Reconstruction From the Mind of Fredrick Douglass

            When one thinks of the Civil War, the first thing that normally comes to mind is slavery.  The goal of the war was not initially to end slavery, but to preserve the Union, yet in the end it seemed that the Emancipation Proclamation was going to do just that.  Although Abraham Lincolns’ proclamation freed slaves from the “rebellious” states, it did nothing for the rights and the protection of the now free African Americans.  After the war, one of the goals of the government was to reestablish the Union, by means that were seen as nonsensical by both the northerners and the southerners alike.  I have found great debate between Historians in whether Reconstruction had truly aided in the abolishment of slavery as well as the preservation of the Union.   I found it interesting to look at Reconstruction through the mind of a former slave, and saw that it was quite a different experience for him than I would have thought.

            Fredrick Douglass, a former slave turned abolitionist spoke out against Reconstruction in the piece named just that.  Although Douglass had not been a slave during the time of the Civil War, he knew the treatments a black man received during these trying times.  Douglass had a surprising knowledge of government and began to speak out against the Civil Rights Act, the Freedmen’s Bureau, and amendments thirteen through fifteen because he felt that they did not achieve anything for equality socially as well as did not fully address how the south was taken back with no question of liberty or loyalty.  He also wrote about the power being distributed improperly, and without protection for each newly freed citizen, slavery would never truly end.  Then he goes on to discuss the war, and how it was inevitable in the situation, yet he blames Abraham Lincoln, although not outright, for the war and slavery not ending sooner.  I thought it was very interesting that Douglass saw that the ways that Lincoln went about with his Reconstruction plan was lead by faith and ignorance, something he felt would never achieve true “Reconstruction.”  He also says that the United States saw him as a hero because he associated himself with people like Sherman and Grant when out in public.  Douglass claimed that the best way to go about readmitting the states, that should not just be thrown back into the Union, was to make a clean slate, however they must be readmitted in to statehood where the poor and rich, as well as the black or white could participate in legislations.  He claimed that although many believed that the point in Reconstruction was to reestablish the law within the southern states, he believed that the true reason was to establish the right of the black people.  He also discussed the Constitution and the fact that it does not address slavery.  Douglass thought that because the emancipation of slaves allowed them to become citizens of the United States that all rights guaranteed to the white men should be guaranteed to the black men as well.  He felt that if the constitution did not claim race within it, that the laws should not either.  He also felt that the states should not have the right to decide whether a citizen had the right that another state did not, that it should be a national law.

            In conclusion, Douglass did not view Reconstruction like many other people did.  Although he was a former slave he felt that the Reconstruction amendments did nothing for the advancement of the blacks position in society or the government.  I feel that Reconstruction made the position of the rebellious states and the newly freed slaves worse.

  

Douglass, Frederick.  "Reconstruction."  

Atlantic Monthly 18 (1866): 761-765.