ABSTRACT
The recognised leadership of Frederick Douglass among the coloured people of the country may be dated from the publication of the North Star. Prior to that time he was regarded as an Abolition orator and a conspicuous example of the possibilities of the Negro race. He had not yet established his relationship with the free coloured people of the North. In nearly all of the states north of the Ohio, the Negro was disfranchised either by constitution, statute, or public sentiment. In practice, he was not regarded as a member of political society and was, consequently, almost wholly without the guarantee of civil rights. Hungry, chilly, and desolate, he found his way to the graveyard, and while roaming among the graves and contemplating the equality of men in death, he was approached by a gentleman who proved to be a Democratic senator from New Hampshire.
