Mr. Douglass always insisted that we must not be measured by the heights to which we have attained, but rather by the depths from which we have come. These depths were lower than those from which Garfield came – and he drove a canal boat; or from which Grant came – and he was a tanner; or Lincoln – and he was a rail-splitter.
Douglass came from depths far beneath any of these, for he was a slave, and had to go further to reach their starting point than either of them went in the entirety journey of their triumphs. Wisely and philosophically did he remark, immediately after the war closed, at a great meeting held in Dr. Sunderland‘s church, “It is a long way from the cornfields of Maryland to Dr. Sunderland’s church in Washington.”
SOURCE:
“Eulogy by Hon. John C. Dancy“, p. 89.
Thompson, J.W. An Authentic History of the Douglass Monument. Biographical Facts and Incidents in the Life of Frederick Douglass. His Death at Anacostia, D.C. And Funeral at Washington, D.C. And Rochester, N.Y., Together With Portraits and Illustrations of Important Incidents of the Four Years’ Struggle to Complete the Work. Rochester, N.Y., Rochester Herald Press, 1903.
Lost History of Dr. Frederick (Bailey) Douglass on Maryland's Eastern Shore 