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INTRODUCTION.

Just what this country has in store to benefit or to startle the world in the
future, no tongue can tell. We know full well the wonderful things which
have occurred or have been accomplished here in the past, but the still more
wonderful things which we may well say will happen in the centuries of
development which lie before us, is vain conjecture, it lies in the domain of
speculation.

America will be the field for the demonstration of truths not now
accepted and the establishment of a new and higher civilization. Horace
Walpole's prophecy will be verified when there shall be a Xenophon at New
York and a Thucydides at Boston. Up to this time the most remarkable con-
tribution this country has given to the world is the Author and subject of this
book, now being introduced to the public—Frederick Douglass. The contri-
bution comes naturally and legitimately and to some not unexpectedly, nev-
ertheless it is altogether unique and must be regarded as truly remarkable.
Our Pantheon contains many that are illustrious and worthy, but Douglass is
unlike all others, he is sui generis. For every other great character we can
bring forward, Europe can produce another equally as great; when we bring
forward Douglass, he cannot be matched.

Douglass was born a slave, he won his liberty; he is of negro extraction,
and consequently was despised and outraged; he has by his own energy and
force of character commanded the respect of the Nation; he was ignorant, he
has, against law and by stealth and entirely unaided, educated himself; he
was poor, he has by honest toil and industry become rich and independent,
so to speak; he, a chattel slave of a hated and cruelly wronged race, in the
teeth of American prejudice and in face of nearly every kind of hindrance
and draw-back, has come to be one of the foremost orators of the age, with
a reputation established on both sides of the Atlantic; a writer of power and
elegance of expression; a thinker whose views are potent in controlling and
shaping public opinion; a high officer in the National Government; a culti-
vated gentleman whose virtues as a husband, father, and citizen are the high-
est honor a man can have.

Frederick Douglass stands upon a pedestal; he has reached this lofty
height through years of toil and strife, but it has been the strife of moral
ideas; strife in the battle for human rights. No bitter memories come from
this strife; no feelings of remorse can rise to cast their gloomy shadows over

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