editor and lecturer.  The Garrison party, to which he still
adhered, did not want a _colored_ newspaper--there was an odor of
_caste_ about it; the Liberty party could hardly be expected to
give warm support to a man who smote their principles as with a
hammer; and the wide gulf which separated the free colored people
from the Garrisonians, also separated them from their brother,
Frederick Douglass.

The arduous nature of his labors, from the date of the
establishment of his paper, may be estimated by the fact, that
anti-slavery papers in the United States, even while organs of,
and when supported by, anti-slavery parties, have, with a single
exception, failed to pay expenses.  Mr. Douglass has maintained,
and does maintain, his paper without the support of any party,
and even in the teeth of the opposition of those from whom he had
reason to expect counsel and encouragement.  He has been
compelled, at one and the same time, and almost constantly,
during the past seven years, to contribute matter to its columns
as editor, and to raise funds for its support as lecturer.  It is
within bounds to say, that he has expended twelve thousand
dollars of his own hard earned money, in publishing this paper, a
larger sum than has been contributed by any one individual for
the general advancement of the colored people.  There had been
many other papers published and edited by colored men, beginning
as far back as 1827, when the Rev. Samuel E. Cornish and John
B. Russworm (a graduate of Bowdoin college, and afterward
Governor of Cape Palmas) published the _Freedom's Journal_, in
New York City; probably not less than one hundred newspaper
enterprises have been started in the United States, by free
colored men, born free, and some of them of liberal education and
fair talents for this work; but, one after another, they have
fallen through, although, in several instances, anti-slavery
friends contributed to their support.[3]  It had almost been
given up, as an impracticable thing, to maintain a colored
newspaper, when Mr. Douglass, with fewest early advantages of all
his competitors, essayed, and has proved the thing perfectly
practicable, and, moreover, of great public benefit.  This paper,
in addition to its power in holding up the hands of those to whom
it is especially devoted, also affords irrefutable evidence of
the justice, safety and practicability of Immediate Emancipation;
it further proves the immense loss which slavery inflicts on the
land while it dooms such energies as his to the hereditary
degradation of slavery.

It has been said in this Introduction, that Mr. Douglass had
raised himself by his own efforts to the highest position in
society.  As a successful editor, in our land, he occupies this
position.  Our editors rule the land, and he is one of them.  As
an orator and thinker, his position is equally high, in the
opinion of his countrymen.  If a stranger in the United States
would seek its most distinguished men--the movers of public
opinion--he will find their names mentioned, and their movements
chronicled, under the head of "BY MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH, in the
daily papers.  The keen caterers for the public attention, set
down, in this column, such men only as have won high mark in the
public esteem.  During the past winter--1854-5--very frequent
mention of Frederick Douglass was made under this head in the
daily papers; his name glided as often--this week from Chicago,
next

[3]  Mr. Stephen Myers, of Albany, deserves mention as one of the
most persevering among the colored editorial fraternity.

week from Boston--over the lightning wires, as the name of
any other man, of whatever note.  To no man did the people more
widely nor more earnestly say, _"Tell me thy thought!"_  And,
somehow or other, revolution seemed to follow in his wake.  His
were not the mere words of eloquence which Kossuth speaks of,
that delight the ear and then pass away.  No!  They were _work_-
able, _do_-able words, that brought forth fruits in the
revolution in Illinois, and in the passage of the franchise
resolutions by the Assembly of New York.

And the secret of his power, what is it?  He is a Representative
American man--a type of his countrymen.  Naturalists tell us that
a full grown man is a resultant or representative of all animated
nature on this globe; beginning with the early embryo state, then
representing the lowest forms of organic life,[4] and passing
through every subordinate grade or type, until he reaches the
last and highest--manhood.  In like manner, and to the fullest
extent, has Frederick Douglass passed through every gradation of
rank comprised in our national make-up, and bears upon his person
and upon his soul every thing that is American.  And he has not
only full sympathy with every thing American; his proclivity or
bent, to active toil and visible progress, are in the strictly
national direction, delighting to outstrip "all creation."

Nor have the natural gifts, already named as his, lost anything
by his severe training.  When unexcited, his mental processes are
probably slow, but singularly clear in perception, and wide in
vision, the unfailing memory bringing up all the facts in their
every aspect; incongruities he lays hold of incontinently, and
holds up on the edge of his keen and telling wit.  But this wit
never descends to frivolity; it is rigidly in the keeping of his
truthful common sense, and always used in illustration or proof
of some point which could not so readily be reached any other
way.  "Beware of a Yankee when he is feeding," is a shaft that
strikes home

[4]  The German physiologists have even discovered vegetable