That Frederick Douglass defended the freedom of speech and equally valued the right to listen and discuss for the sake of learning, the abolition of slavery and sociopolitical reform seems self-evident. The primary purpose of his work was to declaim and argue against slavery and the subjugation of Black Americans. The struggle for those liberties was at the core of his narrative of personal development and blossoming of self-respect, and it drove his commitment to moral suasion for the abolitionist cause and the realization of equal citizenship for all.
I (Ronald Sundstrom) lay out evidence by tracing these values in his writings. However, he had his limit, which was with speech denying the basic equal moral status of Blacks and other members of the human family. At times, with such interlocutors—the apologists for slavery and the degradation of human dignity—he appears to call off the discussion by claiming that it was pointless to debate with people who supported slavery and who turned their back on the fact of human fraternity. As he declared in his “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (1852) speech, what was required in those instances was “scorching irony” rather than “convincing speech.” This facet of Douglass is promoted by those who approve of his inclination to turn to condemnation and not dialogue when faced with willful ignorance and intransigence in the service of moral evil. They argue it is indicative of a central feature in his political theory and see it as a practical model for current sectarian political conflicts. Among the values at the heart of Frederick Douglass’s life and works were open inquiry, dialogue, and debate in pursuing “justice, liberty, and perfect human equality.”
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