Frederick Douglass, the nineteenth-century orator, abolitionist, and escaped slave, is a hero of our country. Many biographies of him have been written, one of them a Pulitzer Prize winner; at least six books deal with his relationship with Abraham Lincoln; and a book has even been devoted to one famed speech of 1852, “What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?”
Douglass is not famous only for his eloquence, but also because of his long years of political activity in which his unfailing message was that the United States could and should carry out the promises of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. That message did not end when the Civil War ended.
But for a long time Douglass and his message were eclipsed by history. The purpose of this post is, in addition to honoring Douglass on the Fourth of July, to explain why Douglass’s fame faded for more than half a century. At the same time, I recommend two books that will clarify this further. One is a short biography by Timothy Sandefur; the other is David Blight’s massive Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory.[1]
My Experience
I grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a middle-class suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from high school in 1961. During the Civil War, Missouri was a border state and it never left the Union; its economic interests were closer to the Midwest than to the South. So, in 1954, when the Supreme Court ruled against segregated schooling, the state quickly integrated its schools, including mine.
Yet during my years in Webster Groves, I never heard of Frederick Douglass. Could I have been inattentive in school and just missed a mention? (I did skip one year of junior high.) I doubt it. I believe his name was never brought up or, at least, his story never taught. That was a little ironic, since the segregated school in Webster Groves for African-Americans was named after him.
But it’s not too surprising. While thousands mourned Frederick Douglass at his funeral in 1895 in Washington, D.C., even by that time the promises of equality and freedom for all had become increasingly hollow. “Douglass’s status in the American pantheon faded after his death, as race relations reached their nadir,” writes biographer Timothy Sandefur. [2]
Lynching had become endemic in the South; schools were officially segregated under the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling; and government treatment of African Americans only got worse. By the time Woodrow Wilson was in the White House he formalized racial segregation in the federal government. It was not until 1950 that Douglass’s writings were collected and published; and his now-popular autobiography was out of print for about 100 years.
A Duel of Memories
The fading of Douglass’s reputation was not solely due to the revival of segregation and Jim Crow. As David W. Blight writes in Race and Reunion, gradually after the Civil War—and more speedily after Reconstruction—the nation’s memory of the Civil War began to take shape, to acquire a generally accepted meaning. Had Douglass’s message of emancipation won out, those lessons might have been a message of hope for African-Americans and of overall glory to the nation for at last having achieved the goals of the Declaration of Independence.
But that message did not prevail. Blight’s 512-page book gives detail after detail showing how political, literary, even ceremonial forces began to write slavery, the Constitution, and even the Declaration of Independence out of the war. Instead, the message became that the South had suffered a “Lost Cause.” That cause was vague, but it allowed reconciliation for the Confederacy and justified honoring the dead of both North and South.
As early as 1865, an article in the Richmond Dispatch explained that the South had entered the war due to a “sense of rights under the constitution.” In that essay, says Blight, all the themes of what would be the South’s Lost Cause message appeared:
“a public memory, a cult of the fallen soldier, a righteous political cause defeated only by superior industrial might, a heritage community awaiting its exodus, and a people forming a collective identity as victims and survivors. Nowhere in the paper’s reflection . . . was there a single mention of slavery or black freedom.”[3]
With the “Lost Cause,” Douglass’s hopes were dashed. Those hopes would not become feasible again until the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century. [4]
Notes
[1] Timothy Sandefur, Frederick Douglass: Self-Made Man (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2018); David W. Blight, Race and Reunion:The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001).
[2] Sandefur, 110.
[3] Blight, 37-38.
[4] For more information about Blight’s approach to historic memory see my post “Troubled Memory” from 2018.
Images are of David W. Blight’s Race and Reunion and Timothy Sandefur’s biography of Frederick Douglass.
I enjoyed the lively responses to your blog, Jane. I also learned more about Frederick Douglas. I did hear about him in my schooling in Idaho. Growing up where I did in Idaho I knew much more about Native Americans (or as many here want to be called, American Indians) than about African Americans.
Douglass and other abolitionists do not get much recognition nowadays. Among the largely ignored abolitionists is the Polish general, Taddeus Kosciuszko, who fought on the side of the American revolutionaries. He had some American assets when he returned to Poland, and he wrote in his will that the money should be used to free American slaves.
Was Kosciuszko’s money used to free slaves? Anywhere I can find a follow up on that?
Thomas Jefferson was executor of the will of Kosciuszko and could have freed some slaves, given Kosciuszko’s assets and directive. I don’t know if he carried out his duties. Jefferson had large debts, and the issue of whether Jefferson used the assets of Kosciuszko to free his slaves was discussed in an exchange in the Wall Street Journal, November 29, 2012. See the letter from Palmer C. Hamilton, entitled “Why Jefferson Didn’t Free His Slaves.”
Thanks for that citation. It is follow up like this that makes the site valuable (and recognizes the value of the blog that starts the conversation).
Douglass was an advocate of laissez-faire, arguing that black Americans should be free to succeed or fail on their own — government should neither help nor hinder them (or any other group). That’s why we never hear him mentioned by today’s “civil rights” advocates, who are intent on maximizing the power of the state in all respects.
Really enjoyed your article on Frederick Douglass. When I was in my early teens, my mother signed me up for a Macy’s book club for young readers. Every
month, I received a book. As I lived in a small village with no library a hundred
miles northwest of NYC, I was thrilled to have the subscription. A biography of
Frederick Douglass was sent to me—and I read that book over and over. So
sorry I didn’t think to save it but I wasn’t thinking of children or grandchildren at
that time. I know I was so taken with his story. Thanks for writing about it.
I have to assume that Frederick Douglas is in eclipse again, at least among those with the loudest voices. And what about Martin Luther King? We still celebrate his birthday, but it doesn’t seem that the content of our characters is any longer more important than the color of our skins. Maybe I’m overly sensitive since I am an old white male who was born in the South during the Jim Crow era and my last name is Lee.
Wallace, thanks for sharing this part of the speech. It’s hard to believe it was written in 1852! The comments of the young descendant of Douglass are so sad.
I gather that Douglass was pretty libertarian. That may partly account for the tendency of our establishment to overlook him in favor of liberals like MLK and radicals like Malcolm X.
Rob, yes, that comes through in Sandefur’s book, and is probably why Cato published it.
The African-American school in your hometown, named for but practically ignorant of Frederick Douglass recalls the students at George Washington University who want to rename the place Frederick Douglass University, apparently unaware that Douglass greatly admired Washington for his courage, his wisdom, for unconditionally setting free his slaves.
On YouTube several young descendants of Douglass read his 1852 July 4th speech. Well read, but oddly (or not?) they leave off his optimistic conclusion and its admiration for the ideals of the Declaration and Constitution and start a commentary about how dark things seem today for race relations. These descendants all seem by clothing and housing to be affluent Americans, but they say not a phrase about the progress made since their great great grandfather died. A 20 year old is ready to give up. “I’m getting to the poiknt in my life where I’m only 20 years old but I’m exhausted. . . Is this actually something we should really spend our time fighting for?”
He’s lucky his great great grandfather, once an abused slave, fought his slave master and continued the fight for equality for until he died at age 77.
Here is the concluding part of Douglass’ speech that they didn’t read.
“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.”