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312 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

do, to a seat in Congress—possibly in the Senate. That I did not yield to this
temptation was not entirely due to my age; for the idea did not square well
with my better judgment and sense of propriety. The thought of going to live
among a people in order to gain their votes and acquire official honors, was
repugnant to my self-respect, and I had not lived long enough in the political
atmosphere of Washington to have this sentiment sufficiently blunted to
make me indifferent to its suggestions. I do not deny that the arguments of
my friends had some weight in them, and from their stand-point it was all
right; but I was better known to myself than to them. I had small faith in my
aptitude as a politician, and could not hope to cope with rival aspirants. My
life and labors in the North had in a measure unfitted me for such work, and
I could not readily have adapted myself to the peculiar oratory found to be
most effective with the newly enfranchised class. In the New England and
Northern atmosphere I had acquired a style of speaking which in the South
would have been considered tame and spiritless; and, consequently, he who
"could tear a passion to tatters and split the ear of groundlings," had far bet-
ter chance of success with the masses there, than one so little boisterous as
myself.

Upon the whole, I have never regretted that I did not enter the arena of
Congressional honors to which I was invited.

Outside of mere personal considerations I saw, or thought I saw, that in
the nature of the case the sceptre of power had passed from the old slave and
rebellious States to the free and loyal States, and that hereafter, at least for
some time to come, the loyal North, with its advanced civilization, must
dictate the policy and control the destiny of the republic. I had an audience
ready made in the free States; one which the labors of thirty years had pre-
pared for me, and before this audience the freedmen of the South needed an
advocate as much as they needed a member of Congress. I think in this I was
right; for thus far our colored members of Congress have not largely made
themselves felt in the legislation of the country; and I have little reason to
think I could have done any better than they.

I was not, however, to remain long in my retired home in Rochester.
where I had planted my trees and was reposing under their shadows. An
effort was being made about this time to establish a large weekly newspaper
in the city of Washington, which should be devoted to the defence and
enlightenment of the newly emancipated and enfranchised people; and I was
urged by such men as George T. Downing, J. H. Hawes, J. Sella Martin, and
others, to become its editor-in-chief. My sixteen years' experience as editor
and publisher of my own paper, and the knowledge of the toil and anxiety