ABSTRACT
Young Douglass soon found that the difficulties of escape were quite as great in Baltimore as on the Freeland plantation. The railroads running from that city to Philadelphia were compelled to enforce the most stringent regulations with reference to coloured people. For the second time in his life, Frederick Douglass began earnestly to study the possible means of permanently breaking his fetters. By the laws of the state of Maryland, every free coloured person was required to have what were called "free papers" which must be renewed frequently, and, of course, a fee was always charged for renewal. The existence of an anti-slavery society and an anti-slavery movement of ever-widening extent and influence in the nation impressed him as nothing had done since he came from the South. The power within this young fugitive slave and the forces without him were fast shaping themselves to call him forth and hold him up as an example to all the world.
