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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 435

class him with the contemners of the negro. Could that be established, it
would convict him of duplicity and hypocrisy of the most revolting kind. But
his whole life and character are in direct contradiction to that assumption.

Its Ducal Palaces, its grand Duomo, its fine galleries of art, its beautiful
Arno, its charming environs and its many associations of great historical
personages, especially of Michael Angelo, Dante and Savonarola, give it a
controlling power over mind and heart. I have travelled over no equal space
between any two cities in Italy where the scenery was more delightful than
that between Florence and Venice. I enjoyed it with the ardor of a boy to
whom all the world is new. Born and raised in a flat country without the
diversity of hill and valley, mountains have always attracted me. Those in
sight on this journey were far away but lost nothing by the soft haze that
blended their dark summits with the clouds and sky. These were too, the
mountains of the Tyrol, the scene of the patriotic exploits of Hofer and his
countrymen. The railway between Florence and Venice is over some of the
oldest and best cultivated parts of Italy. The land is rich and fruitful. Every
outlook has the appearance of thrift. There is not a single point upon which
to hang the reproach of laziness so commonly charged against the Italians. I
saw in Italy nothing to justify this unenviable reputation. In city and country
alike the people seemed to me remarkably industrious and well provided
with food and raiment.

I could tell much of the once famous city of Venice, of Milan, Lucerne
and other points subsequently visited, but it is enough that I have given my
readers an idea of the use I made of my time during this absence from the
scenes and activities that occupied me at home. I assume that they will
rejoice that, after my life of hardships in slavery and of conflict with race and
color predjudice and proscription at home, there was left to me a space in life
when I could and did walk the world unquestioned; a man among men.

CHAPTER X.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1888.

Preference for John Sherman. Speech at the convention. On the stump. The tarrif question

Returning from Europe in 1887 after a year of sojourn abroad, I found, as is
usual when our country is nearing the close of a Presidential term, the public
mind largely occupied with the question in respect of a successor to the outgoing President. The Democratic Party had the advantage of the Republican
Party in two points. It was already in power and had its mind fixed upon one