SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN

SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN It is paradoxical to read in 2016 of the whelming controversy raging between black and white abolitionists' goals, aspirations and outlooks, as reflected in THE WORKS OF JAMES McCUNE SMITH : BLACK INTELLECTUAL AND ABOLITIONIST edited by John Stauffer (2007), p.114. The white abolitionists were represented, chiefly, by William Lloyd Garrison, who viewed the Constitution as a proslavery document, who favored nonviolent disunion, but not equal rights . The black abolitionists were chiefly represented by Frederick Douglass, who viewed the Constitution as an antislavery document , who endorsed violent means of abolition, "if necessary," who favored blacks' having equal rights. Garrison, who had been helped financially by colored Robert Purvis of Philadelphia published his views through the "National Antislavery Standard," and others. Douglass, who received help from Dr. James McCune Smith of New York, and others, published his views in "Frederick Douglass' Paper," and others. It turns out historically that the Constitution was indeed a proslavery document as found by the U.S. Supreme Court, in "Dred Scott," in 1857, and as reified by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, 1865-1870. Compounding this paradox, there was "disunion," otherwise known as "secession" not by white abolitionist in the North, but by the slaveholders' states in the South. Moreover black equal rights were tenuous, at best, during too-brief Reconstruction then abrogated! So events split their differences! Right now we are somewhere in between .