In Tremont Temple, in Boston, on the day when Mr. Lincoln’s Proclamation was looked for, there was gathered a memorable company. Many of the most notable men in New England were present to join with the colored people in the song of jubilee. To quote Mr. Douglass: “A line of messengers was established between the telegraph office and the platform, and the time was occupied with brief speeches from Hon. Thomas Russell, Anna Dickinson, J. Sella Martin, William Wells Brown, and myself.... At last when patience was well-nigh exhausted and suspense was becoming agony, a man, I think Judge Russell, with hasty step advanced through the crowd and with a face fairly illumined with the news he bore, exclaimed, in tones that thrilled all hearts: ‘It is coming, it is on the wires.’ The effect of this announcement was startling beyond description, and the scene was wild and grand.”
When the message finally came and was read, there was a scene of indescribable rejoicing. The crowd was so crazy with excitement that midnight came upon them before they were aware of it and they adjourned to a colored Baptist church where the jubilation did not fully exhaust itself until morning. Mr. Douglass described it as “the most affecting and thrilling occasion I ever witnessed and a worthy celebration of the first step on the part of the nation in its departure from the thraldom of ages.”
The Proclamation put new energy into all war measures and as the four years of Mr. Lincoln’s first administration approached the end, there was no one to oppose him for a renomination. His reëlection seemed to be an overwhelming vindication of his policy. Frederick Douglass was a prominent figure at the inauguration ceremonies and was looking gratefully and joyously up into the kindly face of the great President when he uttered these noble words: “Fondly do we hope, and fervently do we pray that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’”
Speaking of this event Mr. Douglass said:
“In the evening of the day of the inauguration, another new experience awaited me. The usual reception was given at the Executive Mansion, and though no colored person had ever ventured to present himself on such an occasion, it seemed, now that freedom had become the law of the republic, and colored men were on the battle-field mingling their blood with that of white men in one common effort to save the country, that it was not too great an assumption for a colored man to offer his congratulations to the President with those of other citizens. It is never an agreeable experience to go where there can be any doubt of welcome, and my colored friends had too often realized discomfiture from this cause to be willing to subject themselves to such unhappiness. It was plain, then, that some one must lead the way, and that if the colored man would have his rights, he must take them; and now, though it was plainly quite the thing for me to attend President Lincoln’s reception, they all with one accord began to make excuses. It was finally agreed that Mrs. Dorsey should bear me company, so together we joined in the grand procession of citizens from all parts of the country and moved slowly toward the Executive Mansion. Upon reaching the door, two policemen stationed there took me rudely by the arm and ordered me to stand back, for their directions were to admit no persons of my color. I told the officers I was quite sure there was some mistake for no such order could have emanated from President Lincoln; and that if he knew I was at the door, he would desire my admission. They then, to put an end to the parley, as I suppose, assumed an air of politeness, and offered to conduct me in. We followed their lead, and we soon found ourselves walking some planks out of a window, which had been arranged as a temporary passage for the exit of visitors. We halted as soon as we saw the trick, and I said to the officers, ‘You have deceived me. I shall not go out of this building till I see President Lincoln.’ At this moment a gentleman who was passing in, recognized me, and I said to him: ‘Be so kind as to say to Mr. Lincoln that Frederick Douglass is detained by officers at the door.’ It was not long before Mrs. Dorsey and I walked into the spacious East Room, amid a scene of elegance such as in this country I had never before witnessed. Like a mountain pine, high above all others, Mr. Lincoln stood, in his grand simplicity and home-like beauty. Recognizing me, even before I reached him, he exclaimed, so that all around could hear him, ‘Here comes my friend Douglass.’ Taking me by the hand, he said, ‘I am glad to see you. I saw you in the crowd to-day listening to my inaugural address. How did you like it?’ I said, ‘Mr. Lincoln, I must not detain you with my poor opinion, when there are thousands waiting to shake hands with you.’ ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘you must stop a little, Douglass; there is no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours. I want to know what you think of it.’ I replied, ‘Mr. Lincoln, that was a sacred effort.’ ‘I am glad you liked it,’ he said; and I passed on, feeling that any man, however distinguished, might well regard himself honored by such expressions from such a man.”
The events of the war moved rapidly toward the end and to peace. Mr. Douglass was in Boston when Richmond was captured. New England was more stirred over the fall of the Confederate capital than by any other single event of the war, except the Emancipation Proclamation. Faneuil Hall was again the scene of a great gathering. The victory was to be celebrated in song and speech. The governor of the state, Senator Wilson, and Robert C. Winthrop were among the speakers, and with them was Frederick Douglass. A meeting of this kind anywhere in New England would at that time have been incomplete without him. His presence on the platform, sharing honors with the patrician Winthrop, served to illustrate the change of fortunes that are possible under a democratic form of government. Less than twenty-five years before, Douglass, a fugitive from Maryland, had stood behind Mr. Winthrop’s chair at table as a waiter, at a dinner in his honor in New Bedford. He had won the position he now occupied by his services to a people whose cause men in the North had come at length to recognize as their own, because it was the cause of humanity.
Mr. Douglass at this time had reason to feel not only joy but gratitude. It was clear that all he had hoped and struggled for was soon to be realized. The close of the war and the overthrow of the institution of slavery was for him a sort of personal victory. But his rejoicing was soon turned to mourning. At the time of the assassination of President Lincoln he was in Rochester, and he spoke at a meeting held to give expression to the sorrow which that event created. The circumstances are thus related by a friend:
“Rochester court-house never held a larger crowd than was gathered to mourn over the martyred President. The meeting was opened by the most eloquent men at the bar and in the pulpit, with carefully prepared and earnestly uttered addresses. All the time the people were not aroused. Douglass, who told me that he would not speak because he was not invited, sat crowded in the rear. At last the feeling could be restrained no more; and his name burst upon the air from every side and filled the house. The dignified gentlemen who directed had to surrender. Then came the finest appeal in behalf of the father of his people, who had died for them especially, and would be mourned by them as long as one remained in America who had been a slave. I have heard Webster and Clay in their best moments; Channing and Beecher in their highest inspirations. I never heard truer eloquence; I never saw profounder impression. When he finished the meeting was done.”
CHAPTER XIII
EARLY PROBLEMS OF FREEDOM
The close of the Civil War left many of the agencies of emancipation without a cause. The anti-slavery publications, the state and national anti-slavery societies, “vigilance committees,” and the vast Underground Railroad system, saw their purposes accomplished in the terms of peace. The American Anti-Slavery Society, which had been the longest in existence, and which, under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, had done more for freedom than any other single agency, was now ready to wind up its affairs. When a proposition was made for its dissolution, Frederick Douglass opposed it, giving his reasons in these words: “I felt that the work of the society was not done, that it had not fulfilled its mission, which was not merely to emancipate but to elevate the enslaved class ... that the Negro still had a cause and that he needed my pen and voice to plead for it.”