My Bondage and My Freedom
and but one other bed remained. Who should have this bed, was the
puzzling question. There was some whispering between the old folks,
some confused looks among the young, as the time for going to bed
approached. After witnessing the confusion as long as I liked, I
relieved the kindly-disposed family by playfully saying, “Friend White,
having got entirely rid of my prejudice against color, I think, as a
proof of it, I must allow you to sleep with me to-night.” White kept up
the joke, by seeming to esteem himself the favored party, and thus the
difficulty was removed. If we went to a hotel, and called for dinner,
the landlord was sure to set one table for White and another for me,
always taking him to be master, and me the servant. Large eyes were
generally made when the order was given to remove the dishes from my
table to that of White’s. In those days, it was thought strange that a
white man and a colored man could dine peaceably at the same table, and
in some parts the strangeness of such a sight has not entirely
subsided.
Some people will have it that there is a natural, an inherent, and an
invincible repugnance in the breast of the white race toward
dark-colored people; and some very intelligent colored men think that
their proscription is owing solely to the color which nature has given
them. They hold that they are rated according to their color, and that
it is impossible for white people ever to look upon dark races of men,
or men belonging to the African race, with other than feelings of
aversion. My experience, both serious and mirthful, combats this
conclusion. Leaving out of sight, for a moment, grave facts, to this
point, I will state one or two, which illustrate a very interesting
feature of American character as well as American prejudice. Riding
from Boston to Albany, a few years ago, I found myself in a large car,
well filled with passengers. The seat next to me was about the only
vacant one. At every stopping place we took in new passengers, all of
whom, on reaching the seat next to me, cast a disdainful glance upon
it, and passed to another car, leaving me in the full enjoyment of a
hole form. For a time, I did not know but that my riding there was
prejudicial to the interest of the railroad company. A circumstance
occurred, however, which gave me an elevated position at once. Among
the passengers on this train was Gov. George N. Briggs. I was not
acquainted with him, and had no idea that I was known to him, however,
I was, for upon observing me, the governor left his place, and making
his way toward me, respectfully asked the privilege of a seat by my
side; and upon introducing himself, we entered into a conversation very
pleasant and instructive to me. The despised seat now became honored.
His excellency had removed all the prejudice against sitting by the
side of a Negro; and upon his leaving it, as he did, on reaching
Pittsfield, there were at least one dozen applicants for the place. The
governor had, without changing my skin a single shade, made the place
respectable which before was despicable.
A similar incident happened to me once on the Boston and New Bedford
railroad, and the leading party to it has since been governor of the
state of Massachusetts. I allude to Col. John Henry Clifford. Lest the
reader may fancy I am aiming to elevate myself, by claiming too much
intimacy with great men, I must state that my only acquaintance with
Col. Clifford was formed while I was _his hired servant_, during the
first winter of my escape from slavery. I owe it him to say, that in
that relation I found him always kind and gentlemanly. But to the
incident. I entered a car at Boston, for New Bedford, which, with the
exception of a single seat was full, and found I must occupy this, or
stand up, during the journey. Having no mind to do this, I stepped up
to the man having the next seat, and who had a few parcels on the seat,
and gently asked leave to take a seat by his side. My fellow-passenger
gave me a look made up of reproach and indignation, and asked me why I
should come to that particular seat. I assured him, in the gentlest
manner, that of all others this was the seat for me. Finding that I was
actually about to sit down, he sang out, “O! stop, stop! and let me get
out!” Suiting the action to the word, up the agitated man got, and
sauntered to the other end of the car, and was compelled to stand for
most of the way thereafter. Halfway to New Bedford, or more, Col.
Clifford, recognizing me, left his seat, and not having seen me before
since I had ceased to wait on him (in everything except hard arguments
against his pro-slavery position), apparently forgetful of his rank,
manifested, in greeting me, something of the feeling of an old friend.
This demonstration was not lost on the gentleman whose dignity I had,
an hour before, most seriously offended. Col. Clifford was known to be
about the most aristocratic gentleman in Bristol county; and it was
evidently thought that I must be somebody, else I should not have been
thus noticed, by a person so distinguished. Sure enough, after Col.
Clifford left me, I found myself surrounded with friends; and among the
number, my offended friend stood nearest, and with an apology for his
rudeness, which I could not resist, although it was one of the lamest
ever offered. With such facts as these before me—and I have many of
them—I am inclined to think that pride and fashion have much to do with
the treatment commonly extended to colored people in the United States.
I once heard a very plain man say (and he was cross-eyed, and awkwardly
flung together in other respects) that he should be a handsome man when
public opinion shall be changed.
Since I have been editing and publishing a journal devoted to the cause
of liberty and progress, I have had my mind more directed to the
condition and circumstances of the free colored people than when I was
the agent of an abolition society. The result has been a corresponding
change in the disposition of my time and labors. I have felt it to be a
part of my mission—under a gracious Providence to impress my sable
brothers in this country with the conviction that, notwithstanding the
ten thousand discouragements and the powerful hinderances, which beset
their existence in this country—notwithstanding the blood-written
history of Africa, and her children, from whom we have descended, or
the clouds and darkness (whose stillness and gloom are made only more
awful by wrathful thunder and lightning) now overshadowing
them—progress is yet possible, and bright skies shall yet shine upon
their pathway; and that “Ethiopia shall yet reach forth her hand unto
God.”
Believing that one of the best means of emancipating the slaves of the
south is to improve and elevate the character of the free colored
people of the north I shall labor in the future, as I have labored in
the past, to promote the moral, social, religious, and intellectual
elevation of the free colored people; never forgetting my own humble
orgin(sic), nor refusing, while Heaven lends me ability, to use my
voice, my pen, or my vote, to advocate the great and primary work of
the universal and unconditional emancipation of my entire race.
RECEPTION SPEECH 10. At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12,
1846
Mr. Douglass rose amid loud cheers, and said: I feel exceedingly glad
of the opportunity now afforded me of presenting the claims of my
brethren in bonds in the United States, to so many in London and from
various parts of Britain, who have assembled here on the present
occasion. I have nothing to commend me to your consideration in the way
of learning, nothing in the way of education, to entitle me to your
attention; and you are aware that slavery is a very bad school for
rearing teachers of morality and religion. Twenty-one years of my life
have been spent in slavery—personal slavery—surrounded by degrading
influences, such as can exist nowhere beyond the pale of slavery; and
it will not be strange, if under such circumstances, I should betray,
in what I have to say to you, a deficiency of that refinement which is
seldom or ever found, except among persons that have experienced
superior advantages to those which I have enjoyed. But I will take it
for granted that you know something about the degrading influences of
slavery, and that you will not expect great things from me this
evening, but simply such facts as I may be able to advance immediately
in connection with my own experience of slavery.
Now, what is this system of slavery? This is the subject of my lecture
this evening—what is the character of this institution? I am about to
answer the inquiry, what is American slavery? I do this the more
readily, since I have found persons in this country who have identified
the term slavery with that which I think it is not, and in some
instances, I have feared, in so doing, have rather (unwittingly, I
know) detracted much from the horror with which the term slavery is
contemplated. It is common in this country to distinguish every bad
thing by the name of slavery. Intemperance is slavery; to be deprived
of the right to vote is slavery, says one; to have to work hard is
slavery, says another; and I do not know but that if we should let them
go on, they would say that to eat when we are hungry, to walk when we
desire to have exercise, or to minister to our necessities, or have
necessities at all, is slavery. I do not wish for a moment to detract
from the horror with which the evil of intemperance is contemplated—not
at all; nor do I wish to throw the slightest obstruction in the way of
any political freedom that any class of persons in this country may
desire to obtain. But I am here to say that I think the term slavery is
sometimes abused by identifying it with that which it is not. Slavery
in the United States is the granting of that power by which one man
exercises and enforces a right of property in the body and soul of
another. The condition of a slave is simply that of the brute beast. He
is a piece of property—a marketable commodity, in the language of the
law, to be bought or sold at the will and caprice of the master who
claims him to be his property; he is spoken of, thought of, and treated
as property. His own good, his conscience, his intellect, his
affections, are all set aside by the master. The will and the wishes of
the master are the law of the slave. He is as much a piece of property
as a horse. If he is fed, he is fed because he is property. If he is
clothed, it is with a view to the increase of his value as property.
Whatever of comfort is necessary to him for his body or soul that is
inconsistent with his being property, is carefully wrested from him,
not only by public opinion, but by the law of the country. He is
carefully deprived of everything that tends in the slightest degree to
detract from his value as property. He is deprived of education. God
has given him an intellect; the slaveholder declares it shall not be
cultivated. If his moral perception leads him in a course contrary to
his value as property, the slaveholder declares he shall not exercise
it. The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one-sixth
of the population of democratic America is denied its privileges by the
law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its
liberty, boasting of its humanity, boasting of its Christianity,
boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its
own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of
marriage?—what must be the condition of that people? I need not lift up
the veil by giving you any experience of my own. Every one that can put
two ideas together, must see the most fearful results from such a state