LINCOLN PER DOUGLASS

LINCOLN PER DOUGLASS Abraham Lincoln, Esq., the 16th President of the United States of America , was a very complicated, very conflicted man. I did not fully know how extremely complicated/conflicted he was, before reading Frederick Douglass’ profound “Oration Delivered on the Occasion of the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument, in Memory of Abraham Lincoln , in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C., April 14, 1876.” Douglass knew Lincoln intimately. They were spiritual, philosophical, historical peers in American history. Both men emerged from humble beginnings. Douglass was a black, Maryland, runaway, slave. Lincoln was a poor, white, frontiersman. Both men were self-educated and lovers of books; both men were stentorian orators , whose words yet emblazon turbines of thought. I thought that I already knew Frederick Douglass. I had read his thrilling 1845 NARRATIVE while but a teenager, and presumed that there was nothing else much to know. Blessedly, the arrogance of youth has blossomed into a humble openness to greater understanding in my 68th year. For I was revivified, sanctified by reading DOUGLASS AUTOBIOGRAPHIES: NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE; MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM; and LIFE AND TIMES (1994). In the appendix of this heady work is found an “Appendix” containing the April 14, 1876, oratory mentioned above that I had started not to read, surmising that I had read all that there was to know! When one humbles oneself, one is usually blessed with understanding. I certainly was blessed for forcing myself to read Frederick Douglass’s oration dedication to the unveiling of the statue of Abraham Lincoln that was paid for exclusively by the ‘colored people’ in 1876, before the rest of the nation drew abreast, by erecting Lincoln Memorial in 1922. I have attached here Douglass’ divine dedicatory address, sermon, lecture, history lesson, prophesy, below, beloved reader, for your own edification. It is one of the greatest of American orations! Coming now after the impeachment of Donald Trump, it takes on a more sublime character ; for it contrasts what was, with what seemed; with what remained unrealized; with what was reclaimed; with what is almost lost! https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/4402