Each of his Scotch addresses was of this uncompromising and stirring character. It was a matter of surprise and wonder to his associates to witness his resourcefulness and readiness to meet all arguments and to sweep aside all half-truths, uttered in behalf of slavery. Summing up his work in Scotland, one who had followed him and studied its effects, wrote: “He has divided the Free Church against itself on account of slavery. He has gained the admiration and esteem of all the friends of the slave in this country. He has always kept an open platform, yet none of the rabbis have been found gallant enough to break lance with him. He completely exposed their miserable attempts to reconcile slavery with Christianity.”
While in England and Scotland a man named Thompson, who formerly lived in St. Michaels, and who pretended to have known Douglass on the Freeland and Covey plantations, published a letter that tended to discredit some of his assertions. The ex-slave met these charges in a straightforward manner, which must have left no doubt of his truthfulness. In his reply to the Thompson letter, he said: “You have completely tripped up the heels of your slave-holding friends and laid them flat at my feet. You have done a piece of anti-slavery work which no anti-slavery man could do again. If I could see you now, amid the free hills of Scotland, where the ancient ‘black Douglas’ once met his foes, I presume I might summon sufficient courage to look you in the face; and were you to attempt to make a slave of me, it is possible you might find me almost as disagreeable a subject as was the Douglas to whom I have just referred.”
The several months spent by the traveler in England were filled with interesting incidents. His oratorical triumph was complete, and the attentions accorded him by many prominent people, unusually flattering. Indeed, it can be said that he was positively lionized in London, but he bore it with becoming dignity and the grace of a man born to high conditions.
Perhaps special mention should be made of his address at the World’s Temperance Convention, held in Covent Garden, August 7, 1846. A large delegation from the United States was present and some prominent Americans were on the program. The meeting was an immense affair and, in point of interest, the number of delegates, and the countries represented, genuinely international in character. Mr. Douglass was asked to address the convention and his speech was looked forward to with great interest. He rather anticipated a sensational outcome of his attempt to make himself heard, because he was not called upon until the delegates had spoken, and what they had said furnished him with the very text that appealed most strongly to his convictions and feelings. As he rose, the convention was in a quiver of excitement, for it was the first time that this much-talked-of fugitive from slavery had had a chance to stand up in the presence of men and women representing all shades of party opinion, and say the word that concerned the destiny of himself and his people. He began:
“Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen—I am not a delegate to this convention. Those who would have been most likely to elect me as a delegate could not, because they are to-night held in abject slavery in the United States. Sir, I regret, that I cannot fully unite with the American delegates in their patriotic eulogies of America and American societies. I cannot do so for this good reason: there are at this moment three millions of the American population, by slavery and prejudice, placed entirely beyond the pale of American temperance societies. The three million slaves are completely excluded by slavery, and four hundred thousand free colored people are almost as completely excluded by an inveterate prejudice against them on account of their color. [Cries of “Shame! Shame!”]
“I do not say these things to wound the feelings of the American delegates; I simply mention them in their presence and before this audience that, seeing how you regard this hatred and neglect of the colored people, they may be inclined, on their return home, to enlarge the field of their temperance operations and embrace within the scope of their influence my long-neglected race. [Great cheering, and some confusion on the platform.]
“Sir, to give you some idea of the difficulties and obstacles in the way of the temperance reformation of the colored population of the United States, allow me to state a few facts. About the year 1840, a few intelligent, sober, and benevolent colored people of Philadelphia, being acquainted with the alarming ravages of intemperance among a numerous class of colored people in that city, and finding themselves neglected and excluded from white societies, organized societies among themselves, appointed committees, sent out agents, built temperance halls, and were earnestly and successfully rescuing many from the fangs of intemperance.
“The cause went on nobly, until August 1, 1842, the day when England gave liberty to one hundred thousand souls in the West Indies. The colored temperance societies selected this day to march in procession through the city, in the hope that such a demonstration would have the effect of bringing others into their ranks. They formed their procession, unfolded their teetotal banners, and proceeded to the accomplishment of their purpose. It was a delightful sight. But, sir, they had not proceeded down two streets before they were brutally assailed by a ruthless mob; their ranks broken up; their persons beaten and pelted with stones and brickbats. One of their churches was burned to the ground, and their best temperance hall utterly demolished.” [“Shame! Shame! Shame!” from the audience and cries of “Sit down” from the Americans on the platform.]
A tremendous commotion was caused by this speech. The American delegation was alarmed and indignant. One member wrote an account of the event for the New York Evangelist, from which the following extracts will serve to gauge the feeling:
“They all advocated the same cause, showed a glorious union of thought and feeling, and the effect was constantly being raised—the moral scene was superb and glorious—when Frederick Douglass, the colored Abolitionist, agitator and ultraist, came to the platform and so spoke á la mode as to ruin the influence almost of all that preceded! He lugged in anti-slavery or Abolition, no doubt prompted to it by some of the politic ones who used him to do what they would not themselves venture to do in person. He is supposed to have been well paid for this abomination.