Frederick Douglass | Page 2

of the New England Anti-slavery Society.
1844
Lectured with Pillsbury, Foster, and others.
1845
Published _Frederick Douglass's Narrative_.
1845-46
Visited Great Britain and Ireland. Remained in Europe two years, lecturing on slavery and other subjects. Was presented by English friends with money to purchase his freedom and to establish a newspaper.
1847
Returned to the United States. Moved with his family to Rochester, New York. Established the North Star, subsequently renamed _Frederick Douglass's Paper_. Visited John Brown at Springfield, Massachusetts.
1848
Lectured on slavery and woman suffrage.
1849
Edited newspaper. Lectured against slavery. Assisted the escape of fugitive slaves.
1850
_May 7._ Attended meeting of Anti-slavery Society at New York City. Running debate with Captain Rynders.
1852
Supported the Free Soil party. Elected delegate from Rochester to Free Soil convention at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Supported John P. Hale for the Presidency.
1853
Visited Harriet Beecher Stowe at Andover, Massachusetts, with reference to industrial school for colored youth.
1854
Opposed repeal of Missouri Compromise.
_June 12._ Delivered commencement address at Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio.
1855
Published My Bondage and My Freedom. March. Addressed the New York legislature.
1856
Supported Fremont, candidate of the Republican party.
1858
Established _Douglass's Monthly_. Entertained John Brown at Rochester.
1859
_August 20_. Visited John Brown at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
_May 12 [October]._ Went to Canada to avoid arrest for alleged complicity in the John Brown raid.
_November 12._ Sailed from Quebec for England.
Lectured and spoke in England and Scotland for six months.
1860
Returned to the United States. Supported Lincoln for the Presidency.
1862
Lectured and spoke in favor of the war and against slavery.
1863
Assisted in recruiting Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts colored regiments. Invited to visit President Lincoln.
1864
Supported Lincoln for re-election.
1866
Was active in procuring the franchise for the freedmen.
_September._ Elected delegate from Rochester to National Loyalists' Convention at Philadelphia.
1869 [1870]
Moved to Washington, District of Columbia. Established [Edited and then bought] the New National Era.
1870
Appointed secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission by President Grant.
1872
Appointed councillor of the District of Columbia. [Moved family there after a fire (probably arson) destroyed their Rochester home and Douglass's newspaper files.] Elected presidential elector of the State of New York, and chosen by the electoral college to take the vote to Washington.
1876
Delivered address at unveiling of Lincoln statue at Washington.
1877
Appointed Marshal of the District of Columbia by President Hayes.
1878
Visited his old home in Maryland and met his old master.
1879
Bust of Douglass placed in Sibley Hall, of Rochester University. Spoke against the proposed negro exodus from the South.
1881
Appointed recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia.
1882
_January._ Published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, the third and last of his autobiographies. _August 4._ Mrs. Frederick Douglass died.
1884
_February 6._ Attended funeral of Wendell Phillips. _February 9._ Attended memorial meeting and delivered eulogy on Phillips. Married Miss Helen Pitts.
1886
_May 20._ Lectured on John Brown at Music Hall, Boston.
_September 11._ Attended a dinner given in his honor by the Wendell Phillips Club, Boston.
_September._ Sailed for Europe.
Visited Great Britain, France, Italy, Greece, and Egypt, 1886-87.
1888
Made a tour of the Southern States.
1889
Appointed United States minister resident and consul-general to the Republic of Hayti and _chargé d'affaires_ to Santo Domingo.
1890
_September 22._ Addressed abolition reunion at Boston.
1891
Resigned the office of minister to Hayti.
1893
Acted as commissioner for Hayti at World's Columbian Exposition.
1895
_February 20._ Frederick Douglass died at his home on Anacostia Heights, near Washington, District of Columbia.
In a few places in the text of Frederick Douglass, bracketed words have been inserted to indicate possible typographical errors, other unclear or misleading passages in the 1899 original edition, and identifications that were not needed in 1899 but may be needed in the twenty-first century.

I.
If it be no small task for a man of the most favored antecedents and the most fortunate surroundings to rise above mediocrity in a great nation, it is surely a more remarkable achievement for a man of the very humblest origin possible to humanity in any country in any age of the world, in the face of obstacles seemingly insurmountable, to win high honors and rewards, to retain for more than a generation the respect of good men in many lands, and to be deemed worthy of enrolment among his country's great men. Such a man was Frederick Douglass, and the example of one who thus rose to eminence by sheer force of character and talents that neither slavery nor caste proscription could crush must ever remain as a shining illustration of the essential superiority of manhood to environment. Circumstances made Frederick Douglass a slave, but they could not prevent him from becoming a freeman and a leader among mankind.
The early life of Douglass, as detailed by himself from the platform in vigorous and eloquent speech, and as recorded in the three volumes written by himself at different periods of his career, is perhaps the completest indictment of the slave system ever presented at the bar of public opinion. Fanny Kemble's Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, kept by her in the very year of Douglass's escape from bondage, but not published until 1863,