ghts, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the _consent of the
governed_." The writer may be pardoned for this quotation; for there
are times when we seem to forget that now and here, no less than in
ancient Rome, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Douglass
brushed aside all sophistries about Constitutional guarantees, and
vested rights, and inferior races, and, having postulated the right of
men to be free, maintained that negroes were men, and offered himself
as a proof of his assertion,--an argument that few had the temerity
to deny. If it were answered that he was only half a negro, he would
reply that slavery made no such distinction, and as a still more
irrefutable argument would point to his friend, Samuel R. Ward, who
often accompanied him on the platform,--an eloquent and effective
orator, of whom Wendell Phillips said that "he was so black that, if
he would shut his eyes, one could not see him." It was difficult for
an auditor to avoid assent to such arguments, presented with all the
force and fire of genius, relieved by a ready wit, a contagious humor,
and a tear-compelling power rarely excelled.

"As a speaker," says one of his contemporaries, "he has few equals. It
is not declamation, but oratory, power of description. He watches the
tide of discussion, and dashes into it at once with all the tact of
the forum or the bar. He has art, argument, sarcasm, pathos,--all that
first-rate men show in their master efforts."

His readiness was admirably illustrated in the running debate with
Captain Rynders, a ward politician and gambler of New York, who led a
gang of roughs with the intention of breaking up the meeting of the
American Anti-slavery Society in New York City, May 7, 1850. The
newspapers had announced the proposed meeting in language calculated
to excite riot. Rynders packed the meeting with rowdies, and himself
occupied a seat on the platform. Some remark by Mr. Garrison, the
first speaker, provoked a demonstration of hostility. When this was
finally quelled by a promise to permit one of the Rynders party to
reply, Mr. Garrison finished his speech. He was followed by a prosy
individual, who branded the negro as brother to the monkey. Douglass,
perceiving that the speaker was wearying even his own friends,
intervened at an opportune moment, captured the audience by a timely
display of wit, and then improved the occasion by a long and effective
speech. When Do