Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

With the war ended and slavery abolished, Douglass is at a crossroads in terms of a future life direction. Blight asks, “How would the drumbeating war propagandist, visionary of an apocalyptic struggle for black freedom [...] convert overnight into new roles and vocations? What would he do after abolition?” (464).

The orator discovers a lucrative source of income in going back on the lecture circuit since he can now command large speaker’s fees wherever he appears. Douglass is also finally able to abandon his newspaper because his essays are welcome in some of the nation’s most widely read periodicals. He continues to fret over the Black suffrage question, especially with the introduction of the Fourteenth Amendment that guarantees equal rights under the law to all men. The amendment does not explicitly call for universal male suffrage as a right, so Douglass continues to harp on that issue in all his speeches.

The Black suffrage issue becomes all the more urgent once Andrew Johnson becomes president after Lincoln’s assassination. Johnson is a pro-slavery southerner who turns a blind eye to abuses already cropping up in the South during Reconstruction. This bias enrages radical Republicans who enlist Douglass into their cause.