Slavery," 292; , 16 April 1846; , 12 December 1845; ASB, 12 February 1847. Mary Ireland of Belfast observed in January 1846: "An intense interest has been excited by the oratory of Frederick Douglass during his late visit to this town and in consequence a female Anti Slavery Society is about being formed just at present. All who have listened to D— are warm in the cause of the slave[,] many are earnest and energetic and if a fair development of these impulses were permitted I am convinced there is scarcely a lady in Belfast who would not be anxious to join in any means calculated to promote the enfranchisement of the deeply injured Africans."124Taylor, , 247. Working men contributed their labor to prepare halls in which Douglass spoke, attended his lectures in significant numbers, sent antislavery petitions to the United States after hearing him, and sang ballads about him.38Rice, "Scottish Factor," 276, 312-13, 331-32; , 28 November, 12 December 1845; 1 May 1846 , 31 March, 30 April 1847; Riach, "Campaign Against American Slavery," 290.
Although British and American Garrisonians expressed concern over the potentially harmful effects of fame on Douglass, and worried about his flirtations with the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, he had clearly made a mark on the British public by mid-1847. Recognizing Douglass's charisma, Robert Smith, Secretary of the newly formed Anti-Slavery League, commented on one meeting in the fall of 1846: "The meeting had been well announced. In the announcement, Frederick's
name was conspicuous. I'll tell you why. It was calculated to 'draw,' and it had the desired effect."126, 12 November 1846.
Great Britain made a greater impact on Douglass, however, than he made on it. He became a public figure in the United States because of his tour of the British Isles. Before the trip he was little known in America outside abolition circles. Indeed, one measure of Douglass's obscurity was the rarity of stenographic copies of his speeches in general circulation journals. During the course of Douglass's British tour, notices of his speeches in the quadrupled over the number that had appeared in the paper between 1841 and 1845. Even more significant, his name began appearing frequently in such general circulation newspapers as the Boston , New York , Boston , Hartford , Boston , New York , Oneida (N.Y.) , Boston , and New York . While often portraying Douglass as a traitor and warmonger, these newspapers brought his name and views before a large segment of the American public for the first time. Contemplating Anglo-American disputes over the Oregon territory and the annexation of Texas, American journalists expressed their fear that Douglass was encouraging Britain to attack the United States.127, 1 January, 24 April, 28 August, 18 September, 11, 25 December 1846. The New York spoke for many when it wrote of Douglass:
This glib-tongued scoundrel, mounted on the sympathies of his special friends and backers, the Abolitionists, is 'running a muck' in greedy-eared Britain, against this country, its people, its institutions, and even its peace. Haranguing here and there, he is amusing his British hearers with tales of exposure to ravages, in case of war, of the slaveholding portion of the Union, and of the facilities which invasion from abroad would meet with, at certain points, from the existence of Slavery here. . . . All are enemies of their country, who, in a foreign land calumniate it; but the meanest kind of calumny is, that which speaks through the tongue of a runaway slave.128Quoted in , 12 February 1846.
Douglass's success in Great Britain rankled Americans anxious to have Europeans think well of their country. Pointing to the contradictions between ideals and practices in the United States, and implicating all Americans in the institution of slavery, Douglass rubbed nationalistic
nerves raw. Americans traveling abroad were frequently called upon to respond to Douglass's charges. " H. B." reported from Liverpool in 1846 that because of Douglass he heard everywhere "unfavorable opinions of the South and its Institutions."129, 27 November 1846. About the same time another disgruntled American wrote from Dublin lamenting "the eagerness of the people to talk about American slavery. The principal cause of it arose from the lectures and published life of a notorious character who had recently appeared amongst them, by the name of Douglass, representing himself as a liberated slave. He has had crowded congregations here and elsewhere, and has been unmasking the slavery of America, and drawing . . . horrid pictures of flogging, cropping, starving, maiming, corrupting, & c ." Douglass, he contended, had attacked the churches in the United States so viciously it "excited disgust against American Christianity."130Ibid., 11 September 1846.
Douglass's greatest crime, as far as most American journalists were concerned, was not his attack on slavery, but rather his portrayal of American institutions as evil, the founding fathers as tyrants, and the body politic as corrupt. He was, in short, holding America up to the contempt of the civilized world. The enthusiastic response of the English, Irish, and Scots to Douglass's speeches wounded American pride. The Oswego (N.Y.) reviewed Douglass's tour in 1846 and contended he had gone to Great Britain "to promote the ignorance, and pander to the vilest passions of the vilest Englishmen. . . . All the epithets of abuse that can be found in the vocabulary of Billingsgate, swollen by the far more extended vocabulary of Garrisonism, he has hurled upon America, and America's noblest men. Because he has shaken hands with Daniel O'Connell, and Irishmen and Englishmen have turned out, as they would turn out to see an ourang-outang or hear the bray of a wild ass, to see of what materials a runaway slave is made, and how a thick-lipped orator can talk, his conceit knows no bounds."131Quoted in , 29 October 1846. The hysteria of the journalists testified to their recognition of Douglass's growing stature; he was, they conceded reluctantly, an unusually effective ambassador of ill will.
The infamy Douglass gained in the general-interest newspapers was matched by his growing fame among American abolitionists. In January 1846, for instance, Douglass's portrait was among the items sold at the
Boston Anti-Slavery Bazaar. Perhaps the most impressive indication of Douglass's increasing fame was the attention he received from poets and songwriters in the British Isles and in the United States.132, 13 June 1845, 23 January, 27 March, 27 November, 4 December 1846. One song dedicated to Douglass ("I'll be Free! I'll be Free!" by Jesse Hutchinson) appeared before he embarked for Great Britain. Between the time he arrived in Liverpool and the end of 1847 American and British journals published more than a dozen songs and poems dedicated to or mentioning him. While few, if any, qualify as great music or poetry, they reflected and contributed to Douglass's fame. Portraying the fugitive slave as driven from the "fungus nation" of America, "Land of the bended knee" where the African groaned, L. Sabine penned a long praise poem to Douglass on 1 July 1846:
Douglass, we welcome thee to England's shore,
A brother-freeman, once a tyrant's thrall;
The planter's chain shall shackle thee no more,
Thy frame ne'er tremble at the driver's call.
Thy tongue, thine arm, thy foot, thy voice, is free—
Free as the air, the light, the mountain stream;
Thrice welcome to this land of liberty—
Look back on bondage as a bygone dream.
Thy tongue is loosened—loosened be the ties
Which held thy brethren in the Western shores;
Proclaim their wrongs, denounce the nation's lies,
Where man his brother hates, his God adores.133Ibid., 27 November 1846.
The poets wrote of Douglass's flight to New England, monstrous bloodhounds, the scarred backs of blacks and their unceasing toil in a country dedicated to freedom while being a "Land of Slaves." Douglass, the orator, was the divinely inspired spokesman for the American bondsman.
While the poetic effusions contributed to Douglass's growing stature, he obtained more concrete measures of British esteem. First, his Narrative, which he hawked after his lectures, sold well; by mid-1847 Narrative had gone through five British editions and had been translated into French. Second, in the fall of 1846 British abolitionists raised
enough money to purchase Douglass from Hugh Auld and manumitted him. Then, in 1847 British abolitionists raised $2,175 for Douglass to use to purchase a printing press for a newspaper he planned to edit in the United States.134Quarles, , 80.
Returning to the United States in April 1847, Douglass entered on the third phase of his lecturing career. But, when he announced his intention to publish a newspaper, many white abolitionists warned that such a step would mark the end of his usefulness as an antislavery lecturer.135, 25 June 1847; , 12, 26 August 1847. Garrison pleaded with Douglass to reject the editorial chair and continue his work on the platform.
Of one thing, we and his friends are certain: as a lecturer, his power over a public assembly is very great, and it is manifestly his gift to address the people . With such powers of oratory, and so few lecturers in the field where so many are needed, it seems to us as clear as the noon-day sun, that it would be no gain, but rather a loss, to the anti-slavery cause, to have him withdrawn to any considerable extent from the work of popular agitation, by assuming the cares, drudgery and perplexities of a publishing life. It is quite impracticable to combine the editor with the lecturer, without either causing the paper to be more or less neglected, or the sphere of lec turing to be severely circumscribed.136, 23 July 1847.
Receiving conflicting advice from several quarters, Douglass agonized over his decision for months. Finally, in the fall of 1847 he decided to try to "combine the editor with the lecturer." He moved to Rochester, New York, and began publishing the in December 1847. Changing the title of the journal to in 1851, he continued to publish it until 1860.
Despite Garrison's warning, Douglass found the roles of editor and lecturer compatible. Douglass frequently left his editorial chair for lengthy periods to take the stump, but he served the paper while away; each antislavery meeting ended with a call for new subscribers, and, he argued, without those paying readers recruited on the circuit, the paper would fold.137Ibid., 22 December 1848, 23 November, 14 December 1849. And it was on the lecture circuit that Douglass gathered his best editorial materials and measured abolitionist progress. "It is in
the lecturing field that the anti-slavery operator comes into contact with his patient and has the most abundant opportunities for . . . fully acquainting himself with the nature and extent of the disease which he seeks to remove." At the editor's desk, he continued, you learn the "more subtle forms which the pro-slavery demon assumes, but the lecturing field's the stage upon which to get a more vigorous idea of the monster." Even the unpleasant, anxious times were important and sustaining for Douglass. Described as the "raw material of pro-slavery," he encountered the " 'tar and feathers' "—" 'ride him out on a rail' "—the " '' ought to be sent out of the country" incidents on the lecturing tour and wrote about them upon his return to Rochester.138Ibid., 9 March 1849.
Yet Douglass always seemed a bit uneasy about the effect lecturing had on the paper. He confessed that traveling hundreds of miles day and night, town to town, speaking inand out-of-doors, not being able to read and keep up with events left him in a "disordered condition." He hoped that "readers will bear with us till we get the din and strange excitement of the dizzy platform out of our head and regain our . . . steadiness."139Ibid., 7 April 1848; , 4 March, 3 September, 29 October 1853, 1, 17 February 1854.
Douglass worked constantly to make the two roles more compatible. In 1852 he announced that he was changing the publication date of the paper from Thursday to Friday. That would allow him to travel and lecture on Saturday and Sunday and still return to Rochester to get the next issue out in time. At another point he praised improved railroad travel, because it allowed him to work all day Thursday getting the paper ready for press, and then to travel 450 miles and lecture the next day.140, 1 July 1852, 27 January 1854.
While Douglass could resolve the conflict between editing and lecturing, he found it difficult to reconcile his differences with Garrison. In the 1840s as a Garrisonian abolitionist Douglass contended the Constitution was a proslavery document, adhered to moral suasion to abolish slavery, was nonviolent, abjured voting, and called for dissolution of the Union. Becoming a political abolitionist in the 1850s, Douglass found the Constitution was an antislavery document, urged abolitionists to vote, rejected dissolution, and called for the violent overthrow of slavery.
The increasing emphasis Douglass placed on violence in his lectures in the 1850s eventually caused his second exile. His close association with John Brown led to charges of complicity in Brown's abortive attempt to start a slave rebellion by attacking Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. When the state of Virginia issued a warrant for Douglass's arrest, he fled to England. His reception on his second British tour in 1859 and 1860 was decidedly cooler than his reception between 1845 and 1847. Returning to the United States in April 1860, Douglass was soon delivering lectures on issues arising during the Civil War.
The years from 1847 to the 1860s marked the apogee of Douglass's stature as an antislavery advocate. All kinds of journals quoted passages from his speeches, published anecdotes about his lecturing experiences, and expanded their coverage of his platform performances. Critical discussions of Douglass's addresses began appearing in books on American oratory in the 1850s, and practically everyone ranked him high on the list of America's "Lecturing Fraternity."
Douglass's growing reputation and skills brought changes in his lecturing habits. When he began lecturing, he prepared for a speech by writing a very brief outline of his remarks. James Monroe, a Connecticut abolitionist, who saw Douglass as he prepared to speak in 1841 reported: "On a table near him was a leaf of paper on which were scrawled perhaps two-dozen words. 'What is this?' I said. 'That,' he replied with a laugh, 'is my speech.' "141James Monroe, (Oberlin, 1897), 57-58. A few years later Douglass supplemented his outline with books, pamphlets, and newspaper clippings from which he read appropriate selections. While his sense of humor was irrepressible, Douglass tried to take a more serious tone in his speeches in the late 1840s. Later he recalled, "One of the hardest things I had to learn when I was fairly under way as a public speaker was to stop telling so many funny stories. I could keep my audience in a roar of laughter—and they liked to laugh, and showed disappointment when I was not amusing—but I was convinced that I was in danger of becoming something of a clown, and that I must guard against it."142Parker, "Reminiscences," 553.
Heavy reliance on humor and the anecdotal style was not, Douglass felt, appropriate for many of the lecture topics he chose in the 1850s. In speeches commemorating American Independence, dedicating monuments and cemeteries, eulogizing reformers, and depicting the unity of
the races, Douglass had to take more of his material from books and pamphlets. The rich storehouse of his personal experience no longer provided enough data for him. Then, too, the character of his audiences changed. More and more Douglass exchanged the antislavery stump for the lyceum or the ceremony which might demand more thoughtful and complex speeches on less familiar and comfortable topics.
In 1854 Douglass received his first invitation to speak to a lyceum. He was elated and optimistic because a black man and a fugitive slave had been invited to speak to an intellectual organization on the subject of slavery; "it is . . . a cheering sign," he concluded. After his first appearance before the lyceum in Manchester, New Hampshire, Douglass received annual invitations from such organizations. His appearances before lyceums were important to Douglass both because of the fees he received and for the opportunities they provided to demonstrate the intellectual capability of blacks. He recalled that such lectures gave him a "new vocation, one full of advantages mentally and pecuniarily. When in the employment of the American Anti-Slavery Society my salary was about four hundred and fifty dollars a year, and I felt I was well paid for my services; but I could now make from fifty to a hundred dollars a night, and have the satisfaction, too, that I was in some small measure helping to lift my race into consideration, for no man who lives at all lives unto himself—he either helps or hinders all who are in any wise connected with him."143, 413.
As he received more invitations from lyceums, literary societies, and colleges in the 1850s Douglass began to compose a few speeches especially for such audiences. With the end of the Civil War and institu tional slavery, he did not travel so much or speak so often as he had as an antislavery advocate. His life and thus his lecturing habits became more organized, less frantic, and more respectable. He wrote out more of his speeches, which accordingly took on a different flavor. Extemporaneous addresses were replaced by thoughtful essays read before ceremonial crowds—West Indies Emancipation Day, Fourth of July, literary society meetings, black conventions. Douglass seldom traveled from town to town as he once did. He attended events. Or he stopped as a visiting paid lecturer, an enterprise he joined for a while, complete with agent. He spoke of "The Philosophy of Reform," of "Pictures and
Progress," of "Our Composite Nationality," of "William the Silent," of "John Brown," and of "Woman's Suffrage."144Cleveland (O.) , 3 May 1884, 7, 21 March 1885; San Francisco (Cal.) , 5 December 1874; Washington (D.C.) , 26 January 1889; New York, 18 May 1882; Washington (D.C.) , 12 February, 19 March 1881.
Douglass labored long on his written speeches, typically spending weeks on research in local libraries and constant revision. Richard T. Greener, black lawyer and diplomat, on examining the manuscripts of Douglass's speeches, found "certain phrases are written, rewritten, transposed again and again."135 Greener, "Reminiscences," 294. See also , 48: 40 (March-April, 1886). Douglass developed his approach to writing speeches in the 1850s. Apparently he wrote complete drafts of a series of speeches before delivering them from memory in Rochester in 1850. Two years later he composed a July Fourth oration. Many of the West Indian Emancipation speeches and eulogies Douglass delivered during the 1850s were written. He was, however, as apt to memorize and deliver them extemporaneously as to read them to his audiences. Douglass learned the most important elements of his speech-writing technique in preparing "The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered," to be read at Western Reserve College in 1854. Unfamiliar with the scientific topic when he decided upon it, Douglass consulted with his friends, M. B. Anderson, president of the University of Rochester, and Prof. Henry Wayland. Reading the books they suggested, Douglass spent several months researching and writing his speech. Later he revised it and presented it as "Ethnology of the African Races," "The Races of Men, " "Unity of the Races," and under other titles.146Janesville (Wis.) , 11 February 1859; Detroit (Mich.) , 13 March 1859; Chicago (Ill.) , 5 February 1859; Cincinnati (O.) , 7 March 1856; Cincinnati (O.) , 4 March 1856; , 8 March 1856. For the next ten years, Douglass usually wrote biennially a new speech for the lyceum or abolition circuit. Although some of the addresses, such as his 1857 "Dred Scott," lost their popular appeal after one or two seasons, many were timeless, reflecting Douglass's extensive research and continuing revisions. For his most popular written lecture, "Self Made Men " for instance, Douglass read widely in history and biography. Then, for thirty years after he first delivered it in 1858, Douglass occasionally revised the speech.147Indianapolis (Ind.) , 16 February 1889, 30 September 1893; Detroit (Mich.) , 3 June 1892; Washington (D.C.) , 16 February 1889; New York , 1 December 1888; New York , 15 October 1859; Washington (D.C.) , 21 January, 4, 11 February 1882.
By 1860 Douglass had begun to master his new technique and to win some plaudits from his critics. A reporter for the Glasgow , for instance, felt that "Self Made Men" was "evidently a carefully-elaborated, original and most suggestive lecture." Commenting on "Pictures and Progress," a speech Douglass wrote in 1861, the New York in 1863 asserted: "His peculiar wit, sarcasm, drollery, dramatic intensity, and more than all, his noble moral earnestness, set in strong relief by an indefinable and touching sadness of tone and mein, were apparent in this as in all his speeches." The Portland (Maine) reported in 1864 that "Pictures and Progress" was "an elegantly written disquisition, replete with subtle thought, and abounding in apt illustration."148Glasgow (Scot.) , 31 March 1860; , 5: 815 (March 1863); , 31 December 1864.
The most critical assessment of the written lectures came from abolitionist reporters who had often heard the old Douglass. On one occasion the suggested that Douglass was "embarrassed" by his text, and while he still commanded the audience's attention, "some abatement of the fire that characterized his extemporaneous efforts" was noted.149, 22 February 1862. The invidious comparison between Douglass's extemporaneous and written lectures continued throughout his career. For example, in 1868, after hearing Douglass read "William the Silent," the Syracuse reported: "He does not appear to the same advantage with a carefully prepared lecture, that he does when speaking from the impulses of his heart without note or manuscript." Nineteen years later the Nantucket reached the same conclusion about "William the Silent": "Mr. Douglass's reputation as an orator having been achieved in an entirely different field, he could not hold the attention of his audience, many of whom were standing, by reading from his manuscript."150Syracuse (N.Y.) , 16 December 1868; Nantucket (Mass.) , 25 August 1887.
Douglass tried in various ways to satisfy the demands of his public. His first response when he encountered an inattentive audience was to disregard his written lecture and to speak extemporaneously. Lecturing on "Pictures and Progress" to a lyceum group in 1861, Douglass was
losing those Boston listeners ("who were impatient to hear a colored man speak on the times") when he abandoned his text and "commenced upon the topic of the day. " The audience, previously described as "particularly listless and inattentive," "became attentive and enthusiastic." Douglass's permutation saved the evening from "total failure," according to one report.151, 14 December 1861. When a Nantucket audience greeted "William the Silent" unenthusiastically in 1887, Douglass, perceiving this, "laid aside his prepared lecture, and talked familiarly upon the condition of the black man in America and his development through the instrumentalities incident upon the rebellion and emancipation."152Nantucket (Mass.) , 25 August 1887. Sometimes Douglass's reputation as a less than exciting reader preceded him on the lyceum circuit and forced him to abandon his text before reaching the lectern. After arriving in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1865 to deliver a written lecture, Douglass met with the managers of the lyceum course and they pleaded with him to deliver it. He agreed. Instead of his written lecture, he gave a two-hour "logical, eloquent, and convincing" extemporaneous address on black enfranchisement.153, 25 February 1865.
The second, and more successful, tactic, Douglass soon discovered, was to combine reading with extemporaneous remarks about blacks. His driest written lectures came to life after he perfected this technique. This pattern usually emerged in his delivery of the speeches several years after he had first written them. For example, a Philadelphia audience listened enthusiastically to "Self-Made Men" in 1865; the "applause was frequent and zealous." According to one member of the audience,
The address was a noble and eloquent one, pervaded by richness of thought and manly sentiment; abounding in wisdom and wit; seasoned by a pleasing diffusion of choice bits of sarcasm, and presented with that power of utterance and soul stirring vigor for which the orator is distinguished. Many interesting facts were interspersed, and the few incidents of personal narrative that were introduced, showing how the speaker acquired rudiments of education, contributed to the entertainment.
It would be impossible for Mr. Douglass to deliver a lecture, no matter what title he might give it, without checkering it with thoughts and views pertaining to the great subject nearest his heart,
and which has monopolized the service and devotion of his life. On this occasion the welfare of the black man was not forgotten.154Ibid., 25 April 1868.
Audiences responded similarly to what Douglass himself regarded as his most boring written lecture, "The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered," after he shortened the title and delivered it by alternately reading extracts and speaking extemporaneously.155Cincinnati (O.) , 4 March 1856.
During the 1850s Douglass stepped on a new platform: political oratory. He was at his best on the campaign trail during the antebellum period when he could clearly unite abolition and politics. After the Civil War his role was more that of a loyal follower and his campaign speeches received more mixed reviews. The Democratic press naturally found little that was praiseworthy in his addresses; Republican journals greeted them enthusiastically. Partisan as they often were, the critical comments must be treated seriously. It took extraordinary skill for a speaker to rise above the general level of mediocrity of nineteenth-century campaign oratory. Demagogic, bitter, and abusive, stump speeches were generally puerile, bombastic, hortatory claptrap filled with panegyrics, emotional appeals, and intemperate language.156Donald Hayworth, "An Analysis of Speeches in Presidential Campaigns from 1884 to 1910," , 16: 35-42 (February 1930). Douglass did not always overcome the limitations of his medium. The Geneva (N.Y.) accurately portrayed his weaknesses in a review of an 1872 speech during the Grant-Greeley campaign: "There was nothing new in the black Douglass's speech—nothing, absolutely nothing promulgated, calculated to make converts to Grantism. His hearers were regaled with threadbare trash such as has been reiterated over and over again in the Grant papers, to the effect when simmered down that Grant is a great patriot, never attended a horse race, never owned a dog; never told a lie; never chewed tobacco; occasionally smoked a cigar, and always went to church. Greeley was the very antipode of this."1574 October 1872.
Douglass once told a Maine audience "it did not matter what subject he took; when he came upon the platform, He could not forget him, while he stood before them, and they could not if he could."158, 31 December 1864. His concern for blacks required Douglass to infuse something of his abolitionist passion and sincerity
into his campaign addresses. The sarcasm, resort to epigrammatic sentences, dramatic flights, humorous anecdotes, and emotional appeals characteristic of his best reform orations also appeared in his campaign addresses. He was an eminently quotable campaigner. A review in 1872 led the New York to conclude:
Those who have devoted any degree of attention to the leading oratorical efforts of the present campaign, must have observed the characteristic force and fervor which have invariably distinguished the speeches of Fred. Douglass. His position as the representative orator of the colored race gives his words a special kind of authority. . . .
From the very outset of the present contest, therefore, the speeches of Frederick Douglass have been among the most powerful weapons of the party. They have, in addition to the special force derived from their authorship, possessed a degree of epigrammatic point and terseness which stands unexcelled among the productions of the campaign. . . . Connected by close and vigorous argument, and illustrated by appeals to an experience which is absolutely unique of its kind, such sentences . . . are so many thrusts which enter the vital parts of the enemy.15926 September 1872.
A representative abolitionist, Afro-American, and reformer, Douglass spoke on many of the topics current during the nineteenth century. As a Garrisonian and a political abolitionist, he spoke on both sides of the major antislavery factions. Throughout his career, Douglass opposed colonization and expatriation, stressed the contradictions between American professions and American practices where blacks were concerned, advocated the social, moral, economic, and educational uplift of blacks, rejected capital punishment, and championed the cause of peace, temperance, and women's rights. After the Civil War he called for the granting of suffrage to blacks, damned southern lynchings, campaigned for the extension of civil rights to Afro-Americans, and urged them to "agitate! agitate!" until these rights were achieved.
Introduction to Volume 1
This volume covers the years from 1841 to 1846 when Douglass delivered more than 500 speeches. Thousands of people in the United States, England, Scotland, and Ireland heard him speak during these years. Sixty, or about 12 percent, of the speeches Douglass delivered between 1841 and 1846 are printed herein.
Unfortunately, there are relatively few extant copies of Douglass's early speeches. Beginning his career when there was much prejudice against abolitionists, Douglass suffered from inadequate press coverage. In addition to the unpopular causes he espoused, Douglass's early speeches were not recorded because so few American journalists had mastered the skill of shorthand. Though the earliest speeches we discovered were imperfectly recorded (sometimes containing only a few stenographically recorded passages) or briefly summarized, we have included the best of them. They reveal something about Douglass's thoughts and oratorial skills at the beginning of his lecturing career. Many of the early speeches, for instance, are short because Douglass made only a few remarks. Despite their imperfections, the early speeches help to complete the record.
An overwhelming majority of the speeches in Volume 1 were delivered by Douglass in the British Isles, where he received extensive press coverage. And, because even the newspapers in small towns had reporters who knew shorthand, his speeches were recorded in great detail, often stenographically.
Covering the first half of Douglass's career as a strict Garrisonian, the speeches in Volume 1 encapsulate his antislavery philosophy and reflect the general concerns and ideology of a large segment of American and British abolitionists in the 1840s. Delivered relatively soon after his escape from bondage, the speeches contain some of Douglass's bitterest denunciations of slavery. Because the memory of the lash was so fresh, his speeches during this period reflect the feelings, sufferings, and longings of the bondsmen and relatives he left behind in the South. At the same time, by 1845 Douglass had experienced for seven years the proscriptions facing free blacks in the North. This knowledge he communicated to his audiences. Douglass found in the temperance and
peace movements causes which he could link to his abolitionist philosophy and his egalitarian principles. From 1841 to 1846 he campaigned against proslavery religion, racism, drunkenness, war, hypocrisy, discrimination, and American slavery from small city and county meetings in the United States to large international conferences in Great Britain.