Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

A critical evaluation of the address the preeminent African American abolitionist and orator gave in observance of Independence Day. On July 5th, 1852, Frederick Douglass, one of the greatest orators of all time, delivered what was arguably the century’s most powerful abolition speech. At a time of year where American freedom is celebrated across the nation, Douglass eloquently summoned the country to resolve the contradiction between slavery and the founding principles of our country. In this book, James A. Colaiaco vividly recreates the turbulent historical context of Douglass’ speech and delivers a colorful portrait of the country in the tumultuous years leading to the Civil War. Now including a reader’s guide with discussion points, this book provides a fascinating new perspective on a critical time in American history. Praise for Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July “If you’re feeling blasé about this year’s observance of our oldest patriotic holiday, James A. Colaiaco’s Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July should stir you out of complacency. . . . What makes [it] essential reading is its deepening of one’s appreciation for how the color-blind, malleable Constitution is a tissue of ambiguity and compromises.” —The Wall Street Journal “Colaiaco provides the most complete exposition yet of Douglass’s constitutional abolitionism . . . [He] performs a vital service in reviving the moral spirit of America’s greatest exemplar of black manhood.” —Claremont Review of Books “[Colaiaco’s] examination of this long-forgotten masterpiece is long overdue and superbly realized.” —Harold Holzer, author of Lincoln at Cooper Union, co-chairman U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission

Frederick Douglass recounts early years of abuse, his dramatic escape to the North and eventual freedom, abolitionist campaigns, and his crusade for full civil rights for former slaves. It is also the only of Douglass's autobiographies to discuss his life during and after the Civil War, including his encounters with American presidents such as Lincoln, Grant, and Garfield.

2021 Choice Outstanding Academic Title In this timely and provocative book, Damon Root reveals how Frederick Douglass’s fight for an antislavery Constitution helped to shape the course of American history in the nineteenth century and beyond. At a time when the principles of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were under assault, Frederick Douglass picked up their banner, championing inalienable rights for all, regardless of race. When Americans were killing each other on the battlefield, Douglass fought for a cause greater than the mere preservation of the Union. “No war but an Abolition war,” he maintained. “No peace but an Abolition peace.” In the aftermath of the Civil War, when state and local governments were violating the rights of the recently emancipated, Douglass preached the importance of “the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the cartridge-box” in the struggle against Jim Crow. Frederick Douglass, the former slave who had secretly taught himself how to read, would teach the American people a thing or two about the true meaning of the Constitution. This is the story of a fundamental debate that goes to the very heart of America’s founding ideals—a debate that is still very much with us today.

Pauline Maier shows us the Declaration as both the defining statement of our national identity and the moral standard by which we live as a nation. It is truly "American Scripture," and Maier tells us how it came to be -- from the Declaration's birth in the hard and tortuous struggle by which Americans arrived at Independence to the ways in which, in the nineteenth century, the document itself became sanctified. Maier describes the transformation of the Second Continental Congress into a national government, unlike anything that preceded or followed it, and with more authority than the colonists would ever have conceded to the British Parliament; the great difficulty in making the decision for Independence; the influence of Paine's []Common Sense[], which shifted the terms of debate; and the political maneuvers that allowed Congress to make the momentous decision. In Maier's hands, the Declaration of Independence is brought close to us. She lets us hear the voice of the people as revealed in the other "declarations" of 1776: the local resolutions -- most of which have gone unnoticed over the past two centuries -- that explained, advocated, and justified Independence and undergirded Congress's work. Detective-like, she discloses the origins of key ideas and phrases in the Declaration and unravels the complex story of its drafting and of the group-editing job which angered Thomas Jefferson. Maier also reveals what happened to the Declaration after the signing and celebration: how it was largely forgotten and then revived to buttress political arguments of the nineteenth century; and, most important, how Abraham Lincoln ensured its persistence as a living force in American society. Finally, she shows how by the very act of venerating the Declaration as we do -- by holding it as sacrosanct, akin to holy writ -- we may actually be betraying its purpose and its power.

This inexpensive compilation of the great abolitionist's speeches includes "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" (1852), "The Church and Prejudice" (1841), and "Self-Made Men" (1859).

One of the greatest African American leaders and one of the most brilliant minds of his time, Frederick Douglass spoke and wrote with unsurpassed eloquence on almost all the major issues confronting the American people during his life—from the abolition of slavery to women's rights, from the Civil War to lynching, from American patriotism to black nationalism. Between 1950 and 1975, Philip S. Foner collected the most important of Douglass's hundreds of speeches, letters, articles, and editorials into an impressive five-volume set, now long out of print. Abridged and condensed into one volume, and supplemented with several important texts that Foner did not include, this compendium presents the most significant, insightful, and elegant short works of Douglass's massive oeuvre.

* Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times * Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History * “Extraordinary…a great American biography” (The New Yorker) of the most important African American of the 19th century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era. As a young man Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence he bore witness to the brutality of slavery. Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass spoke widely, using his own story to condemn slavery. By the Civil War, Douglass had become the most famed and widely travelled orator in the nation. In his unique and eloquent voice, written and spoken, Douglass was a fierce critic of the United States as well as a radical patriot. After the war he sometimes argued politically with younger African Americans, but he never forsook either the Republican party or the cause of black civil and political rights. In this “cinematic and deeply engaging” (The New York Times Book Review) biography, David Blight has drawn on new information held in a private collection that few other historian have consulted, as well as recently discovered issues of Douglass’s newspapers. “Absorbing and even moving…a brilliant book that speaks to our own time as well as Douglass’s” (The Wall Street Journal), Blight’s biography tells the fascinating story of Douglass’s two marriages and his complex extended family. “David Blight has written the definitive biography of Frederick Douglass…a powerful portrait of one of the most important American voices of the nineteenth century” (The Boston Globe). In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Frederick Douglass won the Bancroft, Parkman, Los Angeles Times (biography), Lincoln, Plutarch, and Christopher awards and was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Time.

Library of America presents the biggest, most comprehensive trade edition of Frederick Douglass's writings ever published Edited by Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer David W. Blight, this Library of America edition is the largest single-volume selection of Frederick Douglass’s writings ever published, presenting the full texts of thirty-four speeches and sixty-seven pieces of journalism. (A companion Library of America volume, Frederick Douglass: Autobiographies, gathers his three memoirs.) With startling immediacy, these writings chart the evolution of Douglass’s thinking about slavery and the U.S. Constitution; his eventual break with William Lloyd Garrison and many other abolitionists on the crucial issue of disunion; the course of his complicated relationship with Abraham Lincoln; and his deep engagement with the cause of women’s suffrage. Here are such powerful works as “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” Douglass’s incandescent jeremiad skewering the hypocrisy of the slaveholding republic; “The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered,” a full-throated refutation of nineteenthcentury racial pseudoscience; “Is it Right and Wise to Kill a Kidnapper?,” an urgent call for forceful opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act; “How to End the War,” in which Douglass advocates, just days after the fall of Fort Sumter, for the raising of Black troops and the military destruction of slavery; “There Was a Right Side in the Late War,” Douglass’s no-holds-barred attack on the “Lost Cause” mythology of the Confederacy; and “Lessons of the Hour,” an impassioned denunciation of lynching and disenfranchisement in the emerging Jim Crow South. As a special feature the volume also presents Douglass’s only foray into fiction, the 1853 novella “The Heroic Slave,” about Madison Washington, leader of the real-life insurrection on board the domestic slave-trading ship Creole in 1841 that resulted in the liberation of more than a hundred enslaved people. Editorial features include detailed notes identifying Douglass’s many scriptural and cultural references, a newly revised chronology of his life and career, and an index.