Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
CHAPTER V
CONTINUED LITERARY EFFORTS. — FREEDMEN'S
BANK.—OFFICIAL CAREER IN WASHINGTON.—
VISIT TO HIS OLD MARYLAND HOME.
AFTER the war closed and the country had returned
to pursuits of peace, Mr. Douglass began
to think of what calling he should follow. His
great life work, the abolition of slavery, had been
accomplished, and it seemed that now there was
little for him to do. He had about made up his
mind to spend the remainder of his days in farming,
when invitations came to him to deliver lectures
before colleges and literary societies. Thus
a new vocation was opened to him, by which he
might improve his knowledge and better his
pecuniary condition. While employed by the
Anti-Slavery Society he had been paid a salary of
$450 a year, now he was offered $100 and often
$200 for one lecture.
Mr. Douglass early saw that the greatest protection
of the colored man after emancipation
would be the ballot—in fact, it would prove his
only safety; he, therefore, was among the very
first to begin the agitation of the question, suffrage
for the negro. This question was discussed
in the National Loyalists' Convention, which was