What is the difference between abraham lincoln and frederick douglass

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in along the Eastern Shore of Maryland. During his childhood, the wife of one of his owners taught Douglass the alphabet. Later, she was forbidden to continue because slave literacy was illegal in Maryland. Over the next six decades, he worked tirelessly to advocate for enslaved and free African Americans, rising to prominence in the United States government and throughout the entire country.

Upon arrival in New York City in , Douglass was officially a free man, but he was also aware that there was much to be done to free those still in bondage.

Douglass relocated to Massachusetts where he attended antislavery meetings and read abolitionist literature. In , Douglass met William Lloyd Garrison, a famous abolitionist and editor of The Liberator , and began working for the cause as an orator—telling his story throughout New England and encouraging the end of slavery. Frederick Douglass, pictured here in , was the most photographed man in nineteenth century America.

Show Me More. Meanwhile, his eloquent speeches outlining the moral indignities of slavery garnered national attention, and bolstered the popularity of abolitionism throughout the country. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?

I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham… There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour. Douglass was also very involved in national politics, and as the presidential election of approached, he advocated for candidates with strong antislavery platforms.

Breckenridge Southern Democrat , Stephen A. Abraham Lincoln, elected president with less than forty-percent of the popular vote, successfully earned the majority of Electoral College votes. Grade PreK Read i ng level Q. Save to Wishlist. From the Teacher Store. Abraham Lincoln. Caroline Crosson Gilpin. Grade Read i ng level N. David Colbert. Read i ng level Y. I Am Harriet Tubman. Ute Simon , Ms. Grace Norwich.

Read i ng level S. Violet Findley. Grade K Grade PreK-K. About Us. Accessed November 12, Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete. About This Guide This teaching guide helps instructors use a specific primary source set, , in the classroom. It offers discussion questions, classroom activities, and primary source analysis tools.

It is intended to spark pedagogical creativity by giving a sample approach to the material. Please feel free to share, reuse, and adapt the resources in this guide for your teaching purposes. There was already a long line of men waiting to see the president, and Douglass thought he was going to have to wait all day, maybe two.

They let the nigger through. Because Douglass was already world-famous, and Lincoln certainly knew of him. Just about everybody knew of him.

Douglass was considered a better orator than Lincoln was in his own day. I know of you. What can I do? They spoke for quite a while in that first meeting, and although they still disagreed on fundamental issues, by the end of it they considered each other friends.

They both had enormous respect for each other as self-made men. For one, Obama has said that Lincoln taught him that a political leader must reach for a common understanding beyond social divisions.

I think Obama has also learned a lot about the relationship between a political leader and the public from Lincoln. Lincoln had a brilliant sense of public opinion. He understood that as a political leader he needed to know about public opinion, but could not simply internalize it and be a slave to it. Conversely, you could not put a noose around the public and yank them to where you want to go. Rather, you try to understand public opinion, and then you seek to inspire the public to a higher moral ground.

Lincoln was brilliant at that, and Obama has been brilliant at that as well. But I think Obama has been deeply influenced by both Lincoln and Douglass. Obama is one of the great self-made men of our day, just as Douglass and Lincoln were in theirs. He also learned from both men the power of words to sway and convert the public to your cause—especially from Frederick Douglass, because Douglass was such a brilliant orator, and Obama is one of the great orators of our day.

Where he understands the importance of political pragmatism from Lincoln, Obama writes in The Audacity of Hope that from Frederick Douglass he learned that in certain circumstances power will concede nothing without a fight.

And like Frederick Douglass, Obama understands that you fight power most effectively with words. He understands that words are your most potent weapon.