became free. Douglass, with
the simple, direct, primitive sense of justice that had always marked
his mind, took the only true ground for the solution of the race
problems of that or any other epoch,-that the situation should be met
with equal and exact justice, and that his people should be allowed to
do as they pleased with themselves, "subject only to the same great
laws which apply to other men." He was a conspicuous figure at the
meeting in Tremont Temple, Boston, on January 1, 1863, when the
Emancipation Proclamation, hourly expected by an anxious gathering,
finally flashed over the wires. Douglass was among the first to
suggest the employment of colored troops in the Union army. In spite
of all assertions to the contrary, he foresaw in the war the end of
slavery. He perceived that by the enlistment of colored men not only
would the Northern arms be strengthened, but his people would win an
opportunity to exercise one of the highest rights of freemen, and by
valor on the field of battle to remove some of the stigma that slavery
had placed upon them. He strove through every channel at his command
to impress his views upon the country; and his efforts helped to
swell the current of opinion which found expression, after several
intermediate steps, in the enlistment of two colored regiments by
Governor Andrew, the famous war governor of Massachusetts, a State
foremost in all good works. When Mr. Lincoln had granted permission
for the recruiting of these regiments, Douglass issued through his
paper a stirring appeal, which was copied in the principal journals of
the Union States, exhorting his people to rally to this call, to seize
this opportunity to strike a blow at slavery and win the gratitude
of the country and the blessings of liberty for themselves and their
posterity.

Douglass exerted himself personally in procuring enlistments, his two
sons [his youngest and his oldest], Charles and Lewis, being [among]
the first in New York to enlist; for the two Massachusetts regiments
were recruited all over the North. Lewis H. Douglass, sergeant-major
in the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, was among the foremost on the
ramparts at Fort Wagner. Both these sons of Douglass survived the war,
and are now well known and respected citizens of Washington, D.C. The
Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, under the gallant but ill-fated Colonel
Shaw, won undying glory in the conflict; and the heroic deeds of the
officers and men of this regimen