Page:The rising son, or, The antecedents and advancement of the colored race (IA risingsonthe00browrich).pdf/451

 manuscripts, however, do not, in our opinion, come up to his extemporaneous efforts.

But Frederick Douglass's abilities as an editor and publisher have done more for the freedom and elevation of his race than all his platform appeals. Previous to the year 1848, the colored people of the United States had no literature. True, the "National Reformer," the "Mirror of Liberty," the "Colored American," "The Mystery," the "Disfranchised American," the "Ram's Horn," and several others of smaller magnitude, had been in existence, had their run, and ceased to live. All of the above journals had done something towards raising the black man's standard, but they were merely the ploughs breaking up the ground and getting the soil ready for the seed-time. Newspapers, magazines, and books published in those days by colored men, were received with great allowance by the whites, who had always regarded the negro as an uneducated, inferior race, and who were considered out of their proper sphere when meddling with literature.

The commencement of the publication of the "North Star" was the beginning of a new era in the black man's literature. Mr. Douglass's well-earned fame gave his paper at once a place with the first journals in the country; and he drew around him a corps of contributors and correspondents from Europe, as well as all parts of America and the West Indies, that made its columns rich with the current news of the world.

While the "North Star" became a welcome visitor to the homes of whites who had never before read a newspaper edited by a colored man, its proprietor be