Frederick Douglass – Popular Politics in Early America

November 19, 2013

Remembering the Past

Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126

Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127

In his article, “‘For Something beyond the Battlefield’: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for the memory of the Civil War,” David Blight describes Frederick Douglass’s efforts to promote equality for African Americans through remembrance of the Civil War. Douglass felt that remembering the war and the war’s true meaning (the abolishment of slavery in his eyes) would help end white racism. As Blight points out, the South achieved greater remembrance of the war and romanticized its heroes. Growing up in the South, I can attest to this type of thinking. Throughout Virginia, public schools are named after Confederate generals (Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, etc.) and many of these generals are revered for their service to their great state. This thinking completely counters the beliefs of Douglass and Albion Tourgee. Both figures do not believe the South fought an honest battle, and therefore, does not deserve unification with the heroic North. During the period, their thinking was colored with emotion. I cannot argue with the emotional scars of being a former slave and the resentment carried by these former slaves for the South. I can, however, say that Douglass’s and Tourgee’s assertions are sweeping generalizations. Not all Confederates were fighting to maintain the institution of slavery. Robert E. Lee, for example, fought for his state’s rights (I don’t think he owned slaves) against his personal desire for the country to remain intact. Although Lincoln asked Lee to fight for his nation, Lee chose to fight for Virginia. Douglass neglects to remember the honor in fighting against your own personal beliefs because of your loyalty. Furthermore, Douglass’s hatred for Lee is seemingly unwarranted. Lee was not “the soldier who kills the most men in battle,” that Douglass painted him to be. Instead, Lee was a gentleman who surrendered his troops before a planned insurrection occurred in the North. The South was radical, but Lee is remembered so fondly for a reason. Following the war, he supported reconstruction and became president of Washington & Lee University (formerly Washington College until Lee served as president).

Benny (not Johnny) Hartshorn makes a pretty good point about contextualizing Douglass’s arguments. I, too, believe that Douglass felt his actions were going to be remembered, and this belief probably shaped his writing. He wanted to be remembered as the man who fought for African American equality and was unforgiving of the South so other African Americans might follow in his footsteps. Concurring with Ben, Douglass was more concerned with the lasting effects of the war as opposed to the actual battles. He failed, however. Often, the Civil War is portrayed as the war against brothers and often divided families. I think since slaves were emancipated (due to a military strategy, not moral beliefs) in 1863 instead of at the start of the war, takes a backseat to the dividing aspect of the war.

November 19, 2013

Shaping History

I found Frederick Douglass’s idea that the postwar era may be defined and controlled by whichever side could best shape interpretations of the war to be very compelling. He understood that it is almost more important to control how the story is told than the story itself. Douglass’s argument that the people could not lose memory of the real issues and purposes of the fight rings true when thinking about many other historical situations.

Christopher Columbus is usually portrayed as the explorer who heroically though the Earth was round and discovered America. After doing more research into Columbus and his expeditions though, one finds that he had many flaws (such as the ruthless way he treated the Natives that he encountered once in America). This example goes well with Frederick Douglass’s point because the narrative of the war could very easily have been shifted if the South were allowed to tell the story by alone (like one of my roommate’s insistence on calling it “the war of Northern aggression”).

Douglass’s understanding of the idea that, “people and nations are shaped and defined by history,” is very advanced. I only know of a few men in history that have been as aware of this idea (Thomas Jefferson comes to mind because of his prolific writing and record keeping). Furthermore, I think that Douglass took it upon himself to make sure history remembered him so that he could tell the tale of slavery and freedom from the perspective of his people. Last semester, I read one of his autobiographies in an American History class; so obviously his ideas have been passed down just like he was hoping for.

I think that it is crucial when talking about Douglass and his opinions to keep them in context. This was, obviously, a time before Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Douglass, a former slave, was in the unique position to really talk to all African-Americans through his speeches and testimonies. Douglass understood that what he said was going to be read about by the rest of the country because of the man he had become. With this power, Douglass took it upon himself to continue the crusade for his people. He felt the best way to do this was to make sure that the Civil War was remembered for its causes and results. Anthony John Pignone (Olney, Maryland) makes a different argument. He contends that Douglass’s view on the war may be skewed because he did not fight in the war. While I think this is a valid concern, I believe that Frederick Douglass was not trying to discount the perils and bravery of the actual fighting, he was merely trying to protect the legacy of emancipation and the future of his people. I understand what AJ is saying, but I think that Douglass was more focused on how future generations would remember the war than the war experience itself.

November 18, 2013

Douglass' Predicament

Frederick Douglass is often portrayed in a positive manner to the general public in historical thought, as he experienced slavery first hand and after he found freedom he became an ardent activist for abolition and African American rights. He wrote extensively about his opinions and himself, as David W. Blight demonstrated he wrote at least three autobiographies. Through these writings, however, Blight was able to uncover a Frederick Douglass who was stingy and hypocritical. Blight demonstrates on two occasions the hypocrisy of Douglass: his strong support of the Republican party which often abandoned black and while attacking individualistic northerners who wished to forget was issues while preaching self reliance to African Americans.

Both examples of hypocrisy are in direct relation to Douglass’ desire to remember the civil war, and provide no aid to the south in Reconstruction. He was appalled by the idea of helping the south recover and the adoration of southern war heroes. Douglass felt that forgetting the war meant forgetting its ideals, as he felt that the northern cause was primarily against slavery; or at least he wanted everyone to think it was. His goals put him in a difficult position, as the Republican Party led the Union War movement he wished to remember, but they did not do much for the African American cause.

In the issue of individualistic northerners, a characteristic he agreed with, and their desire to forget the war, which he opposed, we see the issue brought up in class last week in our discussion of women where a disagreement with one characteristic of society did not mean disagreement with the society as a whole. Douglass did not want to change all of society; he just wanted African Americans to achieve equal footing. His desire to celebrate the union victory proves this, as historically the victors of war are praised while the losers regarded in a negative fashion. The sentiment after the civil war to “forgive and forget,” however, was a more revolutionary sentiment. Douglass vouched for a more conventional view of war in hopes to aid his desire to change society.

In AJ’s post, he raised the question of Douglass’ credibility, asking if he would be more credible if he had participated in the physical conflict of the war. While this is a possibility, the bind he found himself in after the Civil War, as Blight puts it, “between the country’s historic racism and his own embrace of individualism.” This predicament led him to portray hypocritical tendencies, both real and perceived, that discredited him more than fighting in the war would have improved his credibility.

November 17, 2013

An Outsider's Memory

Much of David W. Blight’s work, “For Something beyond the Battlefield”: Frederick Douglass and the Struggle for the Memory of the Civil War, discusses Douglass’ pledge to “never forget” and his effort to forge memory into action. Blight details Douglass’ five sources for his meaning behind the Civil War: “his belief that the war had been an ideological struggle and not merely the test of a generation’s loyalty and valor; his sense of refurbished nationalism made possible by emancipation, Union victory, and Radical Reconstruction; his confrontation with the resurgent racism and Lost Cause mythology of the postwar period; his critique of America’s peculiar dilemma of historical amnesia, and his personal psychological stake in preserving an Afro-American and abolitionist memory of the war.” Having done some reading on the Civil War and Frederick Douglass previously, I think Blight does a nice job outlining much of Douglass’ arguments and personal stances on the post-war memory, as well as, the difference in opinions by those who do not side with the abolitionist and teleological memory of the war. Furthermore, one thing that caught my eye and I believe established Blight’s work as credible and thorough was the amount of sources he used throughout the argument. He drew upon many different speeches and quotations from Douglass and sprinkled them well in his work. Along with detailing Douglass’ five sources and an overview of his memory of the war, he did a nice job supplementing that with important opinions of others during that period and historically famous arguments that agreed and also went against Douglass’ perspective of the Civil War. Overall, I thought this was good work and gave us some real good first hand opinions of the nineteenth century’s most prominent Afro-American intellectual and others who had an influence on post-war ideals.

With that being said, however, I want to focus on a point that Blight just barely mentioned but stopped me from reading and made me think about a little bit. This challenge to Douglass’ meaning of memory is interesting and probably raises some intriguing questions about those in this time period who had substantial influence and power but had no stake in the actual fighting that was occurring. Blight explains how Douglass’ action was more of an inner struggle than a physical test claiming, “Perhaps his remoteness from the carnage enabled him to sustain an ideological conception of the war throughout his life.” A sentence that was masked but much of the bulk of this work was the claim that stuck out most in my eyes. I believe he is right, what if Douglass’ opinion is mainly shaped from an outsiders perspective? Would his argument be more credible or influential if he fought in the war and actually experienced the memory he is trying to preserve? Would his memory of the Civil War be different if he served behind the lines? I think these all are valid questions as we consider Douglass’ memory as somewhat of an outsider’s viewpoint. As Holmes states, “the true hero—the deepest memory—of the Civil War was the soldier on either side, thoughtless of ideology, which faced the ‘experience of battle…” I think this is an interesting point and certainly deserves some attention regardless of personal stance.

I think it is important to remember those that were transformed by personal experience during the Civil War. As an intellectual, Douglass’ viewpoint cannot comprehend the soldier’s war experience and how those men remember the war. It is a question for thought as Douglass’ memory could be argued to be a “quest to save the freedom of his people and the meaning of his own life.” Like some of us mentioned in our posts last week (Mike and others), the feminist movement and Douglass’ argument can be seen similarly as sometimes they did not reach to a wider audience at the time and their voice wasn’t heard as much due to their relatively narrow views and opinions (ex. Success of the WCTU).