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Frederick
Douglass, 1845, from his autobiography,
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
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As
a youth, Frederick Douglass labored as a slave in rural Maryland
and in Baltimore. He knew kind masters and harsh ones. Recalling
his desire for freedom, he late wrote: "My feelings were not
the result of any marked cruelty in the treatment I received;
they sprang from the consideration of my being a slave at
all. It was slavery, not its mere incidents, that I hated."
In
1836 Douglass escaped to the North. Three years later, he
began to lecture for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
He soon became an internationally renowned spokesman for abolitionism
and other reform movements, including women's rights. Douglass
fought slavery on many fronts. He sheltered runaway slaves,
edited several antislavery newspapers, and wrote an autobiography
that was a powerful indictment of slavery.
During
the Civil War, Douglass met many times with Abraham Lincoln,
urging the president to emancipate the slaves and enlist African-Americans
in the Union army. He later held various public offices, including
that of American ambassador to Haiti. To the end of his life
Douglass challenged America to live up to its professed ideals.
In 1876 he asked his fellow citizens, "The question now is:
Do you mean to make good to us the promises in your Constitution?"
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