Frederick Douglass Speech at the Unveiling of Lincoln's Statue in 1876

[Tom Paine 1949]

This excerpted speech of Frederick Douglass was made in 1876 at the unveiling of a statue partly financed by African-American freedmen and soldiers, at a time when Reconstruction was faltering and soon to be abandoned throughout the South. Douglass was speaking before a large, unprecedented, integrated gathering of D.C. leaders, including President Grant and members of Congress. Douglass was undoubtedly wise enough to sense which way the political winds were blowing, and probably suspected and feared that blacks would soon be left to the tender mercies of rising Jim Crow terror. This speech in praise of Abraham Lincoln was a unique and remarkable truth-telling to the powers that were:

Fellow-citizens, in what we have said and done today, and in what we may say and do hereafter, we disclaim everything like arrogance and assumption. We claim for ourselves no superior devotion to the character, history, and memory of the illustrious name whose monument we have here dedicated today. We fully comprehend the relation of Abraham Lincoln both to ourselves and to the white people of the United States. Truth is proper and beautiful at all times and in all places, and it is never more proper and beautiful in any case than when speaking of a great public man whose example is likely to be commended for honor and imitation long after his departure to the solemn shades, the silent continents of eternity. It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.

He was preeminently the white man’s President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men. He was ready and willing at any time during the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of the slave system anywhere inside the slave states. He was willing to pursue, recapture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong were not the special objects of his consideration.

Knowing this, I concede to you, my white fellow-citizens, a pre-eminence in this worship at once full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his step-children; children by adoption, children by forces of circumstances and necessity. To you it especially belongs to sound his praises, to preserve and perpetuate his memory, to multiply his statues, to hang his pictures high upon your walls, and commend his example, for to you he was a great and glorious friend and benefactor. Instead of supplanting you at his altar, we would exhort you to build high his monuments; let them be of the most costly material, of the most cunning workmanship; let their forms be symmetrical, beautiful, and perfect, let their bases be upon solid rocks, and their summits lean against the unchanging blue, overhanging sky, and let them endure forever!

But while in the abundance of your wealth, and in the fullness of your just and patriotic devotion, you do all this, we entreat you to despise not the humble offering we this day unveil to view; for while Abraham Lincoln saved for you a country, he delivered us from a bondage, according to Jefferson, one hour of which was worse than ages of the oppression your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose.

Fellow-citizens, ours is no new-born zeal and devotion — merely a thing of this moment. The name of Abraham Lincoln was near and dear to our hearts in the darkest and most perilous hours of the Republic. We were no more ashamed of him when shrouded in clouds of darkness, of doubt, and defeat than when we saw him crowned with victory, honor, and glory. Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it never failed. When he tarried long in the mountain; when he strangely told us that we were the cause of the war; when he still more strangely told us that we were to leave the land in which we were born; when he refused to employ our arms in defense of the Union; when, after accepting our services as colored soldiers, he refused to retaliate our murder and torture as colored prisoners; when he told us he would save the Union if he could with slavery; when he revoked the Proclamation of Emancipation of General Fremont; when he refused to remove the popular commander of the Army of the Potomac, in the days of its inaction and defeat, who was more zealous in his efforts to protect slavery than to suppress rebellion; when we saw all this, and more, we were at times grieved, stunned, and greatly bewildered; but our hearts believed while they ached and bled.

Nor was this, even at that time, a blind and unreasoning superstition. Despite the mist and haze that surrounded him; despite the tumult, the hurry, and confusion of the hour, we were able to take a comprehensive view of Abraham Lincoln, and to make reasonable allowance for the circumstances of his position. We saw him, measured him, and estimated him; not by stray utterances to injudicious and tedious delegations, who often tried his patience; not by isolated facts torn from their connection; not by any partial and imperfect glimpses, caught at inopportune moments; but by a broad survey, in the light of the stern logic of great events, and in view of that divinity which shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will, we came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption had somehow met in the person of Abraham Lincoln.

It mattered little to us what language he might employ on special occasions; it mattered little to us, when we fully knew him, whether he was swift or slow in his movements; it was enough for us that Abraham Lincoln was at the head of a great movement, and was in living and earnest sympathy with that movement, which, in the nature of things, must go on until slavery should be utterly and forever abolished in the United States....

 

[Manonthestreet]

The model for the slave, Archer Alexander, was the last slave captured under the Fugitive Slave Act. With his broken shackle, he is rising, as a runner coming off the blocks on the track; this muscular man is ready to spring from the harsh school of slavery into freedom. He should never have been a slave to begin with. Before, he was flat on his face, like dirt; now he is rising as a man. He is an equal; he bows to no one.
In his Promethean gesture Lincoln presents to the freeman as he did to all Americans “a new birth of freedom.” (The hand over the slave imitates the gesture of Prometheus, who, in the Greek myth, gave life to men, who before were merely statues.)
Lincoln’s right hand rests on the Emancipation Proclamation atop a Roman fasces, denoting the common good of the political community. It bears an impression of George Washington.

Lincoln’s New Assassins › American Greatness

Now the mob takes the role of John Wilkes Booth in removing perhaps the greatest of all Lincoln sculptures, the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park, located in northeast Washington, D.C.

amgreatness.com

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The model for the slave, Archer Alexander, was the last slave captured under the Fugitive Slave Act. With his broken shackle, he is rising, as a runner coming off the blocks on the track; this muscular man is ready to spring from the harsh school of slavery into freedom. He should never have been a slave to begin with. Before, he was flat on his face, like dirt; now he is rising as a man. He is an equal; he bows to no one.
In his Promethean gesture Lincoln presents to the freeman as he did to all Americans “a new birth of freedom.” (The hand over the slave imitates the gesture of Prometheus, who, in the Greek myth, gave life to men, who before were merely statues.)
Lincoln’s right hand rests on the Emancipation Proclamation atop a Roman fasces, denoting the common good of the political community. It bears an impression of George Washington.

Lincoln’s New Assassins › American Greatness

Now the mob takes the role of John Wilkes Booth in removing perhaps the greatest of all Lincoln sculptures, the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park, located in northeast Washington, D.C.

amgreatness.com

Beautiful words, and some astute comments in this article, but it is in the end the product of the Claremont Institute’s “Highbrow Trumpism.” Its conclusion, “The real legacy of the Confederacy resides in these mobs, not in people who wave Confederate flags or defend monuments” makes no distinction between Confederate monuments and this historically important monument to Abraham Lincoln.

It also deprecates, in a way Frederick Douglass never would, the legitimate, often messy, democratic struggle to re-interpret our history in light of new realities and universal truths, and the decades long progress in exposing old romanticized myths of the slave owners’ “Lost Cause” Confederacy. There has been a long, contentious, but ultimately democratic and progressive process of removing Confederate Flags and Confederate Memorials from Courthouses, state capitals, and military bases. Nobody prefers outraged mobs (rather than democratic votes) removing inappropriate statues and Confederate Flags, but it was inevitable most would go, relocated perhaps to museums, as they have today become symbolic of racism — as they were once symbols of a slaveholding society’s rebellion.

Much much less should anybody want to see memorials to leaders we should truly honor desecrated. But in my opinion, history and the present situation is more complicated than this article pretends. This little statue of Lincoln stands, and should stand, like the great Lincoln Memorial itself will stand, just as long as our values and humanity exists. It was defended recently not just by police, but also by wiser, older African Americans, black history professors, and — to wax a bit poetic — the very spirit of Frederick Douglass.

 

[Manonthestreet]

The model for the slave, Archer Alexander, was the last slave captured under the Fugitive Slave Act. With his broken shackle, he is rising, as a runner coming off the blocks on the track; this muscular man is ready to spring from the harsh school of slavery into freedom. He should never have been a slave to begin with. Before, he was flat on his face, like dirt; now he is rising as a man. He is an equal; he bows to no one.
In his Promethean gesture Lincoln presents to the freeman as he did to all Americans “a new birth of freedom.” (The hand over the slave imitates the gesture of Prometheus, who, in the Greek myth, gave life to men, who before were merely statues.)
Lincoln’s right hand rests on the Emancipation Proclamation atop a Roman fasces, denoting the common good of the political community. It bears an impression of George Washington.

Lincoln’s New Assassins › American Greatness

Now the mob takes the role of John Wilkes Booth in removing perhaps the greatest of all Lincoln sculptures, the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park, located in northeast Washington, D.C.

amgreatness.com

Beautiful words, and some astute comments in this article, but it is in the end the product of the Claremont Institute’s “Highbrow Trumpism.” Its conclusion, “The real legacy of the Confederacy resides in these mobs, not in people who wave Confederate flags or defend monuments” makes no distinction between Confederate monuments and this historically important monument to Abraham Lincoln.

It also deprecates, in a way Frederick Douglass never would, the legitimate, often messy, democratic struggle to re-interpret our history in light of new realities and universal truths, and the decades long progress in exposing old romanticized myths of the slave owners’ “Lost Cause” Confederacy, the long democratic process of removing Confederate Flags and Confederate Memorials from Courthouses, state capitals, and military bases. Nobody likes to see outraged mobs pulling down inappropriate statues or Confederate flags, much less memorials to leaders we should truly honor. But in my opinion, history and the present situation is more complicated than this article pretends. The statue of Lincoln stands, and will stand, and it was defended not just by police, but also by wiser, older African Americans, black history professors, and — to wax a bit poetic — the spirit of Frederick Douglass.

Try not to speak for a dead man, eh......

 

[TheParser]

Although I abhor the "movement" (whose three initials I refuse to say/write), I have to agree with the activists that the statue (which seems like a beautiful work of art) should be removed. (It would be a great addition to a museum.)

In 2020, such a statue seems too condescending. It shows a man on his knees receiving freedom from another man.

I am guessing that many people of a certain ethnicity are mortified by such a statue.

OF COURSE, the "movement" should go through channels to peacefully remove the statue. They are crossing the line when they decide unilaterally that they will simply topple it.

 

[Manonthestreet]

Although I abhor the "movement" (whose three initials I refuse to say/write), I have to agree with the activists that the statue (which seems like a beautiful work of art) should be removed. (It would be a great addition to a museum.)

In 2020, such a statue seems too condescending. It shows a man on his knees receiving freedom from another man.

I am guessing that many people of a certain ethnicity are mortified by such a statue.

OF COURSE, the "movement" should go through channels to peacefully remove the statue. They are crossing the line when they decide unilaterally that they will simply topple it.

which is why I posted the explanation ,,,,,,there is nothing to be offended by in this.

 

[Olde Europe]

This excerpted speech of Frederick Douglass was made in 1876 at the unveiling of a statue partly financed by African-American freedmen and soldiers, at a time when Reconstruction was faltering and soon to be abandoned throughout the South. Douglass was speaking before a large, unprecedented, integrated gathering of D.C. leaders, including President Grant and members of Congress. Douglass was undoubtedly wise enough to sense which way the political winds were blowing, and probably suspected and feared that blacks would soon be left to the tender mercies of rising Jim Crow terror. This speech in praise of Abraham Lincoln was a unique and remarkable truth-telling to the powers that were:

Yep, and you can sense the anguish resulting in a shipload of wishful thinking:

Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which has taken place in our condition as a people than the fact of our assembling here for the purpose we have today. Harmless, beautiful, proper, and praiseworthy as this demonstration is, I cannot forget that no such demonstration would have been tolerated here twenty years ago. The spirit of slavery and barbarism, which still lingers to blight and destroy in some dark and distant parts of our country, would have made our assembling here the signal and excuse for opening upon us all the flood-gates of wrath and violence. That we are here in peace today is a compliment and a credit to American civilization, and a prophecy of still greater national enlightenment and progress in the future.​

BTW, Tom, you're supposed to provide a link for every quote.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Thank you for the reminder, the link, and the additional excerpt, Olde Europe.

 

[Hawk1981]

Important to note in Douglass's speech that hinted at the coming betrayal of Reconstruction in the South by the federal government, was not only that Lincoln had personally saved and reimagined the Union, as well as liberated the slaves, but that the entire nation had done so and carried the burden of responsibility.

This speech was Douglass's careful statement of the great growth and change that Lincoln had presided over during the Civil War years, along with the revolution that those years contained. He acknowledged that Lincoln had had to work toward emancipation against virulently racist opposition and therefore had to find the delicate method and timing for such a revolution. He recognized how deeply intertwined Union and emancipation had become, not least because of Lincoln's brilliant political statesmanship.

As Douglass stated, "viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him from the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."

See: Blight, David W. Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, Simon & Schuster, 2018.