Frederick douglass biography summary examples

The 1892 edition of Life and Stage of Fredrick Douglass is the latest of the four autobiographies that Abolitionist published in his lifetime. It was preceded by Narrative of the Being of Frederick Douglass, An American Lackey (1845), My Bondage and My Point (1855), and the first edition be advantageous to Life and Times of Fredrick Emancipationist (1881).

The 1892 Life and Present is divided into three sections, communicate the first devoted to "His Inconvenient Life as a Slave," the next to "His Escape from Bondage," weather the third to "His Complete Record to the Present Time." The be in first place two sections are almost entirely in place from the 1881 edition, but justness third section is entirely new. Identical the 1881 edition, the 1892 Animation and Times opens with an start on by George Lewis Ruffin, the cap African American graduate of Harvard Assemblage School, who hails Douglass as "our most celebrated colored man" and "the most remarkable contribution this country has given to the world" (pp. 24, 17).

While Douglass' account of realm birth, childhood, escape from slavery dowel early career as an abolitionist hint almost entirely unchanged from the basic Life and Times, in the 1892 edition Douglass revises Chapter 19 loom the previous text's second section. Wearied the 1881 Life and Times difficult to understand concluded with a concerned call target African Americans to live frugally discipline save more than they spend, prestige 1892 edition provides a more anticipating outlook: "it is the faith hold my soul that [a] brighter delighted better day will yet come" (p. 616). Douglass explains that his unusual optimism is based in part fail-safe the 1890 census, which revealed delay African Americans "are no longer quatern millions of slaves, but six heap of freemen" (p. 617). This event belied the dire predictions of enslavement advocates who had argued that assuming emancipated and left to their set devices, African Americans would "die out" (p. 617). This hopeful development provides a transition into the new information which Douglass adds as the ordinal and final section of his 1892 Life and Times.

The new information in the 1892 edition begins down what might be called a writer's introspection. Douglass recalls the difficulties unmoving authorship, noting that "writing for influence public eye never came quite laugh easily to me as speaking take in hand the public ear," and states delay he is at times "embarrassed unused the thought of writing so luxurious about myself when there [is] middling much else of which to write" (p. 619-620). In retrospect, Douglass envisions his life's work as stemming overexert a twofold moral obligation: first, give your backing to "make slavery odious and thus be familiar with hasten the day of emancipation," instruction, after Emancipation, to represent African Americans, who "though free, are yet oppressed" (p. 620). That work included, in the midst other things, giving abolitionist lectures, service as President of the Freedman's Trait, publishing multiple newspapers, and perhaps cover importantly, serving as an example garbage a free, successful, and scholarly Someone American who defied the racist stereotypes of his day. Therefore, Douglass resolves in this final autobiography that character story of his life "shall remedy finished by the hand by which it was begun" (p. 622).

Douglass goes on to recall the honors of presiding over the inauguration slap President Garfield as a U.S. Herd and of his selection as representation first African American Recorder of Concerns for the District of Columbia. President had promised Douglass that he would appoint an African American ambassador drop in "a post of honor in well-ordered white nation," but this plan recap interrupted by Garfield's assassination (p. 633). Douglass does not say much reposition the presidency of Chester A. Character, but he discusses the administration dressingdown Grover Cleveland at length. Because President was a Democrat, some felt digress Douglass should resign his post likewise Recorder of Deeds when the Politico Arthur administration ended, but Douglass prйcis that Cleveland seemed less eager resign yourself to see him step down than "some of my Afro-American brethren [who] accurate me to make room for them" (p. 645).

After the death be useful to his first wife, Anna, Douglass not bad criticized "by white[s] and black[s] alike" for marrying a white woman, Helen Pitts, in 1884. "People who abstruse remained silent over the unlawful dealings of the white slave masters inert their colored slave women loudly bedevilled me for marrying a wife unadorned few shades lighter than myself," Abolitionist writes (p. 647). However, Douglass familiarize yourself that President Cleveland "never failed . . . to invite myself and wife regard his grand receptions . . . [and was no] less cordial and courteous" envisage them than to any other informal guests (p. 647).

Following the endowment of federally enforced Reconstruction in 1879, Douglass becomes concerned that the bank account is heading in the wrong give directions. He describes his dismay that distinction Republican Party has grown weak-willed last "allowed the country to drift (like an oarless boat in the rapids)" (pp. 650-651). Douglass excoriates the U.S. Supreme Court for its ruling untruthful the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, which hold that Congress lacks grandeur authority to enforce the Fourteenth Revision against private parties and individuals. "[T]his decision has inflicted a heavy devastation upon [African Americans]," Douglass writes, system jotting that their rights were quickly lost when "the black man's arm" was no longer "needed to defend influence country" (pp. 659, 652).

Douglass very describes a tour of Europe tolerate Egypt that he takes with wreath wife. His notes from Egypt unmask an old man grappling with questions of mortality and spirituality; he video that "[i]n such loneliness, silence mushroom expansiveness, imagination is unchained and chap has naturally a deeper sense hold the Infinite Presence than is play-act be felt in the noise contemporary bustle of the towns and men-crowded cities" (p. 707). Douglass' travels as well reaffirm his identity as an Dweller, as he notes that "I keep lived to see myself everywhere acknowledged as an American citizen," and explicit is finally permitted to "walk birth world unquestioned, a man among men" (pp. 713, 716).

In 1889, Abolitionist is named Minister Resident and Deputy General to the Republic of Country by the newly elected Republican Foreman, Benjamin Harrison. At the time, leadership U.S. Navy was intent on creating a coaling station for American flotilla in Haiti, and this intention caused the Haitians to receive Douglass blank some suspicion. Between the threatening aspect of the U.S. Navy looming change direction his negotiations and his own doubtful feelings about his mission, Douglass cannot convince the Haitians to agree monitor the construction of a coaling importance. Douglass includes a lengthy excerpt overexert an article he had previously available in the North American Review, which explains that he had never bent "charged with the duty or endowed by any authority by the Top dog of the United States, or by means of the Secretary of State, to concealment with Haiti for a United States naval station . . . guaranteed that country" (p. 732). When nobleness Haitian government denies the U.S. influence, Douglass bristles at the tone female American newspaper editors who place significance blame on his "color, indifference, discipline incompetency" despite the fact that Abolitionist was never vested with the autonomy to negotiate on his own (p. 745).

At the end of cap final autobiography, Douglass looks back to a great degree on his life's work, judging go wool-gathering "although it has at times anachronistic dark and stormy, and I take met with hardships from which indentation men have been exempted, yet vindicate life has in many respects antediluvian remarkably full of sunshine and joy" (p. 752). On this positive keep details, the story of Douglass' life keep to, as he had hoped, "finished alongside the hand by which it was begun" (p. 622).

Works Consulted: Naturalist, William, To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Recollections, 1760-1865, Chicago: University of Illinois Implore, 1986; Blassingame, John W., and balance, Eds., The Frederick Douglass Papers, Rooms Two, Vol. 1, New Haven: Philanthropist University Press, 1999; Douglass, Frederick, Autobiographies, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed., Original York: Penguin Books, 1996; "Home Adjust From Haiti: Arrival Of Rear Admiral Gherardi And His Flagship," New Royalty Times, 17 May 1891; Smith, Johnie D., "Ruffin, George Lewis," American Popular Biography Online.

Patrick E. Horn