Frederick Douglass delivered Lincoln reality check at Emancipation Memorial

[David Lockmiller]

In the era of the "1619 Project," is this article considered to be accurate and truthful reporting of American Civil War history and President Abraham Lincoln, in particular?

Frederick Douglass delivered a Lincoln reality check at Emancipation Memorial unveiling

One example: In the first part of the story, the reporter writes:

"Douglass, who had met Lincoln on several occasions at the White House, said that Lincoln was not a president for black people and that Lincoln’s motivation above all was to save the union, even if it meant keeping black people in bondage." (emphasis added)

Later in the article, the reporter writes:

"According to the Library of Congress, “Lincoln honored Douglass with three invitations to the White House, including an invitation to Lincoln’s second inauguration. (emphasis added)

This is the first time that I have read what Douglass actually said in his speech that was critical of President Lincoln in many respects, thirteen years following Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation (which is referred to in the last paragraph of the article).

[RJNorton]

In my opinion, on an overall basis, there is more positive in the speech than negative. This is especially true in the second half of the speech. David, I think the article you cited concentrates too much on the negative and generally ignores all the positive and praiseworthy things Douglass had to say about Abraham Lincoln.

[David Lockmiller]

(06-28-2020 11:30 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  In my opinion, on an overall basis, there is more positive in the speech than negative. This is especially true in the second half of the speech. David, I think the article you cited concentrates too much on the negative and generally ignores all the positive and praiseworthy things Douglass had to say about Abraham Lincoln.

The following is the second half of the Frederick Douglass speech on April 14, 1876 to which Roger makes reference. I agree with what Roger has said and I am also of the opinion that the following should have been Douglass's entire speech that day.

Fellow-citizens, there is little necessity on this occasion to speak at length and critically of this great and good man, and of his high mission in the world. That ground has been fully occupied and completely covered both here and elsewhere. The whole field of fact and fancy has been gleaned and garnered. Any man can say things that are true of Abraham Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln. His personal traits and public acts are better known to the American people than are those of any other man of his age. He was a mystery to no man who saw him and heard him. Though high in position, the humblest could approach him and feel at home in his presence. Though deep, he was transparent; though strong, he was gentle; though decided and pronounced in his convictions, he was tolerant towards those who differed from him, and patient under reproaches. Even those who only knew him through his public utterance obtained a tolerably clear idea of his character and personality. The image of the man went out with his words, and those who read them knew him.

I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and, second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow-countrymen.

Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. 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.

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. The man who could say, “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war shall soon pass away, yet if God wills it continue till all the wealth piled by two hundred years of bondage shall have been wasted, and each drop of blood drawn by the lash shall have been paid for by one drawn by the sword, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether,” gives all needed proof of his feeling on the subject of slavery. He was willing, while the South was loyal, that it should have its pound of flesh, because he thought that it was so nominated in the bond [this is an obvious reference to the United States Constitution]; but farther than this no earthly power could make him go.

The honest and comprehensive statesman, clearly discerning the needs of his country, and earnestly endeavoring to do his whole duty, though covered and blistered with reproaches, may safely leave his course to the silent judgment of time. Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than Abraham Lincoln was during his administration. He was often wounded in the house of his friends. Reproaches came thick and fast upon him from within and from without, and from opposite quarters. He was assailed by Abolitionists; he was assailed by slave-holders; he was assailed by the men who were for peace at any price; he was assailed by those who were for a more vigorous prosecution of the war; he was assailed for not making the war an abolition war; and he was bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war.

But now behold the change: the judgment of the present hour is, that taking him for all in all, measuring the tremendous magnitude of the work before him, considering the necessary means to ends, and surveying the end from the beginning, infinite wisdom has seldom sent any man into the world better fitted for his mission than Abraham Lincoln. His birth, his training, and his natural endowments, both mental and physical, were strongly in his favor. Born and reared among the lowly, a stranger to wealth and luxury, compelled to grapple single-handed with the flintiest hardships of life, from tender youth to sturdy manhood, he grew strong in the manly and heroic qualities demanded by the great mission to which he was called by the votes of his countrymen. The hard condition of his early life, which would have depressed and broken down weaker men, only gave greater life, vigor, and buoyancy to the heroic spirit of Abraham Lincoln. He was ready for any kind and any quality of work. What other young men dreaded in the shape of toil, he took hold of with the utmost cheerfulness.

A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the Republic. This very fact gave him tremendous power with the American people, and materially contributed not only to selecting him to the Presidency, but in sustaining his administration of the Government.

Upon his inauguration as President of the United States, an office, even when assumed under the most favorable condition, fitted to tax and strain the largest abilities, Abraham Lincoln was met by a tremendous crisis. He was called upon not merely to administer the Government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.

A formidable rebellion rose in his path before him; the Union was already practically dissolved; his country was torn and rent asunder at the center. Hostile armies were already organized against the Republic, armed with the munitions of war which the Republic had provided for its own defense. The tremendous question for him to decide was whether his country should survive the crisis and flourish, or be dismembered and perish. His predecessor in office had already decided the question in favor of national dismemberment, by denying to it the right of self-defense and self-preservation — a right which belongs to the meanest insect.

Happily for the country, happily for you and for me, the judgment of James Buchanan, the patrician, was not the judgment of Abraham Lincoln, the plebeian. He brought his strong common sense, sharpened in the school of adversity, to bear upon the question. He did not hesitate, he did not doubt, he did not falter; but at once resolved that at whatever peril, at whatever cost, the union of the States should be preserved. A patriot himself, his faith was strong and unwavering in the patriotism of his countrymen. Timid men said before Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration, that we have seen the last President of the United States. A voice in influential quarters said, “Let the Union slide.” Some said that a Union maintained by the sword was worthless. Others said a rebellion of 8,000,000 cannot be suppressed; but in the midst of all this tumult and timidity, and against all this, Abraham Lincoln was clear in his duty, and had an oath in heaven. He calmly and bravely heard the voice of doubt and fear all around him; but he had an oath in heaven, and there was not power enough on earth to make this honest boatman, backwoodsman, and broad-handed splitter of rails evade or violate that sacred oath. He had not been schooled in the ethics of slavery; his plain life had favored his love of truth. He had not been taught that treason and perjury were the proof of honor and honesty. His moral training was against his saying one thing when he meant another. The trust that Abraham Lincoln had in himself and in the people was surprising and grand, but it was also enlightened and well founded. He knew the American people better than they knew themselves, and his truth was based upon this knowledge.

Fellow-citizens, the fourteenth day of April, 1865, of which this is the eleventh anniversary, is now and will ever remain a memorable day in the annals of this Republic. It was on the evening of this day, while a fierce and sanguinary rebellion was in the last stages of its desolating power; while its armies were broken and scattered before the invincible armies of Grant and Sherman; while a great nation, torn and rent by war, was already beginning to raise to the skies loud anthems of joy at the dawn of peace, it was startled, amazed, and overwhelmed by the crowning crime of slavery — the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It was a new crime, a pure act of malice. No purpose of the rebellion was to be served by it. It was the simple gratification of a hell-black spirit of revenge. But it has done good after all. It has filled the country with a deeper abhorrence of slavery and a deeper love for the great liberator.

Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age of which his vigorous constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down but gradually — we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief, and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate — for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him — but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever.

Fellow-citizens, I end, as I began, with congratulations. We have done a good work for our race today. In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honors to ourselves and those who come after us; we have been fastening ourselves to a name and fame imperishable and immortal; we have also been defending ourselves from a blighting scandal. When now it shall be said that the colored man is soulless, that he has no appreciation of benefits or benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human brotherhood, we may calmly point to the monument we have this day erected to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.




And, to the proponents of the "1619 Project," I add this statement made by Frederick Douglass in the first part of his speech:

"[W]e entreat you to despise not the humble offering we this day unveil to view; for while Abraham Lincoln saved for you a country, he delivered us from a bondage, according to Jefferson, one hour of which was worse than ages of the oppression your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose."

[Note that these particular words by Frederick Douglass directly refute the words of the “1619 Project” claim that the purpose of the Revolutionary War was to protect the “wealth-producing” institution of slavery.]

[David Lockmiller]

(06-28-2020 06:31 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  

(06-28-2020 11:30 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  In my opinion, on an overall basis, there is more positive in the speech than negative. This is especially true in the second half of the speech. David, I think the article you cited concentrates too much on the negative and generally ignores all the positive and praiseworthy things Douglass had to say about Abraham Lincoln.

The following is the second half of the Frederick Douglass speech on April 14, 1876 to which Roger makes reference. I agree with what Roger has said and I am also of the opinion that the following should have been Douglass's entire speech that day.

Fellow-citizens, there is little necessity on this occasion to speak at length and critically of this great and good man, and of his high mission in the world. That ground has been fully occupied and completely covered both here and elsewhere. The whole field of fact and fancy has been gleaned and garnered. Any man can say things that are true of Abraham Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln. His personal traits and public acts are better known to the American people than are those of any other man of his age. He was a mystery to no man who saw him and heard him. Though high in position, the humblest could approach him and feel at home in his presence. Though deep, he was transparent; though strong, he was gentle; though decided and pronounced in his convictions, he was tolerant towards those who differed from him, and patient under reproaches. Even those who only knew him through his public utterance obtained a tolerably clear idea of his character and personality. The image of the man went out with his words, and those who read them knew him.

"The whole field of fact and fancy has been gleaned and garnered. Any man can say things that are true of Abraham Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln." -- Frederick Douglass, April 14, 1876.

So, who is going to win the upcoming contest between Frederick Douglass and Nikole Hannah-Jones, in terms of "fact and fancy," regarding the character and reputation of President Abraham Lincoln?

[Steve Whitlock]

(06-28-2020 11:30 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  In my opinion, on an overall basis, there is more positive in the speech than negative. This is especially true in the second half of the speech. David, I think the article you cited concentrates too much on the negative and generally ignores all the positive and praiseworthy things Douglass had to say about Abraham Lincoln.

Roger,

Perhaps the attached articles can provide a broader perspective for the views, and relationship, of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. There is one more article that is too big for me to add, so I'm sending it to you for addition as I find it of particular significance.

[RJNorton]

Here is the article Steve W. sent:

[Steve Whitlock]

(06-29-2020 05:43 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Here is the article Steve W. sent:

Thank you Roger!

[David Lockmiller]

(06-29-2020 05:43 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  Here is the article Steve W. sent:

The little part in italics that cannot be read: "that I have ever retreated from it."

[David Lockmiller]

(06-29-2020 04:40 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  Roger,

Perhaps the attached articles can provide a broader perspective for the views, and relationship, of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. There is one more article that is too big for me to add, so I'm sending it to you for addition as I find it of particular significance.

In the next to last of the attached articles, Frederick Douglass refers to his return to Baltimore, Maryland in a speech. Douglass departed as a runaway slave from a slave state and was talking about therein returning to a "free" state as a free man. He said that he was looking forward to seeing his former owner:

"[H]e will be there for he is on the right side. I made a convert of him years ago! [Laughter and applause.] He was a very good man with a high sense of honor, and I have no malice to overcome in going back among those former slave holders, for I used to think that we were all parts of one great social system, only we were at the bottom and they at the top! If the shackles were around our ankles, they were also on their necks.

[Steve Whitlock]

(06-30-2020 04:04 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  

(06-29-2020 04:40 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  Roger,

Perhaps the attached articles can provide a broader perspective for the views, and relationship, of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. There is one more article that is too big for me to add, so I'm sending it to you for addition as I find it of particular significance.

In the next to last of the attached articles, Frederick Douglass refers to his return to Baltimore, Maryland in a speech. Douglass departed as a runaway slave from a slave state and was talking about therein returning to a "free" state as a free man. He said that he was looking forward to seeing his former owner:

"[H]e will be there for he is on the right side. I made a convert of him years ago! [Laughter and applause.] He was a very good man with a high sense of honor, and I have no malice to overcome in going back among those former slave holders, for I used to think that we were all parts of one great social system, only we were at the bottom and they at the top! If the shackles were around our ankles, they were also on their necks.

There are thousands of articles for Frederick Douglas. I just read a few hundred and saved a few. I remember his name from way back in high school history class in Illinois, but really knew nothing about him, until now. Genealogy is proving a better history teacher than anyone I ever had, but then, I'm more motivated to learn now. It's not just memorizing some dates and names for a test without understanding their significance.

[David Lockmiller]

(06-30-2020 07:24 PM)Steve Whitlock Wrote:  There are thousands of articles for Frederick Douglas. I just read a few hundred and saved a few. I remember his name from way back in high school history class in Illinois, but really knew nothing about him, until now. Genealogy is proving a better history teacher than anyone I ever had, but then, I'm more motivated to learn now. It's not just memorizing some dates and names for a test without understanding their significance.

I don't think that I could read "a few hundred" articles on anything or anybody, with the exception of President Abraham Lincoln. Thank goodness for Google, Wikipedia, and a few primary Lincoln books (especially, Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, Team of Rivals).

I always recommend this book to anybody who wants to learn about the life of Abraham Lincoln, especially his presidency. My friend, Ebe Geovanna, "hit me" with the charge that President Lincoln was racist because she had read it somewhere in a book or magazine. I was supposed to respond to the charge.

I happened at the time to have two copies of the Team of Rivals book (I got the second used copy because it had the signature of Doris Kearns Goodwin). I lent the book to her. After she read it, she mentioned a couple of little facts from the book. Then, I mentioned some important facts from the book, about which she did not seem to know anything. After too many of these examples, I said to her: "I suggest that you read the book again so that we can talk more intelligently on the subject of Abraham Lincoln." We haven't had any more discussions on Lincoln.

[Steve]

If anybody is interested, an interesting article came out today about Archer Alexander, the former slave who's image was used as a model for the Emancipation Memorial:

https://newrepublic.com/article/158334/t...colns-feet

[Steve Whitlock]

(07-01-2020 10:30 AM)Steve Wrote:  If anybody is interested, an interesting article came out today about Archer Alexander, the former slave who's image was used as a model for the Emancipation Memorial:

https://newrepublic.com/article/158334/t...colns-feet

Steve,

Thank you for the informative article! Along with that article is another article which bring President Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, Archer Alexander and the Emancipation Memorial further into play for today's problems:

"Frederick Douglass' descendant says Emancipation Memorial should stand
By Stephanie Ramirez
Published 19 hours ago
Washington, D.C.
FOX 5 DC

Douglass family reacts to statue removal debate

WASHINGTON (FOX 5 DC) - In an exclusive interview Tuesday, the descendant of Booker T. Washington and great-great-great-grandson to Frederick Douglass tells FOX 5 he believes the Emancipation Memorial, depicting President Abraham Lincoln standing over a shirtless and kneeling formerly enslaved man, should stay.

Kenneth B. Morris Jr. says his wanting to keep the statue in place has to do with the history around it, which includes who paid for it -- and the important speech his great-great-great-grandfather Frederick Douglass gave at the unveiling of the statue.

RELATED: Activist suggests replacing DC's Emancipation Memorial with Harriet Tubman monument: 'Fair and equitable'

FOX 5 continues to examine the “Race to Equality,” and has been covering the controversy now surrounding the D.C. statue.

On June 25, the National Park Service erected fencing and barriers around the Emancipation Memorial and one other statue located several feet away from it in Lincoln Park. Nationwide, protesters have targeted, and in some cases, toppled statues found to be offensive.

To be clear, Morris believes all Confederate monuments should be removed.

“I don’t put this statue in the same category as Confederate monuments that were put up in the early 19th century as badges of servitude, badges of white supremacy,” he said in a Zoom interview from the West Coast.

RELATED: DC's Emancipation Memorial, target of protests, was funded by former slaves: reports

The statue was paid for by formerly enslaved people and sits in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Southeast. It depicts a clothed Abraham Lincoln standing with a hand over a kneeling freed slave. The other hand is holding the Emancipation Proclamation.

“The enslaved man who is depicted in the statue is holding up his fist and he’s breaking chains and he’s looking strong. But what also, unfortunately, is depicted in the statue, is that Abraham Lincoln is a dominant white man standing over this enslaved person,” said Jane Levey, a Historian with the Historical Society of Washington D.C.

Levey tells FOX 5 the formerly enslaved people who donated to create the statue had “little to no” input on its design.

The Lincoln Emancipation Statue sits in Lincoln Park on November 11, 2017 in Washington D.C.'s Capital Hill neighborhood. Paid for by former slaves and placed in the park in 1876, the statue depicts racial attitudes of the 19th century from a norther
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“The history behind it is simple and it’s complicated. The simple version is that a formerly enslaved woman in Ohio gave $5 to her former master, her former owner, and asked that it be put towards a monument to Abraham Lincoln. That supported the simple story that got in the newspapers and that caused a lot of people to give money,” said Levey, who tells FOX 5 the more complicated part of that story involves formerly enslaved people seeing a monument to Abraham Lincoln as their way of expressing their joining of white American society during the time of Reconstruction.

The other part of the statue’s history includes its commencement on the 11th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination.

Morris says in 1876, Frederick Douglass gave one of his most important speeches during his keynote address at the statue unveiling, which happened in front of over 20,000 people and President Ulysses S. Grant.

“He talked about President Lincoln’s failings, he talked about how he was slow to move toward emancipation and he understood that there were issues-problems with that statue. I believe he knew that there would be some criticism,” said Morris.

In that speech, which you can read on the Digital Public Library of America website, Douglass challenged Lincoln’s legacy, noting he was more determined to save the Union, than free enslaved people.

As previously reported, Douglass says in one part: “… truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model.” He goes on to call Lincoln a “white man’s President.”

“He could’ve said, ‘I’m not going to speak because this statue, I don’t agree with it, I don’t think it’s a good representation of people of African descent in this country.’ But he also understood, he was strategic, and he understood he had an opportunity to speak to power structure, those who were in power,” said Morris, who added, “And it would be many, many years later, not until the election of President Barack Obama that a Black man of this country would have the platform that Frederick Douglass had that day.”

RELATED: DC Congresswoman to introduce legislation to remove Emancipation Memorial from Lincoln Park

DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced a bill to remove the statue. Marcus Goodwin, running for DC Council, says he wants to see it replaced with one honoring Harriet Tubman.

“…I saw demeaning imagery of Abraham Lincoln standing above a man who is in shackles, on his knees, was not well dressed, and now this has become an allegory for where we are in society because we have a white community whose network in DC is 81-times what it is for the African American family,” said Goodwin, “…I’ve asked for an African American woman because they’ve been horribly under-represented.”

The one statue of an African American woman is located in the same park but several feet away from the Freedman’s Memorial: the Mary McLeod Bethune statue, honoring an educator and presidential advisor.

RELATED: DC Lincoln Park ‘Emancipation’ statue among monuments drawing scrutiny

“The statues are within sight of the U.S. Capitol, so that’s important. That’s a ‘speaking to power,” said Levey, “but why are they on what is today considered the backside of the Capitol, why are they not down on the mall? That’s another good question that’s being asked today?”

Morris, who says he has worked with Holmes Norton on several projects honoring the Abolitionist Frederick Douglass before, has not talked with any D.C. officials yet on his thoughts about the statue yet.

He tells FOX 5 he would like to see another statue or something added alongside it that would tell the story how Black people in America liberated themselves.

“When we look back at the history of this country, Black people self-liberated themselves and that’s not a story that has been told properly,” said Morris.

Download the FOX 5 DC News App for Local Breaking News and Weather

While at Lincoln Park on Tuesday, FOX 5 also spoke with Don Folden who runs “Capital Buddy Tours.” Folden gives walking tours (and digital tours) of Black history throughout D.C. The Emancipation Memorial at Lincoln Park is one of his stops.

Folden told FOX 5 the statue should remain, and be turned back toward the U.S. Capitol’s Freedom Statue. Folden says the “Freedman’s Memorial” was turned when the Mary McLeod Bethune Statue was completed so it did not look as though the statue was facing Lincoln’s back.

“And that’s just not any statue of a Black man,” Folden said passionately, “That’s Archer Alexander, the last slave captured under the Fugitive Slave Act, which means he’s the first Black man in the world to have a statue in America. But you want to tear that down? Turn it back to its original position, so it’s facing freedom.”
***************************
I'll refrain from further commentary at this time, but do not be surprised if other Lincoln statues are vandalized should the current mood continue. President Lincoln was a GREAT man, but yet a man.

The other Steve

[Steve Whitlock]

Rather than have a writer, or myself, cherry pick portions of the oration by Frederick Douglass on the occasion of the unveiling of the Freedmen's Memorial Statue, I'll let Mr. Douglass speak for himself in the attached document. It is a speech worth pondering, and unfortunate for the drop out, me, that I never read it before.

[David Lockmiller]

(06-30-2020 01:55 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  The little part in italics that cannot be read: "that I have ever retreated from it."

Today, in reviewing my post #8 on this thread, I realized that it might have been difficult to find the beginning of that sentence within the reprinted newspaper article. Accordingly, the complete little section with the missing Lincoln words is as follows:

"Mr. Douglass, I have been charged with being tardy, and the like," and he went on admitted that it might seem so, but he said "I am charged with vacillating; but, Mr. Douglass, I do not think that charge can be sustained; I think it cannot be shown that, once I have taken a position that I have ever retreated from it." [Applause to Mr. Douglass's speech at this point.]

You might also say that I "cherry picked" this section to the benefit of both men.