The Furies (42 page)

“And thus,” Bryant said, “in our distinguished guest’s own words, a slave was made a man!”

Applause. Amanda and Rose joined in. Then, as the clapping died away, they heard a startling sound from the darkened box behind Greeley’s.

The rest of the audience heard too. Heads turned. There were scowls. Greeley rose all the way out of his chair and tried to see who had hissed.

It wasn’t uncommon for foes of the abolitionists to attend their programs. Sometimes the unwelcome guests tried to disrupt a meeting. That was evidently the case tonight. Amanda’s vantage point still prevented her from seeing the occupants of the box in question.

Bryant was plainly angered. He lost his place in his notes and took a few moments to resume. Douglass looked unperturbed.

Rapidly, Bryant went through the rest of his introduction, describing the speaker’s first, aborted effort to escape to the north, and his second, successful one in 1838.

With seventeen dollars and an identification paper borrowed from a free Negro seaman, Douglass had boarded a train in Baltimore and waited nervously for the conductor to collect his fare and examine the paper. The conductor gave the paper only a casual glance. After a boat trip from Washington to Philadelphia, then a train ride, Douglass arrived in New York, a free man.

Bryant paid tribute to Douglass’ family, to his long and earnest dedication to freedom for America’s enslaved blacks, to his career as editor and publisher of
The North Star
at Rochester.

Then, folding away his notes, he said, “It is my great pleasure and high honor to present Mr. Frederick Douglass.”

The audience surged to its feet, applauding wildly. Douglass smiled for the first time, tilted his head to one side to acknowledge the ovation and approached the podium.

The speaker began quietly, using no notes. “Mr. Bryant—ladies and gentlemen—I too shall be brief. My message to you is essentially a simple one. But just let me state that I never stand before an audience like that which I see before me without feeling my incompetence to do justice to the cause which I am here to advocate”—he allowed himself another faint smile—“or to the expectation which is generally created for me by the friends who precede me. Certainly, if the eulogiums bestowed on me this evening were correct, I should be able to entertain this audience for hours by my eloquence. But I claim none of this. While I feel grateful for your generosity, I can certainly claim very little right to your applause—for I was once a slave. I never had a day’s schooling in my life. All that I know, I have stolen—”

The oblique reference to his escape produced a scattering of cheers, which he acknowledged with another of those carefully controlled smiles. As the cheering faded, there was another loud hiss.

This time, a man in the orchestra leaped up and shook his fist. “Shame, shame!”

Others took up the cry. Douglass didn’t dignify the dark box with so much as a glance. He held up his hand, settling the crowd into silence.

“I wish at once to relieve you from all expectation of a great speech. That I am deeply and earnestly engaged in advocating the cause of my brethren is most true, and so, this evening, I hail your kind expressions toward me with the profoundest gratitude. I will make use of those expressions. I will take them home in my memory. They shall be written on my heart, and they will give me courage as I travel throughout this land of boasted liberty and light”—his voice had grown stronger—“yet this land of abject slavery, for the purpose of overthrowing that system and restoring the Negro to his long-lost rights!”

Applause louder than before greeted this first emotional peak in the speech. Amanda watched the dark box. Sure enough, just as the outpouring of sound began to diminish, the hiss was heard again, prolonged and ugly.

More yells of anger burst from the audience. One burly fellow started out of his seat, intending to go up the aisle and on to the box. His two companions restrained him.

Douglass moved quickly to the subject of his address—Section Two of Article IV of the Constitution. He first quoted the Section’s third paragraph verbatim. Then he reminded his audience that the authors of the Constitution had included the paragraph in order to acknowledge the right of slave owners to reclaim runaways in nonslave territory, even though the paragraph carefully avoided the use of the word
slave
in favor of the more general
person.

“Upon the face of this,” Douglass said, “there is nothing of injustice, nothing of inhumanity—it is perfectly in accordance with justice, perfectly humane. But what does it
really
mean in the United States?

“It means that if any slave shall in the darkness of midnight, thinking himself a man and entitled to the rights of a man, steal away from his hovel or quarter—

“Shall snap the chain that binds his leg—

“Shall break the fetter that links him to slavery—

“It means that if he shall do these things, then by night and by day, on his way from a state where slavery is practiced to one where it is not, he shall also be liable to be hunted down like a felon and dragged back to the bondage from which he has escaped!”

Amanda leaned forward, stirred by the man’s eloquence. Douglass’ forehead showed a light sheen of perspiration. He still had no scrap of text before him. But he obviously needed none. Much more than thought had gone into what he was saying; his life’s fears and angers and hopes had gone into it.

He let go of the podium, his hands clenched.

“This clause of the Constitution,” he thundered, “is one of the greatest safeguards to that slave system which we have met here this evening to express our detestation of!

“This clause of the Constitution—upheld and endorsed by an abominable fugitive slave bill promulgated by misguided men in the Congress—gives to the slave holder the right at any moment to set his bloodhound upon the track of the fugitive, hunt him down and drag him back to the jaws of slavery!

“This clause of the Constitution consecrates every rood of earth in this land over which the star-spangled banner waves as SLAVE-HUNTING GROUND!”

The booming voice was drowned under a roar of
“Shame! Shame!”
If the unseen antagonist in the box bothered to hiss, no one heard.

Douglass then launched into a ringing demand that all men of conscience disobey the Fugitive Slave Act. While Amanda had applauded during the earlier portions of the speech, here she held back. She wasn’t certain the speaker was right. Congress had passed the law in the hope of mitigating sectional strife and preserving the Union. Douglass rejected such compromise. He said the law was immoral—and perhaps it was. He said it should be overturned—that might be true as well. But when he said that until the law was repealed, it should be ignored, Amanda found herself disagreeing.

“This being the state of things in America”—Douglass’ quieter tone immediately hushed the hall again—“you cannot expect me to stand before you with eloquent outbursts of praise for my country. No, my friends, I must be honest with America—

“Unmask her pretensions to republicanism!

“Unmask her hypocritical pretensions to Christianity!

“Denounce her pretensions to civilization!

“Proclaim in her ear the wrongs of those who cry day and night to heaven—‘HOW LONG, HOW LONG, OH LORD GOD!’”

The Bowery Theatre literally shook from the hand-clapping and foot-stomping. Douglass bowed his head, breathing hard and clinging to the podium for support.

The ovation continued for one minute, two, three. Rose was clapping furiously. Even Amanda cast aside her reservations and joined in, caught up in the spell of the man’s oratory.

Finally, when the tumult died, Douglass resumed.

“Let me say this to you in conclusion. Despite the dark picture I have presented—despite the iniquity of the present law which can only be an abomination in the eyes of all men who consider themselves believers in the principles upon which this nation was founded—no, despite all this, I do not despair of America.

“There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of the unjust law and the entire system of slavery. ‘The arm of the Lord is not shortened.’ The doom of slavery is
certain!
”

Once more, little by little, he had begun to build volume. Amanda’s spine tingled. The stately figure held every eye in the theatre.

“While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence—from the great principles it contains—and from the genius of American institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age in which we live.

“No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot around in the same old path of its fathers. A change has come over the affairs of mankind!

“Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. The fiat of the Almighty—‘Let there be light!’—has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage can now hide itself from the all-pervading and cleansing light of decency, democracy, and honor.

“Unjust laws shall perish. Unjust men shall die un-mourned and dishonored. There will be universal freedom if we dedicate our hearts, our minds and our mortal souls to its accomplishment—if we resist the tyranny of the law where it must be resisted—and if our prayer of fervent aspiration forever remains that of William Lloyd Garrison—”

Douglass flung his hands high over his head, roaring: “ ‘Godspeed the year of jubilee—the wide world o’er!’ ”

It took Amanda and Rose nearly twenty minutes to work their way through the long line of people filing onto the stage to congratulate Douglass. He was particularly gracious with Amanda, recalling their meeting on the steamer to Boston, and thanking her warmly for the donation she’d sent. She promised to send another, then said, “But I must tell you honestly, Mr. Douglass, I can’t agree with you on one point in your address.”

“Which point is that, Mrs. de la Gura?”

“That the Fugitive Slave Act must be disobeyed. Overturned—perhaps. But as long as it
is
the law—”

“I can understand your attitude—even though I consider it wrong. The working of that particular law remains an abstraction for you. Something you read about, and consider intellectually. I think you’d change your mind if you were face to face with one of the law’s victims. Or were a victim yourself.”

“I’m not certain of that, Mr. Douglass.”

He smiled. “But I am.”

The press of the line behind them forced Amanda to break off the conversation. As she followed Rose up one of the aisles, she glanced at the box from which the hissing had come. If the box was still occupied, it was impossible to see by whom.

Presently the two women reached the packed lobby. Through the open outer doors, Amanda saw that snow had started falling in the February darkness. Forward movement was almost impossible.

The crowd filled the lobby and spilled outside. Lines of hacks and carriages waited three deep. As each vehicle maneuvered for a place at the curb and loaded its passengers, she and Rose were able to take another step or two. But progress was infernally slow.

As she supped her hands deeper into her muff, Amanda felt Rose tap her shoulder. She turned and saw Mr. Greeley of the
Tribune.

Amanda had met the Whig publisher at a Christmas fete at Rose’s mansion in Gramercy Park. She’d been struck by his aura of age. Though Greeley couldn’t have been much more than forty, his mutton-chop whiskers were already whitening. His piercing eyes seemed those of an old man who viewed the world with simmering discontent.

Greeley had been intrigued when Rose mentioned that her friend had survived the Alamo massacre. He had also been openly skeptical, reminding the women that there were no American survivors save a lady named Dickinson.

Amanda pointed out that the list of Mexican survivors was much less precise. She expected she’d be shown on the record not under her maiden name but under her husband’s, which was Spanish, if the record carried any mention of her at all.

A few details of the massacre soon convinced Greeley that Amanda was telling the truth. He suggested an interview with one of his reporters. She declined, saying that the idea of personal publicity struck her as ostentatious, and she didn’t care to be painted as any sort of heroine; she’d merely survived as best she could. Actually, her real reason for turning him down was a wish to avoid any chance of the Kent name appearing in print. Mr. Greeley had been testy with her the rest of the evening.

Now, though, the incident was forgotten. He tipped his hat in a cordial way. “Mrs. de la Gura—Rose—good evening.”

“Happy to see you awake again, Horace,” Rose said.

Greeley ignored the jibe. “Douglass gave a splendid talk, didn’t he?”

“Splendid,” Amanda agreed.

“Marred only by those disgusting interruptions from the box behind me.”

“Did you see who was doing it?” Amanda asked.

“Of course. A certain gentleman who enjoys making his obnoxious opinions known in public. A member of the exalted Order of the Star Spangled Banner. I prefer not to discuss the subject any further. His performance made me sick.”

“But Horace, who was it?”

Greeley paid no attention to Rose’s query. He was staring at two men in the crowd. With a sour expression, he said, “And I’m experiencing the same feeling right now.”

Amanda recognized handsome, blue-eyed Fernando Wood, a wealthy politician with ambitions for the mayor’s office. With him was his brother Ben. Both were Democrats, and hence Greeley’s foes.

Fernando Wood and his brother were arm in arm with a pair of gaudily dressed young ladies who might have come straight from a Paradise Square brothel—but then, the Woods made no secret of having the poor, and even most of the city’s criminal element, in their political camp.

The Woods had grown rich in real estate, and also by operating as licensed gamblers, under a dubious “charter” granted them in Louisiana. They were close friends of the Tammany politician Isaiah Rynders, who bossed the Sixth Ward, owned several slum saloons—and could always rally a street gang to harry an opposition candidate. Rynders was notorious for his hatred of blacks and foreigners—his Irish constituents excepted. He had been in the crowd that had started the Astor Place riot. The ringleader, some said.