Examining Frederick Douglass, The Constitutional Promise, And the American Dilemma

By Jason Hollander

Several years ago James A. Colaiaco, a master teacher in the General Studies Program of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, decided to expand his course on “Great Books” to include African American authors. His interest in the American civil rights movement led him to write a book on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s militant nonviolent method of protest.

In his latest work, Colaiaco analyzes the rhetoric and ideas of Frederick Douglass’s powerful July 4th oration, delivered in Rochester, N.Y in 1852.

Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), describes how Douglass became the foremost spokesperson for more than three million slaves in the United States prior to the Civil War. His study of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution convinced him that these founding documents could be valuable legal instruments for the abolition of slavery. An escaped slave who taught himself to read as a child, Douglass emerged as a world-renowned abolitionist and orator.

NYU Today recently spoke to Colaiaco about Douglass and the campaign he led to change popular opinion.

NYU Today: What were Frederick Douglass’s most significant contributions to the abolitionist movement in America?

James Colaiaco: Before the Civil War, no one articulated better than Frederick Douglass the American dilemma, the contradiction between slavery and the nation’s ideals of liberty and equal rights professed in the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution.

Douglass was also the 19th-century’s most eloquent defender of the Constitution in arguing against slavery. Abraham Lincoln, along with many other Americans, believed that the federal government had been empowered by the Constitution to only prevent the spread of slavery into the territories. Douglass disagreed, insisting that, read correctly, the Constitution was a great abolition document. He sought to convince the nation to fulfill the Constitution’s ethical objectives stated explicitly in its Preamble: to promote liberty, justice, and the general welfare.

How did Douglass go about conveying this message?
In his July 4th oration—entitled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”—Douglass hailed the Constitution as a liberty document. He knew that many of the nation’s founders had owned slaves and that the Constitution included compromises with the institution of slavery. Nevertheless, he noted that the words “slave” and “slavery” were omitted from the original document. Douglass sought to capitalize on this omission, insisting that it was deliberate.

In several speeches prior to the Civil War, he argued that the intentions of a legal document, including the Constitution, must be found only in its express words. Spurred by the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857, Douglass challenged the opinion of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney that black people had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” The original Constitution, Douglass argued, never explicitly denied black people these rights.

Douglass incorporated this ethical interpretation into his July 4th oration. The fact that the nation dared to celebrate while more than three million black people remained enslaved led him to denounce America’s hypocrisy. He used the speaker’s platform in Rochester to proclaim that the Fourth of July should be regarded not as a day for national celebration but for national mourning.

Why did you choose to focus your book on his July 4th speech?
For me, Douglass’s 1852 July 4th oration is the greatest abolitionist speech of the 19th-century given by the greatest orator of the 19th-century. The challenge was to credit America for its great ideals while attacking the evil of slavery at the same time. My book uses the speech, which is a rhetorical masterpiece, as a springboard to tell the story of Douglass’s life and the story of America prior to the Civil War, a tragedy that he predicted but tried desperately to convince the nation to avert.

How effective was this speech and others he made in terms of enacting social change?
Frederick Douglass was a powerful presence in America. He became an international figure celebrated as a leader in the cause for human rights. The 1852 July 4th oration, some 30 pages in length, was immediately published as a pamphlet and widely distributed. His depiction of the horrors of slavery in speeches, in addition to his three autobiographies written over a span of 50 years, did much to arouse the consciences of many in the North to join the fight against slavery. His argument for an anti-slavery reading of the Constitution was more effective than the arguments of his abolitionist contemporaries.

What would Douglass think of Black History Month?
I think that Frederick Douglass would agree on the importance of recognizing the contributions of black Americans to our history. At the same time, he would not want Black History Month to distract us from doing much more to fulfill the nation’s liberal ideals for all Americans, regardless of race or gender. Douglass believed that only when the American dilemma is resolved can we fully celebrate the Fourth of July