Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
56 LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
doors in the starved and deluded faces of its
depositors, and while I was assured by its president
and by its secretary of its sound condition, I
was solicited by some of its trustees to allow them
to use my name in the board as a candidate for
its presidency. So I waked up one morning to
find myself seated in a comfortable arm-chair,
with gold spectacles on my nose, and to hear
myself addressed as President of the Freedmen's
Bank. I could not help reflecting on the contrast
between Frederick the slave boy, running
about at Colonel Lloyd's with only a tow linen
shirt to cover him, and Frederick, president of a
bank, counting its assets by millions. I had
heard of golden dreams, but such dreams had no
comparison with this reality. And yet this seeming
reality was scarcely more substantial than a
dream. My term of service on this golden height
covered only the brief space of three months."
Mr. Douglass, when he found out by careful investigation
the facts in reference to the condition
of the bank, to use his own words, when he discovered
that he was " married to a corpse," he
immediately went before the Senate Finance
Committee, of which Hon. John Sherman was
chairman, and gave it as his opinion that the
bank was insolvent and could not recover from
its losses. The committee took the same view
and immediately three commissioners were ap-