These speeches were steeped in the
sentiments of liberty, and were full of references to the "rights of
man." They gave to young Douglass a larger idea of liberty than was
included in his mere dream of freedom for himself, and in addition they
increased his vocabulary of words and phrases. The reading of this
book unfitted him longer for restraint. He became all ears and all
eyes. Everything he saw and read suggested to him a larger world lying
just beyond his reach. The meaning of the term "Abolition" came to him
by a chance look at a Baltimore newspaper.
Slavery and Abolition! The distance between these two points of
existence seemed to have lessened greatly after he had comprehended
their meaning. "When I heard the Word 'Abolition,' I felt the matter
to be my personal concern. There was hope in this word." As he
afterward went about the city on his ordinary errands, or when at the
wharf, even performing tasks that were not set for him to do, he was
like another being. That word "Abolition" seemed to sing itself into
his very soul, and when he permitted his thoughts to dwell on the
possibilities that it opened to him, he was buoyed up with joyous
expectations.
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