Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass

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is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.

      During the fifty years following the publication of the Narrative, Douglass was a forthright advocate for human rights, and not only of black people. He and Anna provided a temporary home to hundreds of escaped slaves as part of the Underground Railroad. When slavery ended with the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, he regularly spoke out for the civil and voting rights that became enshrined in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

      In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.

      In 1882, after over forty years of marriage, Anna died. Before long, though, Douglass married a white woman suffragist and abolitionist, Helen Pitts, who was about the age of his oldest daughter. Amid the controversy, Douglass said: “This proves I am impartial. My first wife was the color of my mother and the second, the color of my father.”

      He was also an early campaigner for black children's education, and against the racial segregation of education. In the Civil War, he argued that black Americans should be able to fight on the Union side.

      After Rutherford B. Hayes became president in 1876, Douglass was appointed marshal to the District of Columbia. It was the first ever Senate-approved posting of a high-level job to a black man and, although it involved few duties, provided a handsome stipend. In 1878, he was able to buy a 20-room home overlooking Washington D.C. “Cedar Hill” is now a federally run museum, the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.

      Photograph of the portrait of Douglass in mid-1880s with second wife Helen (sitting).Douglass in mid-1880s with second wife Helen (sitting). Photographer unknown

      Douglass died on February 20, 1895, having just returned from a women's rights meeting, where he had been escorted onto the stage by Susan B. Anthony.

      His writings and speeches fill many volumes. He became revered by many, black and white, and was one of the most photographed Americans of the nineteenth century. Schools and buildings are named after him.

      Douglass made an indelible impression on American life.

      The Library of Congress is a rich source of Frederick Douglass's manuscripts and correspondence. Many of his earlier writings and papers were destroyed in an arson attack on his home in Rochester, New York, in 1872, but the LC collection still contains over 7,000 items and 38,000 images. Many of the materials are available online.

      Collections of his works include John W. Blassingame, et al, The Frederick Douglass Papers, (3 vols., Yale University Press, 1979), and Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings, (edited by Philip S. Foner, abridged and adapted by Yuval Taylor, 1999).

      The most comprehensive modern biographies are William S. McFeely's Frederick Douglass (1991) and David W. Blight's Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (2018).

      Debra Newman Ham is a former professor of history at Morgan State University (1986–1995), and also served as an archivist and African American history specialist at the National Archives (1970–1986) and the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress (1986–1995). Books include Black History: A Guide to Civilian Records in the National Archives (1984), and The African-American Mosaic: A Guide to Black History Resources in the Library of Congress (1993).

      Tom Butler-Bowdon is the author of the bestselling 50 Classics series, which brings the ideas of important books to a wider audience. Titles include 50 Philosophy Classics, 50 Psychology Classics, 50 Politics Classics, 50 Self-Help Classics and 50 Economics Classics.

      As series editor for the Capstone Classics series, Tom has written Introductions to Plato's The Republic, Machiavelli's The Prince, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, and Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich.

      Tom is a graduate of the London School of Economics and the University of Sydney.

       www.Butler-Bowdon.com

      In the month of August, 1841, I attended an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to become acquainted with Frederick Douglass, the writer of the following Narrative. He was a stranger to nearly every member of that body; but, having recently made his escape from the southern prison-house of bondage, and feeling his curiosity excited to ascertain the principles and measures of the abolitionists, – of whom he had heard a somewhat vague description while he was a slave, – he was induced to give his attendance, on the occasion alluded to, though at that time a resident in New Bedford.

      I shall never forget his first speech at the convention – the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind – the powerful impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise – the applause

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