Committed to freedom, Douglass dedicated his life to achieving justice for all Americans, in particular African-Americans, women, and minority groups. He envisioned America as an inclusive nation strengthened by diversity and free of discrimination. Douglass served as advisor to presidents.

Douglass sets out to improve himself and get an education He makes the streets his classroom, making friends with white children and eventually learning not only to read, but to write as well.

When he turned 16 years old he attempted to escape slavery, sadly the attempt failed, after another 4 years he successfully escaped slavery pretending to be a sailor. Another obstacle that Douglass had to faced was the people that were against him.

In an appendix to his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, published in 1845, Douglass clarified that he was not opposed to all religion, but only the Christianity of a slaveholding America: “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt.

Here’s one example: “Between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference … I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ [and] hate the partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.”

Douglass regarded the Civil War as the fight to end slavery, but like many free blacks he urged President Lincoln to emancipate the slaves as a means of insuring that slavery would never again exist in the United States.

Although Douglass was born into slavery and his actual birth date is unknown, he chose to commemorate his birthday on February 14. Frederick Douglass, circa 1866. 2. Douglass was the most photographed American of the 19th century, sitting for more portraits than even Abraham Lincoln.

Helen Pitts Douglassm. 1884–1895

She died in 1882 after a series of strokes, leaving behind a legacy that few people ever thought to explore. “People judge Anna to not be good enough for their great, darling Douglass,” Fought says.

Mt Hope Cemetery, Rochester, New York, United States

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey

Deceased (1813–1882)

In 1861 tensions over slavery erupted into civil war, which Douglass argued was about more than union and state’s rights. He recruited African Americans to fight in the Union army, including two of his sons, and he continued to write and speak against slavery, arguing for a higher purpose to the war.

Douglass publicly changed his stance on the Constitution in the spring of 1851. He published his new stance in the May 15, 1851 edition of The North Star, stating that his interpretation of the Constitution as an anti-slavery document established a precedent which allowed it to be “wielded on behalf of emancipation.”

What controls the United States government, according to Douglass? Douglass says slavery heads the government, represented by President James K.

The specific clauses of the Constitution related to slavery were the Three-Fifths Clause, the ban on Congress ending the slave trade for twenty years, the fugitive slave clause, and the slave insurrections.

When Frederick Douglass died in 1895, slavery had been extinct for 30 years, but his people were still not free, despite the promises of the Civil War amendments — the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution.

In “The Constitution: Is It Pro-Slavery or Anti-Slavery?,” Douglass argued, like Lysander Spooner, that the lan- guage of the Constitution itself was anti-slavery. “The Garrisonians . . . hold the Constitution to be a slave- holding instrument,” he said.

1. Slavery. In his three narratives, and his numerous articles, speeches, and letters, Douglass vigorously argued against slavery. He sought to demonstrate that it was cruel, unnatural, ungodly, immoral, and unjust.

The abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison thought the U.S. Constitution was the result of a terrible bargain between freedom and slavery. The Constitution was proslavery, the national government was controlled by slaveowners, and politics was a waste of time. A quick look at the presidency underscored their view.

Over the three decades of its publication, The Liberator denounced all people and acts that would prolong slavery including the United States Constitution. Garrison’s condemnation of the Constitution was an incredibly controversial and eventually led to a split with Frederick Douglass.

‘ Speech and Controversy. In 1844, Truth joined a Massachusetts abolitionist organization called the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, where she met leading abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and effectively launched her career as an equal rights activist.

The Constitution thus protected slavery by increasing political representation for slave owners and slave states; by limiting, stringently though temporarily, congressional power to regulate the international slave trade; and by protecting the rights of slave owners to recapture their escaped slaves.

Documents that Changed the World: The Declaration of Independence’s deleted passage on slavery, 1776.