Frederick Douglass

In June, 1899, the bronze statue of Douglass, by Sidney W. Edwards, was installed with impressive ceremonies. The movement thus to perpetuate the memory of Douglass had taken rise among a little band of men of his own race, but the whole people of Rochester claimed the right to participate in doing honor to their distinguished fellow-citizen. The city assumed a holiday aspect. A parade of military and civic societies was held, and an appropriate programme rendered at the unveiling of the monument. Governor Roosevelt of New York delivered an address; and the occasion took a memorable place in the annals of Rochester, of which city Douglass had said, "I shall always feel more at home there than anywhere else in this country."

In March, 1895, a few weeks after the death of Douglass, Theodore Tilton, his personal friend for many years, published in Paris, of which city he was then a resident, a volume of Sonnets to the Memory of Frederick Douglass, from which the following lines are quoted as the estimate of a contemporary and a fitting epilogue to this brief sketch of so long and full a life:

"I knew the noblest giants of my day,And he was of them—strong amid the strong:But gentle too: for though he suffered wrong,Yet the wrong-doer never heard him say,'Thee also do I hate.' …A lover's lay—No dirge—no doleful requiem song—Is what I owe him; for I loved him long;As dearly as a younger brother may.Proud is the happy grief with which I sing;For, O my Country! in the paths of menThere never walked a grander man than he!He was a peer of princes—yea, a king!Crowned in the shambles and the prison-pen!The noblest Slave that ever God set free!"

Bibliography

The only original sources of information concerning the early life of Frederick Douglass are the three autobiographies published by him at various times; and the present writer, like all others who have written of Mr. Douglass, has had to depend upon this personal record for the incidents of Mr. Douglass's life in slavery. As to the second period of his life, his public career as anti-slavery orator and agitator, the sources of information are more numerous and varied. The biographies of noted abolitionists whose lives ran from time to time in parallel lines with his make very full reference to Douglass's services in their common cause, the one giving the greatest detail being the very complete and admirable Life and Times of William Lloyd Garrison, by his sons, which is in effect an exhaustive history of the Garrisonian movement for abolition.

The files of the Liberator, Mr. Garrison's paper, which can be found in a number of the principal public libraries of the country, constitute a vast storehouse of information concerning the labors of the American Anti-slavery Society, with which Douglass was identified from 1843 to 1847, the latter being the year in which he gave up his employment as agent of the society and established his paper at Rochester. Many letters from Mr. Douglass's pen appeared in the Liberator during this period.

Mr. Douglass's own memories are embraced in three separate volumes, published at wide intervals, each succeeding volume being a revision of the preceding work, with various additions and omissions.

I. Narrative of Frederick Douglass. Writen by himself. (Boston, 1845: The American Anti-slavery Society.) Numerous editions of this book were printed, and translations published in Germany and in France.

II. My Bondage and My Freedom. (New York and Auburn, 1855: Miller, Orton & Mulligan.) This second of Mr. Douglass's autobiographies has a well-written and appreciative introduction by James M'Cune Smith and an appendix containing extracts from Mr. Douglass's speeches on slavery.

III. Recollections of the Anti-slavery Conflict. By Samuel J. May. (Boston, 1869: Fields, Osgood & Co.) Collected papers by a veteran abolitionist; contains an appreciative sketch of Douglass.

IV. History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America. By Henry Wilson. 3 vols. (Boston, 1872: James R. Osgood & Co.) The author presents an admirable summary of the life and mission of Mr. Douglass.

V. William Lloyd Garrison and His Times. By Oliver Johnson. (Boston, 1881: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) One of the best works on the anti-slavery agitation, by one of its most able, active and courageous promoters.

VI. Century Magazine, November, 1881, "My Escape from Slavery." By Frederick Douglass.

VII. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Written by himself. (Hartford, 1882: Park Publishing Company.)

VIII. History of the Negro Race in America. By George W. Williams. 2 vols. (New York, 1883: G. P. Putnam's Sons.) This exhaustive and scholarly work contains an estimate of Douglass's career by an Afro-American author.

IX. The Life and Times of Wendell Phillips. By George Lowell Austin. (Boston, 1888: Lee & Shepard.) Contains a eulogy on Wendell Phillips by Mr. Douglass.

X. Life and Times of William Lloyd Garrison. By his children. 4 vols. (New York, 1889: The Century Company. London: T. Fisher Unwin.) Here are many details of the public services of Mr. Douglass,—his relations to the Garrisonian abolitionists, his political views, his oratory, etc.

XI. The Cosmopolitan, August, 1889. "Reminiscences." By Frederick Douglass. In "The Great Agitation Series."

XII. Frederick Douglass, the Colored Orator. By Frederick May Holland. (New York, 1891: Funk & Wagnalls.) This volume is one of the series of "American Reformers," and with the exception of his own books is the only comprehensive life of Douglass so far published. It contains selections from many of his best speeches and a full list of his numerous publications.

XIII. Our Day, August, 1894. "Frederick Douglass as Orator and Reformer." By W. L. Garrison [(1838-1909), the first son and namesake of the Abolitionist leader (1805-1879)].

XIV. The Underground Railroad. By William H. Siebert. With an introduction by Albert Bushnell Hart. (New York, 1898: The Macmillan Company.) Contains many references to Mr. Douglass's services in aiding the escape of fugitive slaves.

1

Editor's Note to Dover Edition: Reverend Theodore Parker (1810-1860) was a Unitarian minister who graduated from the Harvard Divinity School and was active in the Boston area.

2

Editor's Note to Dover Edition: James Monroe (1821-1898), a New Englander with a Quaker mother; in 1839 he became an Abolitionist lecturer instead of enrolling in college.

3

Editor's Note to Dover Edition: Abigail Kelley Foster (1811-1887), who married another Abolitionist, Stephen Foster, in 1845, was a Quaker orator and organizer on behalf of the abolition of slavery and for women's right to vote.