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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

war and the great fact that slavery was abolished, and the further fact that the
members of the bench were now appointed by a Republican administration
the spirit as well as the body of slavery had been exorcised. Hence the decision
in question came to the black man as a painful and bewildering surprise.
It was a blow from an unsuspected quarter. The surrender, to Jefferson Davis,
of the National Capital, in the time of the war, could hardly have caused a
greater shock. For the moment the colored citizen felt as if the earth was
opened beneath him. He was wounded in the house of his friends. He felt
that this decision drove him from the doors of the great temple of American
justice. The Nation that he had served against its enemies had thus turned
him over naked to those enemies. His trouble was without any immediate
remedy. The decision must stand until the gates of death could prevail
against it.

The colored men in the Capital of the Nation where the deed was done,
were quick to perceive its disastrous significance, and in the helpless horror
of the moment, they called upon myself and others to express their grief and
indignation. In obedience to that call a meeting was assembled in Lincoln
Hall, the largest hall in the city, which was packed by an audience of all
colors, to hear what might be said about this new and startling event. Though
we were powerless to arrest the wrong or modify the consequences of this
extraordinary decision, we could, at least cry out against its absurdity and
injustice.

On that occasion our cause was ably and eloquently presented by that
distinguished lawyer, and eminent philanthropist, Robert G. Ingersoll. For
my own part I felt it to be a serious thing to contradict the judgment of the
highest court in the land, especially in view of the danger of being betrayed
into unwise and extravagant language by the wild excitement of the moment.
As the first speaker on that memorable occasion, I present here, as a part of
my "Life and Times" what I there said.

"I have only a few words to say to you this evening .... It may be, after
all, that the hour calls more loudly for silence than for speech. Later on in this
discussion, when we shall have before us the full text of the Supreme Court
and the dissenting opinion of Judge Harlan, who must have weighty reasons
for separating from his associates and incurring thereby, as he must, an
amount of criticism from which even the bravest man might shrink, we may
be in a better frame of mind, better supplied with facts, and better prepared to
speak calmly, correctly and wisely, than now. The temptation at this time is,
to speak more from feeling than reason, more from impulse than reflection.