Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
IIO LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
that no man can reasonably say that an outrage
has been committed, or that I have abused the
privileges with which you have honored me. I
shall aim to discuss the claims of the negro, general
and special, in a manner, though not scientific,
still sufficiently clear and definite to enable
my hearers to form an intelligent judgment respecting
them."
# * * # # # #
He concludes in the following eloquent plea in
behalf of his race :—
" But, gentlemen, the time fails me, and I must
bring these remarks to a close. My argument
has swelled beyond its appointed measure. What
I intended to make special, has become, in its
progress, somewhat general. I meant to speak
here, to-day, for the lonely and the despised ones,
with whom I was cradled, and with whom I have
suffered; and now, gentlemen, in conclusion, what
if all this reasoning be unsound ? What if the
negro may not be able to prove his relationship
to Nubians, Abyssinians, and Egyptians ? What
if ingenious men are able to find plausible objections
to all arguments maintaining the oneness of
the human race ? What, after all, if they are able
to show very good reasons for believing the negro
to have been created precisely as we find him on
the Gold coast—along the Senegal and the Niger
—I say, what of all this ? 'A man *s a man for