Samuel Ringgold Ward — 'The Black Daniel Webster' — Tours as Abolitionist Orator

Samuel Ringgold Ward, a Congregationalist minister and editor of the Impartial Citizen newspaper, was celebrated as the most eloquent Black orator of his generation — his commanding presence and intellect led Frederick Douglass to call him 'the ablest man we have.' After the Fugitive Slave Act (1850), Ward helped rescue Jerry Henry in Syracuse, then fled to Canada and later England, publishing his autobiography there in 1855 after speaking against slavery to British audiences.