In the years from 1853 to 1860 the slave power, inspired with divine madness, rushed headlong toward its doom.  The arbitrary enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act; the struggle between freedom and slavery in Kansas; the Dred Scott decision, by which a learned and subtle judge, who had it within his power to enlarge the boundaries of human liberty and cover his own name with glory, deliberately and laboriously summarized and dignified with the sanction of a court of last resort all the most odious prejudices that had restricted the opportunities of the colored people; the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; the John Brown raid; the [1855] assault on [Massachusetts antislavery U.S.  Senator] Charles Sumner,—­each of these incidents has been, in itself, the subject of more than one volume.  Of these events the Dred Scott decision was the most disheartening.  Douglass was not proof against the universal gloom, and began to feel that there was little hope of the peaceful solution of the question of slavery.  It was in one of his darker moments that old Sojourner Truth, whose face appeared in so many anti-slavery gatherings, put her famous question, which breathed a sublime and childlike faith in God, even when his hand seemed heaviest on her people:  “Frederick,” she asked, “is God dead?” The orator paused impressively, and then thundered in a voice that thrilled his audience with prophetic intimations, “No, God is not dead; and therefore it is that slavery must end in blood!”

During this period John Brown stamped his name indelibly upon American history.  It was almost inevitable that a man of the views, activities, and prominence of Douglass should become acquainted with John Brown.  Their first meeting, however, was in 1847, more than ten years before the tragic episode at Harpers Ferry.  At that time Brown was a merchant at Springfield, Massachusetts, whither Douglass was invited to visit him.  In his Life and Times he describes Brown as a prosperous merchant, who in his home lived with the utmost abstemiousness, in order that he might save money for the great scheme he was already revolving.  “His wife believed in him, and his children observed him with reverence.  His arguments seemed to convince all, his appeals touched all, and his will impressed all.  Certainly, I never felt myself in the presence of stronger religious influence than while in this man’s house.”  There in his own home, where Douglass stayed as his guest, Brown outlined a plan which in substantially the same form he held dear to his heart for a decade longer.  This plan, briefly stated, was to establish camps at certain easily defended points in the Allegheny Mountains; to send emissaries down to the plantations in the lowlands, starting in Virginia, and draw off the slaves to these mountain fastnesses; to maintain bands of them there, if possible, as a constant menace to slavery and an example of freedom; or, if that were impracticable, to lead them to Canada from time to time by the most available routes.  Wild as this plan may seem in the light of the desperate game subsequently played by slavery, it did not at the time seem impracticable to such level-headed men as Theodore Parker and Thomas Wentworth Higginson.