1

Historical Annotation

1.x George L. Ruffin] George Lewis Ruffin (1834-86), a lawyer and judge, was
born in Richmond, Virginia, to free blacks. In 1853 his family moved to Boston,
where he attended Chapman Hall School, became involved in the Republican party,
and met Josephine St. Pierre, whom he married in 1858. Soon after their wedding, the
couple left for Liverpool, England, hoping to escape the pervasive racial discrimination
in America, but after six months they returned to Boston, where Ruffin took up
barbering. During the Civil War, he participated in the Home Guard and the Sanitary
Commission. In 1869 Rutlin graduated from Harvard Law School, becoming the first
black to earn an L.L.B. degree from that institution. After joining the bar, Ruffin
became involved in politics and was elected to the Massachusetts state legislature and
the Boston Common Council. In addition to running a thriving law firm, Ruffin was
appointed as a municipal judge in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and as Boston's consul
resident for the Dominican Republic in 1883. J. Clay Smith, Jr., "In Freedom's
Birthplace: The Making of George Lewis Ruffin, The First Black Law Graduate of
Harvard University," Howard Law Journal, 39:201-35 (Fall 1995); Rayford W.
Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New
York, 1982), 535.
3.9-10 Horace Walpole's prophecy] Fourth earl of Oxford, historian Horace
Walpole (1717-97) laments what he perceives to be Europe's inevitable cultural
decline. He shares his vision of future sites of renewed creativity and intellectual
advance on the American continents in his letter of 24 November 1774 to Sir Horace
Mann. Ruffin utilizes these sentiments in order to place Douglass's achievements as
both former slave and American at the vanguard of this shift: "The next Augustan age
will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will be, perhaps a Thucydides at
Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and in time a Virgil at Mexico and a Newton at
Peru." Walpole to Mann, Strawberry Hill, 24 November 1774, in The Yale Edition of
Horace Walpole's Correspondence, with Sir Horace Mann, ed. W. S. Lewis et al., 48
vols. (New Haven, Conn., 1937-83), 8:59-64; John Cannon et al., eds., The Blackwell
Dictionary of Historians (New York, 1988), 439-40; The Dictionary of National
Biography, 22 vols. (London, 1921-22), 20:627-33.
3.9 Xenophon] Xenophon (c. 428-c. 354 BCE), Greek historian and orator, was
a contemporary of Socrates. whom he met while fighting in the Peloponnesian War.
Xenophon produced fifteen works, including Hellenica, a contemporary history of
Greece from 411 to 362 BCE. He probably intended to complete Thucydides's history
of the Peloponnesian War but later extended his history to include the Spartan defeat
at Mantineia. Xenophon also composed works of political science, adventure, and

Historical Annotation

1.x George L. Ruffin] George Lewis Ruffin (1834-86), a lawyer and judge, was
born in Richmond, Virginia, to free blacks. In 1853 his family moved to Boston,
where he attended Chapman Hall School, became involved in the Republican party,
and met Josephine St. Pierre, whom he married in 1858. Soon after their wedding, the
couple left for Liverpool, England, hoping to escape the pervasive racial discrimination
in America, but after six months they returned to Boston, where Ruffin took up
barbering. During the Civil War, he participated in the Home Guard and the Sanitary
Commission. In 1869 Rutlin graduated from Harvard Law School, becoming the first
black to earn an L.L.B. degree from that institution. After joining the bar, Ruffin
became involved in politics and was elected to the Massachusetts state legislature and
the Boston Common Council. In addition to running a thriving law firm, Ruffin was
appointed as a municipal judge in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and as Boston's consul
resident for the Dominican Republic in 1883. J. Clay Smith, Jr., "In Freedom's
Birthplace: The Making of George Lewis Ruffin, The First Black Law Graduate of
Harvard University," Howard Law Journal, 39:201-35 (Fall 1995); Rayford W.
Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New
York, 1982), 535.
3.9-10 Horace Walpole's prophecy] Fourth earl of Oxford, historian Horace
Walpole (1717-97) laments what he perceives to be Europe's inevitable cultural
decline. He shares his vision of future sites of renewed creativity and intellectual
advance on the American continents in his letter of 24 November 1774 to Sir Horace
Mann. Ruffin utilizes these sentiments in order to place Douglass's achievements as
both former slave and American at the vanguard of this shift: "The next Augustan age
will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will be, perhaps a Thucydides at
Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and in time a Virgil at Mexico and a Newton at
Peru." Walpole to Mann, Strawberry Hill, 24 November 1774, in The Yale Edition of
Horace Walpole's Correspondence, with Sir Horace Mann, ed. W. S. Lewis et al., 48
vols. (New Haven, Conn., 1937-83), 8:59-64; John Cannon et al., eds., The Blackwell
Dictionary of Historians (New York, 1988), 439-40; The Dictionary of National
Biography, 22 vols. (London, 1921-22), 20:627-33.
3.9 Xenophon] Xenophon (c. 428-c. 354 BCE), Greek historian and orator, was
a contemporary of Socrates. whom he met while fighting in the Peloponnesian War.
Xenophon produced fifteen works, including Hellenica, a contemporary history of
Greece from 411 to 362 BCE. He probably intended to complete Thucydides's history
of the Peloponnesian War but later extended his history to include the Spartan defeat
at Mantineia. Xenophon also composed works of political science, adventure, and