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Summary
Summary
Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln had only three meetings, but their exchanges profoundly influenced the course of slavery and the outcome of the Civil War.
Although Abraham Lincoln deeply opposed the institution of slavery, he saw the Civil War at its onset as being primarily about preserving the Union. Frederick Douglass, himself a former slave, by contrast saw the War's mission to be the total and permanent abolition of slavery. And yet, these giants of the nineteenth century, despite their different outlooks, found common ground, in large part through their three historic meetings.
Lincoln first invited Douglass to the White House in August 1862. Well-known for his speeches and his internationally read abolitionist newspaper, Douglass laid out for the president his concerns about how the Union army was discriminating against black soldiers. Douglass, often critical of the president in his speeches and articles, was impressed by Lincoln's response. The following summer when the war was going poorly, the president summoned Douglass to the White House. Fearing that he might not be reelected, Lincoln showed Douglass a letter he had prepared stating his openness to negotiating a settlement to end the Civil War--and leave slavery intact in the South. Douglass strongly advised Lincoln against making the letter public. Lincoln never did; Atlanta fell and he was reelected. Their final meeting was at the White House reception following Lincoln's second inaugural address, where Lincoln told Douglass there was no man in the country whose opinion he valued more and Douglass called the president's inaugural address "sacred."
In elegant prose and with unusual insights, Paul and Stephen Kendrick chronicle the parallel lives of Douglass and Lincoln as a means of presenting a fresh, unique picture of two men who, in their differences, eventually challenged each other to greatness and altered the course of the nation.
Author Notes
Paul Kendrick is a Presidential Arts Scholar at George Washington University. His father Stephen Kendrick is the senior minister of First and Second Church in Boston. They are the authors of Sarah's Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America .
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Paul Kendrick, assistant director of the Harlem Children's Zoo, and his father, Stephen, a Boston minister (coauthors of Sarah's Long Walk, about Boston's free blacks) give a thorough look at two unlikely allies. Lincoln began as a white supremacist who saw Douglass as an exception to the rule of black inferiority. What is more, his first priority was the preservation of the Union. The onetime slave Douglass, on the other hand, stood uncompromisingly for complete emancipation, to be followed by full and equal citizenship. He further held that the Civil War's massive carnage could only be redeemed by the annihilation of the "peculiar institution." Despite their mutual respect, the two men had only three face-to-face meetings, just two of these in private. Thus, this study of Douglass, Lincoln and their "relationship" is chiefly a discussion of evolving rhetoric, primarily Lincoln's on such topics as emancipation, black service in the Union ranks and black suffrage, and how his views initially contrasted with, but were eventually influenced by, Douglass's fiery arguments in public speeches and newspaper editorials. This is a workmanlike narrative of the same story recently explored by James Oakes in his critically praised The Radical and the Republican. 23 b&w photos. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Frederick Douglass met Abraham Lincoln three times, occasions that the authors place within Douglass' stance as an uncompromising abolitionist critical of half measures in overthrowing slavery and establishing equal rights. His wariness about Lincoln emerges plainly in the Kendricks' discussion of Douglass' articles and oratory from the time he noticed Lincoln as a result of the debates with Stephen Douglas in 1858. Narrating Douglass' reactions to Lincoln's major statements and presidential decisions (with an addendum about Douglass' 1876 diffident dedication speech for the monument Emancipation in Washington), the Kendricks depict Douglass in action during the Civil War, traveling the lecture circuit, recruiting black troops, and presenting himself at the White House. Gaining audience after the customary indignities he and any black person then endured, Douglass left his encounters with Lincoln, by this account, a supporter of, if not exactly a subscriber to, Lincoln's incremental steps toward liberation and equality. Since emancipation and its aftermath prompt divergent interpretations of Lincoln, the Kendricks' fluid account of Douglass' influence reliably lays a factual foundation for debaters about this momentous passage in American history.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2008 Booklist
Choice Review
This largely superfluous work examines the contrasting paths that Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass traversed toward the emancipation of the South's four million slaves, the recruitment and armed military service of almost 180,000 African Americans in the Civil War, and the eventual full citizenship of people of color in the US. Reiterating a well-worn narrative, the Kendricks explain that for much of the war, Lincoln, the Whig-turned-Republican economic nationalist, and Douglass, the escaped Maryland slave, viewed the South's secession through different lenses and had little direct communication. They met only three times. Lincoln, of course, sought to preserve the Union while Douglass campaigned for immediate emancipation and eventual full citizenship. The authors credit Douglass with recognizing the interdependence of whites and blacks and grasping that the South's secession could not be suppressed without the direct support of blacks. "Their relationship, their struggle," the Kendricks write, "tells us much about ourselves as a people and about why the failure to fully achieve Douglass's vision of equality means our Civil War is not yet over." For a superior work that analyzes the eventual convergence of Lincoln's conservatism and Douglass's radicalism, readers should consult James Oakes's The Radical and the Republican (CH, Nov'07, 45-1652). Summing Up: Optional. General and undergraduate libraries. J. D. Smith University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Kirkus Review
An insightful look at the sometimes uneasy collaboration, between the agitator and the emancipator, to end slavery and win the Civil War. Had Lincoln died in 1857, the undistinguished, one-term ex-congressman and prairie lawyer would have been barely a footnote to history. Not so Frederick Douglass. By then, Douglass's escape from slavery, his autobiography and his extensive lecturing had made him an international figure, perhaps the era's foremost abolitionist. Amidst threats of Southern secession, Douglass declined to support Lincoln's 1860 presidential bid, calling him "an excellent slave hound." Douglass presciently assessed the contours of the coming Civil War (during which he met Lincoln three times) and saw how the "inexorable logic of events" would propel most of his activist agenda. Though slow to emancipate, reluctant to employ black troops and unwilling to make any firm commitment to giving the black man voting rights, Lincoln followed through on all, sometimes with Douglass's advice and help. By 1864, Lincoln regarded Douglass as perhaps "the most meritorious man in the United States." Understanding if not approving of Lincoln's political high-wire act and recognizing that neither emancipation nor military victory was ever preordained, Douglass came to view the president as "swift, zealous, radical, and determined." The Kendricks (Sarah's Long Walk: The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America, 2004) beautifully assess the political and moral, and often conflicting, agendas of each man, but they excel, particularly in their treatment of Douglass, at personalizing one of the history's most unlikely and effective political alliances. Along with James Oakes's estimable The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics (2007), the Kendricks testify to the increasing interest in and historical imperative for linking in the popular imagination these two intensely private, entirely self-made men. A wise and sensitive appreciation of the intersecting careers of two giants of American history. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Paul Kendrick (assisant director, Harlem Children's Zone) and his father, Stephen (senior minister, First Church in Boston), carefully study two men who confronted the powerful elites of their era, Lincoln able to become an insider and Douglass exerting power in the very face of exclusion. Each man's views moderated, Douglass coming to admire Lincoln after initial disappointment and Lincoln coming to recognize the need for emancipation. Public and academic libaries with James Oakes's estimable The Radical and the Republican should consider this good study an optional addition. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
Prologue: The Mission | p. 1 |
To 1860 | |
1 Black Republicans | p. 13 |
2 A Self-Made Man | p. 26 |
3 To the Brink | p. 38 |
4 "I Used to be a Slave..." | p. 56 |
1861 | |
5 Mighty Currents | p. 71 |
6 Remorseless Struggle | p. 82 |
1862 | |
7 Different American Destinies | p. 97 |
8 On the Wire | p. 114 |
1863 | |
9 "Give Them a Chance" | p. 127 |
10 First Meeting | p. 147 |
11 "Clenched Teeth and Steady Eye" | p. 161 |
1864 | |
12 "An Abolition War" | p. 175 |
13 Revolutionary Dialogue | p. 185 |
14 Going Home | p. 203 |
1865 | |
15 Sacred Efforts | p. 219 |
16 "It Made Us Kin" | p. 232 |
Epilogue: America's Stepchildren | p. 237 |
Appendix Aftermath-The Douglass Family | p. 249 |
Acknowledgments | p. 253 |
Notes | p. 257 |
Bibliography | p. 279 |
Index | p. 291 |