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LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

in consequence of this startling innovation. They, dear fellows, found it
much more agreeable to talk of the principles of liberty as glittering generalities, than to reduce those principles to practice.
When the train on which 1 was going to the convention reached
Harrisburg, it met and was attached to another from the West crowded with
Western and Southern delegates on the way to the convention, and among
them were several loyal Governors, chief among whom was the loyal
Governor of Indiana, Oliver P. Morton, a man ofWebsterian mould in all that
appertained to mental power. When my presence became known to these
gentlemen, a consultation was immediately held among them, upon the
question as to what was best to do with me. It seems strange now, in view of
all the progress which has been made, that such a question could arise. But
the circumstances of the times made me the Jonah of the Republican ship,
and responsible for the contrary winds and misbehaving weather. Before we
reached Lancaster, on our eastward bound trip, I was duly waited upon by a
committee of my brother delegates, which had been appointed by other honorable delegates, to represent to me the undesirableness of my attendance
upon the National Loyalists' Convention. The spokesman of these sub-delegates was a gentleman from New Orleans with a very French name. which
has now escaped me, but which I wish I could recall, that I might credit him
with a high degree of politeness and the gift of eloquence. He began by telling me that he knew my history and my works, and that he entertained a\ ery
high respect for me, that both himself and the gentlemen \\ho sent him, as
well as those who accompanied him, regarded me with admiration: that there
was not among them the remotest objection to sitting in the con,ention with
me, but their personal wishes in the matter they felt should be set aside for
the sake of our common cause: that whether I should or should not go into
the convention was purely a matter of expediency: that I must know that
there was a very strong and bitter prejudice against my race in the North as
well as at the South: and that the cry of social and political equality would
not fail to be raised against the Republican party if I should attend this loyalists' national convention. He insisted that it was a time for the sacrifice of
my own personal feeling, for the good of the Republican cause: that there
were several districts in the State of Indiana so evenly balanced that a very
slight circumstance would be likely to tum the scale against us, and defeat
our Congressional candidates, and thus leave Congress without a two-thirds
vote to control the headstrong and treacherous man then in the presidential
chair. It was urged that this was a terrible responsibility for me or any other
man to take.