of his generation, all animated by a high and noble enthusiasm for
liberty and humanity,--such men as Garrison and Phillips and Gay
and Monroe and many others,--should have developed with remarkable
rapidity those reserves of character and intellect which slavery had
kept in repression. And yet, while aware of his wonderful talent for
oratory, he never for a moment let this knowledge turn his head or
obscure the consciousness that he had brought with him out of slavery
of some of the disabilities of that status. Naturally, his expanding
intelligence sought a wider range of expression; and his simple
narrative of the wrongs of slavery gave way sometimes to a discussion
of its philosophy. His abolitionist friends would have preferred
him to stick a little more closely to the old line,--to furnish the
experience while they provided the argument. But the strong will that
slavery had not been able to break was not always amenable to politic
suggestion. Douglass's style and vocabulary and logic improved so
rapidly that people began to question his having been a slave.
His appearance, speech, and manner differed so little in material
particulars from those of his excellent exemplars that many people
were sceptical of his antecedents. Douglass had, since his escape from
slavery, carefully kept silent about the place he came from and his
master's name and the manner of his escape, for the very good
reason that their revelation would have informed his master of his
whereabouts and rendered his freedom precarious; for the fugitive
slave law was in force, and only here and there could local public
sentiment have prevented its operation. Confronted with the
probability of losing his usefulness, as the "awful example," Douglass
took the bold step of publishing in the spring of 1845 the narrative
of his experience as a slave, giving names of people and places, and
dates as nearly as he could recall them. His abolitionist friends
doubted the expediency of this step; and Wendell Phillips advised him