Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
194 LIFE 0F FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
this coffee pleasant in flavor and delightful in
aroma. Here, as in the sunny clime of Hayti, we
shall try to do honor to that country's hospitality.
" We meet to-day on the anniversary of the independence
of Hayti, and it would be an unpardonable
omission not to remember that fact with
all honor at this time and in this place. Considering
what the environments of Hayti were ninety
years ago; considering the peculiar antecedents
of its people, both at home and in Africa; considering
their long enforced ignorance, their poverty
and weakness, and their want of military training;
considering their destitution of the munitions of
war, and measuring the tremendous moral and
material forces that confronted and opposed them,
the achievement of their independence is one of
the most remarkable and one of the most wonderful
events in the history of this eventful country,
and I may almost say in the history of mankind.
I shall make no elaborate comparison of Hayti
with ourselves. American independence was a
task of tremendous proportions. In the contemplation
of it the boldest held their breath and
many brave men shrank from it appalled. But
Herculean as was this task and dreadful as were
the hardships and sufferings it imposed, it was
nothing in its terribleness when compared with
the appalling nature of the war Hayti dared to
wage for its freedom and independence. Its sue-