23

LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS 175

one occasion six of these "fellows of the baser sort," under the direction of the
conductor, set out to eject me from my seat. As usual, I had purchased a first-
class ticket, and paid the required sum for it, and on the requirement of the
conductor to leave refused to do so, when he called on these men "to snake
me out." They attempted to obey with an air which plainly told me they rel-
ished the job. They, however, found me much attached to my seat, and in
removing me I tore away two or three of the surrounding ones, on which I
held with a firm grasp, and did the car no service in some other respects. I was
strong and muscular, and the seats were not then so firmly attached or of as
solid make as now. The result was that Stephen A. Chase, superintendent of
the road, ordered all passenger trains to pass through Lynn (where I then lived)
without stopping. This was a great inconvenience to the people, large numbers
of whom did business in Boston, and at other points of the road. Led on, how-
ever, by James N. Buffum, Jonathan Buffum, Christopher Robinson, William
Bassett, and others, the people of Lynn stood bravely by me, and denounced
the railroad management in emphatic terms. Mr. Chase made reply that a
railroad corporation was neither a religious nor reformatory body; that the
road was run for the accommodation of the public, and that it required the
exclusion of colored people from its cars. With an air of triumph he told us
that we ought not to expect a railroad company to be better than the evangeli-
cal church, and that until the churches abolished the "negro pew," we ought
not to expect the railroad company to abolish the negro car. This argument
was certainly good enough as against the church, but good for nothing as
against the demands of justice and equality. My old and dear friend, J. N.
Buffum, made a point against the company that they "often allowed dogs and
monkeys to ride in first-class cars, and yet excluded a man like Frederick
Douglass!" In a very few years this barbarous practice was put away, and I
think there have been no instances of such exclusion during the past thirty
years; and colored people now, everywhere in New England, ride upon equal
terms with other passengers.

CHAPTER V.
ONE HUNDRED CONVENTIONS.

Anti-slavery conventions held in parts of New England, and in some of the Middle and Western
States—Mobs—Incidents, ect.

The year 1843 was one of remarkable anti-slavery activity. The New England