Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
FREDERICK DOUGLASS,
THE ORATOR.
CHAPTER I.
BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE.—ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY.
AMONG the great men America has produced
whose achievements will be narrated to posterity
and remembered, is Frederick Douglass. His
name is so identified with the anti-slavery movement
that no account of this eventful period of
our national existence will be complete in which
the historian neglects to tell of the remarkable
career of this eminent man, and to assign him
that place which the services he has rendered his
race and mankind deserve.
It is often argued that great crises produce
great men, and, conversely, great men bring about
great crises, but it will be found difficult to establish
the truth of either of these propositions
to the exclusion of the other, inasmuch as the
forces that operate and co-operate in each are
factors of a common product. Observation shows
that when the exigencies of the times have demanded
leaders, those were chosen whose training
and experience fitted them for the particular