Blight notes
David Blight, Frederick Douglass’s Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 1991) ISBN: 9780807117248 – 89
Post 1
Blight situates Douglass’s life as an illustration of the progression from slavery to anti-slavery to black self-empowerment. Douglass’s context fits within such a scenario because the African-American started as an enslaved person, transitioned to a formerly enslaved person, and became empowered following persistent efforts and a demonstration of eloquence. Also, Douglass’s actions are emphasized during a period when significant campaigns examined the issue of slavery and abolitionism.
Blight hopes to demonstrate the oratory prowess of Douglass, among other evidence of the individual’s intellect. In addition, he hopes to demonstrate that Douglass was a nationalist by highlighting the African-American view about nationalist perspectives of slavery and the republican campaign’s impact on America’s outlook. Emphasizing Douglass’s abolitionism and black self-empowerment perspectives alongside the character’s actions thought the century attempts to fund the view that the values and world views defined the individual.
The author likes for us to understand Douglass’s evolution as a progression of four phases during his life and a fifth that continues beyond his demise. Blight acknowledges that Douglass was enslaved. The second phase of evolution examines a fugitive slave’s perspective of life in the unemancipated United States of America. The third phase of Douglass’s evolution emphasizes post-slavery deliberation on racism, and the fourth phase examines the individual’s involvement in the civil war. The fifth phase emphasizes Douglass’s incompleteness at death. The first and second phases align with Douglass’s experiences with nationalism. The third and fourth phases align with Blight’s perceptions of Douglass as an abolitionist. The fifth phase supports Blight’s depiction of the character as a campaigner for black self-empowerment. Douglass’s fifth phase was incomplete, pending the abolition of slavery.
Blight identifies the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Supreme Court Dred Scott decision, John Brown’s abolitionism campaign, the U.S. Civil War, and the expansion of slavery to the western U.S. as the influences shaping Douglass’s worldview. The sources defined Douglass’s perspective on slavery and the individual’s responsibility to be self-empowered toward desired life outcomes.
Douglass emerges as a representative voice. The individual represents the slave community beyond his freedom. Douglass maintains contact with the community and understands the issues ailing the population. He explores the knowledge to argue on behalf of the community and demands the right of the larger African-American community. The individual maintains a disagreeable relationship with representative figures supporting alternative thought.
Blight characterizes Douglass as an agitator. He depicts the individuals as a force emphasizing the rights and freedom of black people. The biography identifies with efforts and campaigns for the right of black people to be highlighted within the constitutions. Douglass’s relationships to race and nation exemplify the individual’s attempt to challenge President Lincoln. Douglass perceived a need for political reforms and challenged the relevant individuals to perceive a contrasting perspective of reality.
Post 2
Frederick Douglass’ Civil War explores Frederick Douglass’ evolving actions and mindset pre, during, and post the Civil War. In chapter 4, Blight notes how Douglass became a war propagandist where he wanted to paint slaveholders and the South as the ultimate enemy. Douglass utilized the strategy of “dehumanization of the enemy.” (83) where he “portrayed slaveholders as inherently depraved, natural criminals;” (84) This strategy mimics slave holders tactics where they dehumanized black people in order to justify slavery. I think it is super interesting how Douglass adopted a similar strategy in order to assist in the war in hopes of abolition of slavery. Blight did not directly say that Douglass adopted this type of strategy while being a war propagandist, but noted that Douglass’ autobiography told his story of “the fugitive slave who overcomes slavery, liberates himself through knowledge and will, and joins the public crusade to destroy the system that could not destroy him.” (88-89) and that Douglass reading of The Columbian Orator helped him understand how to resist slavery.
On page 95, Blight briefly discussed the changing opinon by Douglass towards slave revolts, which reminded me of the reading, Tacky’s Revolt. Blight discussed political differences between Douglass and his colleagues where Lewis Tappan was “still a strong adherent of nonviolence” (95) and Douglass advocated for revolts following John Brown’s raid. In Tacky’s Revolt we saw political differences between enslaved people where some refused to join fellow enslaved people due to various reasons. I thought Blight expanded on this idea of political differences by showing how black people made the decisions of advocating and particpating in slave revolts. Even though Lewis Tappan was a white man, Blight introduces readers to political differences between abolitionists, while showing how Douglass made the decision to support revolts and his disagreements with colleagues. Blight also noted that Douglass saw how slave rebellions instilled fear in the minds of slaveholders. (96) where Tacky’s Revolt discussed how the Coromantee War and Tacky’s Revolt instilled fear within Jamaican slave society where colonists were on “high alert.” (Brown, 223) of future rebellions.
Blight also discussed opinions in which Douglass did not have changing views on, specifically one that focused on black people moving away from America. Blight noted that Douglass did not support emigration, but “seemed even more understanding” (130) at one point for Haitian emigration. I thought this debate represented tension between the black community during the pre and post Civil War years that expands on our previous readings in which free black people in America adopted white clothing and ways of speaking that angered enslaved people and other free blacks who did not agree with adopting ways of white culture. Another example of tension within the black community was when Douglass came out in support of black men enlisting in the Civil War in the North. Blight noted that some black groups did not support this idea where the Christian Recorder “interpreted the war as a crisis among white men and therefore not a black man’s struggle.” (149) and distrust towards the North was held among certain black people. The reunion between Douglass and his brother, Perry, also represented tension within the black community when Douglass and his children noted that Perry and his family, who had just been released from slavery, had “constrasts” (197) between one another where Douglass once described his brother ““as if he had lived on another planet.”” (197) The reunion also demonstrated class tensions throughout the black community as well as tension within families.
Post 3
Blight’s Frederick Douglass’ Civil War examines Frederick Douglass’s thoughts and ideologies as they shifted through the middle of the nineteenth century. Blight traces the ideological shifts Douglass went through, including turning points caused by his split with William Llyod Garrison’s Abolitionist ideals, Abraham Lincoln’s election, and the civil war. Blight pays special attention to Douglass’s resilience in the face of conflict from all sides. One of the most fascinating aspects of Douglass that Blight covered was Douglass’ shifting relationship with religion, and how despite the fact that Douglass didn’t technically ascribe to any formal organized religion, he did believe in divine intervention into history and that this belief effected his view of the civil war and emmancipation. I thought this was fascinating, and it reminded me of Gomez’s (I think it was Gomez, but I may be mistaken) categorizations of African American historiography and made me curios as to where exactly Douglass’s own writings would fit.
That being said, I was overall unimpressed with Blights work. While the book certainly taught me a few things about Douglass and his changing ideologies, as well as his resilience and eloquence, I felt as though the book wasn’t really self-contained. To me, Blight’s work read as though it was meant to compliment other works, not stand alone on its own. This may be because of the historiography that Blight is contributing to, but it felt as though he expected the reader to have a notable amount of previous knowledge on Douglass. As someone who knows a bit about Douglass, though obviously more now, there were times I felt like I knew what Blight was discussing and points where I felt fairly lost because I didn’t have that background knowledge. Even though I didn’t particularly enjoy this work, I do feel encouraged to read Blight’s more recent biography of Douglass (2018) as I think that may fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge.
Post 4
I am excited to get into this week’s assigned reading, as Frederick Douglass is one of my favorite people in all of history to study on account of his intelligence, eloquence, and resilient spirit. David Blight’s 1989 monograph Frederick Douglass’ Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee examines how Frederick Douglass’s intellectual and ideological abolitionist expressions resonated within the context of the chaotic 1850s, including controversies surrounding whether slavery should have been expanded to western U.S. territories, the infamous Supreme Court Dred Scott decision, the Compromise of 1850, the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, the radical abolitionism of John Brown, the violence that erupted in the Kansas territory following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the U.S. Civil War, and Reconstruction (Blight 17-8, 23, 42-3, 48-9, 93-4, 96-9, 190, 195-6). Blight contends that these important historical events in the mid-nineteenth century United States were important cruxes that shaped Frederick Douglass’s nationalist, abolitionist, and Black self-empowerment ideological development, along with Douglass’s personal experiences with the Garrisonians in the early-to-mid-1840s, his break with the Garrisonians in the late 1840s, and his friendships and mentorships with notable abolitionists such as Julia Griffiths, Gerrit Smith, and Salmon Chase (Blight 19-22, 26-9, 30-2). Through this contextualization of Douglass’s evolution as a man, a leader, a politician, an activist, and an orator, we as readers are able to better understand the conditions that produced the ideals and the advocacy for which Frederick Douglass is known and revered, thus allowing us to comprehend how Douglass and his ideals were a product of his time, place, lived experiences, and personal and professional circles. Blight ultimately notes that these developments forged Douglass’s support of an anti-colonial, interracial American nationalism as part of a “national regeneration” resolving the national moral degeneracy borne from the rule of unChristian, slave-owning “demagogues” to ferment the true implementation of American democracy, liberty, and justice in a newer, better Union borne from the ashes of a Civil War obliterating centuries-old slave societies in a blaze of righteous justice; Blight’s text also reveals how these developments forged Douglass’s understanding that Black men and women were the makers of their destiny whose triumphs and struggles would exemplify the very nuances of the American experience and republican experiment (Blight 23-4, 28, 57-8, 116-7, 240).
In the epilogue of his monograph, Blight notes the significance of Douglass’s autobiographies in acknowledging the intellectual and ideological evolution of the abolitionist. In his third autobiography published after Reconstruction ended, Douglass defined his life in five stages: the first, his time as a slave; the second, his status as a fugitive upon escaping enslavement; the third, the life of “comparative freedom” as he contended with anti-Black racism in the antebellum North; the fourth, the “conflict and battle” of the Civil War; and the last, the life of an incomplete, imperfect victory upon the death of slavery and constitutional provisions for African Americans’ rights as citizens (Blight 240). Acknowledging these stages, Blight writes, “autobiography must be interpreted with caution, but the stages Douglass gave his life are instructive. They represent the turning points that define his career. They also suggest the significance of the Civil War in his long and divided life” (Blight 240).
Post 5
As someone who only posseses a rudimentary awareness of Frederick Douglass’s life (my only prior interactions having anything to do with him were reading his Narrative when I was in high school, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?, and seeing Daveed Diggs’ rather humorous portrayal of Douglass in The Good Lord Bird television adaptation), I found Blight’s work to be an enlightening picture of a complicated human being who is rightfully one of the more well-known public intellectuals and activists in American history.
Blight’s work, true to its title, is a portrait of dichotomies and contradictions. On the one hand Douglas was an idealist who wanted to eradicate not only the institution of slavery, but also the racism upon which it rested, thereby bringing about a true spirit of equality between blacks and whites. He clearly had a vision of a more just world to which he was absolutely and sincerely dedicated. He appears to have held to the notion that human nature was essentially good and that the angels of our better nature would certainly prevail On the other hand, Douglass was also a political realist sought to bring about change in the most effective manner he knew how. He was a calculating politician, keen to tie black suffering with Northern white complaints about the disporportionate influence of Southern slaveholders over the US government. He eventually moved toward embracing a view of the US constitution as having emancipatory intentions (which, as Blight notes, is a bit dubious, and I myself am not entirely sure how much Douglass actually believed this) and cautiously working with the nascent Republican party. The dichotomy between a revolutionary spirit and embodying von Bismarck’s famous assertion of politics being the art of the possible is palpable throughout and really makes for interesting reading. Of course, Blight also exmplicitly draws a connection between Douglass’ own contradictory personality and the famous two-souled picture illustrated by Du Bois much later. It seems safe to assert that Douglass represented this larger conflict in microcosm, making him an especially interesting figure of study.
Post 6
Blight’s work on Frederick Douglass attempts to track the shifting ideology that Douglass holds with the content of the Civil War as the turning point in his world view. In this account, Blight takes a biographical lens on Douglass as a stand-alone historical actor to explain the ways Douglass’ views on religion and racial politics such as emancipation changed as Douglass experienced them. For me, this was one of the few experiences I have reading about Douglass in terms of historical context. While he was commonly mentioned in my history courses, more commonly I read of him in English classes and the story of him learning to read from Mrs. Auld during his time living in Maryland during his early years. I always found this to be a really interesting story that changed my perception of the slave story and emphasizes the need for localized histories as region and time impact the ways in which slaves lived and were treated.
It was very interesting to gain a larger perspective on Douglass as an individual but also, I think Blight is attempting to create a complicated and ambitious work in his attempt to consolidate and streamline the ways in which Douglass’ world view shifts. While I think this would be possible as a project, I feel like there are holes in terms of creating definitive conclusions as people are complex and contradictory as Blight even acknowledges.
I thought Douglass’ viewpoint through the lens of religion to be very interesting as it relates to emancipation and the future of African Americans. Blight explains that Douglass sees the emancipation and the rights of the former enslaved as being guaranteed through divine intervention which I think is very idealistic. Thinking critically of this world view claimed by Blight and how it impacts the choices of Douglass as a historical actor, why would Douglass become a leader in the fight for emancipation and take on hard challenges to end the institution of slavery if he feels it is going to end because of divine intervention? I think this line of thought displays the ways that Douglass, like all historical actors have free will and agency despite there intrinsic beliefs.
This work helps to add to the historiography of African American history through its outline of one of the influential leaders within the African American community and by creating a work that portrays the actions and reactions of Douglass. However, I am having a difficult time “grouping” this work with other authors from our course so far as this seems to stand out as different in its scope and purpose. Further, I found this work to simply fall a bit short in attempting to convince the reader of its claims. Historical actors have free will and the ability to adapt and make choices that go against their core beliefs and values. I think this work is attempting to be definitive when it could draw on other authors and historical actors to make its point more clear. That being said, it is clear that Blight has extensive knowledge on Douglass and his life and this book helps to add to the discussion of his value to the historical narrative.
Post 7
David W. Blight’s Frederick Douglass’ Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee draws a portrait of Douglass and his political thought during the later decades of the 1800’s. Blight describes the early split between Douglass and the Garrison family over how to make Abolition a reality. He then details the way Douglass came to embrace the founding documents, the Constitution, Declaration, and Bill of Rights. Douglass had dismissed them as useless, but came to see them as rhetorical weapons to attack slaveholding. Douglass was giddy at the prospect of division and war in 1861. He became the voice of war propaganda, taking every opportunity to demonize every living thing south of the Ohio river. The “Slavepower” became a strawman that demanded every punishment Abolitionists could dream up.
Blight describes the ways Douglass opposed emigration as a solution to black oppression. Douglass sympathized with those who saw leaving as a solution, but imagined his own place as being American. However, as his hope for emancipation faded, Douglass looked abroad. Douglass was even thinking of leaving, himself. Blight says ” . . . had the war not started when it did, Douglass would have even more warmly supported Haitian emigration as one option for this people” (pp 133).
Douglass refused to go to war without an officer’s commission, but he sent his sons to fight. Douglass worked as a recruiter for the war effort. When the war ground to a halt in 1865, Douglass occupied himself with the state of the freedmen. Douglass made suffrage a new cause. To that effect, he compared the new Irish immigrants to native blacks. As someone who was conspicuously close to a white English lady, Douglass hated the Irish. “Douglass was fond of Irish jokes, and made special use of them on the suffrage issue. He often entertained his lecture audiences with tales of drunken Pat,” (pp 181).
Long after the war, Douglass worked to keep sectional and racial differences awake and alive. Each Decoration Day, he offered an oration praising the Union and damning the Confederacy. He made despised the “Lost Cause” mythology embraced by the sons and daughters of southern soldiers. Robert E. Lee, in particular, earned his scorn. When Lee passed away in 1870, five years after his surrender to Grant, Douglass wrote: “We can scarcely take up a newspaper . . . that is not filled with nauseating flatteries of the late Robert E. Lee.” (pp 229) Douglass never really recovered from the Abolitionist years. When the war was over, Douglass kept right on going. Blight says ” Douglass had never really wanted a Carthaginian peace, but it seemed that he was left out of the nation’s happy reunion,” (pp 233). Douglass never got his peace.