Free Republic

The two men came from extremely modest means, one even more than the other. Primarily because each understood the rare power of self-education and the gift of books, both went on to have lives of remarkable celebrity, accomplishing extraordinary things for our nation.One was born in a humble one-room cabin in Kentucky. The other was born into slavery in Maryland. In time, they became two of America’s greatest, most consequential leaders during our nation’s most trying time.Frederick Douglass taught himself how to read, recognizing in his earliest years that education could be “the pathway from slavery to freedom.” He escaped...

Another testament to the public education system in America, idiots tore down a statue of Frederick Douglass, the fierce abolitionist. A statue of the former slave in Rochester, New York, was reportedly torn down and removed sometime over the Fourth of July weekend.  A Frederick Douglas statue in Maplewood Park was removed from its base overnight. pic.twitter.com/J43hqxuHTT— Atyia Collins (@Atyia_Collins) July 5, 2020 The base of a Frederick Douglass statue torn down overnight here in Maplewood Park. Bits of the statue scattered around the area. @News_8 pic.twitter.com/L6qgV7bVH2— Ben Densieski (@BenDensieski) July 5, 2020 After escaping slavery, Douglass became a leader...

Protests over the horrific police killing of George Floyd infamously devolved into riots and looting that destroyed black lives, black livelihoods, and even black monuments. The iconoclastic vandals who began by toppling Confederate monuments moved on to defacing statues of America’s Founders, Indian nationalists like Mahatma Gandhi, and even a monument to the 54th Massachusetts regiment, the first black volunteers to fight for the Union in the Civil War. Yet one of the most grotesque acts of vandalism came on Sunday when vandals toppled a statue of former slave Frederick Douglass in Rochester, N.Y. Vandals somehow removed the Douglass statue...

Friends and Fellow-citizens: I warmly congratulate you upon the highly interesting object which has caused you to assemble in such numbers and spirit as you have today. This occasion is in some respects remarkable. Wise and thoughtful men of our race, who shall come after us, and study the lesson of our history in the United States; who shall survey the long and dreary spaces over which we have traveled; who shall count the links in the great chain of events by which we have reached our present position, will make a note of this occasion; they will think of...

Sen. Ted Cruz gave Colin Kaepernick a history lesson on Thursday after the former San Francisco 49ers player posted a quote from abolitionist Frederick Douglass on Independence Day. “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? This Fourth of July is yours, not mine…There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour,” Kaepernick tweeted, quoting from Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech, which was delivered on July 5, 1852 to the Rochester Ladies’...

Too many people believe that slavery is a "peculiar institution." That's what Kenneth Stampp called slavery in his book, "Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South." But slavery is by no means peculiar, odd or unusual. It was common among ancient peoples such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks, Persians, Armenians and many others. Large numbers of Christians were enslaved during the Ottoman wars in Europe. White slaves were common in Europe from the Dark Ages to the Middle Ages. It was only after A.D. 1600 that Europeans joined with Arabs and Africans and started the Atlantic slave trade....

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress. It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them,...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison. In Washington, D.C., one of our most stately buildings is undergoing an extensive renovation. The Free Public Library, Northeast Branch is probably the library closest to Capitol Hill. And this red brick structure, with its stylish quoined corners, when it reopens, promises to bring even more opportunities for study and reflection to this thriving community. We would like to suggest renaming this library after Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass was, with Abraham Lincoln, the greatest example of what nineteenth century Americans meant when they defended “the right to rise.” Millions of Americans,...

Being a former member of the Republican party, I don’t often indulge my occasional desire to offer the GOP messaging advice. But every time I hear Barack Obama say something like this . . . It took time to free the slaves. It took time for women to get the vote. . . . I wish the Republicans would response with an ad that says: “Yes, it took time to free the slaves. Time and a Republican president. One who had the courage of his convictions.” As for women’s suffrage, the debate about the relative timing and importance of enfranchising...

It was generally supposed that slavery in the State of Maryland existed in its mildest form, and that it was totally divested of those harsh and terrible peculiarities which characterized the slave system in the Southern and South Western States of the American Union. The ground of this opinion was the contiguity of the free States, and the influence of their moral, religious, and humane sentiments. Public opinion was, indeed, a measurable restraint upon the cruelty and barbarity of masters, overseers, and slave-drivers, whenever and wherever it could reach them; but there were certain secluded and out of the way...