of the boat, into the chill October waters of the Erie Canal. “When I jumped over board I was expecting the kidnappers were doing their work,” Harris told the court, she would, “die rather than to be taken by the kidnappers.” Flailing in the canal, the mother and her three year old daughter were drowning. The mother was fished from the canal, out of her senses but alive; the child's body was never found, and no effort was made by the crew to recover the Harris' daughter. William Harris, after placing his wife below the deck and making sure she was safe, went back to the deck the following morning where Cluney, “threatened to cut his throat.” Catherine approached Captain Webster and protested at the threat against her husband, demanding of the Captain, “you ain't going to let the men kill my husband, are you?” The man replied that he would, “show you what shall be done, the sheriff will be here at 10 o'clock, and take his head off.” All the wife could reply was, “Lord have mercy on me,” and returned to her berth to tell her husband of the Captain's plans. William replied that he, “would sit and wait patiently his doom.” At 10 o'clock, Cluney came into the couple's berth, laughed and, “ hallowed,” and, “said the crew would be there presently and take [William's] head off.” William's resolve was strong. “Sooner than have that pleasure,” the slave resolved, “he would cut his own throat.” The boat was silent and Catherine looked away. As her eye went back to her husband, she, “saw the blood running down,” the black man's neck. Her husband had sliced across his own throat with a straight razor. She cried for help, but none came. Cowell and Cluney, the fellow travellers turned tormenters, said, “d—n the nigger, let him die; if they had had the cutting of it they would have done it right.” Captain Webster came into the cabin and scoffed at William's wound, declaring the man, “hadn't cut it to hurt... d—n him, he ain't going to die yet.” As William lay on
religious language from Smith’s remarks to be passed. “This,” as the Daily Journal wrote, “disposed of the address, as it destroyed its argument.” Without vote, the Chair declared that Sedgwick’s speech now embodied, “the sentiments of the Convention.” Chaos reigned for three hours as egos clashed. The meeting adjourned just before midnight. Smith was incensed at the wholesale slaughter of his ideas. As crowds began filing from the hall, he seized the podium. He quickly brought to order a new Convention, a comprising, “three or four hundred persons,” who, “remained in the Hall.” Frederick Douglass was declared president. Smith addressed the remaining crowd, holding that, “the New Convention was not responsible for the proceedings of the one which had just adjourned. God would not smile on the closing proceedings of that Convention.” It was an, “abandonment of God's cause not to adopt the address which had been objected to.” Quickly, “the address of the Business Committee of the old Convention was unanimously adopted, and after a prayer, at 1 o'clock, the Convention adjourned sine die.” Smith would publish his address and resolutions for circulation as a pamphlet to the state and nation as the sentiment of abolitionism, a sentiment that was distinctly radical. The radical stance of Abolitionists across the north did not go unnoticed. Daniel Webster, from his post at the head of the State Department in Washington, was keenly aware of the sentiment brewing across the northeast. In a letter declining an invitation to speak in Westchester, NY, just outside of New York City, in late January of 1851, Webster spilt his rage at the abolitionists out onto paper. “The purpose of overturning the government,” Webster wrote, “shows itself more clearly in resolutions agreed to in voluntary assemblies of individuals, denouncing the laws of the land, and declaring a fixed intent to disobey them.” Just weeks before the Syracuse Anti-Fugitive Slave Law convention had resolved to not simply, “pour out
May 7th. The leading lights of the abolition movement flocked to Syracuse to denounce slavery, the Fugitive Slave Law and Daniel Webster. The City of New York, likewise, could not avoid assault. “We here at the North,” William Lloyd Garrison spoke sarcastically to the assembly, “are no longer to have any thought, any opinion, any freedom of speech, or the right peaceably to assemble together to discuss the great cause of liberty; at least, it seems not in the great city of New York.” But, the society was determined to make the best of the situation. Now that we are driven out from New York,” Garrison continued, “we are compelled to make our appeal to the interior.” “Thank God,” Garrison proclaimed, “large as is the city of New York, it is not the State of New York! Thank God, wealthy and mighty as is the city of New York, it is powerless as against the Empire State.” Garrison issued a call to the citizens assembled in the Syracuse City Hall, asking loudly over the din of the crowd, “Now, people of Western New York and Syracuse, what do you say?... Shall we say just what we think on the subject of liberty and slavery? Will you defend the right of speech?” Garrison was met with hearty applause. Garrison shared his utmost conviction that, “the people of the North never will surrender the right of free speech.” The following three days of the convention were typical, punctuated by the indistinctive pronouncements on Slavery’s evil, resolutions on the destructive nature of the Fillmore administration for its course on the Fugitive Slave Law and promises of resistance when necessary. Garrison’s band found a relatively receptive audience, even in those citizens who did not typically ally with the abolitionists. “There is,” one observer noted, “among the masses in southern, central, and western New York, the farmers and mechanics, the operatives, and indeed all the non political interests of the country, a feeling of opposition to those measures of the last Congress with which Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Webster are so much identified.” This hostility could
been attacked, “by a violent inflammation of the throat.” “He woke me in much distress,” Webster continued, “and said he could not breathe. In fifteen or twenty minutes we had a physician, who let blood freely, gave a powerful emetic, applied mustard-plasters, etc., etc.” Fletcher taking ill forced Webster to abandon the Presidential party. As Fillmore left for Buffalo, Webster remained behind to nurse his 32-year-old son back to health. For the remainder of the tour back across New York State, Webster would constantly be playing to Fillmore’s entourage. President Fillmore’s tour of New York was relatively benign. At Buffalo, the President spoke to a crowd made up of his neighbors. Fillmore had made a name for himself as a lawyer in nearby East Aurora, and did not let the fact pass lightly. “I came among you,” Fillmore addressed the city, “not many years ago, a friendless boy.” Fillmore milked the crowd’s emotions and fondness for their President. “And I hope to be permitted to return to you, and spend my days with you, and at last to sleep in yonder grave yard and mingle my dust with yours.” Fillmore did attempt to speak to the issues of the day. At Buffalo, Fillmore referred to the Compromise of 1850 in sidelong glances, in spite of the fact he was joined on the dais by Stephen Douglas of Illinois, one of the bill’s younger architects and a rising star in the U.S. Senate. “As partizans we may differ,” Fillmore extolled, “questions as to the manner in which the government shall be administered may divide us.” But it was Fillmore’s belief that, “when treason stalks abroad at the South and rears its snaky head at the North, all rally to its support.” “There is no liberty- no security without law,” the President pointedly declared. Fillmore, however, saw the greatest irreverence to law in the desire of a, “portion of our people… to rush headlong to the conquest of Cuba.” Cuban ambition, and not abolitionists, was the note Fillmore hit hard and repeatedly throughout his tour. Still, at Rochester, upon his conclusion, the
pair of runaway slaves, “quaffed a deep drink of whiskey — not because they loved it, but to act like freemen.” Temerity and timidity would reveal the slave for who he was. Loguen knew to act free was to appear free. The pair bravely, “called for dinner… dried their clothes and killed time as best they could.” Idle hands, for Loguen, nearly became a threat to their escape plan entirely. “Seeing a newspaper on the table, and to cover the pretence that he was a freeman, Jarm took it.” His illiterate eyes passed over the words and pages, to make, “as if he was reading it.” But the man knew but one letter, the capital “A”, aside from which he, “was entirely ignorant of every letter of the alphabet.” Jarm hunted for the letter diligently in the newsprint, “but when he found it, to his deep mortification, it was wrong end upwards!” The slave, posing as an educated freedman, instantly, “knew he had the paper bottom upwards.” He quickly thrust the paper from his hands, sheepishly surveying the tavern to see if his ruse had been found out. His fatal mistake had not been noticed, so Jarm, “he took another taste of the whiskey, and turned to the fire — firmly resolved to let newspapers alone, until he reached a land where it was safe to handle them.” When he reached Canada, however, Jarm Logue would learn to devour the written word. At Hamilton, Canada West, on the shores of Lake Ontario, the future minister found hope and his first tastes of freedom. He later wrote to Frederick Douglass that, “Hamilton is a sacred and memorable spot to me; and I cannot slightly pass it.” For Loguen, the memory of Hamilton was a sweet balm to a fugitive’s soul. “It seems to me,” Loguen wrote to his fellow fugitive, “and ever will seem to me, a paternal home. I shall never visit it without the feelings which a child feels on returning after weary years to his father's house.” Arriving in Canada West, Logue stood full of doubt. He was, “penniless, ragged, lonely, homeless, helpless, hungry and forlorn — a pitiable wanderer, without a friend, or shelter, or place to lay my head.” The refuge he had
assist in working the underground railroad.” Speaking in the metaphor of the ‘railroad,’ Loguen assured his friends that he would, “be ready in season and out of season to watch the track for the forlorn, and help the fleeing fugitives over to British dominions.” If they could not be moved on to freedom in Canada, Loguen pledged publically to, “defend them on our own soil.” Loguen defiantly proclaimed, “I am myself called a slave, but will wear no fetters.” The fugitive cried out in print: “I will be free.” The Agents of the Underground Railroad in Syracuse were not beyond boasting of their achievements. The Syracuse Standard, over the course of April and May, noted that slaves were passing through the city (and its surrounding neighbors) nearly daily. “Three fugitive slaves,” the Standard reported on the 18th of April, “passed through this city yesterday, on their way to the dominions of Queen Vic.” Again on the 22nd, the paper noted that, “the underground railroad has been doing a very successful business lately.” “Almost every train,” the announcement continues, “brings along one or more fugitives on their way to Canada.” Writing of a, “female, about 24 years of age, nearly white, and beautiful,” the paper noted that, “the bird had flown - having taken the express train to Canada several hours,” before her pursuers arrived in the city. Just a few days later, the Standard noted that, “three Fugitive slaves, from Virginia, passed through this city yesterday, on their way to Canada.” Again on May 18th, the paper mentioned, “Seven fugitive slaves,” who had, “passed through this city on Tuesday afternoon last, on their way to Canada.” But all of these notices raised the ire of the local opposition to abolition. “The Republican editor's nerves,” the Standard gleefully reported, “appear to be shocked by our notice of the passage of fugitive slaves through this city.” The notes of slaves, the paper commented, “on their way from the haunts of such man-hunters as himself, to the dominions of Queen Victoria,” had offended the rival editor’s, “exceedingly tender,”
man, woman and child fleeing the institution, “would like to get homes for the winter,” to shelter them from the elements. Loguen pleaded for anyone to help, either by providing a roof, or, “in the way of food or clothing,” and offering himself to collect it at his home on Genesee Street, as, “the agent of the Underground Railroad.” Loguen seemingly understood the importance of propaganda in the fight against the institution of slavery. In an article, originally running in the Syracuse Chronicle, but eventually appearing in the New York Tribune, the public learned from, “The Underground Railroad Agent in this city,” of the plight of the fugitive, “and through his kindness we are permitted to give as many particulars of some of these as it would seem proper and judicious to publish.” Loguen had related the story of two wayfarers at his station, “Isaac and Henry,” who were being, “taken to a public house to be sold.” Their new owner interrogated the chattel, concluding by saying, “I suppose, boys, you will not make me any trouble?” The pair responded coyly that they had, “come here without any trouble, and we mean to go away without any.” The trader left, and, “no sooner was he gone than the two slaves carried out their threat to go away without trouble.” These men, described derisively as, “uncertain riches,” simply, “walked off in the woods.” Through a convoluted story of survival and recapture, Loguen relates the hardship of their journey, ultimately leading them to his door in Syracuse. “The usual method of night-traveling and day-resting was pursued,” the paper reported Loguen’s tale, “and, after three weeks' energetic exertion, they reached the dépôt in this city.” The pair, bloodied and weary, recounted their tale to Loguen; the fugitive Henry showing him, “more than a hundred shot in his body,” and Isaac bearing, “honored wounds, or wounds that would be honored if borne by a Hungarian in the same cause.” The Syracuse paper rejoiced in the fact the two were, “now beyond the reach of American republicanism.” “Hurrah,” they cried, “for the U. R. R!” The notation of two
sweet sleep, at this late hour of a stormy night.” The group knocked on Loguen’s door. The minister inside, “knew the meaning of the rap, and sung out ‘hold on.’” “A light was struck in a moment, the door opened and the whole company, the writer included,” Douglass noted, “were invited in.” The family at once sprung to work to make the fugitives comfortable. “Candles were lighted in different parts of the house, fires kindled, and the whole company made perfectly at home.” Loguen that night, Douglass concluded, “showed that he remembers his brethren in bonds as bound with them.” Douglass’ account closes with a simple thought. “Housekeepers,” the paper reminded its readers, “must know that to provide food and shelter for the hundreds who pass through in the course of the year, must require much labor and much expense.” The account implored its readers to, “bear this fact in mind during the present season, and promptly send in supplies both of money and food.” But by early 1859, these stores, along with public trust, were in increasingly short supply. In a letter to Gerrit Smith, written in March of that year, Loguen refutes the claim of a man, “William Smith,” to have a letter of introduction and reference from Loguen. “I know nothing about it,” wrote Loguen to Smith. Loguen had seen William Smith, who had come to Syracuse, “as a fugitive Some year or two ago.” But Loguen did, “not regard him as true.” Warnings of false fugitives and imposter slave catchers appeared sporadically in Syracuse’s press. One article warned of, “an Irishman named Martin Kinney,” who had been, “about town for some time past pretending to be in search of runaway slaves.” The man “got on a bender,” and ended up in the penitentiary, “for 10 days, like other drunken vagabonds.” Another warned, “against colored men who are said to be about the city, calling on our citizens for aid.” These men were using, “the pretence that they are fugitive slaves.” The Standard warned that only, “Rev. Mr. Loguen, is ready to relieve the necessities of all real fugitives,” and
constituents. “The recent demonstration of Liberty in the ever-to-be-loved and honored city of Syracuse will, undoubtedly, have a mighty effect in quickening, and strengthening, and spreading the antislavery sentiment,” Smith assured his readers. But Smith feared that the Jerry Rescue alone could not serve to garner support for the Liberty Party. “If, by relying on this glorious demonstration to increase our vote,” Smith wrote, “we shall relax our efforts to increase it, it will not be increased.” The Jerry Rescue must act as catalyst and inspiration, and was not simply a signal of a mission accomplished. The political playing field, Smith continued, remained fractured. “Our countrymen are divided into two great political parties,” Smith reminded his followers, “we are at work to detach them from these parties, and to bring them to vote, not according to party, but according to truth.” These political parties, the Democrats and the Whigs, were simply defined in Smith’s mind: “the madness of the many for the gain of the few.” The national political parites were rife with, “bewitching and corrupting influences,” wielded by, “wire-workers and sorcerers of all grades from the Town and County to the State and National politician.” “But,” Smith moaned, “few Whigs and Democrats are prepared to leave their parties.” The thousands of partisans, “who were gathered at Syracuse, and who either participated in, or rejoiced in, the rescue of the fugitive slave,” Smith admitted, “show themselves therein to be men of heart.” But he questioned their willingness to hold to these principles, and when they, “come to the polls of the approaching Election, they will, with, alas, too few exceptions, show themselves to be sadly deficient in consistency and principle.” Gerrit Smith’s voice, even on paper, was imposing. But his figure was equally as well suited for making an impression. Smith’s frame was, “stately;” his features, “noble.” With brown mottled hair and long beard which, “fell in strong masses over the collar,” Smith,
man.” But the same Christian impulse to serve and protect his fellow men, led Gerrit Smith toward social activism. Abolition was simply an outgrowth of helping another of God’s creatures to Smith. The threat of death against abolitionists who fought the Fugitive Slave Law, in Smith’s estimation, is simply a threat of murdering men, “for being Christians.” Helping a slave, Smith continued in his 1851 address to the Liberty Party of Madison County, was none less than, “doing that, which we cannot refuse to do, and yet be men and Christians.” “If I refuse to unite with my neighbors in concealing a poor innocent brother from the monsters, who would plunge him into the pit of slavery,” Smith continued, “then, most certainly do I trample on my manhood, and deny my God.” Smith knew the consequences for antislavery actions well, in spite of the fact they contradicted the word of Christ. “Nevertheless,” Smith concluded, “unless I do refuse these services, Millard Fillmore and his associates would have me hung.” Furthermore, Smith contended, the President of the United States, “would have me hung, notwithstanding they know, that the Common Father of men commands these services at my hands.” Where there were white men willing to eschew their Christian duty, however, Smith noted that blacks were quickly rising to the challenge. “The half million of free blacks in this Nation and in Canada, hitherto patient, beyond all parallel, under the insults and outrages heaped upon them,” Smith reminded his Madison County constituents and friends, “are, at last, giving signs, that they will ‘stand for their life.’” No sign, to Smith, was as potent a bellwether of this fact than the, “brave and beautiful bearing of the black men of Syracuse, who, on the ever memorable first day of October, perilled their lives for the rescue of their abused brother.” “Heaven grant,” Smith prayed, “that all of the half million may have the manliness and courage
Fugitive Slave Law in earnest. “I have just rec’d your letter,” Wheaton noted to Smith. “We shall,” he continued, “in due time do something in the direction which you suggest in respect to prosecuting those engaged in the Gov’t side.” In response to arrests, Wheaton and Smith had concluded together, there needed to be arrests in kind of those who had sought to jail William Henry and return him to the south. “On the side of the oppressor we see there is power,” Wheaton wrote, “and they mean to use it, to the obliteration of the conscience + the humanity, and the Christianity of the Nation.” Wheaton admitted to Smith that he had often asked himself, “in the language of the Psalmist, figuratively, ‘How Long? Oh Lord! How long shall the wicked triumph.’” “In the midst of the gloominess and darkness morally speaking,” Wheaton continued, the abolitionists required, “more than an arm of flesh to lean upon,” referencing the Old Testament oppression of the Hebrews by the Assyrian Empire. Still, Wheaton expected to be persecuted by what he saw as an oppressive regime. “I expect to be indicted for something,” he assured Smith, “but don’t exactly know what.” Wheaton closed his missive to Gerrit Smith with the gravest of warnings. “I am told,” Wheaton confided in Smith, “the officials delayed their proceedings.” The United States prosecutors had one aim in Wheaton’s estimation: that, “they might reach, You, Mr. May + Me, as the ring leaders.” Wheaton warned his fellow abolitionist to not, “be alarmed or disappointed if you should find the ‘hounds baying on your track.’” Smith had preempted Wheaton’s fears, however. Just a few days before Wheaton wrote his letter, Gerrit Smith, while visiting his wife in a water cure asylum in South Orange, New York, began thinking, “upon our emputatively guilty country.” He captured his thoughts on paper and forwarded them on to Judge Alfred Conkling himself. “I have long believed that the day is not distant,” the Peterboro businessman wrote to the U.S. District Court Judge, “when both the Federal + State Judges at the north will take the ground, that the Constitution does not
they could have undertaken,” such an act. And Jerry's manhood? Smith noted that while the slave was being taken, Jerry was, “almost as naked as when he came from his mother's womb.” But Smith caught his feigned mistake again: “Mother! what do I say? Had poor Jerry, then, a mother?” “Yes, sir, like you and me, he had once a mother,” Smith assured the crowd, “He once sat on her lap, and they exchanged with each other looks of love as tender as though their skin had been white.” Looking on the oppressed Jerry, Smith confessed to the crowd, “the scene MADDENED me!” It drove his hands to action. Was the Rescue of Jerry, “right, or wrong?” Smith reminded the crowd that they were there that day to decide such a question of meaning. “Time,” he assured them, “will develope the truth, that in behalf of God and man, that was one of the most useful and honorable transactions ever known.” The authorities sitting in judgement of some of Syracuse's citizens had declared, Smith reminded the crowd, that the Jerry Rescue was, “against law.” To them, Smith had a simple response. “Sir,” he proclaimed, “it was done in accordance with the dictates of justice, benevolence, and compassion, and 'against these' the New Testament tells us, 'there is no law.'” Jerry had been delivered not simply from unjust imprisonment, but truly and righteously, “by FORCE.” “The application of that force,” Smith noted, “was deliberate and concerted, pouring contempt on the mob that held him, on an infamous government and its infamous laws.” Through action, the, “rescuers of Jerry,” showed they simply would, “not believe there could be a law for slavery, and they walked over the sham laws that pretend to legalize it, as over so much paper.” The Rescue of Jerry was a beacon of righteous action to be mimicked. But others were not necessarily following suit. “A few months ago, Sims was taken from Boston, and returned to slavery,” Smith reminded the crowd, alluding to the case of Thomas Sims, who was tried as a fugitive and returned to slavery under the guard of United States Marines. “Now which was
life. Both May’s spirituality and ideals of equality among races can be traced to his early childhood. Spiritual inspiration came due to tragedy in his early development when, near the age of four, one of his elder brothers died of a terrible accident. Samuel, who had been named for two of his previously deceased brothers, and his brother Edward were miracles to their parents. After having experienced such grief over losing two sons, the Mays were protective of their remaining children and covetous of their safety. Edward, however, was a mischievous six year old, and was, according to May’s own account, “full of glee.” One day, upon returning from school, Edward summoned Sam “to the yard to partake of his sport.” The boy mounted the fence against the barn, and proceeded to play at chimney sweep, little Sam watching from the ground. But, as Edward swung his legs over the edge to descend, and rested “his weight upon the slender post of a chair, the top of which was broken off,” the boy lost his balance, and impaled himself on the splintered wooden rods of the chair back. “Its splintered point penetrated his body, several inches, under the arm,” May recalled vividly in his Memoirs. The boys’ father, Joseph May, a leader in the nascent Unitarian community movement at Boston’s King’s Chapel, quickly rushed to the scene, but to no avail: “the dear, beautiful boy was dead.” The young Samuel Joseph had a profound problem comprehending the death of his brother. He could not understand why the boy remained cold and still, “giving no replies to the tender things that were said to him, taking no notice of all that was being done to him or about him.” May began to mimic his parents’ and siblings’ grief, without truly understanding the death of his brother, but only a change in Edward’s demeanor. May’s faith experience came with the realization of Edward’s true state. During his brother’s funeral at the cemetery, one of Sam’s uncles brought him into the family crypt, and explained that Edward was not dead, but had “gone to heaven, to dwell with the good and the
happy in the presence of God and Christ.” The uncle opened one of the other coffins in the crypt, showing the four year old the body of one of his decaying relatives, assuring him that Edward’s body would wither, but his soul would live in heaven. That night, young the ceiling of young May’s room opened and, “a bright, glorious light burst in, and from the midst of it came down my lost brother.” The young boy was dreaming of his brother’s inherited glory. “He lay by me as he used to…. The next night, and for several nights afterwards, I enjoyed the presence of my brother.” May concluded with the simple belief that this small event, “had the greatest influence in awakening and fixing in [his] soul the full faith,” which guided his principles for the rest of his life. Like his religious inspiration, May’s abolition inspiration came at a relatively young age, through two separate events. The first was his schooling in the area. May had been sent, for two years, to a “Ma’am school, kept by a good old lady.” This school, run by a Mrs. Wallcut, was particular in that the students were integrated. Young children, black and white, “some from the richest and others from the poorer families in the neighborhood,” studied together in the same classes and sat upon the same school benches to learn the basic knowledge of the age. May shared a bench with one boy who he grew to respect greatly, noticing that he was “more witty, if not more wise,” than any of the other children in the class. His skill was comparable in all subjects, from mathematics to recitation of the Catechism. The boy was also a prodigious actor, and in their class plays, “few were his equal.” The boy’s sole peculiarity? May’s bench mate was “a boy whose skin was as dark as a starless night.” But, as May had grown to know him as an equal, it only mattered to him that his, “spirit was as bright and joyous as a cloudless Young May trusted the boy, and felt him to be just as human as any other boy in the class, in spite of his color.
Was celebration of the Jerry Rescue simply awakening tensions long forgotten? “We should not only remember that event and the men who participated in it,” Douglass argued, “but the men whose burning words and consistent devotion to the cause of freedom made that event possible.” These were, “men of unusual mind and merit, such as come to the world only upon some great demand.” The great abolition voices haunted Douglass as he stood on the podium on that Thirty-third Anniversary, “their eloquent pleas for justice and humanity,” still echoing within the city of Syracuse. “I see the noble form of Gerrit Smith,” Douglass told the crowd, “erect, grand, and majestic, and hear his deep, never to be forgotten voice, denouncing slavery as an unmitigated piracy.” The words rang in Douglass' ears: “there can be no law for slavery.” The orator saw, too, “the sweet, Melancthon face of Samuel J. May, overflowing with kindness, and hear him in silvery accents, pleading the golden rule against the FUGITIVE SLAVE BILL.” Douglass recalled Jermain Loguen and the host of others who barreled into a police office and saved a man from bondage. “It is something,” Douglass mused, “to have lived in the same world with them, and to have been deemed worthy to be a coworker with them; to have seen their noble faces, and to have felt the manly grip of their honest hands.” Remembrance of days past was not enough. “It would be delightful,” Douglass admitted, “to dwell upon the words and works of these noble men, this occasion,” however, “calls for something more.” The, “old watch man on the walls of the black man's liberty,” Douglass reported that he was often, “asked today in all seriousness, and with much anxiety, “WHAT IS THE BLACK MAN'S FUTURE?” “The great and all commanding question of the hour,” Douglass answered, “is the question respecting relation subsisting between white and colored people of this country NOW,” and not to dwell in the crime of slavery. “Reaction against the negro since the war,” Douglass reminded his African-American crowd, “has been marked, rapid,