“The noble and philanthropic lord then took his seat amidst another _cause of offence_.”
These are the facts of that historical incident quoted from his own writings on the subject. Whatever may have been the motive underlying the action of the southern judge besides the reasons given to the public by him, it is not our province to interfere with; but if it were his intention to bring the high-toned negro delegate, receiving the same honors accorded to the other members of the Congress, into derision, in his undignified haste his failure was most signal in Europe, as well as with most thinking persons, not governed by their prejudices, in America.[5]
The following comment, written at the time, is from the papers of his friend, Mr. Frederick Douglas, who, towering in colossal grandeur beside the self-made heroes of our country, his eagle glance noting every pulse-throb of the great American body politic, seems a proper exponent of these indisputable facts.
“Some of our American journals, to whom black in anything else than in the human heart is a standing offence, are just now ‘taking on’ very ruefully about what they are pleased to call a flagrant insult offered to the American minister, Mr. G. M. Dallas, by Lord Brougham, at a meeting of the International Statistical Congress, held in London. Small pots boil quick, and soon dry up, but they do boil terribly while they are at it.
“It would hardly be safe to say whereunto our present wrath would carry us, were we not somewhat restrained and held down by the onerous burdens of electing our president for the next four years. As an American, and being of the unpopular complexion, we are rather glad to see this sensitiveness. The most disgusting symptoms sometimes raise hopes for the recovery of the patient, and it may be so in this case. The standing offence of the venerable and learned Lord Brougham was, that he ventured to call the attention of Mr. Dallas, the American minister plenipotentiary, to the fact that a ‘negro’ was an acting member of the meeting of the International Statistical Congress. This was the offence. It struck home at once. Mr. Dallas felt it. It choked him speechless. He could say nothing. The hit was palpable. It was like calling the attention of a man vain of his personal beauty to his ugly nose, or to any other deformity. Delany, determined that the nail should hold fast, rose with all his blackness, right up, as quick and as graceful as an African lion, and received the curious gaze of the scientific world. The picture was complete. Sermons in stones are nothing to this.