Mr. Douglass was fairly pushed into Canada by his friends, but the determination to get hold of him was so strong that he was not regarded as safe even there. It would not have been impossible to effect some plan for arresting him so long as he remained so close to his native land. It was decided therefore that he must again go to England. He had already planned this trip, but the interesting events that culminated in the Harper’s Ferry tragedy had delayed his departure.

Mr. Douglass stated publicly that he would be perfectly willing to be tried anywhere in New York State, but not elsewhere. He took passage for England from Quebec on the 12th day of November, 1859, and was everywhere received with the old-time cordiality. As he was fresh from the scenes and events that had stirred the English almost as much as the American people, he was in great demand for more complete information. He had occasion to deliver many addresses and it was everywhere manifest that he had lost none of his former prestige. The only setback he suffered was when he applied to George M. Dallas, the American Minister to the Court of St. James, for a passport for the purpose of visiting Paris. He was refused on the ground that he was not a citizen of the United States. His visit was cut short by the distressing news of the death of his beloved little daughter, Anna, the delight and life of his home, his absence having covered only five months. He returned to find the public temper toward him mollified by the swift happenings of a season which was marked by incessant change in the currents of popular feeling.

CHAPTER XI
FOREBODINGS OF THE CRISIS

The ten years from 1850 to 1860 were years of cumulative danger to the republic and to the principles of liberty and democracy upon which it was founded. For the Negro these years contained more of perils than of hopes. The great historical events growing out of the conflict between the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery parties appeared to have set the goal of emancipation ever farther out of the range of practical possibilities. The Fugitive Slave Law seemed for a time to put an end to all hopes for further rescues from bondage. The Dred Scott Decision made every Negro, free or slave, an outlaw. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill threatened to render slavery so thoroughly national that Abolition would be forever impossible. Finally, the John Brown raid intensified, for a time, the hatred toward the colored people and their friends in the North.

But the success of the pro-slavery party was more apparent than real. It had gained merely a tactical victory. All the deeper currents of the nation’s life were running counter to it. The raid excited the horror of the people. Even men active as Abolitionists denounced the acts of John Brown as both foolhardy and wicked. It seemed for a time that every one prominent in social and political life in the North was anxious publicly to disavow all share in what was described as a “reckless and fanatical” deed. But John Brown’s raid did not bring the people of the North and South any nearer together. On the contrary, it merely widened the breach between them. The North might disclaim this act, but the people of the opposite section were not satisfied with these disclaimers. It seemed to them that behind John Brown was a great conspiracy, and that the North, having determined to make a nullity of the Fugitive Slave Law, was preparing to follow it up with still more daring efforts to free the slaves at any cost.

Brown was hurried to the gallows, but not before an effort was made to implicate in his crime men who were prominent as Abolitionists. It has already been shown what steps were taken to capture Frederick Douglass. A Congressional committee was appointed for the purpose of thoroughly investigating the whole matter, but it accomplished nothing. It is scarcely necessary to say that the death of Brown produced an impression throughout the country quite as profound as that already created by his “raid.” The execution changed public sentiment at once. People now began to feel and to say that the cause, and not the man, had been on trial when he was found guilty. The sentence of death passed by the Virginia court transformed Brown in the eyes of a great many Northern people into a martyr and shed a halo over the cause for which he gave his life. Emerson compared the gallows of Virginia to the cross in Palestine. All through the North the people began to sing the song that continued to be a favorite throughout the Civil War:

“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,

But his soul is marching on.”

The panic-stricken friends of freedom recovered their spirits and renewed their attacks with increased vigor. To quote from Frederick Douglass: “John Brown’s defeat was already assuming the form of victory, and his death was giving new life and power to the principles of justice and liberty. What he had lost by the sword, he had more than gained by the truth.”

The people of the South all through this controversy had shown themselves correct interpreters of public sentiment. They clearly saw that the execution of John Brown did not put an end to the cause of Abolition. This reckless act of invasion was merely typical of what was possible on a scale of vaster proportions. In spite of everything that had been achieved by law and by decisions of the Supreme Court, the trend of feeling in the North was steadily against slavery. In spite of the Fugitive Slave Law and an increasing vigilance on the part of masters and their agents, the Underground Railroad continued its business of carrying slave-property to free soil. Charles Sumner’s speech in the Senate added fresh interest to the cause of emancipation, and the continued popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was ominous. All these disquieting circumstances boded some dreadful issue of the controversy. The drift of events is best exhibited in the effects of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, already referred to. When this bill became a law, as the consummation of the policy of Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the physical boundary between slavery and freedom, which many had supposed to be fixed as firmly as the Declaration of Independence, was swept away and all the vast empire of the west and northwest became disputed ground between the forces of free soil and slavery. This act gave effect to the new doctrines of state sovereignty. Whatever may have been its purpose, the result was to unite the forces of the North and South, pitting the two sections against each other in a struggle for supremacy in the new territory. In outward appearance this new doctrine was peaceful and sound, but it held dreadful possibilities. Expressed plainly, the Kansas-Nebraska Law said that whether these new states should be free or slave-states must be left to the people. It was for them to vote slavery “up” or “down.” In other words, if the majority of the people of these territories voted for slavery, it became, by their sovereign will, an institution fixed and irrevocable; if not, slavery was forever to be shut out, just as it was excluded from Massachusetts.