A warning from Frederick Douglass for today: the “old medicine of compromise.”

[chimpymustgo]

The New York Times has been running a series of online articles and discussions about the Civil War (this is the 150 year anniversary). Today's discussion shares Frederick Douglass's concerns about continued compromise with the South, after southern states began to secede from the union. Douglass felt there there could be no more compromises on the issue of human bondage, and war was necessary to end slavery and maintain the Union.

There are considerable parallels to that time, and now. Not only with so much talk of secession, but also the calls for "compromise". As we prepare for the political battles ahead, we must be mindful that some ideals cannot be compromised. That some bargains cannot be made where human life and dignity are concerned.

Who will be our Frederick Douglass of today?

From the NYT: "Cup of Wrath and Fire":

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Above all, Douglass feared that the crisis would be resolved in yet further concessions to the South and slaveholders’ interests. For a former slave, and now famous orator and editor — whose political consciousness had awakened with the Mexican War and the Compromise of 1850, who had seen the fate of slaves bandied about in one political crisis after another, who had struggled to preserve hope of freedom and citizenship in the face of the Dred Scott decision’s egregious denials — a resolute stand by the North against secession and the “Slave Power” was hardly a sure thing. The best hopes for blacks, Douglass said in an editorial that winter, had always been dashed by the “old medicine of compromise.”

He feared the same would be true in the latest crisis. As he watched Congress offer resolutions and conventions intended to settle the crisis, Douglass complained that South Carolina and her Northern enablers had “filled the air with whines of compromise.” As March and the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln approached, Douglass, like so many Americans, felt powerless before the mercy of events. Would Lincoln and the Republicans cave into Southern demands and rebellion, or would they take a stand to defend federal authority and property?

Although it seemed unrealistic, what Douglass most desired was federal power marshaled for an organized war against the South and slavery. The necessity of a response to disunion might force Republicans into radical directions they would never take solely by their own accord. He wanted what Southerners most adamantly rejected: coercion against secession, even by force of arms.

But he warned about the tradition of compromise, feared Northerners had lost their “moral sense,” lacked confidence in Lincoln’s resolve and worried that the abolition movement was about to be eclipsed by desire for a “peaceful disunion.”

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http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/cup-of-wrath-and-fire/

[femrap]

1. Frederick Douglas

had no problems with COMPROMISE when it came time for the Black man to get the vote....He threw his Black Sisters and the White women who worked for suffrage under the bus/wagon in the name of compromise.

As Shirley Chisholm said: "Men are men."

And women had to fight for decades to finally get the vote.

[struggle4progress]

2. Douglass was a brilliant activist; Lincoln was a brilliant politician. Douglass

worked tirelessly before the war on behalf of abolition, and he worked tirelessly during the war to ensure that the war was understood as a conflict over slavery

Lincoln's political approach frequently irritated and enraged Douglass during the war, as being wishy-washy and wrong-headed -- but Douglass eventually came to the view that Lincoln's approach reflected a real understanding of the politics of the time: it is very instructive to read Douglass's retrospective praise of Lincoln's genius, written many years after the war, for Douglass in the end thinks Lincoln's style, which seemed hesitant or even cowardly to him as an activist, seemed bold and possibly extreme to the majority of Americans at the time

The men played different roles. A moral star illuminated everything for Douglass, and he kept his eye fixed on it. Lincoln knew about that star, but his immediate task was always to keep the ship afloat

[chimpymustgo]

4. Good points!

[femrap]

5. Douglass was nothing but

a man of compromise....see above.

Shirley Chisholm: 'Men are men.'

[Overseas]

3. K&R ! //nt

[SidDithers]

6. No Frederick Douglas thread is complete without Drunk History...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL68NyCSi8o

You'll thank me later.

Sid