IV


In 1841 Douglass entered upon that epoch of his life which brought the
hitherto obscure refugee prominently before the public, and in which
his services as anti-slavery orator and reformer constitute his chief
claim to enduring recollection. Millions of negroes whose lives had
been far less bright than Douglass's had lived and died in slavery.
Thousands of fugitives under assumed names were winning a precarious
livelihood in the free States and trembling in constant fear of the
slave-catcher. Some of these were doing noble work in assisting others
to escape from bondage. Mr. Siebert, in his _Underground Railroad_,
mentions one fugitive slave, John Mason by name, who assisted thirteen
hundred others to escape from Kentucky. Another picturesque fugitive
was Harriet Tubman, who devoted her life to this work with a courage,
skill, and success that won her a wide reputation among the friends
of freedom. A number of free colored men in the North, a few of them
wealthy and cultivated, lent their time and their means to this cause.
But it was reserved for Douglass, by virtue of his marvellous gift of
oratory, to become pre-eminently the personal representative of his
people for a generation.

In 1841 the Massachusetts Anti-slavery Society, which had been for
some little time weakened by faction, arranged its differences, and
entered upon a campaign of unusual activity, which found expression in
numerous meetings throughout the free States, mainly in New
England. On August 15 of that year a meeting was held at Nantucket,
Massachusetts. The meeting was conducted by John A. Collins, at that
time general agent of the society, and was addressed by William Lloyd
Garrison and other leading abolitionists. Douglass had taken a holiday