Frederick Douglass Dream For Equality :: essays research papers fc

Frederick Douglass Dream for EqualityAbolition stopped Frederick Douglass dead in his tracks and forced himto reinvent himself. He learned the hard central truth about abolition. Oncehe learned what that truth was, he was compelled to tell it in his speeches andwritings even if it meant big(p) away the most secret truth about himself. Fromthen on, he accepted abolition for what it was and rode the fates.The truth he learned about abolition was that it was a white enterprise.It was a fight between whites. Blacks joined abolition only on sufferance.They also joined at their own risks. For a long time, Douglass, a man of prideand artfulness, denied this fact.For years there had been disagreements among many abolitionists. Everyonehad their own beliefs towards abolition. There was especially great bitternessbetween Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, dating from the early 1850s whenDouglass had repudiated Garrisonian Disunionism. Garrisonians supported the nous of disunion. Disunion w ould have relieved the North of responsibility forthe sin of slavery. It would have also ended the Norths obligation to enforcethe fugitive slave law, and encourage a great exodus of fugitive slaves fromthe South. (161,162 Perry) Douglass did not support this idea because it wouldnot result in the complete abolition of slavery. Blacks deserved just as much granting immunity as whites. He believed that the South had committed treason, and theUnion must rebel by force if necessary. Astonished by Garrisons thoughts,Douglass realized that abolition was truly a war between whites. Garrison, andmany others, had failed to see the slaves as human beings. Were blacks then supposed to be irretrievably black in a white conception ?Where is the freedom and hope if all great things are privilege only to thewhites? Douglass resolved never again to risk himself to betrayal. Troubled,Douglass did not lose faith in his beliefs of abolishing slavery. However, hedid reinvent his thinking.Douglass ev entually made his way with what amounted to the applied ideasof Alexis de Tocqueville and Fancis Grund, both of which were writing at thetime when Douglass realized the truth about abolition. Grund and Tocquevillecelebrated the vernal man, the self-made men who were breaking through oldrestraints. These restraints included monopolized privileges, restrictedfranchises, and the basic refusal of the main chance of equal opportunity. Theblacks were confronted by the most vicious and sulphurous restraints any new manhad been compelled to face in the United States. This was horrendous, but itwas not insurmountable.Douglass decided that the separation between whites was an advantage to his