Men stamped and shouted and threw their hats into the air. The hall rang. Douglass took up in a quieter mood. He talked of the meaning of constitutional government, he talked of what could be gained if exploited people stood together and what they lost by battling among themselves.
“The slaveholders, with a craftiness peculiar to themselves, encourage enmity of the poor labouring white man against the blacks, and succeed in making the white man almost as much a slave as the black slave himself. The difference is this: the latter belongs to one slaveholder, the former belongs to the slaveholders collectively. Both are plundered, and by the same plunderers.”
Afterward Jack tried to go forward and ask some questions of the amazing orator, but the press of the crowd stopped him. He gave up and returned to the inn. And the next day they had gone back to Boston, he was told. Thomas Dorr, through his timidity and caution, had lost the people.
When the new Rhode Island constitution was finally adopted the word white had been struck out.
Jack Haley returned to Washington and handed in his account of the “rebellion.” The editor blue-penciled most of it. He said they had thrown away money on a wild-goose chase.
But Gamaliel Bailey studied the closely written pages Jack laid on his desk. True, he could not now publish the material in his National Era; but he drew a circle around the name “Frederick Douglass” and slipped the sheets into his file for future reference.
Every drop of blood slowly drained from Amelia’s face while Jack talked. Mrs. Royall dropped the stick of type she had been clutching—Jack had interrupted them at work in the shed—and stared at her helper.
“She’s sick!”
But Amelia shook her head. She leaned against the board, struggling to speak while into her white face there came a glow which changed her blue eyes into dancing stars.
“You said his name was Frederick, didn’t you? About how old would you say he was?”