Frederick Douglass

by Booker T. Washington

On the 3d day of December, 1847, appeared the first issue of the North Star. The name was afterwards changed to Frederick Douglass’s Paper, in order to avoid all possible confusion with other anti-slavery organs with similar names. It was issued weekly, and had an average circulation of 3,000 subscribers, with a maximum of 4,000. A colored man named Delaney, who afterward distinguished himself as a Union soldier in the Civil War, had had some experience in newspaper work and aided Mr. Douglass in the publication. Financially the paper soon proved to be more of a sacrifice than a money-making venture, but in this there was no disappointment, for its purpose was to make public opinion rather than money. It took everything that Mr. Douglass had and could obtain to keep the North Star in the newspaper firmament. He became deeply in debt and was compelled to mortgage his home to meet the heavy demands upon him. His old friends and many new ones came repeatedly to his rescue. The most important of these was Mrs. Julia Griffith Crofts, a gracious woman who took hold of the business management herself. After a year’s effort the circulation increased from 2,000 to 4,000, and enough money was realized to pay off all indebtedness and lift the mortgage from Mr. Douglass’s home. The paper grew in popularity and influence, and its patrons and financial helpers included such men as Gerrit Smith, Horace Mann, Salmon P. Chase, Joshua R. Giddings, Charles Sumner, William H. Seward, and John G. Palfrey. Support came from these leaders, not in a patronizing way to help a “poor, struggling colored man’s paper,” but rather as a tribute to the high merit of the publication. Those who were sure that Mr. Douglass could never write as well as he could speak were surprised at this new evidence of his versatility and resourcefulness.

In an issue of Mr. Garrison’s paper, dated January 28, 1848, these flattering words appeared: “The facility with which Mr. Douglass has adapted himself to his new and responsible position is another proof of his genius and is worthy of especial praise. His editorial articles are exceedingly well written; and the typographical, orthographical, and grammatical accuracy with which the North Star is printed surpasses that of any other paper ever published by a colored man.” Edmund Quincy, commenting on the North Star, paid a high tribute to the new editor and said that its “literary and mechanical execution would do honor to any paper, new or old, anti-slavery or pro-slavery, in the country.” The ease with which Mr. Douglass adapted himself to his new responsibility, and the high praise that came to him from all parts, added immensely to his influence and prestige. What the North Star said editorially on the many live questions of the day was liberally quoted and widely discussed.

The successful carrying out of this enterprise was a distinct advantage to Mr. Douglass as a vindication of his own individuality. It is a good thing for a man to have an idea, but it is a better thing for him to have sufficient force of character to put his idea into effect. A man stands or falls by what he is able to do rather than by what he is able to say. Mr. Douglass was told that the responsibility was too great. It is always at this point that the strength of a man is tested. Frederick Douglass rose above the fears of his friends and took the first step that led him to a more commanding position. The determination to have his own way in this newspaper enterprise was his first “declaration of independence.” While Mr. Douglass tells us that he felt an abiding gratitude toward William Lloyd Garrison for what that man had done in giving him a start in his upward career, he had reached the point where he must cease to rely upon the initiative of others. He must begin to trust himself and his own powers, and cease to be a burden upon those who had been his guides and teachers.

The anti-slavery cause was assuming large proportions. Every event in the social, economic, and political life of the nation pushed this question into prominence. All sorts of people were becoming interested in the slavery issues, but there were so many sides to the problem that it was not always easy to see the right. There was for a time a growing confusion of ideas, policies, doctrines, and a puzzling division and subdivision of forces, both in the pro-slavery and anti-slavery ranks. There were those who thought and asserted that the Federal Constitution was a “pro-slavery instrument,” and others who were equally insistent that it was anti-slavery. There were those who were Abolitionists in doctrine, but in politics voted with one or the other of the old parties, both of which were pro-slavery in their policies. There were those who, while believing in the equality of the Negro, were extreme in their opposition to the admission of women into membership in anti-slavery societies. A large number of liberty-loving people could go no further in their hostility to slavery than to oppose its extension into new territory. These made a partial trial of their anti-slavery feelings in the Free Soil and the Liberty parties.

Only two classes of people in the country occupied fixed positions on the great question. These were William Lloyd Garrison and his associates, and the slave-holders and their followers. Mr. Garrison’s famous utterance that “the United States Constitution was a covenant with death and an agreement with hell,” and his declaration of “no union with slave-holders,” constituted his unvarying platform. The slave-holding interests were equally tenacious of their creed and quite as fixed in their determination to risk everything rather than yield an inch to the anti-slavery clamor.

Enough has been said to show that the time had come when the man who wished to be respected, believed in, and followed, must be strong enough to have convictions of his own and be responsible to himself and the public for these convictions. It was now incumbent upon Mr. Douglass to find solid ground on which, amidst so many conflicting opinions, to oppose slavery. The conclusions of his studies and thinking had the disagreeable effect of leading him away from Garrison’s doctrine of “non-resistance” and “disunion.” From his first reading of The Liberator he held firmly to Garrison. What that leader said or believed on the question, Mr. Douglass accepted without reservation. It is well that he did. No one could be a weakling who lived and labored under so stimulating a guide. There was something sublime in his moral courage, and something extraordinary in the steadiness with which, unswerved by the changing circumstances about him, he pursued his fixed purposes. It was this quality of soul in him that made him always the dominant figure and influence in the contest. Abolition had become so closely identified with his name that the question could scarcely be discussed without some reference to him. It is no wonder that Frederick Douglass was so completely under his spell, but it must certainly be counted an evidence of the ex-slave’s intellectual sincerity and strength of mind that when he could in practice no longer follow the disunion theory, he had the courage and ability to frame a clear and logical statement of the grounds for his own action.

His explanation of his change of position is best told in his own words:

“My first opinions were naturally derived and honestly entertained. Brought directly, when I escaped from slavery, into contact with Abolitionists, who regarded the Constitution as a slave-holding 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 these friends made it seem to be. I was bound, not only by their superior knowledge, to take their opinions in respect to this subject, as the true ones, but also because I had no means of showing this unsoundness.

“But for the responsibility of conducting a public journal, and the necessity imposed upon me of meeting opposite views from Abolitionists outside of New England, I should in all probability have remained firm in my disunion views. 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 brought 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 blessings 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 pure warrant for the abolition of slavery in every state of the Union.”

Having thus, and by other reasonings convinced himself of the unconstitutionality of slavery, the editor of the North Star voiced the conviction in and out of season, until it was overthrown. In thus separating from the Garrisonian Abolitionists, there was much heart-burning on both sides, but nothing of the nature of rivalry or jealousy, as some writers have attempted to show. Both Garrison and Douglass were manly in their attitude toward friend and foe, and too sincere in their convictions to be otherwise than high-minded in their differences on matters of principle.