“When Ministers appear to change their course, and lay themselves open to the charge of inconsistency, it were better perhaps for this country and for the general character of public men that they be punished by expulsion from office.” He did not blame them, then. There was no word of bitterness. Moreover, the credit for his reforms, he said, should not go to him. “The name which ought to be chiefly associated with the success of these measures is the name of Richard Cobden,” one who has achieved his disinterested purpose by “appeals to our reason.”
There was a slight rustle throughout the chamber. It was as if the very shadows were listening.
“In relinquishing power, I shall leave a name censured by many who deeply regret the severance of party ties, by others, who, from no selfish interest adhere to the principles of Protection, considering its maintenance essential to the welfare and interests of the country; I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist, who clamors for Protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit. But it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of goodwill in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labor, and to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. Perhaps they too will call my name when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is not leavened by a sense of injustice.”
It was all over in a few minutes. Frederick turned at a sound beside him. O’Connell had covered his face with his two hands. Frederick slipped his arm through his, pressing against him. The grand old man of Ireland was weeping.
It was the Reverend Samuel Hanson Cox who now decided that London had had just about enough of Frederick Douglass!
Sixty or seventy American divines had arrived in London that summer for the double purpose of attending the World Evangelical Alliance and the World Temperance Convention. It was the avowed purpose of a group of these ministers, under the leadership of the Reverend Cox, to procure a blanket endorsement for the Christian character of slaveholders. The matter was becoming a little ticklish in certain quarters, and these churchmen were determined to establish the Biblical and divine status of the “sons of Ham” whom—they agreed—God had designated “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”
What was their dismay, therefore, to find one of the slaves running around at large in England, speaking from platforms, and being invited to the homes of respectable, but utterly misguided, Englishmen and Englishwomen—God save us!
The divines set about enlightening the English people. Before they realized it, the question of slavery became a burning issue in the Evangelical Alliance. And things did not go well. By far the larger crowds were attracted to the Temperance Convention, which was being held in huge Covent Garden. The Abolitionists planned carefully. One afternoon when the Garden was packed, Frederick Douglass was called from the audience to “address a few words” to the Convention. The slavers’ advocates were thunderstruck! They could not believe that such treachery existed within their own ranks. As, amid clamorous applause, Douglass made his way to the platform, Reverend Cox leaped to his feet and shouted his protests. But he was yelled down.
“Let him speak!”