From the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American history website:
"Institute President James G. Basker examines early strains of abolitionism in eighteenth century literature. From John Newton, the slave trader-turned-minister who wrote the anti-slavery hymn 'Amazing Grace,' to black poets Jupiter Hammon and Phillis Wheatley, Basker argues that slavery was very much on the minds of eighteenth century writers and readers."
What made Frederick Douglass a radical abolitionist?
That Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist is beyond debate. Born a slave, he eventually escaped and became one of the most famous activists to work for emancipation. Whether working as a stump speaker or editing one abolitionist newspaper after another, Douglass expressed tremendous hope that the slave power would eventually fall. He once declared, “There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.” That Douglass was radical in his anti-slavery speeches and newspaper editorials is somewhat debatable, and would depend on how one defines “radical.”
“Hereditary bondmen! Know ye not / Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?”
Frederick Douglass was fond of quoting this line from Lord Byron as it summed up his political activism. This call to the enslaved to be their own liberators reflected a revolutionary urgency and fervor most would associate with radical measures. But compared with abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass’s one-time mentor and fiery editor of the Liberator (whose masthead read “No Union with Slaveholders”), Frederick Douglass appears measured and sensible. For example, Douglass once wrote, “My position now is one of reform, not revolution. I would act for the abolition of slavery through the government—not over its ruins.”
In contrast, Garrison burned a copy of the Constitution in public, calling it “the most bloody and heaven-daring arrangement ever made by men for the continuance and protection of a system of the most atrocious villainy [sic] ever exhibited on earth.” Most famously, he pronounced the Constitution “a covenant with death,” “an agreement with hell,” and “refuge of lies.”
Even more extreme was John Brown, who tried to recruit Douglass for a raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, VA, a doomed venture that exacerbated sectional tensions leading up to the 1860 presidential election. Brown believed the seizure of the armory would spur local slaves to rise up against their masters and spark a slave rebellion throughout the South. Douglass shunned the effort. As historian David Blight observed, “For Douglass, the question of violence was always more a tactical than a moral problem. He did not relish the prospect, but morally he believed the slaves had the right to rise up and slay their masters.” Compared with the lawlessness of Garrison and Brown and their disrespect for the Constitution, Douglass’s abolitionism looks less radical, if not tame.
Douglass sought to free the slaves within the confines of the Constitution. He thought only by keeping the slave states within the American Union could the federal government then be used to rid the nation of slavery. Douglass came to view the Constitution as a pro-liberty document, thus agreeing with Lincoln “the Great Emancipator” on the principal means of promoting freedom.
Lincoln understood the Founders to expect slavery to wither away in a generation or two by restricting its importation into the new nation (as early as 1808) and preventing its expansion into federal territory (see, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787). As historian James Oakes writes: “Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass agreed that there was no such thing as a constitutional right to own slaves. But for Lincoln the Constitution recognized the existence of slavery as a practical necessity, whereas for Douglass the absence of a right to own slaves obliged the federal government to overthrow slavery everywhere.”
In sum, what made Frederick Douglass an abolitionist was his experience with slavery firsthand: simply stated, he found it a poor fit for his humanity. He became a radical abolitionist, calling for the immediate abolition of slavery, because he came to view the U.S. Constitution as a pro-liberty document that could be interpreted to permit Congress to abolish slavery not only from federal territories but also in the states where it already existed. One might say his aims were radical, while his means, especially after the break from Garrison, were not radical insofar as they remained within the American constitutional context.
Blight, David W. Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.
Douglass, Frederick. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. 5 vols. Edited by Philip S. Foner. New York: International Publishers, 1950-1975.
_______. Autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, My Bondage and My Freedom, and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Library of America, 1994.
Myers, Peter C. Frederick Douglass: Race and the Rebirth of American Liberalism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008.
Oakes, James. The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2007.
Manisha Sinha of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, looks at the influence of black abolitionists on the policies and views of Abraham Lincoln, and the evolution of Lincoln's views on slavery and emancipation.
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland in 1820. After her escape to the North in 1849, she returned to the South more than a dozen times to ferry other slaves along the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his Harper's Ferry raid; and during the Civil War, Tubman served as a Union spy. In this lecture, historian Catherine Clinton details not only Tubman's life but also the quest to uncover new information on Tubman.
Actor Danny Glover reads Frederick Douglass's 1852 speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro."
Created as a companion to the PBS series of the same name, this well-produced site traces the history of Africans in America through Reconstruction in four chronological parts. The site provides 245 documents, images, and maps linked to a narrative essay.
"The Terrible Transformation" (14501750) deals with the beginning of the slave trade and slavery's growth. "Revolution" (17501805) discusses the justifications for slavery in the new nation. "Brotherly Love" (17911831) traces the development of the abolition movement. "Judgment Day" (18311865) describes debates over slavery, strengthening of sectionalism, and the Civil War. In addition to the documents, images, maps, and essay (approximately 1,500 words per section), the site presents 153 brief (150-word) descriptions by historians of specific aspects on the history of slavery, abolition, and war in America. The site provides a valuable introduction to the study of African-American history through the Civil War.
The Abigail Adams Birthplace preserves the home in which Abigail Adams (1744-1818), First Lady, was born. Abigail married John Adams, second President of the United States, whom she considered her "dearest friend," in 1764. Adams often looked to his wife for political and intellectual advice and discussion. Abigail Adams promoted women's rights and was a staunch abolitionist. One of her sons, John Quincy Adams, would grow up to become the sixth President.
The site offers tours.
Tukufu Zuberi of PBS's History Detectives introduces the Underground Railroad, the network used to transport slaves to freedom.
The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is operated as an historical and cultural site, focusing on Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The site also includes a look into the family, friends, and colleagues of the Beecher-Stowe family; Lane Seminary; and the abolitionist, women's rights, and Underground Railroad movements in which these historical figures participated in the 1830s to 1860s, as well as African-American history related to these movements. The house was home to Harriet Beecher Stowe prior to her marriage and to her father, Rev. Lyman Beecher, and his large family, a prolific group of religious leaders, educators, writers, and antislavery and women's rights advocates. The Beecher family includes Harriet's sister, Catherine Beecher, an early female educator and writer who helped found numerous high schools and colleges for women; brother Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, a leader of the women's suffrage movement and considered by some to be the most eloquent minister of his time; General James Beecher, a Civil War general who commanded the first African-American troops in the Union Army recruited from the South; and sister Isabella Beecher Hooker, a women's rights advocate. The Beechers lived in Cincinnati for nearly 20 years, from 1832 to the early 1850s, before returning East.
The house offers exhibits, tours, and occasional recreational and educational programs and events.
The Rankin House was an important stop on the Underground Railroad in southern Ohio through which many slaves escaped from the South to freedom. John Rankin was a Presbyterian minister and educator who devoted much of his life to the antislavery movement. In 1826 he published his antislavery book, Letters on American Slavery. In 1834 he founded the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society in Zanesville. From 1825 to 1865, Rankin and his wife Jean, with their Brown County neighbors, sheltered more than 2,000 slaves escaping to freedom, with as many as 12 escapees being hidden in the Rankin home at one time. The house, a National Historic Landmark, is included in the National Underground Railroad to Freedom Network. Outside is a reconstruction of the stairway used by slaves to climb from the Ohio River to the Rankin House.
The house offers tours and educational programs.