was
deeply impressed by these interviews is a matter of history.

Douglass supported vigorously the nomination of Lincoln for a second
term, and was present at his [March 4] inauguration. And a few days
later, while the inspired words of the inaugural address, long
bracketed with the noblest of human utterances, were still ringing in
his ears, he spoke at the meeting held in Rochester to mourn the death
of the martyred President, and made one of his most eloquent and
moving addresses. It was a time that wrung men's hearts, and none more
than the strong-hearted man's whose race had found its liberty through
him who lay dead at Washington, slain by the hand of an assassin whom
slavery had spawned.

X.

With the fall of slavery and the emancipation of the colored race the
heroic epoch of Douglass's career may be said to have closed. The text
upon which he so long had preached had been expunged from the national
bible; and he had been a one-text preacher, a one-theme orator. He
felt the natural reaction which comes with relief from high mental or
physical tension, and wondered, somewhat sadly, what he should do with
himself, and how he should earn a living. The same considerations,
in varying measure, applied to others of the anti-slavery reformers.
Some, unable to escape the reforming habit, turned their attention
to different social evils, real or imaginary. Others, sufficiently
supplied with this worlds goods for their moderate wants, withdrew
from public life. Douglass was thinking of buying a farm and retiring
to rural solitudes, when a new career opened up for him in the lyceum
lecture field. The North was favorably disposed toward colored men.
They had acquitted themselves well during the war, and had
shown becoming gratitude to their deliverers. The once despised
abolitionists were now popular heroes. Douglass's checkered past
seemed all the more romantic in the light of the brighter present,
like a novel with a pleasant ending; and those who had hung
thrillingly upon his words when he denounced slavery now listened with
interest to what he had to say upon other topics. He spoke sometimes
on Woman Suffrage, of which he was always a consistent advocate.
His most popular lecture was one on "Self-made Men." Another on
"Ethnology," in which he sought a scientific basis for his claim for
the negro's equality with the white man, was not so popular--with
white people. The wave of enthusiasm which had swept the