Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
CHAPTER VIII.
As ORATOR AND WRITER.
BY whatever standard judged Mr. Douglass
will take high rank as orator and writer. It may
be truly said of him that he was born an orator;
and, though he is a man of superior intellectual
faculties, he has not relied on his natural powers
alone for success in this his chosen vocation. He
is called a self-made man, but few college bred
men have been more diligent students of logic, of
rhetoric, of politics, of history, and general literature
than he. He belongs to that class of orators
of which Fox of England and Henry and Clay in
our own country are the most illustrious representatives.
His style, however, is peculiarly his
own.
Cicero says, " The best orator is he that so
speaks as to instruct, to delight, and to move the
mind of his hearers." Mr. Douglass is a striking
example of this definition. Few men equal him
in his power over an audience. He possesses wit
and pathos, two qualities which characterized
Cicero and which, in the opinion of the rhetorician
Quintilian, gave the Roman orator great
advantage over Demosthenes. Judge Rufifin of
Boston, in his introduction to Mr. Douglass' autobiography,
says: " Douglass is brimful of humor,