Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
284 LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
I will not equivocate. I will not retreat a single
inch, and I will be heard." And in the same
spirit this man says, " I will be free." No
emancipation proclamation, no stroke of the pen
of the immortal Lincoln, gave freedom to him.
He wrote his own emancipation proclamation;
he struck with his own hands the fetters from
his limbs. On the third day of September, 1838,
he turned his back forever upon slavery and
quietly settled down in the town of New Bedford,
Massachusetts, where he labored, putting
in coal, digging cellars, working on the wharves,
and doing whatever he could get to do
that was honorable, in order to make an
honest living for himself and his family. Let
our young people take note of that: it may
give them a hint or suggestion that may be
of service to them in the future. This man was
not ashamed of work. It is hard for us to think
of him as putting in coal, digging cellars, and
working as a common laborer on the wharves;
and yet he did, and was not ashamed of it either.
All honest toil was honorable in his estimation.
In his new environments, in order to keep from
starving, it was necessary for him to work, and
he did work, and work hard. He did not forget,
however, in the midst of his struggles to keep
soul and body together, that he also had a mind
which needed to be fed. He still had a desire to