Nineteen years after Britain abolished slavery throughout the Empire, Fredrick Douglass could declare in frustration, “I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ringbolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny…. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost….The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration…..I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future”.
When was that written? I’d say it was before the Civil War.