Joshua Charles quotes Frederick Douglass on ‘gloriousness’ of Constitution.
In light of the controversy over the Confederate battle flag (which has been controversial for many years, lest anyone try to pretend otherwise), I felt this portion of my new book,
“Liberty’s Secrets: The Lost Wisdom of America’s Founders,” would be particularly relevant:
[Frederick] Douglass was not a Founder, but an ex-slave who escaped to the North from bondage and campaigned against slavery for the rest of his life, even becoming friends with Abraham Lincoln. But far from hating and dismissing the Founders, this great man held them in esteem and awe. In 1852 he delivered a famous speech entitled “What to the slave is the 4th?” referring of course to the Fourth of July, when the Founders declared that “all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” This speech is often used to criticize the Founders. However, those who do so have either not read the whole speech, or refuse to quote it in context. This shall, accordingly, be done here:
Fellow citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too – great enough to give name to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. … I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesman, patriots, and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. … With them, nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final,” not slavery and oppression. … Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. … Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them!
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