Editing Frederick Douglass (section)

===John Brown===
[[File:Douglass argued against John Brown's plan to attack the arsenal at Harpers Ferry - NARA - 559102.jpg|thumb|''Douglass argued against John Brown's plan to attack the arsenal at Harpers Ferry'', painting by [[Jacob Lawrence]]]]
{{see also|Shields Green}}
On March 12, 1859, Douglass met with radical abolitionists [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]], [[George DeBaptiste]], and others at William Webb's house in Detroit to discuss emancipation.<ref>''9Underground Railroad'', US Department of Interior, National Park Service, Denver Service Center. Diane Publishing, 1995, p. 168. {{ISBN?}}</ref> Douglass met Brown again when Brown visited his home two months before leading [[John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry|the raid on Harpers Ferry]]. Brown penned his [[John Brown's Provisional Constitution|Provisional Constitution]] during his two-week stay with Douglass. Also staying with Douglass for over a year was [[Shields Green]], a fugitive slave whom Douglass was helping, as he often did.

Shortly before the raid, Douglass, taking Green with him, travelled from Rochester, via New York City, to [[Chambersburg, Pennsylvania]], Brown's communications headquarters. He was recognized there by black people, who asked him for a lecture. Douglass agreed, although he said his only topic was slavery. Green joined him on the stage; Brown, [[wikt:incognito|incognito]], sat in the audience. A white reporter, referring to "Nigger Democracy", called it a "flaming address" by "the notorious Negro Orator".<ref>{{Cite news |date=August 24, 1859 |title=High Treason! |page=5 |work=Franklin Repository |location=[[Chambersburg, Pennsylvania]] |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74855203/lecture-by-frederick-douglass/ |url-status=live |access-date=April 1, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413201002/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/74855203/lecture-by-frederick-douglass/ |archive-date=April 13, 2021 |via=[[newspapers.com]]}}</ref>

There, in an abandoned stone quarry for secrecy, Douglass and Green met with Brown and [[John Henri Kagi]], to discuss the raid. After discussions lasting, as Douglass put it, "a day and a night", he disappointed Brown by declining to join him, considering the mission suicidal. To Douglass's surprise, Green went with Brown instead of returning to Rochester with Douglass. Anne Brown said that Green told her that Douglass promised to pay him on his return, but [[David Blight]] called this "much more ex post facto bitterness than reality".<ref>{{Cite book |last=DeCaro |first=Louis A. Jr. |title=The Untold Story of Shields Green: The Life and Death of a Harper's Ferry Raider |publisher=[[New York University Press]] |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-4798-0275-3 |pages=172–174}}</ref>

Almost all that is known about this incident comes from Douglass. It is clear that it was of immense importance to him, both as a turning point in his life—not accompanying John Brown—and its importance in his public image. The meeting was not revealed by Douglass for 20 years. He first disclosed it in his speech on John Brown at [[Storer College]] in 1881, trying unsuccessfully to raise money to support a John Brown professorship at Storer, to be held by a black man. He again referred to it stunningly in his last ''Autobiography''.

After the raid, which took place between October 16 and 18, 1859, Douglass was accused both of supporting Brown and of not supporting him enough.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |year=1995 |title=His Soul Goes Marching On. Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid |publisher=[[University Press of Virginia]] |location=Charlottesville |last=Drescher |first=Seymour |author-link=Seymour Drescher |editor-last=Finkelman |editor-first=Paul |editor-link=Paul Finkelman |page=275 |isbn=978-0-8139-1536-4 |contribution=Servile Insurrection and John Brown's Body in Europe}}</ref> He was nearly arrested on a Virginia warrant,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |date=November 11, 1859 |orig-date=October 31, 1859 |title=Letter from Frederick Douglass |page=1 |work=[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]] |location=Boston|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73678456/letter-from-frederick-douglass/ |url-status=live |access-date=March 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413201032/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73678456/letter-from-frederick-douglass/ |archive-date=April 13, 2021 |via=[[newspapers.com]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=October 27, 1859 |title=Supposed Search for Fred. Douglass |page=8 |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73841684/search-for-fredeick-douglass/ |url-status=live |access-date=March 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413202918/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73841684/search-for-fredeick-douglass/ |archive-date=April 13, 2021 |via=[[newspapers.com]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |date=March 7, 1874 |title=John Brown |page=1 |work=Shepherdstown Register |location=[[Shepherdstown, West Virginia]] |url=https://virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=SR18740307 |url-status=live |access-date=March 18, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413201159/https://virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=SR18740307 |archive-date=April 13, 2021 |via=VirginiaChronicle}}</ref> and fled for a brief time to Canada before proceeding onward to England on a previously planned lecture tour, arriving near the end of November.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/collections/frederick-douglass-papers/articles-and-essays/frederick-douglass-timeline/1847-to-1859 "Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress, Timeline, 1847 to 1859]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190227095331/https://www.loc.gov/collections/frederick-douglass-papers/articles-and-essays/frederick-douglass-timeline/1847-to-1859/ |date=February 27, 2019 }}, U.S. Library of Congress.  Retrieved August 29, 2020</ref> During his lecture tour of Great Britain, on March 26, 1860, Douglass delivered a speech before the Scottish Anti-Slavery Society in [[Glasgow]], "[[The Constitution of the United States: is it pro-slavery or anti-slavery?]]", outlining his views on the American Constitution.<ref>Frederick Douglass (1860), [https://web.archive.org/web/20191005195305/https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/1860-frederick-douglass-constitution-united-states-it-pro-slavery-or-anti-slavery/ "The Constitution of the United States: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery?"] – via ''[[BlackPast]]'', March 15, 2012. Retrieved August 29, 2020.</ref> That month, on the 13th, Douglass's youngest daughter Annie died in [[Rochester, New York]], at age 10. Douglass sailed back from England the following month, traveling through Canada to avoid detection.

Years later, in 1881, Douglass shared a stage at Storer College in [[Harpers Ferry, West Virginia|Harpers Ferry]] with [[Andrew Hunter (lawyer)|Andrew Hunter]], the prosecutor who secured Brown's conviction and execution. Hunter congratulated Douglass.<ref name="douglassdover">{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://archive.org/details/johnbrownaddress00doug/page/n1/mode/2up |title=John Brown. An address by Frederick Douglass, at the fourteenth anniversary of Storer College, Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, May 30, 1881 |date=1881 |location=Dover, New Hampshire |publisher=Dover, N.H., Morning Star job printing house |pages=3–4}}</ref>