SparkNotes: Complete Text of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: PREFACE

READ STUDY GUIDE: Preface by William Lloyd Garrison & Letter from Wendell Phillips

PREFACE

In the month of August, 1841, I attended an anti-

slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was

my happiness to become acquainted with FREDERICK

DOUGLASS, the writer of the following Narrative. He

was a stranger to nearly every member of that body;

but, having recently made his escape from the south-

ern prison-house of bondage, and feeling his curiosity

excited to ascertain the principles and measures of

the abolitionists,—of whom he had heard a somewhat

vague description while he was a slave,—he was in-

duced to give his attendance, on the occasion al-

luded to, though at that time a resident in New

Bedford.

Fortunate, most fortunate occurrence!—fortunate

for the millions of his manacled brethren, yet pant-

ing for deliverance from their awful thraldom!—for-

tunate for the cause of negro emancipation, and of

universal liberty!—fortunate for the land of his birth,

which he has already done so much to save and bless!

—fortunate for a large circle of friends and acquaint-

ances, whose sympathy and affection he has strongly

secured by the many sufferings he has endured, by

his virtuous traits of character, by his ever-abiding

remembrance of those who are in bonds, as being

bound with them!—fortunate for the multitudes, in

various parts of our republic, whose minds he has

enlightened on the subject of slavery, and who have

been melted to tears by his pathos, or roused to

virtuous indignation by his stirring eloquence against

the enslavers of men!—fortunate for himself, as

it at once brought him into the field of public use-

fulness, "gave the world assurance of a MAN," quick-

ened the slumbering energies of his soul, and con-

secrated him to the great work of breaking the rod

of the oppressor, and letting the oppressed go free!

I shall never forget his first speech at the conven-

tion—the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own

mind—the powerful impression it created upon a

crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise—the

applause which followed from the beginning to the

end of his felicitous remarks. I think I never hated

slavery so intensely as at that moment; certainly, my

perception of the enormous outrage which is in-

flicted by it, on the godlike nature of its victims, was

rendered far more clear than ever. There stood one,

in physical proportion and stature commanding and

exact—in intellect richly endowed—in natural elo-

quence a prodigy—in soul manifestly "created but a

little lower than the angels"—yet a slave, ay, a fugi-

tive slave,—trembling for his safety, hardly daring to

believe that on the American soil, a single white

person could be found who would befriend him at

all hazards, for the love of God and humanity! Ca-

pable of high attainments as an intellectual and

moral being—needing nothing but a comparatively

small amount of cultivation to make him an orna-

ment to society and a blessing to his race—by the law

of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms

of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a

beast of burden, a chattel personal, nevertheless!

A beloved friend from New Bedford prevailed on

Mr. DOUGLASS to address the convention: He came

forward to the platform with a hesitancy and embar-

rassment, necessarily the attendants of a sensitive

mind in such a novel position. After apologizing for

his ignorance, and reminding the audience that slav-

ery was a poor school for the human intellect and

heart, he proceeded to narrate some of the facts in

his own history as a slave, and in the course of his

speech gave utterance to many noble thoughts and

thrilling reflections. As soon as he had taken his

seat, filled with hope and admiration, I rose, and

declared that PATRICK HENRY, of revolutionary fame,

never made a speech more eloquent in the cause of

liberty, than the one we had just listened to from

the lips of that hunted fugitive. So I believed at

that time—such is my belief now. I reminded the

audience of the peril which surrounded this self-

emancipated young man at the North,—even in Mas-

sachusetts, on the soil of the Pilgrim Fathers, among

the descendants of revolutionary sires; and I ap-

pealed to them, whether they would ever allow him

to be carried back into slavery,—law or no law, con-

stitution or no constitution. The response was unani-

mous and in thunder-tones—"NO!" "Will you succor

and protect him as a brother-man—a resident of the

old Bay State?" "YES!" shouted the whole mass,

with an energy so startling, that the ruthless tyrants

south of Mason and Dixon's line might almost have

heard the mighty burst of feeling, and recognized

it as the pledge of an invincible determination, on

the part of those who gave it, never to betray him

that wanders, but to hide the outcast, and firmly to

abide the consequences.

It was at once deeply impressed upon my mind,

that, if Mr. DOUGLASS could be persuaded to conse-

crate his time and talents to the promotion of the

anti-slavery enterprise, a powerful impetus would

be given to it, and a stunning blow at the same time

inflicted on northern prejudice against a colored

complexion. I therefore endeavored to instil hope

and courage into his mind, in order that he might

dare to engage in a vocation so anomalous and re-

sponsible for a person in his situation; and I was

seconded in this effort by warm-hearted friends, es-

pecially by the late General Agent of the Massa-

chusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. JOHN A. COLLINS,

whose judgment in this instance entirely coincided

with my own. At first, he could give no encourage-

ment; with unfeigned diffidence, he expressed his

conviction that he was not adequate to the perform-

ance of so great a task; the path marked out was

wholly an untrodden one; he was sincerely appre-

hensive that he should do more harm than good.

After much deliberation, however, he consented to

make a trial; and ever since that period, he has acted

as a lecturing agent, under the auspices either of the

American or the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

In labors he has been most abundant; and his success

in combating prejudice, in gaining proselytes, in agi-

tating the public mind, has far surpassed the most

sanguine expectations that were raised at the com-

mencement of his brilliant career. He has borne him-

self with gentleness and meekness, yet with true

manliness of character. As a public speaker, he excels

in pathos, wit, comparison, imitation, strength of

reasoning, and fluency of language. There is in him

that union of head and heart, which is indispensable

to an enlightenment of the heads and a winning of

the hearts of others. May his strength continue to

be equal to his day! May he continue to "grow in

grace, and in the knowledge of God," that he may

be increasingly serviceable in the cause of bleeding

humanity, whether at home or abroad!

It is certainly a very remarkable fact, that one of

the most efficient advocates of the slave population,

now before the public, is a fugitive slave, in the

person of FREDERICK DOUGLASS; and that the free

colored population of the United States are as ably

represented by one of their own number, in the per-

son of CHARLES LENOX REMOND, whose eloquent

appeals have extorted the highest applause of multi-

tudes on both sides of the Atlantic. Let the calum-

niators of the colored race despise themselves for

their baseness and illiberality of spirit, and hence-

forth cease to talk of the natural inferiority of those

who require nothing but time and opportunity to

attain to the highest point of human excellence.

It may, perhaps, be fairly questioned, whether any

other portion of the population of the earth could

have endured the privations, sufferings and horrors

of slavery, without having become more degraded

in the scale of humanity than the slaves of African

descent. Nothing has been left undone to cripple

their intellects, darken their minds, debase their

moral nature, obliterate all traces of their relation-

ship to mankind; and yet how wonderfully they have

sustained the mighty load of a most frightful bond-

age, under which they have been groaning for cen-

turies! To illustrate the effect of slavery on the white

man,—to show that he has no powers of endurance,

in such a condition, superior to those of his black

brother,—DANIEL O'CONNELL, the distinguished

advocate of universal emancipation, and the mighti-

est champion of prostrate but not conquered Ireland,

relates the following anecdote in a speech delivered

by him in the Conciliation Hall, Dublin, before the

Loyal National Repeal Association, March 31, 1845.

"No matter," said Mr. O'CONNELL, "under what

specious term it may disguise itself, slavery is still

hideous. ~It has a natural, an inevitable tendency to

brutalize every noble faculty of man.~ An American

sailor, who was cast away on the shore of Africa,

where he was kept in slavery for three years, was, at

the expiration of that period, found to be imbruted

and stultified—he had lost all reasoning power; and

having forgotten his native language, could only ut-

ter some savage gibberish between Arabic and Eng-

lish, which nobody could understand, and which

even he himself found difficulty in pronouncing. So

much for the humanizing influence of THE DOMESTIC

INSTITUTION!" Admitting this to have been an ex-

traordinary case of mental deterioration, it proves at

least that the white slave can sink as low in the

scale of humanity as the black one.

Mr. DOUGLASS has very properly chosen to write

his own Narrative, in his own style, and according

to the best of his ability, rather than to employ some

one else. It is, therefore, entirely his own produc-

tion; and, considering how long and dark was the ca-

reer he had to run as a slave,—how few have been his

opportunities to improve his mind since he broke his

iron fetters,—it is, in my judgment, highly creditable

to his head and heart. He who can peruse it without

a tearful eye, a heaving breast, an afflicted spirit,—

without being filled with an unutterable abhorrence

of slavery and all its abettors, and animated with a

determination to seek the immediate overthrow of

that execrable system,—without trembling for the

fate of this country in the hands of a righteous God,

who is ever on the side of the oppressed, and whose

arm is not shortened that it cannot save,—must have

a flinty heart, and be qualified to act the part of a

trafficker "in slaves and the souls of men." I am con-

fident that it is essentially true in all its statements;

that nothing has been set down in malice, nothing

exaggerated, nothing drawn from the imagination;

that it comes short of the reality, rather than over-

states a single fact in regard to SLAVERY AS IT IS.

The experience of FREDERICK DOUGLASS, as a slave,

was not a peculiar one; his lot was not especially

a hard one; his case may be regarded as a very fair

specimen of the treatment of slaves in Maryland, in

which State it is conceded that they are better fed

and less cruelly treated than in Georgia, Alabama,

or Louisiana. Many have suffered incomparably

more, while very few on the plantations have suf-

fered less, than himself. Yet how deplorable was his

situation! what terrible chastisements were inflicted

upon his person! what still more shocking outrages

were perpetrated upon his mind! with all his noble

powers and sublime aspirations, how like a brute

was he treated, even by those professing to have the

same mind in them that was in Christ Jesus! to what

dreadful liabilities was he continually subjected! how

destitute of friendly counsel and aid, even in his

greatest extremities! how heavy was the midnight of

woe which shrouded in blackness the last ray of hope,

and filled the future with terror and gloom! what

longings after freedom took possession of his breast,

and how his misery augmented, in proportion as he

grew reflective and intelligent,—thus demonstrating

that a happy slave is an extinct man! how he

thought, reasoned, felt, under the lash of the driver,

with the chains upon his limbs! what perils he en-

countered in his endeavors to escape from his hor-

rible doom! and how signal have been his deliverance

and preservation in the midst of a nation of pitiless

enemies!

This Narrative contains many affecting incidents,

many passages of great eloquence and power; but I

think the most thrilling one of them all is the de-

scription DOUGLASS gives of his feelings, as he stood

soliloquizing respecting his fate, and the chances of

his one day being a freeman, on the banks of the

Chesapeake Bay—viewing the receding vessels as they

flew with their white wings before the breeze, and

apostrophizing them as animated by the living spirit

of freedom. Who can read that passage, and be in-

sensible to its pathos and sublimity? Compressed

into it is a whole Alexandrian library of thought,

feeling, and sentiment—all that can, all that need be

urged, in the form of expostulation, entreaty, rebuke,

against that crime of crimes,—making man the prop-

erty of his fellow-man! O, how accursed is that

system, which entombs the godlike mind of man,

defaces the divine image, reduces those who by crea-

tion were crowned with glory and honor to a level

with four-footed beasts, and exalts the dealer in hu-

man flesh above all that is called God! Why should

its existence be prolonged one hour? Is it not evil,

only evil, and that continually? What does its pres-

ence imply but the absence of all fear of God, all

regard for man, on the part of the people of the

United States? Heaven speed its eternal overthrow!

So profoundly ignorant of the nature of slavery

are many persons, that they are stubbornly incredu-

lous whenever they read or listen to any recital of

the cruelties which are daily inflicted on its victims.

They do not deny that the slaves are held as prop-

erty; but that terrible fact seems to convey to their

minds no idea of injustice, exposure to outrage, or

savage barbarity. Tell them of cruel scourgings, of

mutilations and brandings, of scenes of pollution

and blood, of the banishment of all light and knowl-

edge, and they affect to be greatly indignant at such

enormous exaggerations, such wholesale misstate-

ments, such abominable libels on the character of

the southern planters! As if all these direful outrages

were not the natural results of slavery! As if it were

less cruel to reduce a human being to the condition

of a thing, than to give him a severe flagellation,

or to deprive him of necessary food and clothing!

As if whips, chains, thumb-screws, paddles, blood-

hounds, overseers, drivers, patrols, were not all in-

dispensable to keep the slaves down, and to give

protection to their ruthless oppressors! As if, when

the marriage institution is abolished, concubinage,

adultery, and incest, must not necessarily abound;

when all the rights of humanity are annihilated, any

barrier remains to protect the victim from the fury

of the spoiler; when absolute power is assumed over

life and liberty, it will not be wielded with destruc-

tive sway! Skeptics of this character abound in so-

ciety. In some few instances, their incredulity arises

from a want of reflection; but, generally, it indicates

a hatred of the light, a desire to shield slavery from

the assaults of its foes, a contempt of the colored

race, whether bond or free. Such will try to discredit

the shocking tales of slaveholding cruelty which are

recorded in this truthful Narrative; but they will

labor in vain. Mr. DOUGLASS has frankly disclosed

the place of his birth, the names of those who

claimed ownership in his body and soul, and the

names also of those who committed the crimes which

he has alleged against them. His statements, there-

fore, may easily be disproved, if they are untrue.

In the course of his Narrative, he relates two in-

stances of murderous cruelty,—in one of which a

planter deliberately shot a slave belonging to a neigh-

boring plantation, who had unintentionally gotten

within his lordly domain in quest of fish; and in the

other, an overseer blew out the brains of a slave who

had fled to a stream of water to escape a bloody

scourging. Mr. DOUGLASS states that in neither of

these instances was any thing done by way of legal

arrest or judicial investigation. The Baltimore Amer-

ican, of March 17, 1845, relates a similar case of

atrocity, perpetrated with similar impunity—as fol-

lows:—"~Shooting a slave.~—We learn, upon the au-

thority of a letter from Charles county, Maryland,

received by a gentleman of this city, that a young

man, named Matthews, a nephew of General Mat-

thews, and whose father, it is believed, holds an of-

fice at Washington, killed one of the slaves upon his

father's farm by shooting him. The letter states that

young Matthews had been left in charge of the farm;

that he gave an order to the servant, which was dis-

obeyed, when he proceeded to the house, ~obtained

a gun, and, returning, shot the servant.~ He immedi-

ately, the letter continues, fled to his father's resi-

dence, where he still remains unmolested."—Let it

never be forgotten, that no slaveholder or overseer

can be convicted of any outrage perpetrated on the

person of a slave, however diabolical it may be, on

the testimony of colored witnesses, whether bond

or free. By the slave code, they are adjudged to be

as incompetent to testify against a white man, as

though they were indeed a part of the brute creation.

Hence, there is no legal protection in fact, whatever

there may be in form, for the slave population; and

any amount of cruelty may be inflicted on them

with impunity. Is it possible for the human mind

to conceive of a more horrible state of society?

The effect of a religious profession on the conduct

of southern masters is vividly described in the fol-

lowing Narrative, and shown to be any thing but

salutary. In the nature of the case, it must be in

the highest degree pernicious. The testimony of Mr.

DOUGLASS, on this point, is sustained by a cloud of

witnesses, whose veracity is unimpeachable. "A slave-

holder's profession of Christianity is a palpable im-

posture. He is a felon of the highest grade. He is a

man-stealer. It is of no importance what you put in

the other scale."

Reader! are you with the man-stealers in sympathy

and purpose, or on the side of their down-trodden

victims? If with the former, then are you the foe of

God and man. If with the latter, what are you pre-

pared to do and dare in their behalf? Be faithful,

be vigilant, be untiring in your efforts to break every

yoke, and let the oppressed go free. Come what may

—cost what it may—inscribe on the banner which

you unfurl to the breeze, as your religious and po-

litical motto—"NO COMPROMISE WITH SLAVERY! NO

UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!"

WM. LLOYD GARRISON

BOSTON, ~May~ 1, 1845.

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