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My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
page 22 of 451 (04%)
the Brazils," is a statement, in a few words, which contains the
result and the evidence of an argument which might cover pages,
but could not carry stronger conviction, nor be stated in less
pregnable form. In proof of this, I may say, that having been
submitted to the attention of the Garrisonians in print, in
March, it was repeated before them at their business meeting in
May--the platform, _par excellence_, on which they invite free
fight, _a l'outrance_, to all comers. It was given out in the
clear, ringing tones, wherewith the hall of shields was wont to
resound of old, yet neither Garrison, nor Phillips, nor May, nor
Remond, nor Foster, nor Burleigh, with his subtle steel of "the
ice brook's temper," ventured to break a lance upon it! The
doctrine of the dissolution of the Union, as a means for the
abolition of American slavery, was silenced upon the lips that
gave it birth, and in the presence of an array of defenders who
compose the keenest intellects in the land.

_"The man who is right is a majority"_ is an aphorism struck out
by Mr. Douglass in that great gathering of the friends of
freedom, at Pittsburgh, in 1852, where he towered among the
highest, because, with abilities inferior to none, and moved more
deeply than any, there was neither policy nor party to trammel
the outpourings of his soul. Thus we find, opposed to all
disadvantages which a black man in the United States labors and
struggles under, is this one vantage ground--when the chance
comes, and the audience where he may have a say, he stands forth
the freest, most deeply moved and most earnest of all men.

It has been said of Mr. Douglass, that his descriptive and
declamatory powers, admitted to be of the very highest order,
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