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20
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An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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mp4
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00:56:10
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Moments in the Liberal Education of Frederick Douglass from <em>My Bondage and My Freedom</em>
Description
An account of the resource
Video recording of a lecture delivered on August 26, 2022 by Joseph Macfarland as part of the Formal Lecture Series. First formal lecture of the academic year, previously referred to as the "Dean's Lecture", but now called the "Christopher B. Nelson Lecture".
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Macfarland, Joseph C.
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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2022-08-26
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Permission has been given to make this available online.
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moving image
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mp4
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Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895
Education, Humanistic
Slavery--United States
Slaves--United States--Education
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English
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LEC_Macfarland_Joseph_2022-08-26_ac
Christopher B. Nelson Lecture
Deans
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9d616d3a535fd123c110306180d11c1b.mp4
93d3683564517a6d7a174ed2f280deae
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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mp4
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00:57:46
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Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Danger of Political Pessimism
Description
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Video recording of a lecture delivered on November 19, 2021, by Melvin Rogers as part of the Formal Lecture Series. <br />
<p class="x_MsoNormal"><span>Professor <span class="markruqqvzcf4">Rogers</span> is an Associate Professor of Political Science and the </span><span>Director of Graduate Studies of Political Science </span><span>at Brown University. His current book project is, </span><i><span>The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought.</span></i><span></span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal"><span>Professor Rogers describes his lecture: "'One of the fundamental paradoxes of black politics,' writes Barnor Hesse and Juliet Hooker, is 'the invariable futility of directing activism toward a racially governing regime historically founded on the constitutive exclusion and violation of blackness.' This paradox raises a fundamental question: How can African Americans appeal to the nation in the name of freedom and equal standing, if the ethical and political presuppositions of the polity turn on their fundamental exclusion? Although this question animates our contemporary moment, especially with the ascendancy of Afro-pessimism, this essay recovers its initial articulation as well as pessimistic response from the 19<sup>th</sup> century African American nationalist Martin Delany. And it seeks to distill from Delany’s counterpart, Frederick Douglass, an alternative vision that both resist the paradox and the political logic that gives it shape.</span></p>
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Rogers, Melvin L.
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
Date
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2021-11-19
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A signed permission form has been received stating: "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to: Make an audiovisual recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audiovisual recording of my lecture available online. Make a typescript copy of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation in the St. John's College Greenfield Library."
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moving image
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mp4
Subject
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Delany, Martin Robison, 1812-1885
Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895
Afropessimism (Philosophy)
Philosophy, Black
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Macfarland, Joseph C.
Language
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English
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LEC_Rogers_Melvin_2021-11-19_ac
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/4c95870af1e885dd44897c3daea1725e.pdf
db6dd1249074f3fe3d21241b6d65c144
PDF Text
Text
Learning to Love Lincoln: Frederick Douglass’s Journey from Grievance to Gratitude
Diana J. Schaub
St. Johns College, Santa Fe
4 December 2020
I am delighted to be here to talk about my two heroes: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick
Douglass. I will be focusing on what one of them had to say about the other. Frederick Douglass,
in his great oration in memory of Lincoln, delivered in 1876 upon the occasion of the dedication
of the Freedmen’s Monument, observed that “Any man can say things that are true of Abraham
Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln.” That is still the case
today. Not even by resorting to lies and untruths can one find anything new to say about
Abraham Lincoln. The truths and untruths—and maybe most common, the half-truths—have all
been around a long time. The task is thus not to be original in one’s appreciation, but to be just.
Proper appreciation of Lincoln’s statesmanship, particularly during his lifetime, was rare.
The contrast with George Washington is instructive. Although both experts and ordinary citizens
now routinely consider Washington and Lincoln the greatest of American presidents,
Washington’s rank as a statesman was clear and uncontested from the first—so uncontested that
his election to the presidency was unanimous, while the election of Lincoln was so contentious
as to provoke civil war. In addition to the seditious opposition of the South, Lincoln encountered
plenty of loyal opposition in the North, not only from Democrats, but from those more radical
than he both within the Republican Party and outside it (among the various strands of
abolitionism). Radicals, then and now, have been particularly stinting in their praise of Lincoln.
Some today suggest that credit for emancipation belongs more to those, like Frederick Douglass,
who pressured Lincoln to take that decisive step. At the extreme, this position asserts that
Lincoln was anti-black, that the Proclamation was basically a fraud, and that Lincoln does not
deserve any credit for emancipation since he was “forced into glory.”1
1
�Before signing on to the contemporary radical critique, we might want to examine what
the greatest of the abolitionists himself had to say about Lincoln. From his newspaper editorials
before and during the war to his speeches and personal reminiscences after the war, the trajectory
of Frederick Douglass’s thinking about Lincoln is one of increasing and deepening appreciation,
often revising his own earlier negative assessments. Perhaps because Douglass was selfeducated, he remained a lifelong learner, capable of open-minded and rigorous reconsiderations.
The way in which the exercise of his critical faculties could lead him to substantive revaluations
was evident early in his career when he dramatically changed his opinion about the status of
slavery under the Constitution. Repudiating the Garrisonian view of the pro-slavery character of
the Constitution, Douglass embraced an anti-slavery reading of the document, thereby
transforming himself from a revolutionary, intent on annulling the Constitution, to a reformer,
still fiercely critical of American practice, but ever after a staunch defender of America’s
founding principles.2 A parallel, but more subtle, shift occurred as a result of Douglass’s
encounter with Lincoln—an encounter that taught him to appreciate the statesman (which is to
say the prudent politician) as well as the John Browns of the world. Douglass learned to love
Lincoln and in his 1876 “Oration in Memory of Lincoln” he recapitulated that intellectual and
emotional journey for the benefit of all Americans.3
First Things
Douglass’s oration was the keynote address at the unveiling of the nation’s first statue in
honor of Lincoln. The statue is entitled “Emancipation” and it was erected in the name of the
former slaves and was paid for by their donations. As befitted the ceremonial nature of the
occasion, Douglass’s speech expressed gratitude toward Lincoln, but more intriguingly, it
reflected on the political significance of gratitude. It is a speech both of gratitude and about
2
�gratitude. Douglass says that “the sentiment of gratitude” which “perpetuate[s] the memories of
great public men” is “one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.” Further, he
points out that with the dedication of the Freedmen’s Monument black Americans now “[f]or the
first time in the history of our people, . . . join in this high worship.” Douglass wants the world to
notice what “we, the colored people” are doing in honoring Abraham Lincoln. As he explains,
“First things are always interesting, and this is one of our first things.” Douglass presents the
black commemoration of Lincoln as an act that honors the honorers almost as much as it honors
the honoree.
The story of how the Freedmen’s Memorial took the shape it did, and Douglass’s role in
ensuring that his people’s first “national act” came off well, is fascinating. Douglass was asked
in 1865 to lend his name to the Educational Monument Association which proposed to raise
money from blacks and whites alike to build a black college in honor of Lincoln’s memory.
Douglass refused to participate in the project. Here is what he wrote in his letter to the
organizers:
For a monument, by itself, and upon its own merits, I say good. For a college by itself . . .
and upon its own merits, I say good. But for a college-monument, or for a monumentcollege, I do not say good; . . . . The whole scheme is derogatory to the character of the
colored people of the United States. . . . It looks to me like an attempt to wash the black
man’s face in the nation’s tears for Abraham Lincoln! . . . I am for washing the black
man’s face (that is, educating his mind), for that is a good thing to be done, and I
appreciate the nation’s tears for Abraham Lincoln; but I am not so enterprising as to think
of turning the nation’s veneration for our martyred President into a means of advantage to
the colored people, and, of sending around the hat to a mourning public.4
Douglass doesn’t want gratitude—which he calls “one of the holiest sentiments of the
human heart”5—to be contaminated with blatant self-interest, for gratitude isn’t even gratitude
then. In the proposed college-monument, the problem of impure motives would have been even
worse, since there would not just be a mixture of motives but actually a division of motives along
3
�racial lines. Whites would be doing the creditable giving and blacks the self-interested taking.
Douglass did not want blacks to enter upon citizenship in that way. Instead of an ennobling
display of black gratitude, which would elevate the givers and, moreover, elevate the givers in
the minds of white observers, the college-monument idea would reduce blacks primarily to the
role of recipients.
Douglass was not, in principle, opposed to white philanthropy on behalf of blacks. Years
earlier he had sketched a plan for an industrial college in answer to an inquiry from Harriet
Beecher Stowe about what she could do to contribute to black advancement.6 However,
Douglass was always sensitive to the dangers of ill-timed and overly intrusive assistance, which
could have the perverse effect of sapping black initiative, thereby impeding the long-term
prospects of the race. Douglass worried that there was always more of benevolence and pity
rather than straightforward justice in white America’s dealings with blacks. His preference was
for justice—sternly and blindly equal, with no special pleadings or privileges.7
This leads to what at first might seem a contradiction in Douglass’s reaction to the
monument-college project. As is well-known, Douglass’s vision of America was fundamentally
integrationist. Nonetheless, he wants the monument to be exclusively a black effort; however
humble, it should be, he says, “our own act and deed.”8 On the other hand, when it comes to the
idea of a college, Douglass speaks against not only the self-serving hybrid of a monumentcollege, but also against the idea of any college being built for the permanent and exclusive use
of blacks. Given the discrimination of the day, Douglass admitted the need for temporary
recourse to complexional institutions, but he did not want to see the founding of any institution
that accepted the permanence of segregation. As he says, “the American people must stand each
for all and all for each, without respect to color or race.”9
4
�So, he is in favor of a separately erected monument but opposed to a separate college.
Why a Freedmen’s Memorial but not a Freedmen’s College? What accounts for the different
judgments on these two endeavors? The explanation, I think, hinges on the nature of the two
undertakings and their potential contribution to either lessening racial prejudice or prolonging it.
A display of gratitude by black Americans, reflecting the special sentiments they bear towards
Lincoln, would undercut white prejudice, by showing blacks capable of “the holiest sentiments
of the human heart.”10 Conversely, a college explicitly and exclusively reserved to blacks
(whoever foots the bill for it), by accommodating race prejudice, in effect bolsters it. Thus,
Douglass accepts all-black institutions only with great reluctance and always with the proviso
that, as soon as circumstances permit, blacks must make their way into the majority
institutions.11 Douglass is consistent in that he judges instances of racial solidarity and group
action by their effects on friendship between the races. His guiding question is always: does the
doing of this deed point us toward the overcoming of race prejudice and contribute to an ethos of
common citizenship? Acts of black self-reliance, both individual and group-based, can create the
conditions for non-racial brotherhood. Douglass understood that before the black man could be
recognized as a brother, he must be recognized as a man. Manliness precedes fraternity. Or, to
give it a non-gendered formulation: independence precedes friendship.
As Douglass had hoped, the monument-college plan was abandoned and, in the end, the
memorial took the pure form he had recommended, with Douglass himself delivering the
keynote address. Not surprisingly, his first paragraph refers to the “manly pride” with which
blacks should view the occasion, while the final paragraph sets forth the black claim to “human
brotherhood.” More especially, Douglass informs those whites who seek to “scourge [blacks]
beyond the range of human brotherhood” that the Freedmen’s Monument stands as a refutation
5
�of their “blighting slander.” In between the opening invocation of manliness (or independence)
and the closing invocation of brotherhood (or friendship), the speech itself demonstrates how a
still very divided nation could develop a shared perspective on the achievements of Abraham
Lincoln.
Any analysis of the speech must take into account not only the uniqueness of the
occasion but the rhetorical dilemma posed by the larger historical moment. The speech was
given in 1876, as the Reconstruction period was coming to an end. With the federal government
increasingly reluctant to enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments, Douglass was rightly worried
about the resurgent spirit of the Old South. Douglass worried that reconciliation between
Northern whites and Southern whites could end up excluding the freedmen and erasing the real
meaning of the Civil War. Thus, he attempts to use the memory of Lincoln to counteract this
dangerous tendency, and to revive the “new birth of freedom.”
The Oration has a careful structure, being composed of eight distinct sections, each of
which begins with what grammarians call a “vocative expression”; in the first two sections he
addresses “Friends and Fellow Citizens,” in the subsequent six sections, simply “Fellow
Citizens.” Politicians, of course, often rely on direct address of this sort. Sometimes it even
becomes a kind of verbal tic, like Lyndon Johnson (in his Texas accent, which I can’t imitate)
peppering his speeches with “my fellow Americans.” Douglass’s iterations, however, are more
deliberate; they signal new phases of an argument that delineates the different (but not
irreconcilable) claims of whites and blacks to the memory of Lincoln.
Douglass begins the Oration by addressing his immediate audience: those who assembled
that day in Lincoln Park due east of the Capitol building on the 11th anniversary of Lincoln’s
assassination. The audience was a large and racially mixed one, composed of 25,000 ordinary
6
�citizens, along with numerous representatives of official Washington. Douglass mentions the
presence of members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the presence of the Chief
Justice and Supreme Court, and President Grant himself. These attendees deserved to be called
not just “Fellow Citizens,” but “Friends,” whose attendance gave evidence of their sympathies.
Interestingly, this first section of the speech makes no mention at all of Lincoln, but instead
congratulates “you,” a pronoun that seems to refer, at least initially, only to Douglass’s fellow
blacks. Thus, he speaks of “our condition as a people” and the remarkable progress in that
condition. The evidence of progress, which Douglass says is a “credit to American civilization,”
provides the occasion for a shift to congratulating “all.” Douglass notes that the “new
dispensation of freedom”—“has come both to our white fellow-citizens and ourselves.”
The second section of the speech acknowledges especially the federal government and its
friendly role in this new dispensation. The erection of the memorial received congressional
approval; the pedestal for the statue was paid for by congressional appropriation; and the day
itself had been declared a federal holiday.12 Douglass, however, highlights the awful sacrifice
that lies behind this federal friendship. This section contains Douglass’s first mention of Lincoln,
whom he calls “the first martyr President of the United States.” Moreover, Lincoln’s martyrdom
is presented as the climax of the larger national sacrifice to which Douglass alludes with his
reference to “yonder heights of Arlington.” Arlington Cemetery was visible from Lincoln Park,
and 16,000 Civil War soldiers were buried there, including 1500 black troops.13 On the 11th
anniversary of Lincoln’s death, what Douglass wanted to remind his audience of was “bloodbought freedom”—“our blood-bought freedom”—in which “we, the colored people” rejoice.
While Douglass emphasizes the sentiment of appreciation that gives rise to monuments
like the one being unveiled, curiously he says nothing about the actual statue. It is known that he
7
�was not altogether pleased with the design which shows Lincoln, Emancipation Proclamation in
one hand, standing over the crouching or half-rising figure of a slave. Dissatisfaction with the
sculpture was apparently not limited to Douglass, but was shared by other African-Americans.
The official program for the festivities attempted to address these objections, explaining that
In the original [design] the kneeling slave [was] represented as perfectly passive,
receiving . . . freedom from the hand of the great liberator. But the artist justly changed
this, to bring the presentation nearer to the historical fact, by making the emancipated
slave an agent in his own deliverance.
He is accordingly represented as exerting his own strength with strained muscles in
breaking the chain which had bound him.14
The brochure also mentions that there was an alternative design by the female sculptor, Harriet
Hosmer, which was rejected as too costly. It would have depicted Lincoln atop a central pillar,
flanked by smaller pillars showing, among other figures, black Union soldiers. Douglass would
certainly have preferred this design, since it embodied his favorite aphorism: “Hereditary
bondsmen! know ye not/ Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?”15 In a sense,
Douglass’s speech corrects the submissiveness or paternalism of the statue, by acknowledging
both “our loyal, brave, and patriotic soldiers” and “the vast, high, and preeminent services
rendered to ourselves, to our race, to our country, and to the whole world by Abraham Lincoln.”
In other words, Douglass’s praise of Lincoln is balanced by his recognition of black agency, the
invaluable contribution made by black Union troops (by war’s end, there were 180,000 black
troops).
Having spent the opening two sections proclaiming the generous deed of the moment and
commending it to the notice of “men of all parties and opinions,” including “those who despise
us,” Douglass in the third section begins to speak to the larger nation-wide audience—an
audience of “Fellow-citizens” not all of whom are necessarily “Friends.” Douglass now treads
8
�very carefully. He does not want the black embrace of Lincoln to trigger a white flight from
Lincoln. And so, he quite dramatically backs away from the Great Emancipator, insisting that
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 last 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 his country.
. . . 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. . . . You are the children of Abraham Lincoln.
Douglass devotes the whole of section 3 to reassuring nervous whites—whites who are patriotic,
but probably prejudiced. Basically, he tells them, “Look, don’t worry. Lincoln always loved you
best. Take it from me, a Negro, Lincoln was not a Negro-lover.” It’s a rather startling rhetorical
gambit, but it allowed Douglass to exhort white Americans to heap high their hosannas of
Lincoln. He tells them:
To you it especially belongs to sound his praises, to preserve and perpetuate his memory,
to multiply his statues, to hang his pictures on your walls, and commend his example, for
to you he was a great and glorious friend and benefactor.
By the close of this section of the speech, which we might dub the white supremacist section,
one might wonder why blacks are bothering to honor Lincoln at all? Douglass’s answer is that
while whites are Lincoln’s children, blacks are “his step-children, children by adoption, children
by force of circumstances and necessity.” Moreover, what Lincoln did for his step-children,
whether it was part of his original intention or not, was deliver them from bondage. Accordingly,
Douglass entreats whites “to despise not the humble offering” of former slaves. The separate
claims of whites and blacks upon the memory of Lincoln can co-exist. Whites can honor Lincoln
for saving the Union; blacks can honor him for Emancipation. Shared homage, if it is ever to
develop, must begin with toleration for racially-specific homage.
9
�Frederick Douglass had a gift for metaphor and this image of blacks as Lincoln’s stepchildren is one of his finest. It accords nicely with Lincoln’s own account of the relation between
the cause of Union and the cause of Emancipation, as expressed in his famous letter to Horace
Greeley. Here is how Lincoln himself explained his duty as president:
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to
destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I
could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some
and leaving others alone I would also do that.16
Douglass reminds his listeners that Lincoln was a Unionist first and foremost and that he became
the Great Emancipator only “by force of circumstances and necessity.” Whites ought to revere
Lincoln as the savior of the nation. And indeed, the inscription on the national Lincoln
Memorial, built half a century after the Freedmen’s Memorial, reads: “In this temple, as in the
hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined
forever.”17
Of course, the Union to which Lincoln was devoted had at its foundation the principle of
human equality. The Union was itself a moral project. Because the bond of genuine Union is a
teaching about natural right, American patriotism ought to produce citizens who are, as Douglass
says, “friendly to the freedom of all men.” In the 4th and central section of the speech, Douglass
presents at greater length the step-children’s view of Lincoln, the essential feature of which was
faith in Lincoln’s “living and earnest sympathy” with their fate. Again, Douglass doesn’t paper
over the disagreements and disappointments that blacks experienced during the war years. “We
were,” he admits, “at times stunned, grieved and greatly bewildered.” Douglass provides a litany
of reasons why blacks might have doubted Lincoln’s good will: he supported colonization
schemes; he refused to enlist black troops; after finally allowing black recruitment, he refused to
10
�retaliate when the Confederates violated the rules of warfare by massacring black prisoners; and
he revoked early emancipation decrees by Union generals in the field.
Nonetheless, Douglass asserts that “we were able to take a comprehensive view of
Abraham Lincoln”—a view that took the measure of the man and, after factoring in the “logic”
of events and even “that divinity that shapes our ends,” Douglass says, “we came to the
conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption had met in the person of Abraham
Lincoln.” Douglass then gives a counter-litany of the liberationist and racially transformative
policies that transpired under Lincoln’s rule. He lists nine achievements, culminating in the
Emancipation Proclamation. Each time, he repeats a version of the phrase “under his rule we saw
. . . .” The phrase is crucial for both whites and blacks. Blacks—who longed for liberty but who
might understandably be suspicious of rule and law, having suffered under generations of
misrule—are reminded that their liberty came to them through law and through “wise and
beneficent rule.” Conversely, whites are reminded that the actions of Lincoln, which struck not
only at slavery but at “prejudice and proscription” as well, were the actions of a dedicated
constitutionalist. The closing paragraph of section 4 celebrates Emancipation and, moreover,
shows that the celebration can be shared by all. Douglass asks, “Can any colored man, or any
white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day
of January, 1863?” Whites can appreciate black liberation and blacks can appreciate white
“statesmanship”—a word that Douglass now uses for the first but not the last time in the address.
On this new bi-racial basis of Union and Liberty, Douglass goes on to a reconsideration
of Lincoln in sections 5, 6, and 7. He argues that Lincoln’s “great and good” character was
transparent to those “who saw him and heard him.” Indeed, direct contact wasn’t even necessary.
In a passage with tremendous import for us today, Douglass says “The image of the man went
11
�out with his words, and those who read him knew him.” We are indebted to biographers and
historians who have scoured and scavenged for all the bits and pieces of eyewitness testimony
and hearsay evidence, and who have laboriously contextualized and hypothesized and
speculated, to such a degree that, with the exception of Jesus, there is now no one who ever
walked the earth more written about than Abraham Lincoln. Nonetheless, it is reassuring to know
that Lincoln’s words alone are enough. In light of this fundamentalist insight, Douglass now
revises his earlier “white supremacist” account of Lincoln. He reconsiders Lincoln’s deference to
popular prejudice in the appropriate context—the context of democratic statesmanship. Here’s
what he says at the close of section 5:
I have said that President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to
his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition
of the country, this unfriendly feeling on his part may safely to set down as one element
of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous
conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission
was to accomplish two things; first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin,
and second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or
both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal
fellow-countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success, his efforts
must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the
salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the
American people, and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the
genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but
measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman
to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.
Frederick Douglass himself always occupied “the genuine abolition ground,” and his speeches
and writings, from the early years of the war especially, often manifested great frustration with
Lincoln’s caution. In retrospect, however, Douglass generously acknowledges the partiality of
his own abolitionist stance and credits Lincoln as the “comprehensive statesman.”
I think it is important to note that the final paragraph of this section carefully
distinguishes Lincoln’s views on race from his views on slavery. Douglass repeats (for the third
12
�time) that Lincoln was prejudiced, or more precisely that he “shared the prejudices of his white
fellow-countrymen against the Negro [italics added].” According to Douglass, racial prejudice is
a social construct; there is nothing innate or inevitable about it. It seems that Douglass does not
regard Lincoln as particularly progressive on the question of race; he was a follower or a sharer
in the dominant opinion of the day. However, in this very same section in which Douglass refers
to Lincoln’s prejudices, he explicitly says that “the humblest could approach him and feel at
home in his presence.” This statement echoes what Douglass said elsewhere about the experience
of being in Lincoln’s personal presence. Speaking of his second meeting with Lincoln, Douglass
in his autobiography says:
Mr. Lincoln was not only a great President, but a GREAT MAN—too great to be small in
anything. In his company I was never in any way reminded of my humble origin, or of
my unpopular color.
We might wonder whether the presentation of Lincoln’s racial prejudice is compatible with the
presentation of his capacious and welcoming humanity. Of course, it might be possible for
someone to regard a particular class of people as inferior in certain respects, while still treating
individual members of that class with consideration. Lincoln could have been both prejudiced
and polite. If so, it would still be necessary to explain why Douglass in the Oration chooses to
draw attention to one quality more than the other. Perhaps he wishes to indicate to both blacks
and whites that racial prejudice is not an insuperable obstacle to black advancement or bettered
race relations.
Alternatively, I believe it is possible to interpret Douglass’s remarks in a way consistent
with the view that Lincoln deferred to popular prejudice without fully subscribing to popular
prejudice. The issue might be elucidated by asking “what was the nature of Lincoln’s ‘sharing’ in
white prejudice?” When he describes the relation between Lincoln and “the sentiment of his
13
�country,” Douglass credits Lincoln with being in advance of popular opinion (measured against
which he was “swift, zealous, radical, and determined”). Douglass introduces the key verb
“consult,” claiming that “the sentiment of his country” was something Lincoln “was bound as a
statesman to consult.” To the extent that popular sentiment was unfriendly to blacks, Lincoln’s
sharing in it may have been political, rather than personal—deliberately affected rather than
deeply held. Douglass here conveys a crucial lesson about the limits within which democratic
statesmen operate. Politicians can’t get too far ahead of public opinion if they hope to remain
politically viable. More than others perhaps, black citizens must incorporate this insight into their
assessment of political figures. A “comprehensive view” must “make reasonable allowance for
the circumstances” and not judge on the basis of “stray utterances” or “isolated facts.” In taking
the measure of Lincoln, Douglass shows how granting this latitude of maneuver is compatible
with respect for the burdens of statesmanship as well as the self-respect of citizens.
Douglass tries to model what it looks like to take a comprehensive view of a politician.
His people are new voters and there are two dangers they must avoid. Douglass does not want
blacks to look to politics for a Moses figure, but he doesn’t want them to fall into the opposite
error of cynically seeing only flaws. He shows the possibility of appreciation without idolatry
and criticism without rejection.
Whichever way one comes down on the question of Lincoln’s views on race, Douglass is
emphatic that Lincoln’s attitude toward slavery was above reproach. Douglass quotes from the
atonement passage of the Second Inaugural, in which Lincoln interpreted the Civil War as the
blood price exacted by a just God for the nation’s sins toward the slave. [You remember the
passage: it speaks of the war possibly continuing “until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn
14
�with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.”] Those were lines that Douglass
quoted in nearly every postwar speech he gave that mentioned Lincoln.18 The Second Inaugural’s
solemn invocation of divine reparations, Douglass says, “gives all needed proof of [Lincoln’s]
feeling on the subject of slavery.”
Douglass now revisits an issue he had highlighted earlier. In section 3, when he
mentioned Lincoln’s policy of “opposition to the extension of slavery,” he had stressed Lincoln’s
willingness to “protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the states where it existed.” This
tolerance of slavery in the South was there cited as evidence of Lincoln’s pro-white views. Now,
however, in section 5, Douglass explains that Lincoln acted as he did not because he was
indifferent to the fate of black slaves, but “because he thought that it was so nominated in the
bond.” In other words, he acted out of fidelity to the Constitution. Lincoln’s pre-war willingness
to leave slavery alone in the Southern states does not in any way disprove or lessen his antislavery convictions. Of course, Douglass himself disagreed with Lincoln about what precisely
was “nominated in the bond.” Most notably, Douglass argued that the so-called “fugitive slave”
clause of the Constitution did not, in truth, refer to slaves but rather to indentured servants (who
had signed contracts and could be held to those legal terms). Nonetheless, even though he is not
fully in accord with Lincoln’s reading of the document, Douglass moves his audience toward an
appreciation of constitutional devotion. He is acutely aware that racial progress in the future will
depend upon the fidelity of both blacks and whites to the Constitution—the Constitution as
purified and completed by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.
Fittingly, sections 6 and 7 transcend race altogether. These are the only sections that
make no reference to either whites or blacks. Section 6 describes Lincoln’s early years and his
preparation, through plain speaking and plain dealing, for the great crisis of civil war. Douglass
15
�emphasizes Lincoln’s humble origins: “A son of toil himself he was linked in brotherly
sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the Republic.” In this section, racial division
is overcome and replaced by the class division between the patrician, James Buchanan, who was
willing to allow “national dismemberment,” and the plebeian, Abraham Lincoln, who had “an
oath in heaven” to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. The
division we ought to dwell on, Douglass implies, is that between patriotism and treason.
This theme reaches an apotheosis in section 7 which describes the assassination of
Abraham Lincoln. Despite the “hell-black spirit of revenge” that motivated the crime, Douglass
argues that good has come from it. Dying as a martyr to “union and liberty”—these twin aims
now conjoined and equal—Lincoln has become “doubly dear to us.”19 In his autobiography,
Douglass noted that one effect of the assassination was to bring him into “close accord” with his
white neighbors, feeling, for the first time he said, more like “kin” than “countrymen.”
In the final section of the speech, just one paragraph in length, Douglass comes full
circle, speaking once more to his largely black audience. He tells them: “In doing honor to the
memory of our friend and liberator we have been doing highest honor to ourselves and those
who come after us [emphasis added].” Note that despite the “unfriendly feeling” ascribed to
Lincoln in sections 3 and 5, Lincoln by the end has become “our friend.”20
Through his interpretation and masterful presentation of Lincoln’s statesmanship,
Douglass has knit together the American polity in mutual understanding and appreciation of
Lincoln. Douglass has acted as a statesman himself by demonstrating how memory and
memorialization, done well, might shape a better American future.
In conclusion, let me just say a word about the larger lesson to be drawn from this
speech. Frederick Douglass is best known as an activist. Much of his speaking and writing
16
�involved demands for justice: justice toward blacks, justice toward women, justice toward
laborers. Approached by a young man asking what he should do for the cause of racial justice,
the elderly Douglass is said to have answered “agitate, agitate, agitate.” However, this fabled
agitator also devoted a goodly portion of his public speaking to commemorating the past,
celebrating the founding ideals of the nation, and praising those citizens and public figures who
remained faithful to both the Declaration and the Constitution. In other words, he tried to foster a
spirit of friendship and a unified national consciousness.
Aristotle (the first political scientist) called this homonoia, or like-mindedness. Likemindedness—or thinking the same—about certain crucial matters, is the form of friendship that
should characterize fellow citizens. Aristotle calls this like-mindedness “the greatest of goods for
the political order” (Politics 2.4.6). It lessens civic strife among the parts or parties that are
always present in any larger collective. Diversity—without this foundation of like-mindedness—
is a recipe for growing discord. Like-mindedness allows cooperation and trust to replace
contentiousness and suspicion. Aristotle argued that lawmakers should pursue this sort of
friendship more than justice even, since civic friendship leads to justice and does so without
having to involve the coercive bite of the law (Ethics 8.1). In friendship, what is right and what is
pleasing come naturally together. For a model of how to encourage this civic friendship, there
are very few who equal Frederick Douglass.
Especially in our contemporary moment, as protests have erupted over incidents of racial
injustice, as well as over statues and memorials that are thought to symbolize and contribute to
ongoing injustice, I can’t think of a better resource than Frederick Douglass. He is one of our
nation’s greatest fighters against injustice and he took very seriously the topic of public
commemoration. It matters intensely who we memorialize and how we understand the past.
17
�Let me mention just a couple of things that distinguish Douglass from today’s protestors
and progressives. While Douglass was a fierce critic of our national transgressions, he also
believed deeply in the American project. He considered the principles of the Declaration of
Independence to be “saving principles” and he considered the Constitution to be “a great liberty
document.” He criticized the nation from the perspective of its own highest ideals, calling us to
live up to our professions. Although he could be bitingly satirical, he was never cynical. He was
always ready to find and praise what was good and generous and true in the American
experiment. I am worried that this spirit of gratitude is being lost. There is a very deep alienation
expressed in much contemporary rhetoric and action. Over the last summer, this hostility went so
far as to threaten the Freedmen’s Monument itself with destruction. There are many reasons to
preserve the monument, including that it was the site of one of Douglass’s most significant
speeches and that it marks what Douglass called his people’s first “national act”—the act by
which they translated their gratitude for emancipation into an enduring work of art. The
controversy over the monument will be salutary if it leads us to revisit its history and reread
Douglass’s speech. He can help us toward a more thoughtful and nuanced patriotism.
Lerone Bennett, Jr. Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream (Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company,
2007).
2
Diana J. Schaub, “Frederick Douglass’s Constitution,” in The American Experiment: Essays on the Theory and
Practice of Liberty, ed. Peter Augustine Lawler and Robert Martin Schaefer (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
1994).
3
Lucas Morel has spoken and written insightfully on the “Oration.” See “America’s First Black President?:
Lincoln’s Legacy of Political Transcendence” (2001) and “Frederick Douglass’s Emancipation of Abraham
Lincoln” (2005). See also the excellent recent article by Peter C. Myers, “‘A Good Work for Our Race To-Day’:
Interests, Virtues, and the Achievement of Justice in Frederick Douglass’ Freedmen’s Monument Speech,”
American Political Science Review, Vol. 104, No. 2 (May 2010).
4
Frederick Douglass, “To W.J. Wilson,” in The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, ed. Philip S. Foner (New
York: International Publishers, 1975), 4:173.
5
Ibid., 4:172.
6
Frederick Douglass, “To Harriet Beecher Stowe,” March 8, 1853, in Writings, 2:229-236.
1
18
�See especially “What the Black Man Wants, speech at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society at Boston, April 1865,” in Writings, 4:157-165.
8
Ibid., 4:172.
9
Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
See especially “The Nation’s Problem: An Address Delivered in Washington, D.C., on 16 April 1889,” in The
Frederick Douglass Papers, ed. John W. Blassingame (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 5:414-416.
12
“Inaugural Ceremonies of the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln Washington City, April 14 th,
1876,” available online through the Frederick Douglass Papers of the Library of Congress.
13
http://www.richardscenter.psu.edu/Documents/ArlingtonNationalCemeteryTour.pdf.
14
“Inaugural Ceremonies of the Freedmen’s Memorial Monument to Abraham Lincoln Washington City, April 14th,
1876.” http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mfd/18/18006/0009.jpg. http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mfd/18/18006/0010.jpg.
15
Douglass cited these lines from Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (Canto II, Stanza LXXVI) often, including
in “What Are the Colored People Doing for Themselves?” The North Star, July 14, 1848 in Life and Writings,
1:315.
16
Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862 in Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865
(NY: The Library of America, 1989), 358.
17
At the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922, the keynote address was given by Dr. Robert Moton, Booker
T. Washington’s successor as president of Tuskegee Institute. Douglass might have been intrigued to learn that
Moton spoke not of Union, but of Liberty, fixing Lincoln’s claim to greatness in “the word that gave freedom to a
race.” In the draft of his speech, Moton proceeded to transform the Negro’s debt to Lincoln into the nation’s
(unpaid) debt to the Negro, a rhetorical move that displeased the organizers and forced Moton to tone down his talk
of a “great unfinished work” of “equal opportunity.” Even with the edits, however, the focus of the speech was
emancipation. Almost a half-century later, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would sound a very similar theme in his “I
Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
18
See especially, “The Black Man’s Debt to Abraham Lincoln,” 12 February 1888, and “Abraham Lincoln, the
Great Man of Our Century,” 13 February 1893, both in Blassingame, volume 5.
19
Walt Whitman’s lecture, “Death of Abraham Lincoln,” first delivered in 1879, further develops the meaning of
Lincoln’s martyrdom.
20
Douglass’s eulogy of his fellow abolitionist Wendell Phillips provides an interesting point of comparison.
Douglass asserts that “none have a better right” to honor the memory of Phillips than “the colored people of the
United States.” Although he was active for a variety of causes, Phillips “was primarily and pre-eminently the
colored man’s friend, . . . The cause of the slave was his first love; and from it he never wavered, but was true and
steadfast through life.” “Wendell Phillips Cast his Lot with the Slave: An Address Delivered in Washington, D.C.,
on 22 February 1884,” in Blassingame, vol. 5, 151-2.
7
19
�
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St. John's College Lecture Transcripts—Santa Fe
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College at the Santa Fe, NM campus.
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19 pages
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Learning to love Lincoln : Frederick Douglass's journey from grievance to gratitude
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript of a lecture given on December 4, 2020 by Diana Schaub as part of the Dean's Lecture and Concert Series. The Dean's Office provided this description of the event: "Having originally been a severe critic of Abraham Lincoln, the radical abolitionist Frederick Douglass grew to appreciate Lincoln’s prudential statesmanship. In his 1876 'Oration in Memory of Lincoln' he recapitulated that intellectual and emotional journey for the benefit of all Americans.
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Schaub, Diana J., 1959-
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St. John's College
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Santa Fe, NM
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2020-12-04
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text
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pdf
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Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
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English
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SF_SchaubD_Learning_to_Love_Lincoln_2020-12-04
Friday night lecture
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c3e6a7bbb9255c371202a702448fb48f.mp3
ec289b819046893bf146fcf4f143b196
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Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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00:56:38
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Frederick Douglass on Force and Persuasion
Description
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Audio recording of a lecture delivered on November 21, 1997, by Steven Crockett as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
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Crockett, Steven
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Annapolis, MD
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1997-11-21
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A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make an audio recording of my lecture available online. Make typescript copies of my lecture available for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library. Make a copy of my typescript available online."
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sound
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Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
Oratory
Antislavery movements
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English
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LEC_Crocket_Steven_1997-11-21_ac
Friday night lecture
Tutors
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