Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
lo INTRODUCTION.
seemed destined to remain forever uneclipsed.
In Demosthenes political eloquence in Greece
culminated. He was without doubt the greatest
of all Athenian orators, and, to use the language
of Longinus, " his eloquence was like a terrible
sweep of a vast body of cavalry." It mowed
down everything before it.
Certainly a noble ambition, if, as we learn elsewhere,
the sole purposes for which he labored
were to animate a people renowned for justice,
humanity, and valor; to warn them of the dangers
of luxury, treachery, and bribery, of the ambition
and perfidy of a powerful foreign enemy; to recall
the glory of their ancestors, to inspire them with
resolution, vigor, and unanimity, to correct abuses,
to restore discipline, to revive and restore the
generous sentiments of patriotism and public
spirit. Laudable as was this ambition, it was no
more laudable than that which actuated Frederick
Douglass during all the years of his active life.
The scathing invectives and fiery eloquence of
Mr. Douglass were the inevitable outcome of a
soul longing for freedom in all that the term
implies, not only for himself but for an oppressed
race. His sole purpose was to stir the hearts of
the American people against the system of slavery
and color prejudice; to touch the philanthropic
chord of the nation so as to induce it to
recognize the brotherhood of man and the father-