with them to Clinton County, Ohio, where, under a large tent, a mass
meeting was held of abolitionists who had come from widely scattered
points. During an excursion made about this time to Pennsylvania to
attend a convention at Norristown, an attempt was made to lynch him at
Manayunk; but his usual good fortune served him, and he lived to be
threatened by higher powers than a pro-slavery mob.

When the party of reformers reached Indiana, where the pro-slavery
spirit was always strong, the State having been settled largely by
Southerners, their campaign of education became a running fight, in
which Douglass, whose dark skin attracted most attention, often got
more than his share. His strength and address brought him safely
out of many an encounter; but in a struggle with a mob at Richmond,
Indiana, he was badly beaten and left unconscious on the ground. A
good Quaker took him home in his wagon, his wife bound up Douglass's
wounds and nursed him tenderly,--the Quakers were ever the consistent
friends of freedom,--but for the lack of proper setting he carried to
the grave a stiff hand as the result of this affray. He had often been
introduced to audiences as "a graduate from slavery with his diploma
written upon his back": from Indiana he received the distinction of a
post-graduate degree.




V.


It can easily be understood that such a man as Douglass, thrown thus
into stimulating daily intercourse with some of the brightest minds