Why was Frederick Douglass an important figure in the fight against slavery?

0:04Douglass comes into political life into the anti-slavery crusade after he escaped slavery as a young man, and he comes from of the tutelage of William Lloyd Garrison. The Garrisonians are of the view that the Constitution is, I think, Garrison's term, like a covenant with hell. It is pro-slavery. It is inextricably tied up in the institution, and there's no way in the institution and preserve the Constitution at the same time. It's either you have slavery and you have the Constitution or you don't have slavery and he has anything very different. The reasons for that, the reason why Garrison thought that beyond the obvious, right that there was the United States, the American state, and also slavery under it. At the time in the 1820s and the 1830s, it didn't appear like slavery

0:51was going anywhere any time soon, and in fact, was growing, and the power of slaveholders was growing stronger, and their influence in the government was only increasing. It's very clear to see why you would draw that conclusion. Douglass is part of this world, but as he himself grows as he learns as he comes into his own as a thinker, and as political antislavery emerges. I think when we're thinking about antislavery, there's a tendency to flatten the landscape of what that looked like into abolitionists or people who are opposed to abolitionist. But abolitionist they were like the fringe of antislavery. They were like, the most radical part of the antislavery movement, immediate end to slavery. But there are

1:35other people on the spectrum, other movements on the spectrum, and closer to the mainstream with what you'd called political antislavery, which were serious antislavery men and women, but who thought it was possible to end slavery through the political system and under the Constitution. It's with the rise of political antislavery and institutions like the Liberty Party, politicians like Charles Sumner and Salmon Chase. It's in that context that Douglas also seeing the possibilities of ending slavery through political means and not just moral persuasion, not just condemning it and hoping people have a change of heart.

2:15That is a big part of what leads him to abandon the view that the Constitution is necessarily pro-slavery. Because if you can have a political and legal movement trying to end slavery successfully, under the Constitution, and that suggests the Constitution is a bit more flexible and open than you think. There are other thinkers and figures who are making these, extremely detailed arguments about how actually every line of the Constitution is geared towards ending slavery. Me personally, I think it's probably a little much in terms of an argument goes, but it's persuasive to Douglass. It helps form him and shape him moving him away from the Garrisonians, and towards an alliance with people who again, are thinking,

2:56we can do this through political means. I always like to think of that transformation as partly ideological, but also partly very practical, all of a sudden, you have allies where you didn't think you'd have allies. How do you interpret that? How does that weigh on your prior views? One of the wonderful things about Frederick Douglas is just his flexibility, his ability to take new information, take in new circumstances, and really adjust his trajectory.

3:26Some of his critics at the time may have said, well, this just shows he's not has any principles, but I think it shows a remarkably agile mind and a mind that isn't so caught up in its own conclusions and not so caught up as to not be able to see when the situation really does change. It's in that funny way that I think he has a lot in common with Abraham Lincoln. I think the two recognize that about each other as well in their meetings.