Frederick Douglass was introduced by Dr. Brown as the champion of liberty the first of American Orators and a son of Maryland. He is a resident of New York but he ought to be with them and work with them and they intended to have him back with them.

Mr. Douglass said he had often appeared before the American people as a slave and sometimes as a fugitive slave, but always as an advocate for the slave. To him this day was the day of all days. He was permitted to appear before them in the more dignified, the more elevated character of an American citizen. Thirty five years ago it was his lot to be a slave in Talbot county working side by side with slaves on a plantation. He remembered that he always looked forward with yearning to the time when Maryland should not contain a slave. Uneducated as he was he knew enough of logic of events, of the sense right and wrong that the day would come when not a chain should clank nor fetter gall, nor whip crack over a slave. The change is amazing, when he remembers how slavery was interwoven with everything civil, political social and ecclesiastical in this State. He remembers that he and his fellow slaves desired to talk about emancipation, but were prevented by the presence of the overseer. They invented a vocabulary of their own so that they would not be understood as saying anything but the most harmless things. They were talking of liberty, in fact they were the original abolitionists. The old aunty would ask a slave, "Sonny do you see anything of the pig's foot coming?" That was the way we talked about emancipation To-day we have but two of three chief things. The first thing the negro got was the cartridge box, next was the ballot-box. Some of our friends who now advocate it hardly saw it three years ago, but at last they were convinced. The next box, without which the cartridge-box and ballot-box is insufficient, is the jury box. We are in a country which, while the negro hating element sits in the jury box the negro is not protected. We want the jury box for ourselves and our white follow-citizens, for no one is hurt by justice. He then explained the purport of the fifteenth amendment, and said that here- after the black man will have no excuse, as formerly, for ignorance, or poverty or destitution. The fifteenth amendment has deprived them of all the apologies and excuses which formerly existed. We must stand up and be responsible to our fellow-citizens as independent men. We are to instruct ourselves as to men and measures and take nobody or thing on trust. Mr. Douglass asked them if they remembered which party emancipated them? [There were responses of "The republican party," and several persons responded "The democratic," which occasioned some amusement.] Mr. Douglass continued. The democratic party is the old party that for forty years stood between themselves and liberty.

He pleaded guilty to the charge of running away from Maryland but it was not from Maryland he ran away. He loved Maryland, its waters, its fertile fields in Talbot county its fishing grounds and everything in it except slavery. It was slavery he ran away from He felt a little mean about it to go away with out bidding them good bye. The truth was he was afraid aid to bid them good bye for fear they would not let him go. He had some religious scruples also. He used to pray that God would release him from slavery but God did not begin to hear his prayers until he began to run.