PREFACE
Contemporary Americans recognize Frederick Douglass, a runaway Maryland slave, as the most influential black man of the nineteenth century. Beginning his long public career in 1841 as an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Douglass subsequently edited four newspapers and championed many reform movements. He was the only man who played a prominent role at the Seneca Falls meeting in 1848, which formally launched the women’s rights movement. He was a temperance advocate and opposed capital punishment, lynching, debt peonage, and the convict lease system. A staunch defender of the Liberty and Republican parties, Douglass held several political appointments, frequently corresponded with leading politicians, and advised Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, and Benjamin Harrison. He met with John Brown before his abortive raid on Harpers Ferry, helped to recruit African American troops during the Civil War, attended most black conventions held between 1840 and 1895, and served as U.S. ambassador to Haiti.
Douglass was not only the leading representative of nineteenth-century blacks; he stood for what was best in American ideals. An advocate of morality, economic accumulation, self-help, and equality, he believed in racial pride, constant agitation against racial discrimination, vocational education for blacks, nonviolent passive resistance, recognition of the separateness of the black “nation within a nation,” and integration of blacks into American society. Antedating Booker T. Washington’s emphasis on vocational education and economic self-help, W. E. B. DuBois’s calls for political protest, and Martin Luther King’s nonviolent direct action, Frederick Douglass is an enduring figure in American history. Douglass’s importance has been recognized many times: when he died in 1895, five state legislatures adopted resolutions of regret; in 1967, the U.S. Post Office issued a twenty-five-cent stamp to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his birth; and the federal government selected February to observe as Black History Month because that was the month of Frederick Douglass’s birth.
Douglass was one of the leading intellects of the era during and immediately following the Civil War, which some historians dub the “Second Founding.” Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others seized the opportunity caused by the disruption of the war to advocate that the republican principles, on which the nation had been created, be extended to all of its residents. In the spirit of the original founders, this generation of political actors pushed for an expanded definition of citizenship, liberty, and opportunity that would abolish past racial and gender discrimination and fulfill the original promise of the American Revolution. As perhaps the most articulate voice of this generation, Frederick Douglass’s words have at least as much relevance to twenty-first-century readers as those of the first generation of American founders.
Frederick Douglass has left one of the most extensive bodies of significant and quotable public statements of any figure in American history. The editors have compiled nearly seven hundred quotations by Douglass that they judge representative of the breadth and strength of his intellect and interests as well as the eloquence with which he expressed them.
The career of this remarkable African American is amply documented in his autobiographies, speeches, correspondence, and journalistic writings. There are few Americans of any race or profession who left a more extensive written and spoken body of opinions and ideas.
Extraordinarily rare among nineteenth-century Americans, and unique among African Americans, Douglass wrote and published three autobiographies during his lifetime. With each autobiography building on the previous one, Douglass gives his audience an evolving interpretation of the events of his life, offering the reader a different perspective of the man himself. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) and My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) show a young, angry, ambitious man at the beginning of his career in the antislavery movement. Narrative functioned as propaganda for that movement but also acted as a chilling testimony to the conditions of slavery. My Bondage and My Freedom reiterates the horror of slavery but also indicts the free states for their racial prejudice and support of slavery. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass did not appear until 1881, with an extended version appearing in 1892. Douglass wrote this last memoir to recount his extensive, influential, but lesser-known career following the height of the abolitionist crusade, taking the reader through the tempestuous crisis of the 1850s, the Civil War, and the bureaucracy of the Freedman’s Bank; through the vicious political factions of Gilded Age politics; and into Caribbean diplomacy.
Another source of Douglass’s ideas and opinions is his journalistic writing. In his lifetime, Douglass owned and operated three weekly newspapers and a monthly magazine. Almost every issue of these publications contained one or more editorials, penned by Douglass, on the pressing issues of his times. In addition to his own journals, Douglass contributed hundreds of columns and essays to the press of his era. Frederick Douglass also was one of the best-known and most highly regarded orators of the nineteenth century. The published reports or manuscript texts for more than 2,500 of Douglass’s speeches from the years 1841 to 1895 have survived. In his public speaking, Douglass advocated not just abolition but such other reforms as temperance, public education, and women’s rights. For over four decades, he also stumped for numerous political candidates and causes. After the Civil War, Douglass also became a sought-after lyceum lecturer and spoke on varied topics of history, biography, travel, and the arts.
Through a systematic search of manuscript repositories and nineteenth-century newspapers and periodicals, nearly 3,000 letters written by Frederick Douglass have been uncovered. The list of his correspondents reads like a Who’s Who of the mid- and late-nineteenth century United States and Great Britain. Douglass’s correspondence focuses on such varied topics as slavery, abolition, women’s rights, temperance, politics, education, economic advancement, international relations, world history, and African American life and culture. Often less-well-known than his published writings, these letters contain Douglass’s candid opinions on such topics as slavery, abolition, women’s rights, temperance, politics, education, economic advancement, international relations, world history, and African American life and culture.
Given the sheer amount of surviving Douglass documents and the great breadth of topics addressed in them, the editors devoted considerable care to the selection of quotations reproduced in this volume. As interesting and instructive as the details of Douglass’s life might be, it was not the editors’ intention to create a tool primarily useful for biographical research. Instead, the editors aimed to create a collection of Douglass’s quotations that are most revealing about the broader issues of American history as well as inspiring to modern readers seeking wisdom from this iconic figure on modern-day concerns. The editors are confident that the observations, insights, and opinions of Frederick Douglass are still relevant today.
The editors thank Michael McGandy for working diligently with us through all the stages of the editorial process. We are most grateful for his understanding and patience during the last-minute delays in completing the manuscript caused by the early birth of our son Charlie, two weeks before our original deadline.
We also are indebted to John Stauffer of Harvard University, fellow Douglass scholar, for his support of this project and for supplying an insightful foreword.
Finally, we would be shamefully remiss if we failed to thank our past and current colleagues at the Douglass Papers for their labors in providing Frederick Douglass a historical record the equal to that of any other prominent American leader. We hope that this volume will guide many readers to that more substantial body of work.
JOHN R. MCKIVIGAN