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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 173

about making its new constitution, to avoid the narrow folly of the Dorrites,
and make a constitution which should not abridge any man's rights on
account of race or color. Such a constitution was finally adopted.

Owing perhaps to my efficiency in this campaign I was for a while
employed in further labors in Rhode Island by the State Anti-Slavery Society,
and made there many friends to my cause as well as to myself. As a class the
abolitionists of this State partook of the spirit of its founder. They had their
own opinions, were independent, and called no man master. I have reason to
remember them most gratefully. They received me as a man and a brother,
when I was new from the house of bondage, and had few of the graces
derived from free and refined society. They took me with earnest hand to
their homes and hearths, and made me feel that though I wore the burnished
livery of the sun I was still a countryman and kinsman of whom they were
never ashamed. I can never forget the Clarkes, Keltons, Chaces, Browns,
Adamses, Greenes, Sissons, Eldredges, Mitchells, Shroves, Anthonys,
Aplins, Janeses, Goulds, and Fairbankses, and many others.

While thus remembering the noble anti-slavery men and women of
Rhode Island, I do not forget that I suffered much rough usage within her
borders. It was like all the northern States at that time, under the influence
of slave power, and often showed a proscriptive and persecuting spirit, espe-
cially upon its railways and steamboats, and in its public houses. The
Stonington route was a "hard road" for a colored man "to travel" in that day.
I was several times dragged from the cars for the crime of being colored. On
the Sound between New York and Stonington, there were the same proscrip-
tions which I have before named as enforced on the steamboats running
between New York and Newport. No colored man was allowed abaft the
wheel, and in all seasons of the year, in heat or cold, wet or dry, the deck was
his only place. If I would lie down at night I must do so upon the freight on
deck, and this in cold weather was not a very comfortable bed. When travel-
ing in company with my white friends I always urged them to leave me and
go into the cabin and take their comfortable berths. I saw no reason why they
should be miserable because I was. Some of them took my advice very read-
ily, I confess, however, that while I was entirely honest in urging them to go,
and saw no principle that should bind them to stay and suffer with me, I
always felt a little nearer to those who did not take my advice and persisted
in sharing my hardships with me.

There is something in the world above fixed rules and the logic of right
and wrong, and there is some foundation for recognizing works, which may
be called works of supererogation. Wendell Phillips, James Monroe, and