4

378 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

hence I was no sooner free, than I joined the noble band of Abolitionists in
Massachusetts, headed by William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips.
Afterward, by voice and pen, in season and out of season, it was mine to
stand for the freedom of people of all colors, until in our land the last yoke
was broken and the last bondsman was set free. In the war for the Union I
persuaded the colored man to become a soldier. In the peace that followed,
I asked the Government to make him a citizen. In the reconstruction of the
rebellious States I urged his enfranchisement.

CHAPTER II.
ANTI-SLAVERY.

The anti-slavery movement.

Much has been written and published during the last ten years purporting to
be a history of the anti-slavery movement and of the part taken by the men
and women engaged in it, myself among the number. In some of these nar-
rations I have received more consideration and higher estimation than I
perhaps, deserved. In others I have not escaped undeserved disparagement,
which I may leave to the reader and to the judgment of those who shall come
after me to reply to and to set right.

The anti-slavery movement, that truly great moral conflict which rocked
the land during thirty years, and the part taken by the men and women
engaged in it, are not quite far enough removed from us in point of time, to
admit at present, of an impartial history. Some of the sects and parties that
took part in it still linger with us and are zealous for distinction, for priority
and superiority. There is also the disposition to unduly magnify the impor-
tance of some men and to diminish the importance of others. While over all
this I spread the mantle of charity, it may in a measure explain whatever may
seem like prejudice, bigotry and partiality in some attempts already made at
the history of the Anti-slavery movement. As in a great war, amid the roar of
cannon, the smoke of powder, the rising dust and the blinding blaze of fire
and counter-fire of battle, no one participant may be blamed for not being
able to see and to correctly measure and report the efficiency of the different
forces engaged, and to render honor where honor is due; so we may say of
the late historians who have essayed to write the history of the anti-slavery
movement. It is not strange that those who write in New England from the
stand occupied by William Lloyd Garrison and his friends, should fail to
appreciate the services of the political abolitionists and of the Free Soil and