Chapter Seven
Jobs in Washington and voting in Rhode Island
Amelia Kemp stood at her attic window. The waters of Chesapeake Bay tossed green and white and set the thick mass of trees on distant Poplar Island in motion. A boat rounded Keat Point. For a few moments Amelia could see the tips of the masts and a bit of white sail against the sky. Then it all disappeared. But the sight of a boat sailing away over the waters, of a ship going out to sea, was not at this moment depressing. She too was going away.
Lucy was dead. That morning they had laid her worn body in a grave at the edge of the pines. Covey, his Sunday suit sagging, stared stupidly while they shoveled in the hard lumps of clay. The preacher had wrung the widower’s hand, reminding him that “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away”; and they had returned to the unpainted, sagging house. Now there was nothing further to do. She could go.
Amelia had tried to persuade her sister to leave with her before it was too late. She had dared to read her portions of Jack’s letters—“Come along, there are jobs in Washington—even for women.” But Lucy would have none of it. Her duty was clear. There were moments when she urged Amelia to go, others when she clung to her weakly. So the months had stretched into six years, and Amelia had stayed on.
Covey dropped into a chair on the front porch when they returned from the grave. All the lines of his body ran downward. Covey had not prospered. He knew nothing about a nationwide depression, Van Buren’s bickering with the banks, wars in Texas, or gag rules in Congress; he had no idea there was any connection between the 1840 presidential election and the price of cotton. He did know he was losing ground. No matter how hard he beat the slaves, crops failedor rotted in the fields, stock died, debts piled up, markets slumped and tempers were short all around the bay.
Now, his wife was dead—hadn’t been really sick, either. Just, petered out.Here it was April, and the sun was scorching.
He had heard no sound, but Covey was suddenly aware of being watched. He sat very still and stared hard into the bushes near the corner of the porch. Two hard, bright eyes stared back. Covey spoke sharply.
“Who’s that? Who’s that sneakin’ in them bushes?”
The eyes vanished, but the bushes did not stir. With a snarl, Covey leaned forward.
“Dammit! I’ll git my shotgun!”
The leaves parted and he saw the streaked, pallid, pinched face in which the green eyes blazed—a face topped with dirty, tangled tow-colored hair. It was an old face; but the slight body with pipe-stem legs and arms was that of a child, a girl-child not more than ten years old. She wore a coarse one-piece slip. One bare foot was wrapped as if to protect some injury, the other was scratched and bruised. The child did not come forward, but crouched beside the porch giving back stare for hard stare. Then with a little cry she disappeared around the house.
Covey spat over the porch rail and settled back. It was that brat of Caroline’s of course, still running about like a wild animal. Time she was helping around the house. He began to deliberate. Might be better to get rid of her right off. She’d soon be market size, and yellow gals brought good prices. He’d speak to Caroline about feeding her up. Better bring her in the house. Mustn’t let Caroline suspect anything, though.
He pulled himself up and turned to go inside. Maybe Caroline had something for him to eat.
Amelia stopped him in the hallway. She was wearing a hat and carrying a suitcase. Covey frowned.
“Oh, Mr. Covey! I was looking for you.” Her voice had a note of urgency.
Amelia had a way of emerging from the nondescript background with startling vividness. Months passed when he hardly saw her. Then there she was jumping out at him! What the devil did she want now? He waited for her to explain.
“I’m going away.”
Just like that. No stumbling around the words. Covey let his flateyes travel over her. Not a bad-looking woman, Amelia. More spirit than her sister. He spoke slowly.
“I ain’t putting you out.”
Amelia’s response sounded grateful enough. “Oh, I know, Mr. Covey. It’s not that. But now that poor Lucy’s gone, I’ve no right to—to impose.”
Covey remembered that hehadbeen keeping a roof over her head all these years. And what had he got out of it? Nothing. His eyes narrowed.
“Where you aiming to go?”
“I’m going to Washington. A cousin of Tom’s down there—his name’s Jack Haley—says I can get a—a job.”
Her words had started in a rush, but they faltered a little by the time she reached her incredible conclusion.
A job in Washington!Was the female crazy? In a surge of masculine protectiveness, Covey glowered at her.
“Who said you had to get out and get a job? Eh? Who said so?”
Amelia swallowed. She had not expected an argument. She did not intend to argue. She had to be getting along. She would miss her boat. She spoke firmly.
“Mr. Covey, it’s all settled. I’m going. Ben told me you were sending him to town this afternoon. I want to ride with him.”
Covey spoke deliberately. “The nigger’s lyin’—as usual. He better not go off the place this afternoon. An’ you best get those fool notions out of your head. You can stay right here and look after the house. I ain’t kickin’.” He strode into the kitchen. That took care of that. It was close to ten miles to St. Michaels. She’d have time to think it over. But who was this fellow in Washington—a cousin of her late husband, so she said. Um-um! Yes, Amelia had more spirit than poor Lucy.
Amelia, left standing in the hall, sighed and set down her bag.A pretty kettle of fish!Did Covey think he could hold her? Was she one of his slaves? Then in a flash of realization she saw the truth. She was indeed a slave—had been for all these years. And she was running away—just as much as those black slaves she read about.
Amelia picked up her suitcase, walked out onto the porch, down the steps, along the path, out to the road. She looked down the long dusty road to St. Michaels, and started walking.
It was nearly two miles to Lawson’s place, and when she reached the welcome shade of his grove she sank down to rest. Not too bad:she was making time. She rubbed her benumbed arm and wondered if there weren’t something in the bag she could dump out. She was going to have blisters on her feet. Soon, now, she’d reach the highway. If she did not get a ride, she would miss the boat.
When she set out again, she stumbled and cut her foot against a hidden stone. There was no time to do anything about it, however, so she plodded along, fixing her mind firmly on the Washington boat.
Thus she did not hear the cart until it was close behind her. Then she stopped, her legs trembling. The mule stopped without any sign from the Negro driver.
It was not the same mule, driven by the old Negro who had passed Amelia one morning more than six years before. There were so many mules being driven by so many Negroes up and down the Eastern Shore. This Negro was younger and he could see quite clearly. And what he saw puzzled and disturbed him—a white woman, alone on a side road, carrying a suitcase and giving every sign of being about to ask him for a lift!
Not good.He sat, a solid cloud of gloom, waiting for her to speak.
Amelia smiled. She had to clear her throat. The mule regarded her stolidly.
“Boy,” she asked, and the tone of her voice confirmed his worse fears, “are you going into St. Michaels?”
“No,ma’m. Jus’ up da road a piece, an’ right back. No, ma’m, Ah ain’t goin’ neah St. Michael. No,ma’m.”
He was too vehement. Amelia saw the confusion in his face and, because she was in the process of acquiring wisdom, she knew the cause. She must think of a way to reassure him. She spoke slowly.
“You see, I’m trying to get to St. Michaels. I want to catch a boat.”
Amelia saw the man’s eyes flicker. Going somewhere always aroused interest. He shook his head, but did not speak. Amelia looked away. The road seemed to quiver in the sun.
“You see, I’m starting on a journey.” Now she looked full at him—she looked at him as one looks at a friend and she said softly, “I’m heading toward the north star.”
Perhaps the man’s hands tightened on the reins. At any rate the mule jerked up his head. The black face froze. For one instant everything stood still. Then the Negro looked up and down the road and to the right and to the left. There were only dust and fields, and here and there a tree.
He climbed down from the cart and picked up her bag. He spoke without looking at her.
“Jus’ remembered, ma’m, Ah might could drive toward St. Michael. Jus’mightcould.”
“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!” The warmth in her tone forced a smile from him.
“Reckon Ah could fix up a seat for you in back.”
He did fix a seat, shoving aside sacks and cords of wood. It was not an upholstered carriage, but it got her to St. Michaels. She alighted at the market, to arouse less attention. But he insisted on carrying her bag to the pier.
“Ma’m,” he said, turning his hat in his hands, “hit seem mighty funny, but Ah—Ah wishes yo’ luck!”
And Amelia, eyes shining, answered, “Thank you—Thank you, my friend. The same to you!”
The slave leaned lazily against a pile until the gangplank was pulled up, his eyes under the flopping straw hat darting in every direction, watching. Then, as the space of dirty water widened and the boat became a living thing, he stood up, waved his hat in the air and, after wiping the beads of sweat from his forehead, spoke fervently.
“Do Jesus!”
Washington, D. C. had become a tough problem to the Boston Abolitionists. A group was meeting one evening in theLiberatoroffice to map out some course of action.
“Every road barred to us! Our papers not even delivered in the mail!” Parker Pillsbury tossed his head angrily.
“Washington is a slave city. Thee must accept facts.” The Quaker, William Coffin, spoke in conciliatory tones.
“But it’s our Capital, too—a city of several thousand inhabitants—and the slaveholders build high walls around it.” The Reverend Wendell Phillips was impatient.
“We should hold a meeting in Washington!” William Lloyd Garrison sighed, thinking of all the uninformed people in that city.
His remark was followed by a heavy silence. An Abolitionist meeting in Washington was out of the question. Several Southern states had already put a price on Garrison’s head. Frederick, sitting in the shadows, studied the glum faces and realized that, in one way or another, every man in the room was marked. They were agents of theAnti-Slavery Society and they, no more than he, could go South. Washington was South. Then from near the door came a drawling voice.
“Gentlemen, trouble your heads no longer. I’m going home.” A slender man was coming forward into the lamplight.
At the sound of the soft drawl, Frederick froze. He crouched low, hiding his face. But no alarm was sounded. There was welcome in Garrison’s low greeting: “Gamaliel Bailey!”
The first voice answered, “I heard only enough to agree fully. We do need a spokesman in Washington. I would not flatter myself, gentlemen—but I am ready.”
Garrison spoke with unaccustomed vehemence.
“No! We need you here.”
Frederick slowly lifted his head. The man was a stranger to him. His speech proclaimed him a Southerner. Now Frederick saw an attractive, dark-haired gentleman in black broadcloth and loosely fitted gray trousers. He looked down at Garrison, his black eyes bright.
“This is the job that I alone can do,” he said.
Wendell Phillips’ golden voice was warm as he nodded his head.
“He’s right. Garrison. Gamaliel Bailey can go to Washington. He belongs.”
“Captain John Smith, himself,” Pillsbury teased, but with affection.
“At your service, sir.” The Southerner swept him a low bow.
“This is no laughing matter, Mr. Bailey,” a stern voice interposed. “They know you have worked with us. You are a known Abolitionist!”
Gamaliel Bailey flicked a bit of non-existent dust from his waistcoat, and gave a soft laugh.
“Once a Virginia Bailey, always a Virginia Bailey! Have no fear, Mr. Hunton,” he said. He caught sight of Frederick’s dark face lifting itself among them. His eyes lit up. “This must be the new agent of whom I’ve been hearing.”
“Yes,” several said at once. “It’s Frederick Douglass.”
Their handclasp was a promise. “I go to Washington now, so that you can come later,” said the Virginian.
“And I’ll be along!” promised Frederick Douglass.
William Lloyd Garrison did not smile. His face was clouded with apprehension. “You’ll need help,” he said.
“It is best that I find my help in Washington. I know one youngman whom I can count on. Jack Haley. He’ll bring me all the news. You know, I think I’ll publish a paper!” He grinned. “Since they won’t let theLiberatorin, we’ll see if I can’t get a paper out.”
So it happened that Jack Haley was not on the dock to meet Amelia’s boat from St. Michaels. The weekly issue of theNational Erahad hit the streets the day before, and scattered like a bomb all up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. In Congress, on the streets and in the clubs they raged! Here was heresy of the most dangerous order, printed and distributed within a stone’s throw of the Capitol. It was enough to make God-fearing Americans shudder when the son of such an old and respected family as the Virginia Baileys flaunted the mongrel elements in their faces. They did shudder, some of them. And grinning reporters ran from one caucus to the other.
Jack was much younger than his cousin Tom. He remembered Tom’s wife with affection. Her letters had intrigued him, and he was glad she was coming to Washington.
He found her down on the wharf, surrounded by bales of cotton, serenely rocking in a highback New England rocker!
Amelia saw him staring at her and with a little cry of joy she sprang up.
“Jack, I knew you’d get here! I wasn’t worrying a bit. And kind Captain Drayton has made me quite comfortable.”
The weather-beaten Vermonter, leaning against the rail of his ship, regarded the late arrival and scowled until his thick eyebrows threatened to tangle with his heavy beard.
“Nice way to treat a female!” he boomed.
Jack held her hands in his. She was so thin, so little. The gray strands smoothed carefully behind her ears accentuated the hollows in her face; the cotton dress she wore was washed out, but the blue eyes looking up at him were young and bright.
Amelia exclaimed over the little buggy Jack had waiting. He helped her in, tucked the bag under their feet and flapped the reins.
Washington in the spring! Heavy wagon wheels bogged down in deep ruts, and hogs wallowed in the mud; but a soft green haze lay over the sprawling town and wrapped it in loveliness. They were rolling along a wide street, and Amelia was trying to see everything at once. Then she saw the Capitol lifting its glistening dome against the wide blue sky, and she caught her breath.
They circled the Capitol grounds, turned down a shaded lane andstopped before a two-story brick house which sat well back in a yard with four great elms.
“Here we are!” Jack smiled down at her.
“How nice! Is this where you live?”
“No, ma’am. This is where, I hope, you’re going to live.”
“But who—?” began Amelia.
“Just you wait.” Jack jumped out and hitched the reins around a post. The big trees up and down the street formed an avenue of coolness. Amelia hesitated when he turned to assist her.
“Are they—Are they expecting me?”
Jack chuckled.
“Mrs. Royall, my dear, is expecting anything—at any time!”
“Jack! You don’t mean Mrs. Royall—the authoress!” Amelia hung motionless over the wheel. Jack grasped her firmly by the elbow.
“Who else? There is only one Mrs. Royall. There’s Her Highness now, back in the chicken yard. Come along. I’ll fetch the bag later.”
Amelia shook out her skirts and followed him along the path that led around the house.
The little old lady bending over a chicken coop from which spilled yellow puffs of baby chicks, might have been somebody’s indulgent grandmother. The calico dress drawn in around a shapeless middle was faded; so was the bonnet from which escaped several strands of iron-gray hair.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Royall!” There was warm deference in Jack’s voice.
She stood up and her shoulders squared. There was a certain sprightliness in the movement, and in the tanned, unwrinkled face gleamed eyes of a remarkable brightness. When she spoke her voice had an unexpected crispness.
“Indeed—it’s Jack Haley. And who is this female with you?”
“This is a kinswoman of mine, Mrs. Royall. I have the pleasure of presenting to you, Mrs. Amelia Kemp.”
“How do ye do!” The little old lady spoke with prim formality, her eyes flashing briefly over Amelia.
“I am honored, ma’am.” Amelia scarcely managed the words.
“She has come to Washington to work,” Jack went on. “So I have brought her to you.”
The gray eyes snapped.
“And why should you bring your kinswoman to me?”
“Because, Mrs. Royall, it’s newspapers she wants to know about. And you’re the best newsman in Washington, begging your pardon, ma’am.” He bowed elaborately.
“You needn’t!” She turned to Amelia.
“I’ve read one of your books, ma’am. Jack sent it to me. I learned so much about America.”
Undoubtedly the gray eyes softened, but the tone did not change.
“Why don’t you take her to your friend on the avenue—that infamous Abolitionist?”
“Mrs. Royall!” Jack’s voice was charged with shock. “You couldn’t be speaking about Editor Gamaliel Bailey?”
“He should be ashamed of himself. Selling out to those long-winded black coats!”
“But, Mrs. Royall—”
“Don’t interrupt. If he’d come to me I’d tell him how to get rid of slavery. It’s a curse on the land. But those psalm-singing missionaries—Bah!”
“May I remind you, Mrs. Royall,” Jack spoke very softly, “that when you came back from Boston you spoke very highly of the Reverend Theodore Parker. And he’s a—”
“He’snota black coat.” The lady spoke with feeling. Her face cleared and she added sweetly, “He must be a Unitarian.” Then she laughed, all shadows and restraint gone. “Forgive an old windbag, guilty of the very faults she criticizes in others.” She lifted her eyes. “See how the sun shines on our Capitol. Have you ever seen anything half so beautiful?”
Amelia shook her head.
“I’ve never traveled any place before, ma’am. Washington is more than I can believe.”
“It’s too good for the people who live here. But come and rest yourself. I am a bad hostess.” Her eyes twinkled as she turned to Jack. “First, does she know I’m a criminal—a convicted criminal?” She made it sound very mysterious, and Amelia stared.
Jack laughed. “You tell her, Mrs. Royall!”
“’Tis very sad.” There was mockery in her voice. “A ‘common scold’—that was the finding of the jury. In England they would have ducked me in a pond; but here there was only the Potomac, and the honored judge deemed that might not be right—the waters would be contaminated. So they let me go.” They were in the house nowand she was setting out china cups. “You know,” she frowned slightly, “the thing I really objected to was the word ‘common.’ That I did not like.”
“I agree with you, madam. Mrs. Royall’s scoldings of senators, congressmen and even presidents, of bankers and bishops, have always been in a class by themselves. ‘Common’ was not the word.” And again he bowed.
The old lady eyed him with approval.
“Where, might I ask, did you get your good manners? They are rare enough in Washington these days.” Before he could reply she had turned to Amelia—the gracious host to her guest. “Some day, my dear, I shall tell you of the Marquis de la Fayette. Ah! there were manners!”
“Liberté, fraternité, égalité!” Jack murmured the words half under his breath, but the old lady turned on him, her eyes flashing. Then, like an imp, she grinned.
So Amelia came to live with Anne Royall, long-time relict of Captain William Royall. He had fought beside Washington in the Revolutionary War and had been the General’s lifelong friend. In her own way she waged a war too. Each week she cranked a clumsy printing press in her shed and turned out a pithy paper called theHuntress. It advocated free schools for children everywhere, free trade, and liberal appropriations for scientific investigation. Amelia helped her about the house and with her chickens, accompanied her on interviews, saw red-faced legislators dodge down side-streets to avoid her. Gradually she learned something of how news is gathered and dispensed, but she learned more about the ways of Washington, D. C.
Amelia had been in Washington three weeks when one evening Jack stopped by.
“I’m going up North!” he announced.
“Where? What for?”
“The boss heard something about a rebellion in New England. He’s tickled pink. Said maybe that would keep Yankee noses out of other people’s worries. He’s sending me out to puff the scandal!”
“Do you know anything about it?” Mrs. Royall’s ears were alert.
“From what I can gather, seems a lot of poor folks in Rhode Island want to vote. And the bigwigs don’t like it!”
All of New England had become involved. Two state administrationswere claiming the election in Rhode Island, and a clash was imminent. Until 1841 Rhode Island had operated under its colonial charter, which prohibited anyone from voting who did not own 134 acres of land. Therefore, seats in the state legislature were controlled by the older conservative villages, while the growing industrial towns, where the larger portion of the population was disfranchised, were penalized. That year Thomas Wilson Dorr, a Whig and graduate of Harvard, started a reform movement; and a new constitution was drawn up. This constitution was framed to enlarge the basis of representation and abolish the odious property requirement. But it confined the right of suffrage to white male citizens, pointedly shutting out the Negroes who had settled in Rhode Island.
Quakers were non-resistance men; they held themselves aloof from politics, but they were always on the alert to protect the black man’s rights. All antislavery advocates wanted a new constitution, but they did not want a defective instrument which would require reform from the start. So they could not back Dorr. The Perry brothers, Providence manufacturers, wrote to their friend, John Brown, a wool merchant in Springfield, Massachusetts.
“The time has come when the people of Rhode Island must accept a more comprehensive gospel of human rights than has gotten itself into this Dorr constitution. We have talked to him, and while he agrees in principle he fears to go further.”
John Brown sent the letter on to John Greenleaf Whittier, Secretary of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Whittier talked it over with the Reverend Theodore Parker, who was considering making a series of speeches in Rhode Island, denouncing the color bar in what was being called a “People’s Constitution.”
“Why should not Negroes vote with all the other workers?” asked Whittier. “They would limit their gains in throwing out the old charter.”
Theodore Parker sighed wearily.
“It’s the workers who are doing this. Their own struggle has blinded them.”
“Thee are right.” Whittier slipped into the Quaker idiom in moments of great seriousness. “They see the black man only as a threat.”
Then their eyes met, fusing in a single thought. They spoke almost in one breath.
“Frederick Douglass!”
For a moment they smiled together, congratulating themselves. Then a frown came on Whittier’s face. He shook his head.
“But Friend Garrison will not consent. Thee knows his attitude toward any of us taking part in politics.”
Theodore Parker was silent a moment, drumming his long, white fingers on the table. Then his black eyes flashed.
“Are we discussing politics? We are concerned here with the rights of men.”
Whittier shook his head, but he grinned.
“Thee had best take care! Quoting Thomas Paine will not help.”
“Fiddlesticks! Tom Paine had more religion than all the clerics of Massachusetts rolled into one.” The young divine got to his feet, his thin face alight with enthusiasm. “Douglass goes to Rhode Island! I’ll take care of Garrison.”
It was decided, and Douglass was one of the Abolitionists’ trio which invaded every town and corner of the little state. They were Stephen S. Foster of New Hampshire, Parker Pillsbury from Boston, and Frederick Douglass from some unspecified section of the slave world—two white and one black—young and strong and on fire with their purpose. The splendid vehemence of Foster, the weird and terrible denunciations of Pillsbury, and the mere presence of Douglass created a furor from one end of the state to the other. They were followed by noisy mobs, they were thrown out of taverns, they were pelted with eggs and rocks and foul words. But they kept right on talking—in schoolhouses and churches and halls, in market places, in warehouses, behind factories and on docks. Sometimes they were accompanied by Abby Kelly, who was later to become Stephen Foster’s wife. Her youth and simple Quaker beauty, combined with her wonderful earnestness, her large knowledge and great logical power, bore down opposition. She stilled the wildest turmoil.
The people began to listen. They drew up a Freeman’s Constitution to challenge Thomas Dorr’s and called a huge mass meeting in Providence. On streamers and handbills distributed throughout the state, they listed “Frederick Douglass, Fugitive from Slavery,” as the principal speaker.
Jack Haley saw the streamers when he reached Providence late in the evening. He heard talk of the meeting around the hostelry while he gulped down his supper. When he reached the crowded hall things were already under way. There was some confusion as he was pushinghis way in. Someone on the floor seemed to be demanding the right to speak.
“It’s Seth Luther!” whispered excited bystanders. “Thomas Dorr’s right-hand man.”
“Go on, Seth, have your say!” called out a loud voice in the crowd.
The young man on the platform motioned for silence. He nodded to the man standing in the aisle.
“Speak, my friend!” he said.
The man’s voice was harsh.
“You philanthropists are moaning over the fate of Southern slaves. Go down there and help them! We here are concerned with equal rights for men, with the emancipation of white men, before we run out after helping blacks whether they are free or in slavery. You’re meddling with what doesn’t concern you!”
There was some applause. There were boos and hisses, but the man sat down amid a murmur of approval from those near him.
Then Jack saw that the chairman on the platform had stepped aside and his place had been taken by an impressive figure. Even before he said a word the vast audience settled into silence. For undoubtedly this was the “fugitive slave” they had come to hear. Jack stared: this man did not look as if he had ever been a slave. The massive shoulders, straight and shapely body, great head with bushy mane sweeping back from wide forehead, deep-set eyes and jutting jaw covered with full beard—the poise and controlled strength in every line—called forth a smothered exclamation from Jack.
“My God! What a human being!”
“Ssh-sh!” several people hissed. Frederick Douglass was speaking.
“The gentleman would have us argue more and denounce less. He speaks of men and black and slaves as if our cause can differ from his own. What is our concern except with equal rights for men? And must we argue to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race? Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks and secretaries, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives andchildren, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian’s God, we are called upon to prove that we are men!
“I tell you the slaveholders in the darkest jungles of the Southland concede this fact. They acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government; they acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the state of Virginia which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be) subject him to punishment by death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? It is admitted in fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, than I may consent to argue the manhood of the black man.”
Men stamped and shouted and threw their hats into the air. The hall rang. Douglass took up in a quieter mood. He talked of the meaning of constitutional government, he talked of what could be gained if exploited people stood together and what they lost by battling among themselves.
“The slaveholders, with a craftiness peculiar to themselves, encourage enmity of the poor labouring white man against the blacks, and succeed in making the white man almost as much a slave as the black slave himself. The difference is this: the latter belongs to one slaveholder, the former belongs to the slaveholders collectively. Both are plundered, and by the same plunderers.”
Afterward Jack tried to go forward and ask some questions of the amazing orator, but the press of the crowd stopped him. He gave up and returned to the inn. And the next day they had gone back to Boston, he was told. Thomas Dorr, through his timidity and caution, had lost the people.
When the new Rhode Island constitution was finally adopted the wordwhitehad been struck out.
Jack Haley returned to Washington and handed in his account of the “rebellion.” The editor blue-penciled most of it. He said they had thrown away money on a wild-goose chase.
But Gamaliel Bailey studied the closely written pages Jack laid on his desk. True, he could not now publish the material in hisNational Era; but he drew a circle around the name “Frederick Douglass” and slipped the sheets into his file for future reference.
Every drop of blood slowly drained from Amelia’s face while Jack talked. Mrs. Royall dropped the stick of type she had been clutching—Jack had interrupted them at work in the shed—and stared at her helper.
“She’s sick!”
But Amelia shook her head. She leaned against the board, struggling to speak while into her white face there came a glow which changed her blue eyes into dancing stars.
“You said his name was Frederick, didn’t you? About how old would you say he was?”
“What?” asked Mrs. Royall.
“How old?” asked Jack.
“Yes.” Amelia was a little impatient. “The one you’re talking about—that slave who spoke. I’m sure I know who he is!”
“Oh, my goodness, Amelia! That’s impossible!” The idea made Jack frown. Mrs. Royall snorted.
“Describe him to me, Jack,” Amelia insisted, “every detail.”
She kept nodding her head while Jack rather grudgingly complied with her request. It seemed such a waste of time. He shook his head as he finished.
“There couldn’t possibly have been such an extraordinary slave around any place where you’ve been. All of us would have heard of him!”
Amelia smiled.
“I remember how he came walking up the road that day in a swirl of dust. He was little more than a boy then. Now he’s a man. It is the same.”
Then she told how that morning at dawn she had leaned from her attic window and watched a young buck slave defy a slave-breaker, how he had sent the overseer moaning to one side with his kick, how he had thrown the master to the ground. This was the first time she had ever told the story, but she told it very well.
“His name was Frederick—the same color, the same powerful shoulders and the same big head.”
“But this man—he looked older—he’s educated! If you had heard him!” Jack could not believe this thing.
Amelia only smiled.
“I found out afterward that even then he could read and write. Mr. Covey had him help with the accounts.”
“It’s just too incredible. That man from the Eastern Shore!”
Mrs. Royall spoke precisely. “Young man, when you’re my age you’ll know that it’s the incredible things which make life wonderful.”
And Amelia added, “There couldn’t be two Fredericks—turned from the same mold!”