Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T06:11:24.752Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“A Good Work for Our Race To-Day”: Interests, Virtues, and the Achievement of Justice in Frederick Douglass's Freedmen's Monument Speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2010

PETER C. MYERS
PETER C. MYERS*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire
*
Peter C. Myers is Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, 105 Garfield Avenue, P.O. Box 4004, Eau Claire, WI 54702-4004 ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Frederick Douglass's Freedmen's Monument speech of 1876 is notable for its complexity, and commentators have offered widely varying readings. Critics have judged it an abdication of racial responsibility, indicative of an unwarranted optimism characteristic of Douglass's larger argument on racial reform. In this article, I explicate this speech, highlighting the complex rhetorical design in which Douglass forges a memory of Lincoln as a medium for issuing carefully targeted appeals to the interests and virtues of black and white Americans. In its hitherto underappreciated theoretical dimension, the speech epitomizes a theory of racial progress that challenges recent, pessimistic readings of America's racial history and prospects.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 104 , Issue 2 , May 2010 , pp. 209 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Basler, Roy P. 2001. Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo.Google Scholar
Bell, Derrick A. Jr., 1980. “Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma.” Harvard Law Review 93 (3): 518–33.Google Scholar
Bell, Derrick A. Jr., 2004. Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, Lerone Jr., 1999. Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream. Chicago: Johnson.Google Scholar
Blassingame, John W., and McKivigan, John R., eds. 1979–92. The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series One. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Blight, David W. 1989. Frederick Douglass’ Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Blight, David W. 2002. Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory, and the American Civil War. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Michael K., Carnoy, Martin, Currie, Elliott, Duster, Troy, Oppenheimer, David B., Schultz, Marjorie M., and Wellman, David. 2003. Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-Blind Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Burlingame, Michael. 1996. “‘Emphatically the Black Man's President’: New Light on Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.” The Lincoln Ledger 4 (2): 1, 3–5.Google Scholar
Cashin, Sheryll. 2004. Failures of Integration: How Race and Class Are Undermining the American Dream. New York: PublicAffairs.Google Scholar
Colaiaco, James. 2006. Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.Google Scholar
Crenshaw, Kimberle, Gotonda, Neil, Peller, Garry, and Thomas, Kendall. 1996. Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement. New York: The New Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Abraham L., and Graham, Barbara Luck. 1995. The Supreme Court, Race, and Civil Rights. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Delgado, Richard, and Stefancic, Jean. 2001. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Douglass, Frederick. 1865. The Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress. [Lincoln, Abraham]—Folder 3 of 3. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mfd&fileName=31/31017/31017page.db&recNum=0&itemLink=/ammem/doughtml/dougFolder5.html&linkText=7 (Accessed April 27, 2010).Google Scholar
Douglass, Frederick. 1994. Autobiographies. New York: Library of America.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. 1986. Du Bois: Writings. New York: Library of America.Google Scholar
Dudziak, Mary L. 2000. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Foner, Philip S., ed. 1950–75. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. 5 volumes. New York: International.Google Scholar
Foner, Eric. 1988. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Fredrickson, George. 1971. The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Leslie Friedman. 1975. “The Political Thought of Frederick Douglass.” Ph.D. diss. Cornell University.Google Scholar
Hacker, Andrew. 1992. Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Alexander, Madison, James, and Jay, John. 1961. The Federalist Papers. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Harding, Vincent. 1981. There Is A River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Kendrick, Paul, and Kendrick, Stephen. 2008. Douglass and Lincoln. New York: Walker & Company.Google Scholar
Klarman, Michael J. 2007. Unfinished Business: Racial Equality in American History. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Klinkner, Philip A., and Smith, Rogers M.. 1999. The Unsteady March: The Rise and Decline of Racial Equality in America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Laslett, Peter, ed. 1988. Two Treatises of Government. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lence, Ross M., ed. 1992. Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr., ed. 1985. The Prince. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Marable, Manning. 2002. The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life. New York: Basic Civitas Books.Google Scholar
Marable, Manning. 2006. Living Black History: How Reimagining the African American Past Can Remake America's Racial Future. New York: Basic Civitas Books.Google Scholar
Martin, Waldo E. Jr., 1984. The Mind of Frederick Douglass. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Massey, Douglas S., and Denton, Nancy A.. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McFeely, William S. 1991. Frederick Douglass. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Mills, Charles W. 1999. “Whose Fourth of July? Frederick Douglass and ‘Original Intent.’” In Frederick Douglass: A Critical Reader, eds. Lawson, Bill E. and Kirkland, Frank M.. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 100–42.Google Scholar
Morel, Lucas. 2003. “America's First Black President? Lincoln's Legacy of Political Transcendence.” In Lincoln Reshapes the Presidency, ed. Hubbard, Charles M.. Macon, TN: Mercer University Press, 120–52.Google Scholar
Myers, Peter C. 2008. Frederick Douglass: Race and the Rebirth of American Liberalism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Norrell, Robert J. 2005. The House I Live In: Race in the American Century. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Oakes, James. 2007. The Radical and the Republican. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Oliver, Melvin L., and Shapiro, Thomas S.. 2006. Black Wealth, White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Parker, Theodore. 1853. Ten Sermons of Religion. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, and Company.Google Scholar
Peterson, Merrill D. 1994. Lincoln in American Memory. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Quarles, Benjamin. 1948. Frederick Douglass. Washington, DC: Associated.Google Scholar
Quarles, Benjamin. 1962. Lincoln and the Negro. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Roediger, David R. 2008. How Race Survived U.S. History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M., and Piazza, Thomas. 1993. The Scar of Race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stauffer, John. 2008. Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. New York: Twelve.Google Scholar
Storing, Herbert J. 1983. “Frederick Douglass.” In American Political Thought, eds. Frisch, Morton J. and Stevens, Richard G.. Itasca, IL: F.E. Peacock, 215–36.Google Scholar
Sundquist, Eric J. 1993. To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Thernstrom, Abigail. 2009. Voting Rights—And Wrongs: The Elusive Quest for Racially Fair Elections. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.Google Scholar
Thernstrom, Abigail, and Thernstrom, Stephan. 1997. America in Black and White. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Walker, Peter F. 1978. Moral Choices: Memory, Desire, and Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Abolitionism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Washington, James M., ed. 1986. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Yarbrough, Jean M., ed. 2006. The Essential Jefferson. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.