FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
15
in the schoolroom, he acquired a fund of useful
knowledge that would put to shame the meagre at¬
tainments of many a college graduate. His speeches
and writings are models of a pure English style, and
are characterized by simplicity, clearness, directness,
force, and elegance.
Many of the interesting facts and incidents in the
life of this great man will undoubtedly be brought
out by the speakers and essayists to follow. Many
are already well known—his escape from slavery, his
arrival in the North, his early marriage, his settling
down to work at his trade in New Bedford, his first
speech in an anti-slavery convention, that drew atten¬
tion to his wonderful powers of oratory, and led to his
employment by the Anti-slavery Bureau to lecture
through the North on the most unpopular question
that up to that time had been presented to the Amer¬
ican people, his rise as an orator, his trip to England
and its magical effects on the English people, his re¬
turn to this country, and the purchase of his freedom,
to relieve him of the apprehension of being seized
and taken back into slavery, his editorship of the
North Star, his services to the government during the
war in the raising of troops, his securing of pay for
the black soldiers equal to that of the whites, the edi-
Permalink: http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/n36qc
