American Experience; The Abolitionists; Interview with Erica Armstrong Dunbar, part 4 of 4

So Douglas decides to take a trip to Britain shortly after Hypersbury, he's hankering for Europe. He comes home as he campaigns heating up, and how did he feel about the Republicans by that point? So once again, when we see Douglas eventually return from his trip abroad, he begins to think differently about politics in America, and he looks at the Republican Party, he understands it, he doesn't trust it. So we'll pick it up right there, let's make it Lincoln, specifically. Say Lincoln, not the Republican Party. Yeah, just personalized, yeah. Alright, so when Douglas returns from Europe as the presidential election is heating up, it's very clear that Douglas has serious misgivings about Lincoln as a candidate. He's concerned, he knows Lincoln is a, for most parties, he's a racial conservative.

He's nervous about what his response will be, especially once the South does make the decision to succeed from the Union, and Douglas writes that between December and the spring of 1861 that everyone was sort of waiting cautiously, waiting at baited breath to hear what Lincoln's response would be. How would he shape this war? How would he create a call to arms? And what would be at the center of this war for Lincoln? Would it be a war about slavery? Or would it be a war about protecting and maintaining a union? And Douglas was hopeful that Lincoln would see it as both, and projected as both, although he did not. So there was sort of some cautious optimism with Douglas.

I'm not even certain if I'd use the word optimism, he was very cautious about Lincoln. And for good reason, he had not proven to be very interested in ending slavery, but then of course what would happen after emancipation. It was clear that Lincoln had been in conversation about things like colonization and removing previously enslaved and free people of color from the country, not believing that the end of slavery would end race problems in America. These kinds of things really struck fear and anger in the hearts of people like Douglas and others who worked so very long to claim America as their own. So he waited cautiously, he was of course Lincoln refused to arm men of color initially at the beginning of the war.

He was very hesitant to make slavery center stage in what this war was about. So that by 1861, 1862 people like Douglas are still waiting for Lincoln to make slavery very publicly the center of this war. And he does, Lincoln has to, by 1862, allowing blacks eventually to join the military, noting that there were far more casualties than anyone had ever expected that this was a war that was lasting far longer than anyone had ever expected. That there would be a need for free blacks and for fugitives to participate in this struggle.

So that by allowing blacks to fight, I believe it was the second confiscation act that really gave blacks the ability to fight to bear arms, it was quickly followed by an emancipation proclamation in January of 1863, which freed slaves who were in states that had succeeded from the Union. So for people like Douglas, this was definitely a positive step. It was emancipating slaves in those specific states. But it was once again problematic for him that the border states were not included in this emancipation proclamation, so that his family and friends in Maryland were completely unaffected by this emancipation proclamation, that it meant nothing for his siblings. It meant nothing for his friends in Baltimore who were still enslaved, or Missouri, or Kentucky, or West Virginia, or Delaware,

that there were large populations of slaves who were completely unaffected by this emancipation proclamation. And while it was a step on the right path forward, it still gave Douglas reason to pause. But by 1863, he had a relationship, a rapport with Lincoln, that was very important. It was a relationship in which Lincoln looked to Douglas as that black public intellectual. As a voice of black America, he looked to him for some guidance, for assistance, and for information about the best ways to move forward. And Douglas appreciated this in many ways. I think Douglas expected it too. He was one of the, if not the leading public black figure of the time.

He had a window into the White House in a way that people like William Wood Garrison would never have. He had the president, he met with the president, and then became very involved with attempting to recruit black men in the 54th regiment. What Douglas had been preaching nonviolence for some years, was he, did he have significant reservations about recruiting men for combat? Well, while he had, Douglas preached nonviolence, but he also, in his writings, it's very clear that on occasion, he questions it. But he sees participation in the military as something that would serve black men well. Much of what Douglas does throughout most of his life is to assert, reclaim, reconstruct his masculinity, his honor.

And he sees this as a method, a way by which black men, who had been degraded, disenfranchised, as a way to claim valor, honesty, integrity, and that upon the end of their service, hopefully they would be rewarded for this. That it would prove their patriotism, it would prove that they were Americans, an in light of decisions like the Dred Scott decision, which said that blacks were simply not a citizen anywhere in the United States. Something like serving one's country through the military was a way to demonstrate that I am an American, that I am fighting in this war, that I am not only fighting in this war, but I'm putting my life on the line for this war. Because I believe in the ending of slavery, but more importantly, I believe in this country. And so, while Douglas, of course, I'm certain, was nervous about his own sons fighting in the military.

I wanted to ask you, because you know, both Garrison and Douglas sent out their own sons. So, I mean, how was that different for the two men? How did they react differently to that prospect? I think that for Douglas, sending his sons off to fight in a war that he couldn't fight in as an older person, Douglas was expecting some kind of military appointment from Lincoln, which never happened, which never came. And there are some reports that suggest that Douglas was proud of sending his sons off for military service, that this was the climax to everything that Douglas had been fighting for for decades. There were his sons. There were his children for Douglas, for Garrison, for anyone who sent their son into battle, whether it was for the Union Cause or for the Confederacy, that it's your children.

And you worry about them, and Douglas, actually, when his son becomes very ill, he writes a letter to the president asking for his son to be removed from the military. So, ultimately, while this was, we see this at different points in Douglas's life, while he's involved with a cause, he believes in the cause, and he puts himself forward in his sons. But at moments of extreme danger, or moments where practical minds are important, he utilizes good judgment, and he attempts to protect his own son, who's ill. In many ways, I think Douglas and Garrison both see their sons, in particular, men near young sons, participating in war, although they had advocated nonviolence as a necessity, that it was about ending slavery, and about, for Douglas, at least, about saving a country. And about the possibilities of what the country could be with the eradication of slavery.

So, pulling back to look at the big picture, if we're looking at how change comes in a democratic society, how did Douglas bring about that change? What was his role? Douglas is a great example of someone who understands the importance of activism, understands his role as an activist later on in his life, but he also represents someone who has shifting or changing philosophies, which I think is a sort of example of what's happening with the country, that ideas, opinions, change, the situations, change, so that when Douglas eventually arrives in New York, and then later on Massachusetts in the 1830s,

Black men were voting in places like Philadelphia, and experienced freedom in Massachusetts in New York, but by the 1850s, that was a very different reality. And that Douglas understands that nothing was static, and that in order to affect change, in order to have a democracy in which all the people, men and women, were acknowledged, were respected, or treated as citizens, that there would be different needs for different methods in his activism, whether it was using a newspaper, whether it was writing his own autobiography, meeting with Lincoln, recruiting blacks to fight in the 54th. He was a pragmatist, he was a politician by the end of the war, and he knew his importance, and he knew that his voice, which was considered the voice of black America, was center in this struggle for reclaiming America and making it a democracy, forcing it to recognize 4 million enslaved people,

as no longer chattel slaves, but as citizens, and then later on, at least with black men, the right to vote. And pulling back even further, what place does he hold in our history? For most Americans, if they know anything about African American history, they know at the very least who Frederick Douglas was. They know he was a slave, they know he became free, they're familiar with his face, his face, an image of an older statesman like Douglas, someone who worked with Lincoln to end slavery.

I think scholars understand him to be an activist, that he really did help reshape America at a critical moment. When America following the Civil War was not on steady ground attempting to reintegrate southern states to enforce a 13th, 14th and 15th amendment, he still maintained a popularity, a position as a black public intellectual that he held on to until the end of his life. What was so ironic was that when Douglas does die in the mid-1990s, it's at a moment when segregation begins to be understood and enforced by the law. It was sort of tragic in many ways. Here's this man who made it from slavery to freedom, who saw a war fought, had his children participate in it, and experienced freedom, and then dies at a moment when the courts begin to challenge some of the very same issues that Douglas put on the table that he was a man, and that black men and women should be treated the same as white.

So in many ways, Douglas represents the ultimate activist, the ultimate black public intellectual of the 19th century. Thank you very much, Erica. Thank you. It's fun. Room town. Room town. Good.