My Bondage and My Freedom, My Bondage and My Freedom

F >> Frederick Douglass >> My Bondage and My Freedom, My Bondage and My Freedom

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The general assembly of the Free Church was in progress at <297
THE DEBATE>Cannon Mills, Edinburgh. The building would hold
about twenty-five hundred persons; and on this occasion it was
densely packed, notice having been given that Doctors Cunningham
and Candlish would speak, that day, in defense of the relations
of the Free Church of Scotland to slavery in America. Messrs.
Thompson, Buffum, myself, and a few anti-slavery friends,
attended, but sat at such a distance, and in such a position,
that, perhaps we were not observed from the platform. The
excitement was intense, having been greatly increased by a series
of meetings held by Messrs. Thompson, Wright, Buffum, and myself,
in the most splendid hall in that most beautiful city, just
previous to the meetings of the general assembly. "SEND BACK THE
MONEY!" stared at us from every street corner; "SEND BACK THE
MONEY!" in large capitals, adorned the broad flags of the
pavement; "SEND BACK THE MONEY!" was the chorus of the popular
street songs; "SEND BACK THE MONEY!" was the heading of leading
editorials in the daily newspapers. This day, at Cannon Mills,
the great doctors of the church were to give an answer to this
loud and stern demand. Men of all parties and all sects were
most eager to hear. Something great was expected. The occasion
was great, the men great, and great speeches were expected from
them.

In addition to the outside pressure upon Doctors Cunningham and
Candlish, there was wavering in their own ranks. The conscience
of the church itself was not at ease. A dissatisfaction with the
position of the church touching slavery, was sensibly manifest
among the members, and something must be done to counteract this
untoward influence. The great Dr. Chalmers was in feeble health,
at the time. His most potent eloquence could not now be summoned
to Cannon Mills, as formerly. He whose voice was able to rend
asunder and dash down the granite walls of the established church
of Scotland, and to lead a host in solemn procession from it, as
from a doomed city, was now old and enfeebled. Besides, he had
said his word on this very question; and his word had not
silenced the clamor without, nor stilled <298>the anxious
heavings within. The occasion was momentous, and felt to be so.
The church was in a perilous condition. A change of some sort
must take place in her condition, or she must go to pieces. To
stand where she did, was impossible. The whole weight of the
matter fell on Cunningham and Candlish. No shoulders in the
church were broader than theirs; and I must say, badly as I
detest the principles laid down and defended by them, I was
compelled to acknowledge the vast mental endowments of the men.
Cunningham rose; and his rising was the signal for almost
tumultous applause. You will say this was scarcely in keeping
with the solemnity of the occasion, but to me it served to
increase its grandeur and gravity. The applause, though
tumultuous, was not joyous. It seemed to me, as it thundered up
from the vast audience, like the fall of an immense shaft, flung
from shoulders already galled by its crushing weight. It was
like saying, "Doctor, we have borne this burden long enough, and
willingly fling it upon you. Since it was you who brought it
upon us, take it now, and do what you will with it, for we are
too weary to bear it.{no close "}

Doctor Cunningham proceeded with his speech, abounding in logic,
learning, and eloquence, and apparently bearing down all
opposition; but at the moment--the fatal moment--when he was just
bringing all his arguments to a point, and that point being, that
neither Jesus Christ nor his holy apostles regarded slaveholding
as a sin, George Thompson, in a clear, sonorous, but rebuking
voice, broke the deep stillness of the audience, exclaiming,
HEAR! HEAR! HEAR! The effect of this simple and common
exclamation is almost incredible. It was as if a granite wall
had been suddenly flung up against the advancing current of a
mighty river. For a moment, speaker and audience were brought to
a dead silence. Both the doctor and his hearers seemed appalled
by the audacity, as well as the fitness of the rebuke. At length
a shout went up to the cry of "_Put him out_!" Happily, no one
attempted to execute this cowardly order, and the doctor
proceeded with his discourse. Not, however, as before, did the
<299 COLLISION WITH DR. COX>learned doctor proceed. The
exclamation of Thompson must have reechoed itself a thousand
times in his memory, during the remainder of his speech, for the
doctor never recovered from the blow.

The deed was done, however; the pillars of the church--_the
proud, Free Church of Scotland_--were committed and the humility
of repentance was absent. The Free Church held on to the blood-
stained money, and continued to justify itself in its position--
and of course to apologize for slavery--and does so till this
day. She lost a glorious opportunity for giving her voice, her
vote, and her example to the cause of humanity; and to-day she is
staggering under the curse of the enslaved, whose blood is in her
skirts. The people of Scotland are, to this day, deeply grieved
at the course pursued by the Free Church, and would hail, as a
relief from a deep and blighting shame, the "sending back the
money" to the slaveholders from whom it was gathered.

One good result followed the conduct of the Free Church; it
furnished an occasion for making the people of Scotland
thoroughly acquainted with the character of slavery, and for
arraying against the system the moral and religious sentiment of
that country. Therefore, while we did not succeed in
accomplishing the specific object of our mission, namely--procure
the sending back of the money--we were amply justified by the
good which really did result from our labors.

Next comes the Evangelical Alliance. This was an attempt to form
a union of all evangelical Christians throughout the world.
Sixty or seventy American divines attended, and some of them went
there merely to weave a world-wide garment with which to clothe
evangelical slaveholders. Foremost among these divines, was the
Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox, moderator of the New School Presbyterian
General Assembly. He and his friends spared no pains to secure a
platform broad enough to hold American slaveholders, and in this
partly succeeded. But the question of slavery is too large a
question to be finally disposed of, even by the <300>Evangelical
Alliance. We appealed from the judgment of the Alliance, to the
judgment of the people of Great Britain, and with the happiest
effect. This controversy with the Alliance might be made the
subject of extended remark, but I must forbear, except to say,
that this effort to shield the Christian character of
slaveholders greatly served to open a way to the British ear for
anti-slavery discussion, and that it was well improved.

The fourth and last circumstance that assisted me in getting
before the British public, was an attempt on the part of certain
doctors of divinity to silence me on the platform of the World's
Temperance Convention. Here I was brought into point blank
collison with Rev. Dr. Cox, who made me the subject not only of
bitter remark in the convention, but also of a long denunciatory
letter published in the New York Evangelist and other American
papers. I replied to the doctor as well as I could, and was
successful in getting a respectful hearing before the British
public, who are by nature and practice ardent lovers of fair
play, especially in a conflict between the weak and the strong.

Thus did circumstances favor me, and favor the cause of which I
strove to be the advocate. After such distinguished notice, the
public in both countries was compelled to attach some importance
to my labors. By the very ill usage I received at the hands of
Dr. Cox and his party, by the mob on board the "Cambria," by the
attacks made upon me in the American newspapers, and by the
aspersions cast upon me through the organs of the Free Church of
Scotland, I became one of that class of men, who, for the moment,
at least, "have greatness forced upon them." People became the
more anxious to hear for themselves, and to judge for themselves,
of the truth which I had to unfold. While, therefore, it is by
no means easy for a stranger to get fairly before the British
public, it was my lot to accomplish it in the easiest manner
possible.

Having continued in Great Britain and Ireland nearly two years,
and being about to return to America--not as I left it, a <301
THE PRESS A MEANS OF REMOVING PREJUDICES>slave, but a freeman--
leading friends of the cause of emancipation in that country
intimated their intention to make me a testimonial, not only on
grounds of personal regard to myself, but also to the cause to
which they were so ardently devoted. How far any such thing
could have succeeded, I do not know; but many reasons led me to
prefer that my friends should simply give me the means of
obtaining a printing press and printing materials, to enable me
to start a paper, devoted to the interests of my enslaved and
oppressed people. I told them that perhaps the greatest
hinderance to the adoption of abolition principles by the people
of the United States, was the low estimate, everywhere in that
country, placed upon the Negro, as a man; that because of his
assumed natural inferiority, people reconciled themselves to his
enslavement and oppression, as things inevitable, if not
desirable. The grand thing to be done, therefore, was to change
the estimation in which the colored people of the United States
were held; to remove the prejudice which depreciated and
depressed them; to prove them worthy of a higher consideration;
to disprove their alleged inferiority, and demonstrate their
capacity for a more exalted civilization than slavery and
prejudice had assigned to them. I further stated, that, in my
judgment, a tolerably well conducted press, in the hands of
persons of the despised race, by calling out the mental energies
of the race itself; by making them acquainted with their own
latent powers; by enkindling among them the hope that for them
there is a future; by developing their moral power; by combining
and reflecting their talents--would prove a most powerful means
of removing prejudice, and of awakening an interest in them. I
further informed them--and at that time the statement was true--
that there was not, in the United States, a single newspaper
regularly published by the colored people; that many attempts had
been made to establish such papers; but that, up to that time,
they had all failed. These views I laid before my friends. The
result was, nearly two thousand five hundred dollars were
speed<302>ily raised toward starting my paper. For this prompt
and generous assistance, rendered upon my bare suggestion,
without any personal efforts on my part, I shall never cease to
feel deeply grateful; and the thought of fulfilling the noble
expectations of the dear friends who gave me this evidence of
their confidence, will never cease to be a motive for persevering
exertion.

Proposing to leave England, and turning my face toward America,
in the spring of 1847, I was met, on the threshold, with
something which painfully reminded me of the kind of life which
awaited me in my native land. For the first time in the many
months spent abroad, I was met with proscription on account of my
color. A few weeks before departing from England, while in
London, I was careful to purchase a ticket, and secure a berth
for returning home, in the "Cambria"--the steamer in which I left
the United States--paying therefor the round sum of forty pounds
and nineteen shillings sterling. This was first cabin fare. But
on going aboard the Cambria, I found that the Liverpool agent had
ordered my berth to be given to another, and had forbidden my
entering the saloon! This contemptible conduct met with stern
rebuke from the British press. For, upon the point of leaving
England, I took occasion to expose the disgusting tyranny, in the
columns of the London _Times_. That journal, and other leading
journals throughout the United Kingdom, held up the outrage to
unmitigated condemnation. So good an opportunity for calling out
a full expression of British sentiment on the subject, had not
before occurred, and it was most fully embraced. The result was,
that Mr. Cunard came out in a letter to the public journals,
assuring them of his regret at the outrage, and promising that
the like should never occur again on board his steamers; and the
like, we believe, has never since occurred on board the
steamships of the Cunard line.

It is not very pleasant to be made the subject of such insults;
but if all such necessarily resulted as this one did, I should be
very happy to bear, patiently, many more than I have borne, of
<303 THE STING OF INSULT>the same sort. Albeit, the lash of
proscription, to a man accustomed to equal social position, even
for a time, as I was, has a sting for the soul hardly less severe
than that which bites the flesh and draws the blood from the back
of the plantation slave. It was rather hard, after having
enjoyed nearly two years of equal social privileges in England,
often dining with gentlemen of great literary, social, political,
and religious eminence never, during the whole time, having met
with a single word, look, or gesture, which gave me the slightest
reason to think my color was an offense to anybody--now to be
cooped up in the stern of the "Cambria," and denied the right to
enter the saloon, lest my dark presence should be deemed an
offense to some of my democratic fellow-passengers. The reader
will easily imagine what must have been my feelings.

CHAPTER XXV
_Various Incidents_

NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE--UNEXPECTED OPPOSITION--THE OBJECTIONS TO
IT--THEIR PLAUSIBILITY ADMITTED--MOTIVES FOR COMING TO
ROCHESTER--DISCIPLE OF MR. GARRISON--CHANGE OF OPINION--CAUSES
LEADING TO IT--THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CHANGE--PREJUDICE AGAINST
COLOR--AMUSING CONDESCENSION--"JIM CROW CARS"--COLLISIONS WITH
CONDUCTORS AND BRAKEMEN--TRAINS ORDERED NOT TO STOP AT LYNN--
AMUSING DOMESTIC SCENE--SEPARATE TABLES FOR MASTER AND MAN--
PREJUDICE UNNATURAL--ILLUSTRATIONS--IN HIGH COMPANY--ELEVATION OF
THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR--PLEDGE FOR THE FUTURE.

I have now given the reader an imperfect sketch of nine years'
experience in freedom--three years as a common laborer on the
wharves of New Bedford, four years as a lecturer in New England,
and two years of semi-exile in Great Britain and Ireland. A
single ray of light remains to be flung upon my life during the
last eight years, and my story will be done.

A trial awaited me on my return from England to the United
States, for which I was but very imperfectly prepared. My plans
for my then future usefulness as an anti-slavery advocate were
all settled. My friends in England had resolved to raise a given
sum to purchase for me a press and printing materials; and I
already saw myself wielding my pen, as well as my voice, in the
great work of renovating the public mind, and building up a
public sentiment which should, at least, send slavery and
oppression to the grave, and restore to "liberty and the pursuit
of happiness" the people with whom I had suffered, both as a <305
OBJECTIONS TO MY NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE>slave and as a freeman.
Intimation had reached my friends in Boston of what I intended to
do, before my arrival, and I was prepared to find them favorably
disposed toward my much cherished enterprise. In this I was
mistaken. I found them very earnestly opposed to the idea of my
starting a paper, and for several reasons. First, the paper was
not needed; secondly, it would interfere with my usefulness as a
lecturer; thirdly, I was better fitted to speak than to write;
fourthly, the paper could not succeed. This opposition, from a
quarter so highly esteemed, and to which I had been accustomed to
look for advice and direction, caused me not only to hesitate,
but inclined me to abandon the enterprise. All previous attempts
to establish such a journal having failed, I felt that probably I
should but add another to the list of failures, and thus
contribute another proof of the mental and moral deficiencies of
my race. Very much that was said to me in respect to my
imperfect literary acquirements, I felt to be most painfully
true. The unsuccessful projectors of all the previous colored
newspapers were my superiors in point of education, and if they
failed, how could I hope for success? Yet I did hope for
success, and persisted in the undertaking. Some of my English
friends greatly encouraged me to go forward, and I shall never
cease to be grateful for their words of cheer and generous deeds.

I can easily pardon those who have denounced me as ambitious and
presumptuous, in view of my persistence in this enterprise. I
was but nine years from slavery. In point of mental experience,
I was but nine years old. That one, in such circumstances,
should aspire to establish a printing press, among an educated
people, might well be considered, if not ambitious, quite silly.
My American friends looked at me with astonishment! "A wood-
sawyer" offering himself to the public as an editor! A slave,
brought up in the very depths of ignorance, assuming to instruct
the highly civilized people of the north in the principles of
liberty, justice, and humanity! The thing looked absurd.
Nevertheless, I per<306>severed. I felt that the want of
education, great as it was, could be overcome by study, and that
knowledge would come by experience; and further (which was
perhaps the most controlling consideration). I thought that an
intelligent public, knowing my early history, would easily pardon
a large share of the deficiencies which I was sure that my paper
would exhibit. The most distressing thing, however, was the
offense which I was about to give my Boston friends, by what
seemed to them a reckless disregard of their sage advice. I am
not sure that I was not under the influence of something like a
slavish adoration of my Boston friends, and I labored hard to
convince them of the wisdom of my undertaking, but without
success. Indeed, I never expect to succeed, although time has
answered all their original objections. The paper has been
successful. It is a large sheet, costing eighty dollars per
week--has three thousand subscribers--has been published
regularly nearly eight years--and bids fair to stand eight years
longer. At any rate, the eight years to come are as full of
promise as were the eight that are past.

It is not to be concealed, however, that the maintenance of such
a journal, under the circumstances, has been a work of much
difficulty; and could all the perplexity, anxiety, and trouble
attending it, have been clearly foreseen, I might have shrunk
from the undertaking. As it is, I rejoice in having engaged in
the enterprise, and count it joy to have been able to suffer, in
many ways, for its success, and for the success of the cause to
which it has been faithfully devoted. I look upon the time,
money, and labor bestowed upon it, as being amply rewarded, in
the development of my own mental and moral energies, and in the
corresponding development of my deeply injured and oppressed
people.

From motives of peace, instead of issuing my paper in Boston,
among my New England friends, I came to Rochester, western New
York, among strangers, where the circulation of my paper could
not interfere with the local circulation of the _Liberator_ and
the _Standard;_ for at that time I was, on the anti-slavery
question, <307 CHANGE OF VIEWS>a faithful disciple of William
Lloyd Garrison, and fully committed to his doctrine touching the
pro-slavery character of the constitution of the United States,
and the _non-voting principle_, of which he is the known and
distinguished advocate. With Mr. Garrison, I held it to be the
first duty of the non-slaveholding states to dissolve the union
with the slaveholding states; and hence my cry, like his, was,
"No union with slaveholders." With these views, I came into
western New York; and during the first four years of my labor
here, I advocated them with pen and tongue, according to the best
of my ability.

About four years ago, upon a reconsideration of the whole
subject, I became convinced that there was no necessity for
dissolving the "union between the northern and southern states;"
that to seek this dissolution was no part of my duty as an
abolitionist; that to abstain from voting, was to refuse to
exercise a legitimate and powerful means for abolishing slavery;
and that the constitution of the United States not only contained
no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, it is,
in its letter and spirit, an anti-slavery instrument, demanding
the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence, as
the supreme law of the land.

Here was a radical change in my opinions, and in the action
logically resulting from that change. To those with whom I had
been in agreement and in sympathy, I was now in opposition. What
they held to be a great and important truth, I now looked upon as
a dangerous error. A very painful, and yet a very natural, thing
now happened. Those who could not see any honest reasons for
changing their views, as I had done, could not easily see any
such reasons for my change, and the common punishment of
apostates was mine.

The opinions first entertained were naturally derived and
honestly entertained, and I trust that my present opinions have
the same claims to respect. Brought directly, when I escaped
from slavery, into contact with a class of abolitionists
regarding the <308>constitution as a slaveholding instrument, and
finding their views supported by the united and entire history of
every department of the government, it is not strange that I
assumed the constitution to be just what their interpretation
made it. I was bound, not only by their superior knowledge, to
take their opinions as the true ones, in respect to the subject,
but also because I had no means of showing their unsoundness.
But for the responsibility of conducting a public journal, and
the necessity imposed upon me of meeting opposite views from
abolitionists in this state, I should in all probability have
remained as firm in my disunion views as any other disciple of
William Lloyd Garrison.

My new circumstances compelled me to re-think the whole subject,
and to study, with some care, not only the just and proper rules
of legal interpretation, but the origin, design, nature, rights,
powers, and duties of civil government, and also the relations
which human beings sustain to it. By such a course of thought
and reading, I was conducted to the conclusion that the
constitution of the United States--inaugurated "to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessing of liberty"--could not well have been
designed at the same time to maintain and perpetuate a system of
rapine and murder, like slavery; especially, as not one word can
be found in the constitution to authorize such a belief. Then,
again, if the declared purposes of an instrument are to govern
the meaning of all its parts and details, as they clearly should,
the constitution of our country is our warrant for the abolition
of slavery in every state in the American Union. I mean,
however, not to argue, but simply to state my views. It would
require very many pages of a volume like this, to set forth the
arguments demonstrating the unconstitutionality and the complete
illegality of slavery in our land; and as my experience, and not
my arguments, is within the scope and contemplation of this
volume, I omit the latter and proceed with the former.
<309 THE JIM CROW CAR>

I will now ask the kind reader to go back a little in my story,
while I bring up a thread left behind for convenience sake, but
which, small as it is, cannot be properly omitted altogether; and
that thread is American prejudice against color, and its varied
illustrations in my own experience.

When I first went among the abolitionists of New England, and
began to travel, I found this prejudice very strong and very
annoying. The abolitionists themselves were not entirely free
from it, and I could see that they were nobly struggling against
it. In their eagerness, sometimes, to show their contempt for
the feeling, they proved that they had not entirely recovered
from it; often illustrating the saying, in their conduct, that a
man may "stand up so straight as to lean backward." When it was
said to me, "Mr. Douglass, I will walk to meeting with you; I am
not afraid of a black man," I could not help thinking--seeing
nothing very frightful in my appearance--"And why should you be?"
The children at the north had all been educated to believe that
if they were bad, the old _black_ man--not the old _devil_--would
get them; and it was evidence of some courage, for any so
educated to get the better of their fears.

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