Complimentary Story
March 2026Sometime in about 1850, Frederick Douglass boarded a train from Boston to Albany. The route is across Massachusetts east to west, and then into New York where Albany is located.
Douglass found himself in a crowded train car. Each row had seats for two people. All were occupied except the seat next to Douglass. He was alone. As people entered the train at each stop, they passed by the open seat, cast a disdainful glance, and then went into the next car looking for somewhere to sit. Douglass quietly enjoyed the extra space, but knew what was going on. Stop after stop Douglass was still alone.
Then in mid-Massachusetts Douglass noticed an unknown man approaching him. The man asked for the privilege to sit next to Douglass, to which he agreed.
The man said something to the effect of “Hello Mr. Douglass. I am George N. Briggs. I am the Governor of Massachusetts and have heard a lot of good things about you.”
Douglass and Governor Briggs then spent an hour in pleasant conversation.
In western Massachusetts, at Pittsfield, Briggs disembarked the train, while Douglass continued on to Albany.
Suddenly, the seat no one wanted to sit in before had 12 men standing in line wanting to sit there next to Douglass!
A somewhat amused Frederick Douglass remarked: “The governor had, without changing my skin a single shade, made the place respectable which before was despicable.”
[Note — this remarkable anecdote, which I believe has applications beyond race, can be found in “My Bondage and My Freedom” by Frederick Douglass, published in 1855].
Frederick Douglass was one of the greatest fighters for human liberty who ever lived. He was a devout Christian and a licensed preacher. His significant pro-liberty actions are too numerous to list here. He learned how to read and write fluently as a slave without the benefit of a government school. He named himself after a character in the Walter Scott poem “Lady of the Lake.” He founded the North Star newspaper in 1847. He was a fabled orator and gave pro-liberty speeches all over the United States, Great Britain and Canada. He was a friend and advisor to Republican Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, and Benjamin Harrison.
From 1838 when he escaped slavery, until he died in 1895, Douglass never ceased to promote liberty FOR EVERYONE.
Anti-Constitution liberals who dislike our Founding Fathers should take heed of what Frederick Douglass said in 1863:
“Your fathers desired and expected the abolition of slavery. They framed the Constitution plainly with a view to the speedy downfall of slavery. They carefully excluded from the Constitution any and every word which could lead to the belief that they meant it for persons of only one complexion. The Constitution, in its language and in its spirit, welcomes the black man to all the rights which it was intended to guarantee to any class of the American people. Its preamble tells us for whom and for what it was made.”
