The influence of Frederick Douglass

What influence to you think Douglass had on our country? How do you think he affected people like, say, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Abraham Lincoln, etc? What would life be like today had he not existed? Would women have the right to vote? How would blacks be treated?

 

He certainly got a lot of people in his time and onwards to pay attention and think about things they normally wouldn't have bothered or cared about, that's for sure.

 

I think he helped calm many white's fears about what would happen to all the freed slaves culturally speaking. He basically said free them and let the fend for themselves like the normal human beings that they are. Treat them as you would anyone else. I think we've forgotten this to some extent. As a society, we feel we should treat minorities "extra nice" to make up. Sadly, this attitude will only encourage more racism, not from African-Americans, but from resentful whites.

 

He certainly was a great orator and a very intelligent man. White abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison had sought to use "moral suasion" rather than political action to abolish slavery because they knew the Consitution legalised slavery. Douglass thought the political system could be used to end the peculiar institution.

Douglass urged President Lincoln in speech after speech to free the slaves. At first Lincoln was waging a war against secession, not slavery. He publically avoided Douglass and the debate. Douglass argued the following: "Teach the rebels and traitors that" their effort to "abolish this government" must be answered with "the abolition of slavery." "This is a war for and against slavery," he said, even though the government would not recognise it at the time.

Lincoln considered colonising African Americans, but in 1862 he finally decided emancipation would be both moral and would help the North win the Civil War. (It was, after all, an econoic war. Black soldiers would be useful to the Union.) Douglass's own son would serve in the Union army.

Later in life, Douglass fought for civil righs for blacks as well as women's rights. His second wife was white, I believe.

 

Frederick Douglass' importance to both the United States of America and Americans with African Hetitage (sp?) can not be underlooked. He was a great man and if not for him, many whites on both the Union and Confederate sides would not have known or beleived, at the time, that a "black man," as they said back then, could be so educated, be so...I can't put it in words. If not for Frederick Douglass, just by his apperance and how he presented himself, spoke volums to those who didn't know.


-Jason
Fire Fighter
Jackson 105 Fire Department
Coraggio. Honor. Orgoglio. Dovere.

 

george_starwars, first off, Douglass's comments in that regard have somewhat of a different context. But most importantly, the problem of "resentful whites" should not be a major concern. In my opinion, most of them are "resentful" as a way of expressing pre-existing racism.