Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 145
the Long Bridge, for the New Orleans market ?
Of what avail would be our state dinners, our
splendid receptions, if, like Babylon of old, our
people were making merchandise of God's image,
trafficking in human blood and in the souls and
bodies of men ? Were this District once more
covered with this moral blight and mildew, you
would hear of no plans, as now, for celebrating
within its borders the centennial anniversary of
the adoption of the constitution of the United
States. Bold and audacious as were the advocates
of slavery in the olden time, they would have
been ashamed to invite here the representatives
of the civilized world to inspect the workings of
their slave system. To have done so would have
been like inviting a clean man to touch pitch, a
humane man to witness an execution, a tenderhearted
woman to witness a slaughter. In its
boldest days slavery drew in its claws and presented
a velvet paw to strangers. They knew it
was like Lord Granby's character, which could
only pass without reprobation as it passed without
observation. Emancipation liberated the master
as well as the slave. The fact that our citizens
are now loudly proclaiming Washington to be the
right place for the celebration of the discovery of
the continent by Columbus, and the adoption of
the constitution of the United States, is an acknowledgment
of and attestation of the higher
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