men, and thus raises the dignity of labor; for whatever may be one’s natural gifts, success, as I have said, is due mainly to this great means, open and free to all.
While the world values skill and power, it values beauty and polish as well. It was not alone the hard good sense and honest heart of Horace Greeley, the self-made man, that made the New York Tribune, but likewise the brilliant and thoroughly educated men silently associated with him.
There never was a self-made man, however well-educated, who, with the same exertion, would not have been better educated by the aid of schools and colleges. The charge is made and well sustained, that self-made men are not generally over-modest or self-forgetful men. It was said of Horace Greeley that he was a self-made man and worshipped his maker. Perhaps the strong resistance which such men meet in maintaining their claim, may account for much of their self-assertion.
Chapter 2
The Black Man and the War
Bridge Street AME
February 1863
In the winter of 1863, Douglass sought to build on the momentum generated by the Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln formally issued on January 1. In addition to freeing slaves in Confederate states, the Proclamation also encouraged black participation in the war effort. Douglass became a leading voice in support of enlistment—but stressed that black soldiers should simultaneously acquire full rights of citizenship.
On February 7, Douglass gave a well-received version of the following speech at Cooper Union—with both Robert Hamilton of the Anglo-African and Theodore Tilton of the Independent joining him onstage.[39] Twelve days later, Douglass came to Brooklyn at the invitation of Reverend James Morris Williams,[40] minister of the Bridge Street African Methodist Episcopal Church (Bridge Street AME). Blacks reportedly comprised two-thirds of the approximately four hundred people in attendance.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle incorrectly states that it was Douglass’s “first appearance in Brooklyn.” More accurately, it was his first widely advertised lecture in the city’s central area. At the time, the church was located at 309 Bridge Street in Downtown Brooklyn.[41] During the Civil War, the Democratic Eagle—edited by Thomas Kinsella, an Irish immigrant—was no champion of the Union cause.
Note that I have added parentheses and italics to some passages below to distinguish between the newspaper’s account and Douglass’s speech.
*
Frederick Douglass, the only representative of the colored people of the United States who has by his natural abilities attained any eminence at home or abroad, made his first appearance in Brooklyn last night at the African Church in Bridge Street, to deliver a lecture on the war. Considering the position of the lecturer, the subject he was to treat of and the fact that the proceeds were to be applied for the benefit of the Church, the colored brethren did not turn out very handsomely, and if the white folks had not come to the rescue, there would not have been a rather slim audience. There were between three and four hundred persons present, of whom about one third were white. Among the latter were a few prominent local politicians of the Republican persuasion.
Fred. Douglass made his appearance at 8 o’clock, in company with the pastor of the church and another brother. Douglass is a bright mulatto, of fine physical proportions, standing nearly six feet in height, and of athletic build. His features are more of the Caucasian than African cast; he has a high, broad forehead, giving him an intellectual expressive countenance. He sports a moustache and goatee, and his hair, which is quite abundant and slightly tinged with grey, as a sort of compromise between the African tendency to curl, and the limpness of the Caucasian capillary, stands out straight in all directions.
As a speaker Douglass will compare favorably with the white abolition actors; his elocution is very fine, his language clear and forcible, while he discusses the slavery question in a far more rational manner than most of his white co-laborers in the cause. He spoke last evening for two hours and enchained the attention of his auditors. The subject of his lecture was “The Black Man and the War.” He said:—
We are here as Abolitionists—as colored Abolitionists—and as citizens of the United States; but more especially as men, having the interest of the whole human family at heart. Desiring that this nation, which is our common inheritance, may be preserved in all its integrity and completeness. Viewing this great issue not from the narrow standpoint of Abolitionists, but regarding it in its relation to the whole world, [t]he question [be]comes how shall the land be preserved? How can the institutions of the United States be preserved?
([Douglass] believed that the only hope of the government lay in coupling its interests with the interests of the four millions of slaves. He could give many reasons for this.)
This Union can never be re-established on the old basis of compromise. If we of the North were disposed to make concessions, the slave-holders of the South would reject any propositions of the kinds . . . In order to live together peaceably the North and the South must have something in common between them.
(The speaker then went on to argue the irreconcilability of the institution of slavery with the freedom of the North.)
Slavery must be paramount over all other interests of state, church, social and family relations—more sacred than all else is slavery at the South. The North has hitherto conceded everything the South has asked; has always been conciliating, trying to make the South love us.
([Douglass] instanced the concessions made to slavery from the admission of Texas, to the Fugitive Slave law, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.)
Was the South satisfied with this? No! They said we must vote for the man they chose for President, but thank God, one million eight hundred thousand voters rolled our long and able Abe Lincoln into the chair. [Applause.]
(The speaker then proceeded to answer the question what will the black man do, and said:)
We will stand by the president with our sympathies, black though we are; we will stand by him with our strong arms, black though we are [applause], provided the same rights are guaranteed to us as to men who come to this land, who have no such claim as we have. We have watered your soil with our tears, enriched it with our sweat, tilled it with our labor, and we ask the same privileges as men who come from abroad—who are not born here. But it is said that the Proclamation is a violation of the Constitution of the United States. In regard to this [I] would say that the Constitution of the United States, important though it may be, was in no respect so important as the people of the United States, who made it. The hat a man wears should never be made more sacred than his head. The hat is made for the head, not the head for the hat. The Constitution of the United States was made by and for the people of the United States.
([Douglass] conceded that it was an evidence of the great wisdom of the fathers of the Republic, but he believed that the people of the present generation could make a constitution just as good as the old constitution, should they put their wits together for the purpose. Nevertheless, he did not consider there had been any violation of the Constitution, but it was a convenient argument for the Copperheads to use.[42] )
They say the Constitution provides that a man should not be deprived of his property, or his liberty, without process of law . . . Does the Constitution grant any right to property in man? On the contrary its provisions guarantee liberty to every slave in the United States.
