WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY?

- By Frederick Douglass
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African-American social reformer, writer, and abolitionist (c. 1818–1895) For other uses and other people with similar names, see Frederick Douglass (disambiguation). Frederick DouglassDouglass in 1879United States Minister Resident to HaitiIn officeNovember 14, 1889 – July 30, 1891Appointed byBenjamin HarrisonPreceded byJohn E. W. ThompsonSucceeded byJohn S. Durham Personal detailsBornFrederick Augustus Washington Baileyc. February 1817 or 1818[a]Cordova, Maryland, U.S.DiedFebruary 20, 1895(1895-02-20) (aged 77–78)Washington, D.C., U.S.Resting placeMount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, New York, U.S.Political partyRepublicanSpouses Anna Murray ​ ​(m. 1838; died 1882)​ Helen Pitts ​(m. 1884)​RelativesDouglass familyOccupation Abolitionist suffragist author editor diplomat Signature Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c. February 1817 or February 1818[a] – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He became the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century. After escaping from slavery in Maryland in 1838, Douglass became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, during which he gained fame for his oratory[4] and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to claims by supporters of slavery that enslaved people lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.[5] Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been enslaved. It was in response to this disbelief that Douglass wrote his first autobiography.[6] Douglass wrote three autobiographies, describing his experiences as an enslaved person in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), which became a bestseller and was influential in promoting the cause of abolition, as was his second book, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). Following the Civil War, Douglass was an active campaigner for the rights of freed slaves and wrote his last autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. First published in 1881 and revised in 1892, three years before his death, the book covers his life up to those dates. Douglass also actively supported women's suffrage, and he held several public offices. Without his knowledge or consent, Douglass became the first African American nominated for vice president of the United States, as the running mate of Victoria Woodhull on the Equal Rights Party ticket.[7] Douglass believed in dialogue and in making alliances across racial and ideological divides, as well as, after breaking with William Lloyd Garrison, in the anti-slavery interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.[8] When radical abolitionists, under the motto "No Union with Slaveholders", criticized Douglass's willingness to engage in dialogue with slave owners, he replied: "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."[9] Early life and slavery[edit] Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland. The plantation was between Hillsboro and Cordova;[10] his birthplace was likely his grandmother's cabin[b] east of Tappers Corner and west of Tuckahoe Creek.[11][12][13] In his first autobiography, Douglass stated: "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it."[14] In successive autobiographies, he gave more precise estimates of when he was born, his final estimate being 1817.[10] However, based on the extant records of Douglass's former owner, Aaron Anthony, historian Dickson J. Preston determined that Douglass was born in February 1818.[2] Though the exact date of his birth is unknown, he chose to celebrate February 14 as his birthday, remembering that his mother called him her "Little Valentine."[1][15] Birth family[edit] Douglass's mother, enslaved, was of African descent and his father, who may have been her master, apparently of European descent;[16] in his Narrative (1845), Douglass wrote: "My father was a white man."[10] According to David W. Blight's 2018 biography of Douglass, "For the rest of his life he searched in vain for the name of his true father."[17] Douglass's genetic heritage likely also included Native American.[18] Douglass said his mother Harriet Bailey gave him his name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and, after he escaped to the North in September 1838, he took the surname Douglass, having already dropped his two middle names.[19] He later wrote of his earliest times with his mother:[20] The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing. ... My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant. ... It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. ... I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. After separation from his mother during infancy, young Frederick lived with his maternal grandmother Betsy Bailey, who was also enslaved, and his maternal grandfather Isaac, who was free.[21] Betsy would live until 1849.[22] Frederick's mother remained on the plantation about 12 miles (19 km) away, visiting Frederick only a few times before her death when he was 7 years old. Returning much later, about 1883, to purchase land in Talbot County that was meaningful to him, he was invited to address "a colored school": I once knew a little colored boy whose mother and father died when he was six years old. He was a slave and had no one to care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and in cold weather would crawl into a meal bag head foremost and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm. Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his hunger, and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat. That boy did not wear pants like you do, but a tow linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. He became Presidential Elector, United States Marshal, United States Recorder, United States diplomat, and accumulated some wealth. He wore broadcloth and didn't have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table. That boy was Frederick Douglass.[23] Early learning and experience[edit] The Auld family[edit] Part of a series onSlavery Contemporary Child labour Child soldiers Conscription Debt Forced marriage Bride buying Child marriage Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Peonage Penal labour Contemporary Africa 21st-century jihadism Sexual slavery Wage slavery Historical Antiquity Egypt Babylonia Greece Rome Medieval Europe Ancillae Black Sea slave trade Byzantine Empire Kholop Prague slave trade Serfs History In Russia Emancipation Thrall Venetian slave trade Balkan slave trade Muslim world Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Slavery in Al-Andalus ‎ Baqt Contract of manumission Bukhara slave trade Crimean slave trade Khivan slave trade Ottoman Empire Avret Esir Pazarları Barbary Coast slave trade pirates Sack of Baltimore Slave raid of Suðuroy Turkish Abductions Concubinage history Ma malakat aymanukum Avret Esir Pazarları Harem Abbasid harem Ottoman Imperial Harem Safavid harem Qajar harem Jarya/Cariye Odalisque Qiyan Umm walad Circassian slave trade Saqaliba Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate 21st century Atlantic slave trade Bristol Brazil Database Dutch Middle Passage Nantes New France Panyarring Spanish Empire Slave Coast Thirteen colonies Topics and practice Conscription Ghilman Mamluk Devshirme Blackbirding Coolie Corvée labor Field slaves in the United States Treatment House slaves Saqaliba Slave market Slave raiding Child soldiers White slavery Naval Galley slave Impressment Pirates Shanghaiing Slave ship By country or region Sub-Saharan Africa Contemporary Africa Trans-Saharan slave trade Red Sea slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Zanzibar slave trade Angola Chad Comoros Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Nigeria Seychelles Somalia Somali slave trade South Africa Sudan Zanzibar North and South America Pre-Columbian America Aztec Americas indigenous U.S. Natives United States Field slaves female Contemporary maps partus prison labor Slave codes Treatment interregional Human trafficking The Bahamas Canada Caribbean Barbados British Virgin Islands Trinidad Code Noir Latin America Brazil Lei Áurea Colombia Cuba Haiti revolt Restavek (Encomienda) Puerto Rico East, Southeast, and South Asia Human trafficking in Southeast Asia Bhutan China Booi Aha Laogai penal system India Debt bondage Chukri System Japan comfort women Korea Kwalliso Maldives Thailand Yankee princess Vietnam Australia and Oceania Australia Human trafficking Blackbirding Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe and North Asia Sex trafficking in Europe Britain Denmark Dutch Republic Germany in World War II Malta Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain Sweden North Africa and West Asia Afghanistan Algeria Bahrain Egypt Human trafficking in the Middle East Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Palestine Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia Qatar Yemen United Arab Emirates Religion Bible Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Islam Judaism Baháʼí Faith Opposition and resistance 1926 Slavery Convention Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Abolitionists Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Colonization Liberia Sierra Leone Compensated emancipation Freedman manumission Freedom suit Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law Third Servile War 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa] Related Common law Indentured servitude Unfree labour Fugitive slaves laws Great Dismal Swamp maroons List of slaves owners last survivors of American slavery Marriage of enslaved people (United States) Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave catcher Slave patrol Slave Route Project breeding court cases Washington Jefferson J.Q. Adams Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau Iron bit Emancipation Day vteAt the age of 6, Douglass was separated from his grandparents and moved to the Wye House plantation, where Aaron Anthony worked as overseer.[13] After Anthony died in 1826, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld, who sent him to serve Thomas' brother Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia Auld in Baltimore. From the day he arrived, Sophia saw to it that Douglass was properly fed and clothed, and that he slept in a bed with sheets and a blanket.[24] Douglass described her as a kind and tender-hearted woman, who treated him "as she supposed one human being ought to treat another."[25] Douglass felt that he was lucky to be in the city, where he said enslaved people were almost freemen, compared to those on plantations. When Douglass was about 12, Sophia Auld began teaching him the alphabet. Hugh Auld disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that literacy would encourage enslaved people to desire freedom. Douglass later referred to this as the "first decidedly antislavery lecture" he had ever heard. "'Very well, thought I,'" wrote Douglass. "'Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.' I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom."[26] Under her husband's influence, Sophia came to believe that education and slavery were incompatible and one day snatched a newspaper away from Douglass.[27] She stopped teaching him altogether and hid all potential reading materials, including her Bible, from him.[24] In his autobiography, Douglass related how he learned to read from white children in the neighborhood and by observing the writings of the men with whom he worked.[28] Douglass continued, secretly, to teach himself to read and write. He later often said, "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom."[29] As Douglass began to read newspapers, pamphlets, political materials, and books of every description, this new realm of thought led him to question and condemn the institution of slavery. In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Orator, an anthology that he discovered at about age 12, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights. First published in 1797, the book is a classroom reader, containing essays, speeches, and dialogues, to assist students in learning reading and grammar. He later learned that his mother had also been literate, about which he would later declare: I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any love of letters I possess, and for which I have got—despite of prejudices—only too much credit, not to my admitted Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated mother—a woman, who belonged to a race whose mental endowments it is, at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt.[30] William Freeland[edit] When Douglass was hired out to William Freeland, he "gathered eventually more than thirty male slaves on Sundays, and sometimes even on weeknights, in a Sabbath literacy school."[31] Edward Covey[edit] In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass back from Hugh ("[a]s a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass later wrote). Thomas sent Douglass to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker". He whipped Douglass so frequently that his wounds had little time to heal. Douglass later said the frequent whippings broke his body, soul, and spirit.[32] The 16-year-old Douglass finally rebelled against the beatings, however, and fought back. After Douglass won a physical confrontation, Covey never tried to beat him again.[33][34] Recounting his beatings at Covey's farm in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass described himself as "a man transformed into a brute!"[35] Still, Douglass came to see his physical fight with Covey as life-transforming, and introduced the story in his autobiography as such: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man."[36] Escape from slavery[edit] Douglass first tried to escape from Freeland, who had hired him from his owner, but was unsuccessful. In 1837, Douglass met and fell in love with Anna Murray, a free black woman in Baltimore about five years his senior. Her free status strengthened his belief in the possibility of gaining his own freedom. Murray encouraged him and supported his efforts by aid and money.[37] Anna Murray Douglass, Douglass's wife for 44 years, portrait c. 1860 On September 3, 1838, Douglass successfully escaped by boarding a northbound train of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad in Baltimore.[38] The area where he boarded was formerly thought to be a short distance east of the train depot, in a recently developed neighborhood between the modern neighborhoods of Harbor East and Little Italy. This depot was at President and Fleet Streets, east of "The Basin" of the Baltimore harbor, on the northwest branch of the Patapsco River. Research cited in 2021, however, suggests that Douglass in fact boarded the train at the Canton Depot of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad on Boston Street, in the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore, further east.[39][40][41] Douglass reached Havre de Grace, Maryland, in Harford County, in the northeast corner of the state, along the southwest shore of the Susquehanna River, which flowed into the Chesapeake Bay. Although this placed him only some 20 miles (32 km) from the Maryland–Pennsylvania state line, it was easier to continue by rail through Delaware, another slave state. Dressed in a sailor's uniform provided to him by Murray, who also gave him part of her savings to cover his travel costs, he carried identification papers and protection papers that he had obtained from a free black seaman.[37][42][43] Douglass crossed the wide Susquehanna River by the railroad's steam-ferry at Havre de Grace to Perryville on the opposite shore, in Cecil County, then continued by train across the state line to Wilmington, Delaware, a large port at the head of the Delaware Bay. From there, because the rail line was not yet completed, he went by steamboat along the Delaware River farther northeast to the "Quaker City" of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an anti-slavery stronghold. He continued to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York City. His entire journey to freedom took less than 24 hours.[44] Douglass later wrote of his arrival in New York City: I have often been asked, how I felt when first I found myself on free soil. And my readers may share the same curiosity. There is scarcely anything in my experience about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer. A new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath, and the "quick round of blood," I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe. In a letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York, I said: "I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions." Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.[45] Once Douglass had arrived, he sent for Murray to follow him north to New York. She brought the basic supplies for them to set up a home. They were married on September 15, 1838, by a black Presbyterian minister, just eleven days after Douglass had reached New York.[44] At first they adopted Johnson as their married name, to divert attention.[37] Religious views[edit] As a child, Douglass was exposed to a number of religious sermons, and in his youth, he sometimes heard Sophia Auld reading the Bible. In time, he became interested in literacy; he began reading and copying bible verses, and he eventually converted to Christianity.[46][47] He described this approach in his last biography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: I was not more than thirteen years old when, in my loneliness and destitution, I longed for some one to whom I could go, as to a father and protector. The preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson, was the means of causing me to feel that in God I had such a friend. He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God: that they were but natural rebels against his government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God through Christ. I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me, but one thing I did know well: I was wretched and had no means of making myself otherwise. I consulted a good coloured man named Charles Lawson, and in tones of holy affection he told me to pray, and to "cast all my care upon God." This I sought to do; and though for weeks I was a poor, broken-hearted mourner, traveling through doubts and fears, I finally found my burden lightened, and my heart relieved. I loved all mankind, slaveholders not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light, and my great concern was to have everybody converted. My desire to learn increased, and especially did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible.[48] Douglass was mentored by Rev. Charles Lawson, and, early in his activism, he often included biblical allusions and religious metaphors in his speeches. Although a believer, he strongly criticized religious hypocrisy[49] and accused slaveholders of "wickedness", lack of morality, and failure to follow the Golden Rule. In this sense, Douglass distinguished between the "Christianity of Christ" and the "Christianity of America" and considered religious slaveholders and clergymen who defended slavery as the most brutal, sinful, and cynical of all who represented "wolves in sheep's clothing".[47][50] In What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?, an oration Douglass gave in the Corinthian Hall of Rochester,[51] he sharply criticized the attitude of religious people who kept silent about slavery, and he charged that ministers committed a "blasphemy" when they taught it as sanctioned by religion. He considered that a law passed to support slavery was "one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty" and said that pro-slavery clergymen within the American Church "stripped the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form", and "an abomination in the sight of God".[49] Of ministers like John Chase Lord, Leonard Elijah Lathrop, Ichabod Spencer, and Orville Dewey, he said that they taught, against the Scriptures, that "we ought to obey man's law before the law of God". He further asserted, "in speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States ... Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend [Robert R. Raymonde]".[49] He maintained that "upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave's redemption from his chains". In addition, he called religious people to embrace abolitionism, stating, "let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds."[49] During his visits to the United Kingdom between 1846 and 1848, Douglass asked British Christians never to support American churches that permitted slavery,[52] and he expressed his happiness to know that a group of ministers in Belfast had refused to admit slaveholders as members of the Church. On his return to the United States, Douglass founded the North Star, a weekly publication with the motto "Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren." In his 1848 "Letter to Thomas Auld", Douglass denounced his former slaveholder for leaving Douglass's family illiterate: Your wickedness and cruelty committed in this respect on your fellow-creatures, are greater than all the stripes you have laid upon my back, or theirs. It is an outrage upon the soul—a war upon the immortal spirit, and one for which you must give account at the bar of our common Father and Creator.[53] Sometimes considered a precursor of a non-denominational liberation theology,[54][55] Douglass was a deeply spiritual man, as his home continues to show. The fireplace mantle features busts of two of his favorite philosophers, David Friedrich Strauss, author of The Life of Jesus, and Ludwig Feuerbach, author of The Essence of Christianity. In addition to several Bibles and books about various religions in the library, images of angels and Jesus are displayed, as well as interior and exterior photographs of Washington's Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.[56] Throughout his life, Douglass had linked that individual experience with social reform, and, according to John Stauffer, he, like other Christian abolitionists, followed practices such as abstaining from tobacco, alcohol and other substances that he believed corrupted body and soul.[57] According to David W. Blight, however, "Douglass loved cigars" and received them as gifts from Ottilie Assing.[58] Family life[edit] Frederick Douglass after 1884 with his second wife Helen Pitts Douglass (sitting). The woman standing is her sister Eva Pitts. Further information: Douglass family Douglass and Anna Murray had five children: Rosetta Douglass, Lewis Henry Douglass, Frederick Douglass Jr., Charles Remond Douglass, and Annie Douglass (died at the age of ten). Charles and Rosetta helped produce his newspapers. Anna Douglass remained a loyal supporter of her husband's public work. His relationships with Julia Griffiths and Ottilie Assing, two women with whom he was professionally involved, caused recurring speculation and scandals.[59] Assing was a journalist recently immigrated from Germany, who first visited Douglass in 1856 seeking permission to translate My Bondage and My Freedom into German. Until 1872, she often stayed at his house "for several months at a time" as his "intellectual and emotional companion."[60] Assing held Anna Douglass "in utter contempt" and was vainly hoping that Douglass would separate from his wife. Douglass biographer David W. Blight concludes that Assing and Douglass "were probably lovers".[60] Though Douglass and Assing are widely believed to have had an intimate relationship, the surviving correspondence contains no proof of such a relationship.[61] Anna died in 1882. In 1884, Douglass married Helen Pitts, a white suffragist and abolitionist from Honeoye, New York. Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts Jr., an abolitionist colleague and friend of Douglass's. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College (then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), Pitts worked on a radical feminist publication named Alpha while living in Washington, D.C. She later worked as Douglass's secretary.[62] Assing, who had depression and was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer, committed suicide in France in 1884 after hearing of the marriage.[63] Upon her death, Assing bequeathed Douglass a $13,000 trust fund, a "large album", and his choice of books from her library.[64] The marriage of Douglass and Pitts provoked a storm of controversy, since Pitts was both white and nearly 20 years younger. Many in her family stopped speaking to her; his children considered the marriage a repudiation of their mother. But feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the couple.[65] Douglass responded to the criticisms by saying that his first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother, and his second to someone the color of his father.[66] Career[edit] Abolitionist and preacher[edit] Further information: Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts Frederick Douglass, c. 1840s, in his 20s The couple settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts (an abolitionist center, full of former enslaved people), in 1838, moving to Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1841.[67] After meeting and staying with Nathan and Mary Johnson, they adopted Douglass as their married name.[37] Douglass had grown up using his mother's surname of Bailey; after escaping slavery he had changed his surname first to Stanley and then to Johnson. In New Bedford, the latter was such a common name that he wanted one that was more distinctive, and asked Nathan Johnson to choose a suitable surname. Nathan suggested "Douglass", after having read the poem The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scott, in which two of the principal characters have the surname "Douglas".[68][69] The home and meetinghouse of the Johnsons, where Douglass and his wife lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts Douglass thought of joining a white Methodist Church, but was disappointed, from the beginning, upon finding that it was segregated. Later, he joined the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, an independent black denomination first established in New York City, which counted among its members Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman.[70] He became a licensed preacher in 1839,[71] which helped him to hone his oratorical skills. He held various positions, including steward, Sunday-school superintendent, and sexton. In 1840, Douglass delivered a speech in Elmira, New York, then a station on the Underground Railroad, in which a black congregation would form years later, becoming the region's largest church by 1940.[56] Douglass also joined several organizations in New Bedford and regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly newspaper, The Liberator. He later said that "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [of the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison." So deep was this influence that in his last autobiography, Douglass said "his paper took a place in my heart second only to The Bible."[72] Garrison was likewise impressed with Douglass and had written about his anti-colonization stance in The Liberator as early as 1839. Douglass first heard Garrison speak in 1841, at a lecture that Garrison gave in Liberty Hall, New Bedford. At another meeting, Douglass was unexpectedly invited to speak. After telling his story, Douglass was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer. A few days later, Douglass spoke at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention, in Nantucket. Then 23 years old, Douglass conquered his nervousness and gave an eloquent speech about his life as a slave. William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist and one of Douglass's first friends in the North While living in Lynn, Douglass engaged in an early protest against segregated transportation. In September 1841, at Lynn Central Square station, Douglass and his friend James N. Buffum were thrown off an Eastern Railroad train because Douglass refused to sit in the segregated railroad coach.[67][73][74][75] In 1843, Douglass joined other speakers in the American Anti-Slavery Society's "Hundred Conventions" project, a six-month tour at meeting halls throughout the eastern and midwestern United States. During this tour, slavery supporters frequently accosted Douglass. At a lecture in Pendleton, Indiana, an angry mob chased and beat Douglass before a local Quaker family, the Hardys, rescued him. His hand was broken in the attack; it healed improperly and bothered him for the rest of his life.[76] A stone marker in Falls Park in the Pendleton Historic District commemorates this event. In 1847, Douglass explained to Garrison, "I have no love for America, as such; I have no patriotism. I have no country. What country have I? The Institutions of this Country do not know me—do not recognize me as a man."[77] Autobiography[edit] Douglass's best-known work is his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts[78] and published in 1845. At the time, some skeptics questioned whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. The book received generally positive reviews and became an immediate bestseller. Within three years, it had been reprinted nine times, with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States. It was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe. Douglass published three autobiographies during his lifetime (and revised the third of these), each time expanding on the previous one. The 1845 Narrative was his biggest seller and probably allowed him to raise the funds to gain his legal freedom the following year, as discussed below. In 1855, Douglass published My Bondage and My Freedom. In 1881, in his sixties, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892. Travels to Ireland and Great Britain[edit] Plaque to Frederick Douglass, West Bell St., Dundee, Scotland Douglass in 1847, around 29 years of ageDouglass's friends and mentors feared that the publicity would draw the attention of his ex-owner, Hugh Auld, who might try to get his "property" back. They encouraged Douglass to tour Ireland, as many former slaves had done. Douglass set sail on the Cambria for Liverpool, England, on August 16, 1845. He traveled in Ireland as the Great Famine was beginning. The feeling of freedom from American racial discrimination amazed Douglass:[79] Eleven days and a half gone, and I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle [Ireland]. I breathe, and lo! the chattel [slave] becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab—I am seated beside white people—I reach the hotel—I enter the same door—I am shown into the same parlor—I dine at the same table—and no one is offended.... I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, 'We don't allow niggers in here!' Still, Douglass was astounded by the extreme levels of poverty he encountered in Dublin, much of it reminding him of his experiences in slavery. In a letter to William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass wrote "I see much here to remind me of my former condition, and I confess I should be ashamed to lift up my voice against American slavery, but that I know the cause of humanity is one the world over. He who really and truly feels for the American slave, cannot steel his heart to the woes of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, yet cannot enter into the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true foundation for his anti-slavery faith."[80] He also met and befriended the Irish nationalist and strident abolitionist Daniel O'Connell,[81][82] who was to be a great inspiration.[83][84] Douglass spent two years in Ireland and Great Britain, lecturing in churches and chapels. His draw was such that some facilities were "crowded to suffocation". One example was his hugely popular London Reception Speech, which Douglass delivered in May 1846 at Alexander Fletcher's Finsbury Chapel. Douglass remarked that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man".[85] In 1846, Douglass met with Thomas Clarkson, one of the last living British abolitionists, who had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain's colonies.[86] During this trip Douglass became legally free, as British supporters led by Anna Richardson and her sister-in-law Ellen of Newcastle upon Tyne raised funds to buy his freedom from his American owner Thomas Auld.[85][87] Many supporters tried to encourage Douglass to remain in England but, with his wife still in Massachusetts and three million of his black brethren in bondage in the United States, he returned to America in the spring of 1847,[85] soon after the death of Daniel O'Connell.[88] In the 21st century, historical plaques were installed on buildings in Cork and Waterford, Ireland, and London to celebrate Douglass's visit: the first is on the Imperial Hotel in Cork and was unveiled on August 31, 2012; the second is on the façade of Waterford City Hall, unveiled on October 7, 2013. It commemorates his speech there on October 9, 1845.[89] The third plaque adorns Nell Gwynn House, South Kensington in London, at the site of an earlier house where Douglass stayed with the British abolitionist George Thompson.[90] On the 31st of July 2023 the first statue of him in Europe was unveiled in High Street in Belfast.[91] Douglass spent time in Scotland and was appointed "Scotland's Antislavery agent."[92] He made anti-slavery speeches and wrote letters back to the USA. He considered the city of Edinburgh to be elegant, grand and very welcoming. Maps of the places in the city that were important to his stay are held by the National Library of Scotland.[93][94] A plaque and a mural on Gilmore Place in Edinburgh mark his stay there in 1846. "A variety of collaborative projects are currently [in 2021] underway to commemorate Frederick Douglass's journey and visit to Ireland in the 19th century."[95] Return to the United States; the abolitionist movement[edit] Douglass circa 1847–52, around his early 30s After returning to the U.S. in 1847, using £500 (equivalent to $48,612 in 2021) given to him by English supporters,[85] Douglass started publishing his first abolitionist newspaper, the North Star, from the basement of the Memorial AME Zion Church in Rochester, New York.[96] Originally, Pittsburgh journalist Martin Delany was co-editor but Douglass didn't feel he brought in enough subscriptions, and they parted ways.[97][page needed] The North Star's motto was "Right is of no Sex – Truth is of no Color – God is the Father of us all, and we are all brethren."[98] The AME Church and North Star joined in the freedmen community's vigorous opposition to the mostly white American Colonization Society and its proposal to send free black people to Africa. Douglass also participated in the Underground Railroad. He and his wife provided lodging and resources in their home to more than four hundred fugitive slaves.[98] Douglass also soon split with Garrison, whom he found unwilling to support actions against American slavery.[99] Earlier Douglass had agreed with Garrison's position that the Constitution was pro-slavery, because of the Three-Fifths Clause, the compromise that provided that 60 percent of the number of enslaved people would be added to "the whole Number of free Persons"[100] for the purpose of apportioning congressional seats; and protection of the international slave trade through 1807. Garrison had burned copies of the Constitution to express his opinion. However, Lysander Spooner published The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1846), which examined the United States Constitution as an antislavery document. Douglass's change of opinion about the Constitution and his splitting from Garrison around 1847 became one of the abolitionist movement's most notable divisions. Douglass angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery.[101] On July 24, 1851, "shortly after his announced change of opinion", Douglass delivered a speech titled, "Is the United States Constitution For or Against Slavery".[102] He expressed his changed views again in an 1860 speech in Glasgow, Scotland, titled, "The Constitution of the United States: is it pro-slavery or anti-slavery?". In that speech, he said, "When I escaped from slavery, and was introduced to the Garrisonians, I adopted very many of their opinions.... I was young, had read but little, and naturally took some things on trust. Subsequent reading and experience", however, "brought me to other conclusions". He now believed that "dissolution of the American Union", which Garrison advocated, "would place the slave system more exclusively under the control of the slaveholding States...." In addition, "Mr. Garrison and his friends tell us that while in the Union we are responsible for slavery.... I deny that going out of the Union would free us from that responsibility.... The American people in the Northern States have helped to enslave the black people. Their duty will not be done till they give them back their plundered rights."[103] Letter to his former owner[edit] In September 1848, on the tenth anniversary of his escape, Douglass published an open letter addressed to his former master, Thomas Auld, berating him for his conduct, and inquiring after members of his family still held by Auld.[104][105] In the course of the letter, Douglass adeptly transitions from formal and restrained to familiar and then to impassioned. At one point he is the proud parent, describing his improved circumstances and the progress of his own four young children. But then he dramatically shifts tone: Oh! sir, a slaveholder never appears to me so completely an agent of hell, as when I think of and look upon my dear children. It is then that my feelings rise above my control. ... The grim horrors of slavery rise in all their ghastly terror before me, the wails of millions pierce my heart, and chill my blood. I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip, the deathlike gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman, the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife and children, and sold like a beast in the market.[53] In a graphic passage, Douglass asked Auld how he would feel if Douglass had come to take away his daughter Amanda into slavery, treating her the way he and members of his family had been treated by Auld.[104][105] Yet in his conclusion Douglass shows his focus and benevolence, stating that he has "no malice towards him personally," and asserts that, "there is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege, to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other."[53] Women's rights[edit] In 1848, Douglass was the only black person to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, in upstate New York.[106][107] Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for women's suffrage.[108] Many of those present opposed the idea, including influential Quakers James and Lucretia Mott.[109] Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor of women's suffrage; he said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could also not claim that right. He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere: In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.[109] After Douglass's powerful words, the attendees passed the resolution.[109][110] In the wake of the Seneca Falls Convention, Douglass used an editorial in The North Star to press the case for women's rights. He recalled the "marked ability and dignity" of the proceedings, and briefly conveyed several arguments of the convention and feminist thought at the time. On the first count, Douglass acknowledged the "decorum" of the participants in the face of disagreement. In the remainder, he discussed the primary document that emerged from the conference, a Declaration of Sentiments, and the "infant" feminist cause. Strikingly, he expressed the belief that "[a] discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency...than would be a discussion of the rights of women," and Douglass noted the link between abolitionism and feminism, the overlap between the communities. His opinion as the editor of a prominent newspaper carried weight, and he stated the position of the North Star explicitly: "We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man." This letter, written a week after the convention, reaffirmed the first part of the paper's slogan, "right is of no sex." Memorial Rock at AME Zion, Newburgh, New York After the Civil War, when the 15th Amendment giving black men the right to vote was being debated, Douglass split with the Stanton-led faction of the women's rights movement. Douglass supported the amendment, which would grant suffrage to black men. Stanton opposed the 15th Amendment because it limited the expansion of suffrage to black men; she predicted its passage would delay for decades the cause for women's right to vote. Stanton argued that American women and black men should band together to fight for universal suffrage, and opposed any bill that split the issues.[111] Douglass and Stanton both knew that there was not yet enough male support for women's right to vote, but that an amendment giving black men the vote could pass in the late 1860s. Stanton wanted to attach women's suffrage to that of black men so that her cause would be carried to success.[112] Douglass thought such a strategy was too risky, that there was barely enough support for black men's suffrage. He feared that linking the cause of women's suffrage to that of black men would result in failure for both. Douglass argued that white women, already empowered by their social connections to fathers, husbands, and brothers, at least vicariously had the vote. Black women, he believed, would have the same degree of empowerment as white women once black men had the vote.[112] Douglass assured the American women that at no time had he ever argued against women's right to vote.[113] Ideological refinement[edit] Frederick Douglass in 1856, around 38 years of age Meanwhile, in 1851, Douglass merged the North Star with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper, which was published until 1860. On July 5, 1852, Douglass delivered an address in Corinthian Hall at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. This speech eventually became known as "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"; one biographer called it "perhaps the greatest antislavery oration ever given."[114] In 1853, he was a prominent attendee of the radical abolitionist National African American Convention in Rochester. Douglass was one of five people whose names were attached to the address of the convention to the people of the United States published under the title, The Claims of Our Common Cause. The other four were Amos Noë Freeman, James Monroe Whitfield, Henry O. Wagoner, and George Boyer Vashon.[115] Like many abolitionists, Douglass believed that education would be crucial for African Americans to improve their lives; he was an early advocate for school desegregation. In the 1850s, Douglass observed that New York's facilities and instruction for African American children were vastly inferior to those for European Americans. Douglass called for court action to open all schools to all children. He said that full inclusion within the educational system was a more pressing need for African Americans than political issues such as suffrage. John Brown[edit] Douglass argued against John Brown's plan to attack the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, painting by Jacob Lawrence See also: Shields Green On March 12, 1859, Douglass met with radical abolitionists John Brown, George DeBaptiste, and others at William Webb's house in Detroit to discuss emancipation.[116] Douglass met Brown again when Brown visited his home two months before leading the raid on Harpers Ferry. Brown penned his Provisional Constitution during his two-week stay with Douglass. Also staying with Douglass for over a year was Shields Green, a fugitive slave whom Douglass was helping, as he often did. Shortly before the raid, Douglass, taking Green with him, travelled from Rochester, via New York City, to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Brown's communications headquarters. He was recognized there by black people, who asked him for a lecture. Douglass agreed, although he said his only topic was slavery. Green joined him on the stage; Brown, incognito, sat in the audience. A white reporter, referring to "Nigger Democracy", called it a "flaming address" by "the notorious Negro Orator".[117] There, in an abandoned stone quarry for secrecy, Douglass and Green met with Brown and John Henri Kagi, to discuss the raid. After discussions lasting, as Douglass put it, "a day and a night", he disappointed Brown by declining to join him, considering the mission suicidal. To Douglass's surprise, Green went with Brown instead of returning to Rochester with Douglass. Anne Brown said that Green told her that Douglass promised to pay him on his return, but David Blight called this "much more ex post facto bitterness than reality".[118] Almost all that is known about this incident comes from Douglass. It is clear that it was of immense importance to him, both as a turning point in his life—not accompanying John Brown—and its importance in his public image. The meeting was not revealed by Douglass for 20 years. He first disclosed it in his speech on John Brown at Storer College in 1881, trying unsuccessfully to raise money to support a John Brown professorship at Storer, to be held by a black man. He again referred to it stunningly in his last Autobiography. After the raid, which took place between October 16 and 18, 1859, Douglass was accused both of supporting Brown and of not supporting him enough.[119] He was nearly arrested on a Virginia warrant,[120][121][122] and fled for a brief time to Canada before proceeding onward to England on a previously planned lecture tour, arriving near the end of November.[123] During his lecture tour of Great Britain, on March 26, 1860, Douglass delivered a speech before the Scottish Anti-Slavery Society in Glasgow, "The Constitution of the United States: is it pro-slavery or anti-slavery?", outlining his views on the American Constitution.[124] That month, on the 13th, Douglass's youngest daughter Annie died in Rochester, New York, just days shy of her 11th birthday. Douglass sailed back from England the following month, traveling through Canada to avoid detection. Years later, in 1881, Douglass shared a stage at Storer College in Harpers Ferry with Andrew Hunter, the prosecutor who secured Brown's conviction and execution. Hunter congratulated Douglass.[125] Photography[edit] Douglass considered photography very important in ending slavery and racism, and believed that the camera would not lie, even in the hands of a racist white person, as photographs were an excellent counter to many racist caricatures, particularly in blackface minstrelsy. He was the most photographed American of the 19th century, consciously using photography to advance his political views.[126][127] He never smiled, specifically so as not to play into the racist caricature of a happy enslaved person. He tended to look directly into the camera and confront the viewer with a stern look.[128][129] Civil War years[edit] Before the Civil War[edit] By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one of the most famous black men in the country, known for his orations on the condition of the black race and on other issues such as women's rights. His eloquence gathered crowds at every location. His reception by leaders in England and Ireland added to his stature. He had been seriously proposed for the congressional seat of his friend and supporter Gerrit Smith, who declined to run again after his term ended in 1854.[130][131] Smith recommended to him that he not run, because there were "strenuous objections" from members of Congress.[132] The possibility "afflicted some with convulsions, others with panic, more with an astonishing flow of exceedingly select and nervous language", "giving vent to all sorts of linguistic enormities."[133] If the House agreed to seat him, which was unlikely, all the Southern members would walk out, so the country would finally be split.[131][134] No black person would serve in Congress until 1870, just after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. Fight for emancipation and suffrage[edit] 1863 broadside Men of Color to Arms!, written by Douglass Douglass and the abolitionists argued that because the aim of the Civil War was to end slavery, African Americans should be allowed to engage in the fight for their freedom. Douglass publicized this view in his newspapers and several speeches. After Lincoln had finally allowed black soldiers to serve in the Union army, Douglass helped the recruitment efforts, publishing his famous broadside Men of Color to Arms! on March 21, 1863.[135] His eldest son, Charles Douglass, joined the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, but was ill for much of his service.[71] Lewis Douglass fought at the Battle of Fort Wagner.[136] Another son, Frederick Douglass Jr., also served as a recruiter. With the North no longer obliged to return slaves to their owners in the South, Douglass fought for equality for his people. Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 on the treatment of black soldiers[137] and on plans to move liberated slaves out of the South. President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory. (Slaves in Union-held areas were not covered because the proclamation was permissible under the Constitution only as a war measure; they were freed with the adoption of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.) Douglass described the spirit of those awaiting the proclamation: "We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky ... we were watching ... by the dim light of the stars for the dawn of a new day ... we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries."[138] During the U.S. Presidential Election of 1864, Douglass supported John C. Frémont, who was the candidate of the abolitionist Radical Democracy Party. Douglass was disappointed that President Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for black freedmen. Douglass believed that since African American men were fighting for the Union in the American Civil War, they deserved the right to vote.[139] After Lincoln's death[edit] The postwar ratification of the 13th Amendment, on December 6, 1865, outlawed slavery, "except as a punishment for crime." The 14th Amendment provided for birthright citizenship and prohibited the states from abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States or denying any "person" due process of law or equal protection of the laws. The 15th Amendment protected all citizens from being discriminated against in voting because of race.[111] After Lincoln had been assassinated, Douglass conferred with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage.[140] The keynote speaker at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial, Douglass wrote a critique of the depiction of the black man "still on his knees". On April 14, 1876, Douglass delivered the keynote speech at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park. He spoke frankly about the complex legacy of Lincoln, noting what he perceived as both positive and negative attributes of the late President.[141] Calling Lincoln "the white man's President," Douglass criticized Lincoln's tardiness in joining the cause of emancipation, noting that Lincoln initially opposed the expansion of slavery but did not support its elimination: "He had been ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the humanity of the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people. Lincoln was neither our man or our model".[141] But Douglass also asked, "Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?"[142] He also said: "Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow-countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery...." Most famously, he added: "Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."[141] The crowd, roused by his speech, gave Douglass a standing ovation. Lincoln's widow Mary Lincoln supposedly gave Lincoln's favorite walking-stick to Douglass in appreciation. That walking stick still rests in his final residence, "Cedar Hill" in Washington, D.C., now preserved as the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. After delivering the speech, Douglass immediately wrote to the National Republican newspaper in Washington (which published his letter five days later, on April 19), criticizing the statue's design and suggesting the park could be improved by more dignified monuments of free black people. "The negro here, though rising, is still on his knees and nude," Douglass wrote. "What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man."[143] Reconstruction era[edit] Frederick Douglass in 1876, around 58 years of age After the Civil War, Douglass continued to work for equality for African Americans and women. Due to his prominence and activism during the war, Douglass received several political appointments. He served as president of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank.[144] Meanwhile, white insurgents had quickly arisen in the South after the war, organizing first as secret vigilante groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. Armed insurgency took different forms. Powerful paramilitary groups included the White League and the Red Shirts, both active during the 1870s in the Deep South. They operated as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", turning out Republican officeholders and disrupting elections.[145] Starting 10 years after the war, Democrats regained political power in every state of the former Confederacy and began to reassert white supremacy. They enforced this by a combination of violence, late 19th-century laws imposing segregation and a concerted effort to disfranchise African Americans. New labor and criminal laws also limited their freedom.[146] To combat these efforts, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868. In 1870, Douglass started his last newspaper, the New National Era, attempting to hold his country to its commitment to equality.[71] President Grant sent a congressionally sponsored commission, accompanied by Douglass, on a mission to the West Indies to investigate whether the annexation of Santo Domingo would be good for the United States. Grant believed annexation would help relieve the violent situation in the South by allowing African Americans their own state. Douglass and the commission favored annexation, but Congress remained opposed to annexation. Douglass criticized Senator Charles Sumner, who opposed annexation, stating that if Sumner continued to oppose annexation he would "regard him as the worst foe the colored race has on this continent."[147] Douglass's former residence in the U Street Corridor of Washington, D.C. He built 2000–2004 17th Street, NW, in 1875. After the midterm elections, Grant signed the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act) and the second and third Enforcement Acts. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states. Under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made. Grant's vigor in disrupting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites but earned praise from Douglass. A Douglass associate wrote that African Americans "will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of [Grant's] name, fame and great services." In 1872, Douglass became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States, as Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket. He was nominated without his knowledge. Douglass neither campaigned for the ticket nor acknowledged that he had been nominated.[7] In that year, he was presidential elector at large for the State of New York, and took that state's votes to Washington, D.C.[148] However, in early June of that year, Douglass's third Rochester home, on South Avenue, burned down; arson was suspected. There was extensive damage to the house, its furnishings, and the grounds; in addition, sixteen volumes of the North Star and Frederick Douglass' Paper were lost. Douglass then moved to Washington, D.C.[149] Throughout the Reconstruction era, Douglass continued speaking, emphasizing the importance of work, voting rights and actual exercise of suffrage. His speeches for the twenty-five years following the war emphasized work to counter the racism that was then prevalent in unions.[150] In a November 15, 1867, speech he said: ...rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex.[151]Douglass spoke at many colleges around the country, including Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 1873. In 1881, at Storer College in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Douglass delivered a speech praising John Brown and revealing unknown information about their relationship, including their meeting in an abandoned stone quarry near Chambersburg shortly before the raid.[125] Frederick Douglass House[edit] Main article: Frederick Douglass National Historic Site In 1877 Frederick Douglass bought a house that included a big yard, as well as a studio where he did most of his work; he lived in this house from 1878 until his death in 1895, and it was named the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. Final years in Washington, D.C.[edit] The Freedman's Savings Bank went bankrupt on June 29, 1874, just a few months after Douglass became its president in late March.[152] During that same economic crisis, his final newspaper, The New National Era, failed in September.[153] When Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was elected president, he named Douglass United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, making him the first person of color to be so named. The United States Senate voted to confirm him on March 17, 1877.[154] Douglass accepted the appointment, which helped assure his family's financial security.[71] During his tenure, Douglass was urged by his supporters to resign from his commission, since he was never asked to introduce visiting foreign dignitaries to the President, which is one of the usual duties of that post. However, Douglass believed that no covert racism was implied by the omission and stated that he was always warmly welcomed in presidential circles.[155][156] Cedar Hill, Douglass's house in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., is preserved as a National Historic Site. In 1877, Douglass visited his former enslaver Thomas Auld on his deathbed, and the two men reconciled. Douglass had met Auld's daughter, Amanda Auld Sears, some years prior. She had requested the meeting and had subsequently attended and cheered one of Douglass's speeches. Her father complimented her for reaching out to Douglass. The visit also appears to have brought closure to Douglass, although some criticized his effort.[104] That same year, Douglass bought the house that was to be the family's final home in Washington, D.C., on a hill above the Anacostia River. He and Anna named it Cedar Hill (also spelled CedarHill). They expanded the house from 14 to 21 rooms and included a china closet. One year later, Douglass purchased adjoining lots and expanded the property to 15 acres (61,000 m2). The home is now preserved as the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. In 1881, Douglass published the final edition of his autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he updated in 1892. In 1881, he was appointed Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. His wife Anna Murray Douglass died in 1882, leaving the widower devastated. After a period of mourning, Douglass found new meaning from working with activist Ida B. Wells. He remarried in 1884, as mentioned above. Douglass also continued his speaking engagements and travel, both in the United States and abroad. With new wife Helen, Douglass toured the UK[157] including Wales (possibly by invitation from abolitionist Jessie Donaldson), Ireland, France, Italy, Egypt, and Greece from 1886 to 1887. He became known for advocating Irish Home Rule and supported Charles Stewart Parnell in Ireland. At the 1888 Republican National Convention, Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a major party's roll call vote.[158] That year, Douglass spoke at Claflin College, a historically black college in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and the state's oldest such institution.[159] Many African Americans, called Exodusters, escaped the Klan and racially discriminatory laws in the South by moving to Kansas, where some formed all-black towns to have a greater level of freedom and autonomy. Douglass favored neither this nor the Back-to-Africa movement. He thought the latter resembled the American Colonization Society, which he had opposed in his youth. In 1892, at an Indianapolis conference convened by Bishop Henry McNeal Turner, Douglass spoke out against the separatist movements, urging African Americans to stick it out.[71] He made similar speeches as early as 1879 and was criticized both by fellow leaders and some audiences, who even booed him for this position.[160] Speaking in Baltimore in 1894, Douglass said, "I hope and trust all will come out right in the end, but the immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts before me."[161] President Harrison appointed Douglass as the United States's minister resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti and Chargé d'affaires for Santo Domingo in 1889,[162] but Douglass resigned the commission in July 1891 when it became apparent that the American President was intent upon gaining permanent access to Haitian territory regardless of that country's desires.[163] In 1892, Haiti made Douglass a co-commissioner of its pavilion at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.[164] In 1892, Douglass constructed rental housing for blacks, now known as Douglass Place, in the Fells Point area of Baltimore. The complex still exists, and in 2003 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[165][166] Death[edit] The gravestone of Frederick Douglass, located in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and received a standing ovation. Shortly after he returned home, Douglass died of a massive heart attack.[167] He was 77. His funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Although Douglass had attended several churches in the nation's capital, he had a pew here and had donated two standing candelabras when this church had moved to a new building in 1886. He also gave many lectures there, including his last major speech, "The Lesson of the Hour."[56] Thousands of people passed by his coffin to show their respect. United States Senators and Supreme Court judges were pallbearers. Jeremiah Rankin, President of Howard University, delivered "a masterly address". A letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton was read. The Secretary of the Haitian Legation "expressed the condolence of his country in melodious French."[168] Douglass's coffin was transported to Rochester, New York, where he had lived for 25 years, longer than anywhere else in his life. His body was received in state at City Hall, flags were flown at half mast, and schools adjourned.[169] He was buried next to Anna in the Douglass family plot of Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester's premier memorial park.[170] Helen was also buried there, in 1903. His grave is, with that of Susan B. Anthony, the most visited in the cemetery.[170] A marker, erected by the University of Rochester and other friends, describes him as "escaped slave, abolitionist, suffragist, journalist and statesman, founder of the Civil Rights Movement in America".[170] Works[edit] Writings[edit] 1845. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself (first autobiography). 1853. "The Heroic Slave." pp. 174–239 in Autographs for Freedom, edited by Julia Griffiths. Boston: Jewett and Company. 1855. My Bondage and My Freedom (second autobiography). 1881 (revised 1892). Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (third and final autobiography). 1847–1851. The North Star, an abolitionist newspaper founded and edited by Douglass. He merged the paper with another, creating the Frederick Douglass' Paper. 1886. Three Addresses on the Relations Subsisting between the White and Colored People of the United States, at Gutenberg.org 2012. In the Words of Frederick Douglass: Quotations from Liberty's Champion, edited by John R. McKivigan and Heather L. Kaufman. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-4790-7. Speeches[edit] 1841. "The Church and Prejudice"[171] 1852. "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"[172] In 2020, National Public Radio produced a video of descendants of Douglass reading excerpts from the speech.[173] 1859. Self-Made Men.[174] 1863, July 6. "Speech at National Hall, for the Promotion of Colored Enlistments."[175] 1881. [125] Poetry[edit] 1847. "Liberty", an eight-line poem, was written by Frederick Douglass in his notebook on September 13, 1847, in Cleveland, Ohio. Since mid-August he and William Lloyd Garrison, on a Western tour for the abolitionist movement, had been traveling through Ohio, where their receptions ranged from hospitable to enthusiastic. This raised Douglass's spirits considerably after he had faced an onslaught of "rotten eggs and all manner of stones and brickbats" while speaking a few weeks earlier in the courthouse at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.[176] As a result of his receptions in Ohio, he was moved to write poetry on at least one other occasion in that state after he had written the poem "Liberty". The handwritten poem is now held in the Xavier University of Louisiana, Archives & Special Collections.[177] Legacy and honors[edit] Further information: African American founding fathers of the United States and List of things named after Frederick Douglass A poster from the Office of War Information, Domestic Operations Branch, News Bureau, 1943 A 1965 U.S. postage stamp, published during the upsurge of the civil rights movement Biographer David Blight states that Douglass "played a pivotal role in America's Second Founding out of the apocalypse of the Civil War, and he very much wished to see himself as a founder and a defender of the Second American Republic."[178] Roy Finkenbine argues:[179] The most influential African American of the nineteenth century, Douglass made a career of agitating the American conscience. He spoke and wrote on behalf of a variety of reform causes: women's rights, temperance, peace, land reform, free public education, and the abolition of capital punishment. But he devoted the bulk of his time, immense talent, and boundless energy to ending slavery and gaining equal rights for African Americans. These were the central concerns of his long reform career. Douglass understood that the struggle for emancipation and equality demanded forceful, persistent, and unyielding agitation. And he recognized that African Americans must play a conspicuous role in that struggle. Less than a month before his death, when a young black man solicited his advice to an African American just starting out in the world, Douglass replied without hesitation: ″Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!″ The Episcopal Church remembers Douglass with a Lesser Feast[180][181] annually on its liturgical calendar for February 20,[182] the anniversary of his death. Many public schools have also been named in his honor. Douglass still has living descendants today, such as Ken Morris, who is also a descendant of Booker T. Washington.[183] Other honors and remembrances include: In 1871, a bust of Douglass was unveiled at Sibley Hall, University of Rochester.[184] In 1895, the first hospital for black people in Philadelphia, PA was named the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital. Black medical professionals, excluded from other facilities, were trained and employed there. In 1948, it merged to form Mercy-Douglass Hospital.[185] In 1899, a statue of Frederick Douglass was unveiled in Rochester, New York, making Douglass the first African-American to be so memorialized in the country.[186][187] In 1921, members of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity (the first African-American intercollegiate fraternity) designated Frederick Douglass as an honorary member. Douglass thus became the only man to receive an honorary membership posthumously.[188] The Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, sometimes referred to as the South Capitol Street Bridge, just south of the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., was built in 1950 and named in his honor. In 1962, his home in Anacostia (Washington, D.C.) became part of the National Park System[189] and in 1988 was designated the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. In 1965, the United States Postal Service honored Douglass with a stamp in the Prominent Americans series. In 1999, Yale University established the Frederick Douglass Book Prize for works in the history of slavery and abolition, in his honor. The annual $25,000 prize is administered by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History and the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Frederick Douglass to his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.[190] In 2003, Douglass Place, the rental housing units that Douglass built in Baltimore in 1892 for blacks, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2005, Douglass was inducted into the National Abolition Hall of Fame, in Peterboro, New York. In 2007, the former Troup–Howell Bridge, which carried Interstate 490 over the Genesee River in Rochester, was redesigned and renamed the Frederick Douglass – Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge. In 2010, the Frederick Douglass Memorial was unveiled at Frederick Douglass Circle at the northwest corner of Central Park in New York City.[191][192] In 2010, the New York Writers Hall of Fame inducted Douglass in its inaugural class. On June 12, 2011, Talbot County, Maryland, installed a seven-foot (2-meter) bronze statue of Douglass on the lawn of the county courthouse in Easton, Maryland.[193] On June 19, 2013, a statue of Douglass by Maryland artist Steven Weitzman was unveiled[194] in the United States Capitol Visitor Center as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection, the first statue representing the District of Columbia.[195] On September 15, 2014, under the leadership of Governor Martin O'Malley a portrait of Frederick Douglass was unveiled at his official residence in Annapolis, MD. This painting, by artist Simmie Knox, is the first African-American portrait to grace the walls of Government House. Commissioned by Eddie C. Brown, founder of Brown Capital Management, LLC,[196] the painting was presented at a reception by the Governor. On January 7, 2015, as a parting gift in honor of Governor Martin O'Malley's last Board of Public Works a portrait of Frederick Douglass was gifted to him by Peter Franchot.[197] Two editions of this artwork, by artist Benjamin Jancewicz, were purchased from Galerie Myrtis by Peter Franchot and his wife Ann both as a gift for the Governor as well as to add to their own collection. The Governor's edition now hangs in his office.[198][non-primary source needed] In November 2015, the University of Maryland dedicated Frederick Douglass Plaza, an outdoor space where visitors can read quotes and see a bronze statue of Douglass.[199] On October 18, 2016, the Council of the District of Columbia voted that the city's new name as a State is to be "Washington, D.C.", and that "D.C." is to stand for "Douglass Commonwealth."[200] On April 3, 2017, the United States Mint began issuing quarters with an image of Frederick Douglass on the reverse, with the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in the background. The coin is part of the America the Beautiful Quarters series.[201] On May 20, 2018, Douglass was awarded an honorary law degree from the University of Rochester. The degree, which was accepted by Douglass's great-great-great-grandson, was the first posthumous honorary degree that the university had granted.[202][203] Douglass gave his last public lecture on February 1, 1895, at West Chester University, 19 days before his death. Today, there is a statue of him on the university campus commemorating this event. The Frederick Douglass Institute has a West Chester University program for advancing multicultural studies across the curriculum and for deepening the intellectual heritage of Douglass.[204][205] In New York State there is the "Let's Have Tea" sculpture of Douglass and Susan B. Anthony.[206] On September 30, 2019, Newcastle University opened the 'Frederick Douglass Centre', a key teaching component for their School of Computing and Business School. Frederick Douglass stayed in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1846 on a street adjacent to the new university campus.[207] A statue of Douglass located in Rochester, New York's Maplewood Park was vandalized and torn down over the weekend of July 4, 2020.[208][209] In 2020, Douglas Park in Chicago, which was named for U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, was renamed Douglass Park, in honor of Frederick and Anna Douglass. In the 1850s the senator had promoted "popular sovereignty" as a middle position on the slavery issue and made "blatant assertions of white superiority."[210] The name change was the result of a multi-year student-led campaign to rename the park.[211] A plaque on Gilmore Place in Edinburgh, Scotland marks his stay there in 1846. In 2020 a mural of his image was added nearby. On June 19, 2021, on Boston Street in the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, two panels were unveiled at the spot where, as it had shortly before been discovered, Douglass had boarded the train that took him to his freedom from enslavement.[39][40][41] On August 18, 2021, the Frederick Douglass Park in Lynn, Massachusetts was dedicated, directly across the street from the site of the Central Square railroad depot where Douglass was forcibly removed from the train in 1841. The park features a bronze bas-relief sculpture of Douglass.[212] In 2020, the Greater Rochester International Airport was renamed the Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport. On January 18, 2023, Governor Wes Moore was sworn in as governor of Maryland on a Bible owned by Douglass.[213] In October 2023, it was announced that a plaque commemorating one of Douglass' visits to Liverpool would be placed outside the Everyman Theatre on Hope Street.[214] The theater was built on the original site of Hope Hall, a chapel where Douglass spoke on 19 January, 1860. In popular culture[edit] This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: "Frederick Douglass" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Film and television[edit] Robert Guillaume portrays Douglass during a speech about the American slave trade in the 1985 miniseries North and South (Season 1, episode 3).[215] Glory (1989) features Douglass, played by Raymond St. Jacques, as a friend of Francis George Shaw. In Ken Burns' 1990 documentary The Civil War, Douglass is voiced by actor Morgan Freeman. The 2004 mockumentary film C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America features the figure of Douglass in an alternative history. In Akeelah and the Bee (2006), characters discuss Douglass near a bronze bust of him by sculptor Tina Allen.[216] The 2008 documentary film Frederick Douglass and the White Negro tells the story of Douglass in Ireland and the relationship between African and Irish Americans during the American Civil War. Douglass appears in Freedom, where he is portrayed by Byron Utley.[217] In the 2015 documentary film The Gettysburg Address, the role of Frederick Douglass is voiced by actor Laurence Fishburne. A miniseries based on James McBride's 2013 novel, The Good Lord Bird, was released in 2020, with Daveed Diggs as Douglass.[218] Douglass is portrayed negatively. On February 23, 2022, HBO released a one-hour documentary titled Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches, based on David W. Blight's Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.[219] Literature[edit] The 1946 novel A Star Pointed North by Edmund Fuller presents an account of Douglass's life.[220] Terry Bisson's Fire on the Mountain (1988) is an alternate-history novel in which John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry succeeded and, instead of the Civil War, the Black slaves emancipated themselves in a massive slave revolt. In this history, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman are the revered founders of a Black state created in the Deep South. Douglass is a major character in the novel How Few Remain (1997) by Harry Turtledove, depicted in an alternate history in which the Confederacy won the Civil War and Douglass must continue his anti-slavery campaign into the 1880s. Douglass appears in Flashman and the Angel of the Lord (1994) by George MacDonald Fraser. Douglass, his wife, and his alleged mistress, Ottilie Assing, are the main characters in Jewell Parker Rhodes' Douglass' Women (New York: Atria Books, 2002). Douglass is the protagonist of Richard Bradbury's novel Riversmeet (Muswell Press, 2007), a fictionalized account of Douglass's 1845 speaking tour of the British Isles.[221] Douglass's time in Ireland is fictionalized in Colum McCann's TransAtlantic (2013).[222] A comedic representation of Douglass is made in James McBride's 2013 novel The Good Lord Bird.[223] In 2019, author David W. Blight was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for History for Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.[224] Painting[edit] In 1938–39, African-American artist Jacob Lawrence created The Frederick Douglass series of narrative paintings. They were part of the historical series started by Lawrence in 1937, which included painted panels about prominent Black historical figures such as Toussaint Louverture and Harriet Tubman. During his preparatory work, Lawrence conducted research at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, drawing primarily from the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881).[225] For this series the artist used a multipanel-plus-caption format that allowed him to develop a serial narrative that was not possible to convey by means of traditional portrait or history painting.[226] Instead of reproducing Douglass's original narratives verbatim, Lawrence constructed his own visual and textual narrative in the form of 32 panels painted in tempera and accompanied with Lawrence's own captions. The structure of the painting series is linear and consists of three parts (the slave, the fugitive, the free man) which offer an epic chronicle of Douglass's transformation from slave to leader in the struggle for the liberation of black people.[227] The Frederick Douglass series is currently in the Hampton University Museum. Other media[edit] Frederick Douglass appears as a Great Humanitarian in the 2008 strategy video game Civilization Revolution.[228] In 2019, Douglass was the focus of the exhibition Lessons of the Hour – Frederick Douglass by British artist Isaac Julien, at New York's Metro Pictures Gallery and Memorial Art Gallery.[229] In August 2022, "American Prophet: Frederick Douglass in His Own Words," a musical starring Cornelius Smith Jr. as Douglass, was performed at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.[230] His life is retold in the 1948 two-part radio drama "The Making of a Man" and "The Key to Freedom", presented by Destination Freedom, written by Richard Durham.[231] A drawing of Frederick Douglass appears on the cover of Ebony magazine, September 1963 See also[edit] Biography portalMaryland portalPolitics portal African-American literature African American founding fathers of the United States Civil rights movement (1865–1896) Four boxes of liberty History of African-American education List of African-American abolitionists List of civil rights leaders Slave narrative Explanatory notes[edit] ^ a b Douglass estimated that he was born in February 1817.[1] In Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, p. 9, David W. Blight writes that "a handwritten inventory of slaves, kept by his owner at birth, Aaron Anthony, recorded 'Frederick Augustus, son of Harriet, Feby. 1818.'" This fact was originally revealed in 1980 by Dickson J. Preston in Young Frederick Douglass, p. 36.[2] Douglass celebrated his birthday on February 14, a date now observed as Douglass Day.[3] ^ "The old cabin, with its rail floor and rail bedsteads up stairs, and its clay floor down stairs, and its dirt chimney, and windowless sides ... was MY HOME – the only home I ever had; and I loved it, and all connected with it. The old fences around it, and the stumps in the edge of the woods near it, and the squirrels that ran, skipped, and played upon them, were objects of interest and affection. There, too, right at the side of the hut, stood the old well...." Douglass, Frederick (1855). My Bondage and My Freedom. Retrieved November 3, 2017. References[edit] ^ a b Douglass, Frederick (1881). Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time. London: Christian Age Office. p. 2. ^ a b McFeely, William S. (1991). Frederick Douglass. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-393-02823-2. ^ Chambers, Veronica; Jamiel Law (ill.) (February 25, 2021). "How Negro History Week Became Black History Month and Why It Matters Now". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 14, 2022. ^ Gatewood, Willard B. Jr. 1981. "Frederick Douglass and the Building of a 'Wall of Anti-Slavery Fire' 1845–1846. An Essay Review." The Florida Historical Quarterly 59(3):340–344. JSTOR 30147499. ^ Stewart, Roderick M. 1999. "The Claims of Frederick Douglass Philosophically Considered." Frederick Douglass: A Critical Reader, B. E. Lawson and F. M. Kirkland, eds., pp. 155–156. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-20578-4. "Moreover, though he does not make the point explicitly, again the very fact that Douglass is ably disputing this argument on this occasion celebrating a select few's intellect and will (or moral character)—this fact constitutes a living counterexample to the narrowness of the pro-slavery definition of humans." ^ Matlack, James. 1979. "The Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass." Phylon (1960–) 40(1):15–28. doi:10.2307/274419. JSTOR 274419. p. 16: "He spoke too well. ... Since he did not talk, look, or act like a slave (in the eyes of Northern audiences), Douglass was denounced as an imposter." ^ a b Trotman, C. James (2011). Frederick Douglass: A Biography. Penguin Books. pp. 118–119. ISBN 978-0-313-35036-8. ^ Foner, Philip; Taylor, Yuval, eds. (1999). Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings. Chicago Review Press. p. 629. ISBN 1-55652-349-1. Archived from the original on December 21, 2020. Retrieved October 9, 2020. let us have liberty, law, and justice first. Let us have the Constitution, with its thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments, fairly interpreted, faithfully executed, and cheerfully obeyed in the fullness of their spirit and the completeness of their letter. ^ Frederick Douglass (1855). The Anti-Slavery Movement, A Lecture by Frederick Douglass before the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. Press of Lee, Mann & Company, Daily American Office. p. 33. Retrieved October 6, 2010. My point here is, first, the Constitution is, according to its reading, an anti-slavery document; and, secondly, to dissolve the Union, as a means to abolish slavery, is about as wise as it would be to burn up this city, in order to get the thieves out of it. But again, we hear the motto, 'no union with slave-holders;' and I answer it, as the noble champion of liberty, N. P. Rogers, answered it with a more sensible motto, namely—'No union with slave-holding.' I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong. ^ a b c Frederick Douglass (1845). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. Forgotten Books. ISBN 978-1-60620-963-9. Archived from the original on December 17, 2019. Retrieved October 9, 2020."I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland." (Tuckahoe refers to the area west of Tuckahoe Creek in Talbot County.) ^ Barker, Amanda. [1996]. "The Search for Frederick Douglass' Birthplace Archived December 7, 2014, at the Wayback Machine. Choptank River Heritage. Retrieved June 14, 2020. Although Barker's website devoted to the Douglass birthplace states that it could not be found with tour books and guides, that is no longer the case. ^ Barker, Don. February 4, 2014. "The Search for Frederick Douglass's Birthplace Archived July 31, 2020, at the Wayback Machine." Choptank River Heritage. Retrieved June 14, 2020. ^ a b "Frederick Douglass | Museums and Gardens." Talbot Historic Society. 2016. Archived from the original on December 22, 2016. Retrieved December 22, 2016. ^ Frederick Douglass (1845). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. Forgotten Books. ISBN 978-1-60620-963-9. Archived from the original on December 17, 2019. Retrieved October 9, 2020.Frederick Douglass began his own story thusly: "I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland." (Tuckahoe is not a town; it refers to the area west of Tuckahoe Creek in Talbot County.) In successive autobiographies, Douglass gave more precise estimates of when he was born, his final estimate being 1817. ^ February 14: Frederick Douglass Archived June 15, 2020, at the Wayback Machine. The Florida Center for Instructional Technology. US: University of South Florida. 2020. ^ Davis, F. James (2010). Who is Black? One Nation's Definition. Penn State Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-271-04463-7. Archived from the original on December 21, 2020. Retrieved October 9, 2020. ^ David W. Blight (2018). Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. Simon & Schuster. p. 13. ^ Dickson J. Preston (1980). Young Frederick Douglass: The Maryland Years. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 9. ^ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, ch. XI. ^ Douglass, Frederick (1851). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself (6 ed.). London: H.G. Collins. p. 10. Archived from the original on May 10, 2016. Retrieved October 26, 2015. ^ McFeely, William S. (1991). Frederick Douglass. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 3–5. ISBN 978-0-393-02823-2. ^ Sterngass, Jon. 2009. Frederick Douglass, (Leaders of the Civil War era). Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 1-60413-306-6. p. 16 Archived June 15, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, 132 Archived June 15, 2020, at the Wayback Machine ^ Field, Kate (February 23, 1895). "Fred. Douglass dead". Kate Field's Washington. 11 (8): 119. Archived from the original on March 21, 2022. Retrieved March 21, 2022. ^ a b Koehn, Nancy (2017). Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders. New York: Scribner. ISBN 978-1-5011-7444-5. ^ Douglass, Frederick. 1845. "Chapter VII." ^ Douglass, Frederick. [1881–82] 2003. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time (Dover Value Editions). p. 50. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-43170-3. ^ Douglass, Frederick (1851). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself (6th ed.). London: H.G. Collins. p. 39. Archived from the original on May 10, 2016. Retrieved October 26, 2015. ^ Douglass, Frederick (1851). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself (6 ed.). London: H.G. Collins. pp. 43–44. Archived from the original on May 10, 2016. Retrieved October 26, 2015. ^ Appiah, Kwame Anthony. [2000] 2004. "Introduction." In 'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave' & 'Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl'. New York: Modern Library. pp. xiii, 4. ^ Douglass, Frederick (1855). My Bondage and My Freedom (1st ed.). New York and Auburn: Miller, Orton & Mulligan. p. 58. ^ Blight, David W., Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, p. 68. ^ Koehn, Nancy (2018). Forged in crisis: the power of courageous leadership in turbulent times. Scribner. p. 222. ISBN 978-1-5011-7445-2. ^ Bowers, Jerome. "Frederick Douglass Archived August 30, 2011, at the Wayback Machine." Teachinghistory.org. US: Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. 2018. Retrieved June 14, 2020. ^ "Frederick Douglass's Vision of Manhood The Objective Standard". theobjectivestandard.com. February 21, 2018. Archived from the original on July 9, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021. ^ Douglass, Frederick (1845). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office. p. 63. ^ Douglass, Frederick (1845). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office. pp. 65–66. ^ a b c d Keita, Michelle Nzadi; Jones, James (2010). "Murray-Douglass, Anna (1813–1882)". In Thompson, Julius E.; Conyers, James L. Jr.; Dawson, Nancy J. (eds.). The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 124. ISBN 978-0-313-31988-4. ^ "Today in African-American Transportation History – 1818: Frederick Douglass Begins His Journey into History". Transportation History. American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. February 14, 2018. 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February 4, 2011. Archived from the original on February 4, 2011. Retrieved March 15, 2019. ^ Love of God, Love of Man, Love of Country. Delivered at Market Hall, New York City, October 22, 1847. ^ "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?". Teaching American History. Archived from the original on July 5, 2020. Retrieved July 5, 2020. ^ Prinsloo, Oleta (2010). "Abolitionists". In Thompson, Julius E.; Conyers, James L. Jr.; Dawson, Nancy J. (eds.). The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-313-31988-4. ^ a b c Douglass, Fredrick (September 3, 1848). "Letter to Thomas Auld". glc.yale.edu. Archived from the original on October 29, 2020. Retrieved October 24, 2020. ^ Lee, Maurice S., ed. (2009). The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass. Cambridge University Press. p. 69. ^ Davis, Reginald F. (2005). Frederick Douglass: A Precursor of Liberation Theology. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press. 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New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 521–522, 529, 570, 572–574. ISBN 978-1-4165-9031-6. ^ Adam Gopnik, "American Prophet: The gifts of Frederick Douglass", The New Yorker, October 15, 2018, pp. 81–82 ^ "Fatal Attraction". archive.nytimes.com. Archived from the original on May 23, 2018. Retrieved June 8, 2021. ^ McFeely, William S. (1991). Frederick Douglass. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 322. ISBN 978-0-393-02823-2. ^ Frederick Douglass biography Archived February 11, 2006, at the Wayback Machine at winningthevote.org. Retrieved October 3, 2006. ^ Lovett Douglass, Marilyn D. (2010). "Helen Pitts (1838–1903)". In Thompson, Julius E.; Conyers, James L. Jr.; Dawson, Nancy J. (eds.). The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-313-31988-4. ^ a b "Frederick Douglass Chronology – Frederick Douglass National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)". nps.gov. Archived from the original on July 5, 2018. 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Destination Freedom – via Internet Archive Digital Library. Further reading[edit] Primary sources[edit] Blight, David W., ed. (2022). Frederick Douglass: Speeches & Writings. New York: Library of America. Blight speaking about the book Douglass, Frederick (1845). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Boston: Anti-Slavery Office. — (1855). My Bondage and My Freedom: Part I. Life as a Slave, Part II. Life as a Freeman. New York: Miller, Orton & Mulligan. — (1881). Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself. Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co. — (1892). Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself. Boston: De Wolfe & Fiske Co. (updated edition of 1881 version). Foner, Philip Sheldon (1945). Frederick Douglass: Selections from His Writings. New York: International Publishers. — (1950). The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. New York: International Publishers. Gates, Henry Louis Jr., ed. (1994). Frederick Douglass: Autobiographies. Library of America. Gregory, James Monroe (1893). Frederick Douglass the Orator: Containing an Account of His Life; His Eminent Public Services; His Brilliant Career as Orator; Selections from His Speeches and Writings. Willey Book Company. Stauffer, John, Zoe Trodd, and Celeste-Marie Bernier (2015). Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century's Most Photographed American (revised ed.). Liveright Publishing Corporation. Newspaper and magazine articles[edit] "From Bondage to Power.—The Marshal who was a Slave". The Leeds Mercury. Leeds, England. January 15, 1881. p. 13 – via newspapers.com. Gopnik, Adam (October 8, 2018). "The Prophetic Pragmatism of Frederick Douglass". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 26, 2023. Scholarship[edit] Baker, Houston A. Jr. (1986). "Introduction". Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Penguin. Balkin, Jack M. and Levinson, Sanford (2023). "Frederick Douglass as Constitutionalist". Maryland Law Review, forthcoming. Barnes, L. Diane. Frederick Douglass: Reformer and Statesman (Routledge, 2012). Bennett, Nolan. "To Narrate and Denounce: Frederick Douglass and the Politics of Personal Narrative" Political Theory 44.2 (2016): 240–264. Blight, David W. (2018). Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. New York: Simon & Schuster. Blight, David W. (1989). Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press. Bromell, Nick. The Powers of Dignity: The Black Political Philosophy of Frederick Douglass (Duke University Press, 2021). Buccola, Nicholas. The Political Thought of Frederick Douglass: In Pursuit of American Liberty (NYU Press, 2013). online Chaffin, Tom (2014). Giant's Causeway: Frederick Douglass's Irish Odyssey and the Making of an American Visionary. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press. Chesebrough, David B. Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery (Greenwood, 1998). Child, Lydia Maria (1865). "Frederick Douglass" in The Freedmen's Book. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. Colaiaco, James A. (2015). Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July. New York: St Martin's Press. Dilbeck, D. H. Frederick Douglass: America's Prophet (UNC Press Books, 2018) online Douglas, Janet. "A Cherished Friendship: Julia Griffiths Crofts and Frederick Douglass." Slavery & Abolition 33.2 (2012): 265–274. Fee Jr., Frank E. "To No One More Indebted: Frederick Douglass and Julia Griffiths, 1849–63." Journalism History 37.1 (2011): 12–26. online Finkelman, Paul (2016). "Frederick Douglass's Constitution: From Garrisonian Abolitionist to Lincoln Republican". Missouri Law Review, vol. 81, no. 1, pp. 1–73. Finkenbine, Roy E. (2000). "Douglass, Frederick". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1500186. Brief scholarly biography. Foster, A. Kristen. "'We Are Men!' Frederick Douglass and the Fault Lines of Gendered Citizenship." Journal of the Civil War Era 1.2 (2011): 143–175. [1] Golden, Timothy J. (2021). Frederick Douglass and the Philosophy of Religion: An Interpretation of Narrative, Art, and the Political. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Gougeon, Len (2012). "Militant Abolitionism: Douglass, Emerson, and the Rise of the Anti-Slave". New England Quarterly, 85.4: 622–657. Hamilton, Cynthia S. (2005). "Models of Agency: Frederick Douglass and 'The Heroic Slave'". American Antiquarian Society. Hawley, Michael C. (2022). "Light or Fire? Frederick Douglass and the Orator's Dilemma". American Journal of Political Science. Henderson, Rodger C. (December 1, 2006). "Native Americans and Frederick Douglass". Oxford African American Studies Center. Huggins, Nathan Irvin (1980. Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass (Library of American Biography). Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Kilbride, Daniel. "What did Africa Mean to Frederick Douglass?". Slavery & Abolition 36.1 (2015): 40–62. online Lampe, Gregory P. (1998). Frederick Douglass: Freedom's Voice. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. Lee, Maurice S., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass (2009), essays by experts, with emphasis on historiography. Levine, Robert S. (1997). Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Levine, Robert S. (2016). The Lives of Frederick Douglass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levine, Robert S. (2021). The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. McClure, Kevin R. "Frederick Douglass' use of comparison in his Fourth of July oration: A textual criticism." Western Journal of Communication 64.4 (2000): 425–444. online McMillen, Sally Gregory (2008). Seneca Falls and the Origins of the Women's Rights Movement. Oxford University Press. Mieder, Wolfgang (2001). "No Struggle, No Progress": Frederick Douglass and His Proverbial Rhetoric for Civil Rights. Peter Lang Pub Incorporated. Mindich, David T. Z. "Understanding Frederick Douglass: Toward a New Synthesis Approach to the Birth of Modern American Journalism." Journalism History 26.1 (2000): 15–22. online Muller, John (2012). Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia. Charleston, S.C.: The History Press. ISBN 978-1-60949-577-0. Oakes, James (2007). The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Quarles, Benjamin (1948). Frederick Douglass. Washington: Associated Publishers. Ramsey, William M. "Frederick Douglass, Southerner." Southern Literary Journal 40.1 (2007): 19–38. [2][permanent dead link] Ray, Angela G. "Frederick Douglass on the Lyceum Circuit: Social Assimilation, Social Transformation?" Rhetoric & Public Affairs 5.4 (2002): 625–647. summary Rebeiro, Bradley. "Frederick Douglass and the Original Originalists". Brigham Young University Law Review, vol. 48 (2023) Ritchie, Daniel. "'The stone in the sling': Frederick Douglass and Belfast abolitionism." American Nineteenth Century History 18.3 (2017): 245–272. online[permanent dead link] Root, Damon. (2020). A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution. Potomac Books Inc. ISBN 978-1-64012-235-2. Sandefur, Timothy. (2008). "Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 126–127. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n80. ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024. Selby, Gary S. "The limits of accommodation: Frederick Douglass and the Garrisonian abolitionists." Southern Journal of Communication 66.1 (2000): 52–66. Stauffer, John (2009). Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Twelve, Hachette Book Group. Stephens, Gregory (1997). "Frederick Douglass' Multiracial Abolitionism—Antagonistic Cooperation & Redeemable Ideals in the July 5 Speech". Communication Studies. 48 (3): 175–194. doi:10.1080/10510979709368500. Stephens, Gregory. "Arguing with a Monument: Frederick Douglass' Resolution of the 'White Man Problem' in his 'Oration in Memory of Lincoln'" Comparative American Studies An International Journal 13.3 (2015): 129–145. online Sundstrom, Ronald. (2017). "Frederick Douglass". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Sweeney, Fionnghuala. Frederick Douglass and the Atlantic World (Liverpool University Press, 2007) online. Vogel, Todd, ed. (2001). The Black Press: New Literary and Historical Essays. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Washington, Booker T. (1906). Frederick Douglass. London, UK: Hodder & Stoughton. Online Historian John Hope Franklin wrote that Washington's biography of Douglass "has been attributed largely to Washington's friend, S. Laing Williams". Introduction to Three Negro Classics, New York: Avon Books (1965), p. 17. Webber, Thomas L. (1978). Deep Like the Rivers: Education in the Slave Quarter Community, 1831–1865. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Woodson, C. G. (1915). The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861: A History of the Education of the Colored People of the United States from the Beginning of Slavery to the Civil War. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. For young readers[edit] Adler, David A. 1993. A Picture Book of Frederick Douglass, illustrated by S. Byrd. Holiday House. Bolden, Tonya. 2017. Facing Frederick: The Life of Frederick Douglass, a Monumental American Man. Abrams Books for Young Readers. Miller, William. 1995. Frederick Douglass: The Last Day of Slavery, illustrated by C. Lucas. Lee & Low Books. Myers, Walter Dean. 2017. Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History. HarperCollins. Walker, David F.; Smyth, Damon; Louise, Marissa. 2018. The Life of Frederick Douglass: A graphic narrative of a slave's journey from bondage to freedom. Ten Speed Press. Weidt, Maryann N. 2001. Voice of Freedom: A Story about Frederick Douglass, illustrated by J. Reeves. Lerner publications. Documentary films and videos[edit] External videos Presentation by David Blight on Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, October 1, 2018, C-SPAN Becoming Fredrick Douglass a co-production of Firelight Films and Maryland Public Television (released Oct 2022) Cornell University Press. January 27, 2012. "In the Words of Frederick Douglass". YouTube. Doherty, John J., dir. 2008. Frederick Douglass and the White Negro, written by J. J. Doherty. Ireland: Camel Productions and Irish Film Board. Haffner, Craig and Donna E. Lusitana, exec. prod. 1997. Frederick Douglass. US: Greystone Communications, Inc. (A&E Network). Frederick Douglass: When the Lion Wrote History. US: ROJA Productions and WETA-TV. Frederick Douglass, Abolitionist Editor. Schlessinger Video Productions. Race to Freedom: The Story of the Underground Railroad "Writings of Frederick Douglass." American Writers: A Journey Through History. US: C-SPAN. May 28, 2001. Descendants of Frederick Douglass read his 4th July 1852 speech External links[edit] Frederick Douglass at Wikipedia's sister projects Media from CommonsQuotations from WikiquoteTexts from Wikisource Works by Frederick Douglass in eBook form at Standard Ebooks Works by Frederick Douglass at Project Gutenberg Celebrating Frederick Douglass through Transcription Smithsonian Digital Volunteers: Transcription Center. Selected Douglass letters, speeches, and newspaper articles Works by or about Frederick Douglass at Internet Archive Works by Frederick Douglass at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) In the Library: Frederick Douglass Family Materials from the Walter O. Evans Collection The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., April 22, 2019—June 14, 2019. One Life: Frederick Douglass Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., June 16, 2023 – April 21, 2024.[1][2] Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass "Moving image installation ... across five screens" on view at the National Portrait Gallery, December 8, 2023 - November 26, 2026. Review: Video artwork captures the sweep of Frederick Douglass’s oratory The Washington Post, January 17, 2024. Diplomatic posts Preceded byJohn E. W. Thompson United States Minister Resident to Haiti 1889–1891 Succeeded byJohn S. Durham Party political offices New political party United States Equal Rights Party Vice-Presidential Nominee 1872 Succeeded byMarietta Stow (National Equal Rights Party) vteFrederick DouglassAutobiographies Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881) Newspapers The North Star Fiction The Heroic Slave, a heartwarming Narrative of the Adventures of Madison Washington, in Pursuit of Liberty (1852) Speeches American Anti-Slavery Society 1843 lecture tour "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (1852) "The Constitution of the United States: is it pro-slavery or anti-slavery?" (1860) "Self-Made Men" (1885) Life Seneca Falls Convention Fugitive Slave Convention Equal Rights Party (1872 vice presidential nominee) Douglass Place Frederick Douglass National Historic Site (home and memorial) Honors List of things named after Frederick Douglass U.S. Capitol statue Frederick Douglass Memorial Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge Douglass–Anthony Memorial Bridge Frederick Douglass Circle Douglass Park Frederick Douglass Memorial Park University of Maryland statue Rochester statue Denver statue Banneker-Douglass Museum Washington, D.C. neighborhood Family Anna Murray Douglass (first wife) Helen Pitts Douglass (second wife) Rosetta Douglass (daughter) Lewis Henry Douglass (son) Charles Remond Douglass (son) Joseph Douglass (grandson) Fredericka Douglass Sprague Perry (granddaughter) Related African American founding fathers of the United States Frederick Douglass (1985 opera) Frederick Douglass (1991 opera) Frederick Douglass and the White Negro (2008 documentary) The Good Lord Bird (2020 miniseries) John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry Nathan and Mary Johnson home Shields Green vteUnited States Ambassadors to Haiti Whidden Peck Hollister Bassett Langston Williams Thompson Douglass Durham Smythe Powell Furniss Smith Bailly-Blanchard Dunn Merrell Gross Grummon Munro Armour Gordon Mayer White Wilson Tittman DeCourcy Travers Davis Drew Newbegin Thurston Timmons Ross Knox Isham Jones Kimelman Preeg McManaway McKinley Adams Alexander Huddleston Swing Carney Curran Foley Sanderson Merten White Mulrean Shukan Diallo Sison Merten Kendrick Stromayer vteSlave narratives Slave Narrative Collection Individualsby continentof enslavementAfrica Robert Adams (c. 1790–?) Marcus Berg (1714-1761) Francis Bok (b. 1979) Isaac Brassard (1620–1702) Felice Caronni (1747–1815) James Leander Cathcart (1767–1843) Ólafur Egilsson (1564–1639) Petro Kilekwa (late 19th c.) Elizabeth Marsh (1735–1785) Maria ter Meetelen (1704–?) Mende Nazer (b. 1982) Hark Olufs (1708–1754) Thomas Pellow (1705–?) Joseph Pitts (1663 – c. 1735) Guðríður Símonardóttir (1598–1682) Antoine Qaurtier (1632–1702) Andreas Matthäus Wolfgang (1660–1736) Johann Georg Wolffgang (1644–1744) Asia Brigitta Scherzenfeldt (1684–1736) Europe Lovisa von Burghausen (1698–1733) Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745 Nigeria – 31 March 1797 Eng) Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (c. 1705 Bornu – 1775 Eng) Jean Marteilhe (1684-1777) Roustam Raza (1783–1845) Nunzio Otello Francesco Gioacchino (1792 – fl. 1828) Ottoman Empire Johann Schiltberger Konstantin Mihailović George of Hungary North America:Canada Marie-Joseph Angélique (c. 1710 Portugal – 1734 Montreal) John R. Jewitt (1783 England – 1821 United States) North America:Caribbean Juan Francisco Manzano (1797–1854, Cuba) Esteban Montejo (1860–1965, Cuba) Mary Prince (c. 1788 Bermuda – after 1833) Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766 Saint-Dominque – June 30, 1853 NY) Marcos Xiorro (c. 1819 – ???, Puerto Rico) North America:United States Sam Aleckson Jordan Anderson William J. Anderson Jared Maurice Arter Solomon Bayley Polly Berry Henry Bibb Leonard Black James Bradley (1834) Henry "Box" Brown John Brown William Wells Brown Peter Bruner (1845 KY – 1938 OH) Ellen and William Craft Hannah Crafts Lucinda Davis Noah Davis Lucy Delaney Ayuba Suleiman Diallo Frederick Douglass Kate Drumgoold Jordan Winston Early (1814 – after 1894) Sarah Jane Woodson Early Peter Fossett (1815 Monticello–1901) David George Moses Grandy William Green (19th century MD) William Grimes Josiah Henson Fountain Hughes (1848/1854 VA – 1957) Omar ibn Said John Andrew Jackson Harriet Jacobs Thomas James John Jea Paul Jennings (1799–1874) Elizabeth Keckley Boston King Lunsford Lane J. Vance Lewis Jermain Wesley Loguen James Mars (1790–1880) Solomon Northup Greensbury Washington Offley John Parker (1827 VA – 1900) William Parker James Robert Moses Roper William Henry Singleton James Lindsay Smith Venture Smith Austin Steward (1793 VA – 1860) Venerable Pierre Toussaint (1766 Saint-Dominque – 1853 NY) Harriet Tubman Wallace Turnage Bethany Veney Booker T. Washington Wallace Willis (19th century Indian Territory) Harriet E. Wilson Zamba Zembola (b. c. 1780 Congo) South America Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua (1845–1847, Brazil) Miguel de Buría (? Puerto Rico – 1555 Venezuela) Osifekunde (c. 1795 Nigeria – ? Brazil) Non-fiction books The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) The Narrative of Robert Adams (1816) American Slavery as It Is (1839) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) The Life of Josiah Henson (1849) Twelve Years a Slave (1853) My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) The Underground Railroad Records (1872) Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881) Up from Slavery (1901) Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States (1936–38) The Peculiar Institution (1956) The Slave Community (1972) Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" (2018) Fiction/novels Oroonoko (1688) Sab (1841) Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) The Heroic Slave (1852) Clotel (1853) The Bondwoman's Narrative (c. 1853 – c. 1861) Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856) Our Nig (1859) Jubilee (1966) The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976) Underground to Canada (1977) Kindred (1979) Dessa Rose (1986) Beloved (1987) Middle Passage (1990) Queen: The Story of an American Family (1993) Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons (1996) Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade (2001) Walk Through Darkness (2002) The Known World (2003) Unburnable (2006) The Book of Negroes (2007) The Underground Railroad (2016) Young adult books Amos Fortune, Free Man (1951) I, Juan de Pareja (1965) Copper Sun (2006) Essays "To a Southern Slaveholder" (1848) A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853) Plays The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom (1858) The Octoroon (1859) Omar (2022) Documentaries Unchained Memories (2003) Frederick Douglass and the White Negro (2008) Related Abolitionism in the United States African-American literature Anti-Tom novels Atlantic slave trade Captivity narrative Caribbean literature Films featuring slavery Slavery in the United States Songs of the Underground Railroad Treatment of slaves in the United States List of last surviving American enslaved people Book of Negroes (1783) Cotton Plantation Record and Account Book (1847) Slave-Trading in the Old South (1931) Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon (2008) Slave Songs of the United States (1867) Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems about Slavery (2002) The Hemingses of Monticello (2008) vteAmerican Civil WarOriginsOrigins Timeline leading to the War Bleeding Kansas Border states Compromise of 1850 John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry Kansas-Nebraska Act Lincoln–Douglas debates Missouri Compromise Nullification crisis Origins of the American Civil War Panic of 1857 Popular sovereignty Secession South Carolina Declaration of Secession States' rights President Lincoln's 75,000 volunteers Slavery African Americans Cornerstone Speech Crittenden Compromise Dred Scott v. Sandford Emancipation Proclamation Fire-Eaters Fugitive slave laws Plantations in the American South Positive good Slave Power Slavery in the United States Treatment of slaves in the United States Uncle Tom's Cabin Abolitionism Abolitionism in the United States Susan B. Anthony James G. Birney John Brown Frederick Douglass William Lloyd Garrison Lane Debates on Slavery Elijah Parish Lovejoy J. Sella Martin Lysander Spooner George Luther Stearns Thaddeus Stevens Charles Sumner Caning Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad CombatantsTheatersCampaignsBattlesStatesCombatantsUnion Army Navy Marine Corps Revenue Cutter Service Confederacy Army Navy Marine Corps Theaters Eastern Western Lower Seaboard Trans-Mississippi Pacific Coast Union naval blockade Major campaigns Anaconda Plan Blockade runners New Mexico Jackson's Valley Peninsula Northern Virginia Maryland Stones River Vicksburg Tullahoma Gettysburg Morgan's Raid Bristoe Knoxville Red River Overland Atlanta Valley 1864 Bermuda Hundred Richmond-Petersburg Franklin–Nashville Price's Missouri Expedition Sherman's March Carolinas Mobile Appomattox Major battles Fort Sumter 1st Bull Run Wilson's Creek Fort Donelson Pea Ridge Hampton Roads Shiloh New Orleans Corinth Seven Pines Seven Days 2nd Bull Run Antietam Perryville Fredericksburg Stones River Chancellorsville Gettysburg Vicksburg Chickamauga Chattanooga Wilderness Fort Pillow Spotsylvania Cold Harbor Atlanta Crater Mobile Bay Franklin Nashville Five Forks InvolvementStates andterritories Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut Dakota Territory District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indian Territory Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina Ohio Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Cities Atlanta Charleston Chattanooga New Orleans Richmond Washington, D.C. Winchester LeadersConfederateMilitary R. H. Anderson Beauregard Bragg Buchanan Cooper Early Ewell Forrest Gorgas Hill Hood Jackson A. S. Johnston J. E. Johnston Lee Longstreet Morgan Mosby Polk Price Semmes E. K. Smith Stuart Taylor Wheeler Civilian Benjamin Bocock Breckinridge Davis Hunter Mallory Memminger Seddon Stephens UnionMilitary Anderson Buell Burnside Butler Du Pont Farragut Foote Frémont Grant Halleck Hooker Hunt McClellan McDowell Meade Meigs Ord Pope D. D. Porter Rosecrans Scott Sheridan Sherman Thomas Civilian Adams Chase Ericsson Hamlin Lincoln Pinkerton Seward Stanton Stevens Wade Welles AftermathConstitution Reconstruction Amendments 13th Amendment 14th Amendment 15th Amendment Reconstruction Alabama Claims Brooks–Baxter War Carpetbaggers Colfax riot of 1873 Compromise of 1877 Confederate refugees Confederados Eufaula riot of 1874 Freedmen's Bureau Freedman's Savings Bank Homestead Acts Southern Homestead Act of 1866 Timber Culture Act of 1873 Impeachment of Andrew Johnson trial efforts timeline first inquiry second inquiry impeachment managers investigation Kirk–Holden war Knights of the White Camelia Ku Klux Klan Ethnic violence Memphis riots of 1866 Meridian riot of 1871 New Orleans riot of 1866 Pulaski (Tennessee) riot of 1867 South Carolina riots of 1876 Reconstruction acts Habeas Corpus Act of 1867 Enforcement Act of 1870 Enforcement Act of February 1871 Enforcement Act of April 1871 Reconstruction era Reconstruction military districts Reconstruction Treaties Indian Council at Fort Smith Red Shirts Redeemers Scalawags South Carolina riots of 1876 Southern Claims Commission White League Post-Reconstruction Commemoration Centennial Civil War Discovery Trail Civil War Roundtables Civil War Trails Program Civil War Trust Confederate History Month Confederate Memorial Day Decoration Day Historical reenactment Robert E. Lee Day Confederate Memorial Hall Disenfranchisement Black Codes Jim Crow Historiographic issues Lost Cause mythology Modern display of the Confederate flag Red Shirts Sons of Confederate Veterans Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War Southern Historical Society United Confederate Veterans United Daughters of the Confederacy Children of the Confederacy Wilmington insurrection of 1898 Monumentsand memorialsUnion List Grand Army of the Republic memorials to Lincoln Confederate List artworks in Capitol memorials to Davis memorials to Lee Removal Cemeteries Ladies' Memorial Associations U.S. national cemeteries Veterans 1913 Gettysburg reunion 1938 Gettysburg reunion Confederate Memorial Hall Confederate Veteran Grand Army of the Republic Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the U.S. Old soldiers' homes Southern Cross of Honor United Confederate Veterans Related topicsMilitary Arms Campaign Medal Cavalry Confederate Home Guard Confederate railroads Confederate revolving cannon Field artillery Medal of Honor recipients Medicine Naval battles Official Records Partisan rangers POW camps Rations Signal Corps Turning point Union corps badges U.S. Balloon Corps U.S. Home Guard U.S. Military Railroad Political Committee on the Conduct of the War Confederate States presidential election of 1861 Confiscation Act of 1861 Confiscation Act of 1862 Copperheads Emancipation Proclamation Habeas Corpus Act of 1863 Hampton Roads Conference National Union Party Politicians killed Radical Republicans Trent Affair Union Leagues U.S. Presidential Election of 1864 War Democrats Music Battle Hymn of the Republic Dixie John Brown's Body A Lincoln Portrait Marching Through Georgia Maryland, My Maryland When Johnny Comes Marching Home Daar kom die Alibama Other topics Baltimore riot of 1861 Battlefield preservation Bibliography Confederate war finance Confederate States dollar Espionage Confederate Secret Service Great Revival of 1863 Juneteenth Naming the war Native Americans Catawba Cherokee Choctaw Seminole New York City Gold Hoax of 1864 New York City riots of 1863 Photographers Richmond riots of 1863 Gender issues Supreme Court cases Tokens U.S. Sanitary Commission Women soldiers Related List of films and television shows about the American Civil War Category Portal vteCivil rights movement (1954–1968)Events(timeline)Prior to 1954 Journey of Reconciliation Executive Order 9981 Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore Sweatt v. Painter (1950) McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950) Baton Rouge bus boycott 1954–1959 Brown v. Board of Education Bolling v. Sharpe Briggs v. Elliott Davis v. Prince Edward County Gebhart v. Belton Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company Emmett Till Montgomery bus boycott Browder v. Gayle Tallahassee bus boycott Mansfield school desegregation 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom "Give Us the Ballot" Royal Ice Cream sit-in Little Rock Nine Cooper v. Aaron Civil Rights Act of 1957 Ministers' Manifesto Katz Drug Store sit-in Kissing Case Biloxi wade-ins 1960–1963 New Year's Day March Sit-in movement Greensboro sit-ins Nashville sit-ins Atlanta sit-ins Savannah Protest Movement Greenville Eight Civil Rights Act of 1960 Ax Handle Saturday Gomillion v. Lightfoot Boynton v. Virginia University of Georgia desegregation riot Rock Hill sit-ins Robert F. Kennedy's Law Day Address Freedom Rides Anniston bombing Birmingham attack Garner v. Louisiana Albany Movement Cambridge movement University of Chicago sit-ins "Second Emancipation Proclamation" Meredith enrollment, Ole Miss riot Atlanta's Berlin Wall "Segregation now, segregation forever" Stand in the Schoolhouse Door 1963 Birmingham campaign Letter from Birmingham Jail Children's Crusade Birmingham riot 16th Street Baptist Church bombing John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights Detroit Walk to Freedom March on Washington "I Have a Dream" Big Six St. Augustine movement 1964–1968 Twenty-fourth Amendment Chester school protests Bloody Tuesday 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests Freedom Summer workers' murders Civil Rights Act of 1964 Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States Katzenbach v. McClung 1964–1965 Scripto strike 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches "How Long, Not Long" Voting Rights Act of 1965 Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections March Against Fear White House Conference on Civil Rights Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement Loving v. Virginia Memphis sanitation strike King assassination funeral riots Civil Rights Act of 1968 Poor People's Campaign Green v. County School Board of New Kent County Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. Activistgroups Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Atlanta Student Movement Black Panther Party Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Committee for Freedom Now Committee on Appeal for Human Rights An Appeal for Human Rights Council for United Civil Rights Leadership Council of Federated Organizations Dallas County Voters League Deacons for Defense and Justice Georgia Council on Human Relations Highlander Folk School Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Lowndes County Freedom Organization Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Montgomery Improvement Association NAACP Youth Council Nashville Student Movement Nation of Islam Northern Student Movement National Council of Negro Women National Urban League Operation Breadbasket Regional Council of Negro Leadership Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Southern Regional Council Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) The Freedom Singers United Auto Workers (UAW) Wednesdays in Mississippi Women's Political Council Activists Ralph Abernathy Victoria Gray Adams Zev Aelony Mathew Ahmann Muhammad Ali William G. Anderson Gwendolyn Armstrong Arnold Aronson Ella Baker James Baldwin Marion Barry Daisy Bates Harry Belafonte James Bevel Claude Black Gloria Blackwell Randolph Blackwell Unita Blackwell Ezell Blair Jr. Joanne Bland Julian Bond Joseph E. Boone William Holmes Borders Amelia Boynton Bruce Boynton Raylawni Branch Stanley Branche Ruby Bridges Aurelia Browder H. Rap Brown Ralph Bunche Guy Carawan Stokely Carmichael Johnnie Carr James Chaney J. L. Chestnut Shirley Chisholm Colia Lafayette Clark Ramsey Clark Septima Clark Xernona Clayton Eldridge Cleaver Kathleen Cleaver Charles E. Cobb Jr. Annie Lee Cooper Dorothy Cotton Claudette Colvin Vernon Dahmer Jonathan Daniels Abraham Lincoln Davis Angela Davis Joseph DeLaine Dave Dennis Annie Devine Patricia Stephens Due Joseph Ellwanger Charles Evers Medgar Evers Myrlie Evers-Williams Chuck Fager James Farmer Walter Fauntroy James Forman Marie Foster Golden Frinks Andrew Goodman Robert Graetz Fred Gray Jack Greenberg Dick Gregory Lawrence Guyot Prathia Hall Fannie Lou Hamer Fred Hampton William E. Harbour Vincent Harding Dorothy Height Audrey Faye Hendricks Lola Hendricks Aaron Henry Oliver Hill Donald L. Hollowell James Hood Myles Horton Zilphia Horton T. R. M. Howard Ruby Hurley Cecil Ivory Jesse Jackson Jimmie Lee Jackson Richie Jean Jackson T. J. Jemison Esau Jenkins Barbara Rose Johns Vernon Johns Frank Minis Johnson Clarence Jones J. Charles Jones Matthew Jones Vernon Jordan Tom Kahn Clyde Kennard A. D. King C.B. King Coretta Scott King Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Sr. Bernard Lafayette James Lawson Bernard Lee Sanford R. Leigh Jim Letherer Stanley Levison John Lewis Viola Liuzzo Z. Alexander Looby Joseph Lowery Clara Luper Danny Lyon Malcolm X Mae Mallory Vivian Malone Bob Mants Thurgood Marshall Benjamin Mays Franklin McCain Charles McDew Ralph McGill Floyd McKissick Joseph McNeil James Meredith William Ming Jack Minnis Amzie Moore Cecil B. Moore Douglas E. Moore Harriette Moore Harry T. Moore Queen Mother Moore William Lewis Moore Irene Morgan Bob Moses William Moyer Elijah Muhammad Diane Nash Charles Neblett Huey P. Newton Edgar Nixon Jack O'Dell James Orange Rosa Parks James Peck Charles Person Homer Plessy Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Fay Bellamy Powell Rodney N. Powell Al Raby Lincoln Ragsdale A. Philip Randolph George Raymond George Raymond Jr. Bernice Johnson Reagon Cordell Reagon James Reeb Frederick D. 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Brown, "The photos of Frederick Douglass that helped him fight to end slavery", The Washington Post, July 1, 2023. ^ Edward Rothstein, "'One Life: Frederick Douglass' Review: Portrait Taken With a Wide-Angle Lens", The Wall Street Journal, October 4, 2023.

WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY?

"Firework Display - Hogmanay Street Party, Dornoch, Scotland" by John Haslam is licensed under CC by 2.0.

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens:

He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.

The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable - and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you.

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations.

Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your "sovereign people" (in which you now glory) was not then born. You were under the British Crown. Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper.

But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men's souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed.

Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back.

As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of.

The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler.

Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it.

Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor.

These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians.

Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it.

On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. "Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved."

Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history - the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.

Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.

From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day - cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight.

The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness.

The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime.

The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The country was poor in the munitions of war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed.

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too - great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.

They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.

They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.

How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them!

Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you.

Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interest - a nation's jubilee.

Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. Many of you understand them better than I do. You could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence.

I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. This is esteemed by some as a national trait - perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! will be found by Americans. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands.

I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine!

My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now.

Trust no future, however pleasant,
Let the dead past bury its dead;
Act, act in the living present,
Heart within, and God overhead.


We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child's share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have "Abraham to our father," when they had long lost Abraham's faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham's great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men shout - "We have Washington to our father." - Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.

The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft-interred with their bones

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart.

But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. - The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave's point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery - the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. - There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is passed.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) "the internal slave trade." It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.

Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and American religion. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul! The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.

I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming "hand-bills," headed CASH FOR NEGROES. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.

The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed.

In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.

Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight.

Is this the land your Fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the earth whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?


But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason and Dixon's line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman's gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary of State, our lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moment's warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. The Fugitive Slave Law makes mercy to them a crime; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American judge gets ten dollars for every victim he consigns to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe nd are bound, in deciding in the case of a man's liberty hear only his accusers! In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select.

I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.

At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Did this law concern the “mint, anise, and cumin” — abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! — And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem “the Fugitive Slave Law” as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such persons as “scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.”

But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines, who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.

For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that “pure and undefiled religion” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation — a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, “Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.”

The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that “There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.”

Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive.

In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared — men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. The Lords of Buffalo, the Springs of New York, the Lathrops of Auburn, the Coxes and Spencers of Brooklyn, the Gannets and Sharps of Boston, the Deweys of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land have, in utter denial of the authority of Him by whom they professed to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach that we ought to obey man’s law before the law of God.

My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the “standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ,” is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend (Rev. R. R. Raymond) on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave’s redemption from his chains.

One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. The anti-slavery movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable, instead of a hostile position towards that movement. Americans! your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and body-guards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation — a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a three-penny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You profess to believe “that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth,” and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you “hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.

Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a bye-word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!

But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic.

Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped

To palter with us in a double sense:
And keep the word of promise to the ear,
But break it to the heart.


And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length — nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.

Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. He further says, the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.

Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.

I have detained my audience entirely too long already. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion.

Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic, are distinctly heard on the other. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, “Let there be Light,” has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. “Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God.” In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:

God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o’er
When from their galling chains set free,
Th’ oppress’d shall vilely bend the knee,

And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom’s reign,
To man his plundered fights again
Restore.

God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end.
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.

God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant’s presence cower;
But all to manhood’s stature tower,
By equal birth!
That hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his prison-house, the thrall
Go forth.

Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I’ll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive —
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate’er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.

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GRADE:11

Additional Information:

Rating: B Words in the Passage: 1140 Unique Words: 1,910 Sentences: 352
Noun: 1846 Conjunction: 609 Adverb: 346 Interjection: 13
Adjective: 517 Pronoun: 614 Verb: 1086 Preposition: 943
Letter Count: 30,427 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Neutral Difficult Words: 1325
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