“A complete history of these hundred conventions would fill a volume far larger than the one in which this simple reference is to find place,” Frederick Douglass wrote many years later. “It would be a grateful duty to speak of the noble young men who forsook ease and pleasure, as did White, Gay and Monroe, and endured all manner of privations in the cause of the enslaved and down-trodden of my race.... Mr. Monroe was for many years consul to Brazil, and has since been a faithful member of Congress from Oberlin District, Ohio, and has filled other important positions in his state. Mr. Gay was managing editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard, and afterward of the New York Tribune, and still later of the New York Evening Post.”[4]
The following winter, against the advice of his friends, Douglass decided on an independent course of action.
“Your word is being doubted,” he said to Garrison and Phillips. “That I cannot endure. They are saying that I am an impostor. I shall write out the facts connected with my experience in slavery, giving names, places and dates.”
“It will be a powerful story!” said Garrison, his eyes watching the glow of light from the fireplace.
Theodore Parker spoke impatiently. “So powerful that it will bring the pack on his heels. And neither the people nor the laws of Massachusetts will be able to protect him.”
“He’s mad!” Wendell Phillips’ golden voice was hard. “When he has finished I shall advise him to throw the manuscript in the fire!”
But Garrison smiled.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “we’ll find a way. God will not lose such a man as Frederick Douglass!”
They looked at him sitting there in the dusk, with the firelight playing over his calm face. There were times when Garrison’s quiet faith confounded the two divines.