Anti-and-Pro Slavery Abolitionist

The Abolitionist during the days that led up to the Juneteenth Day Celebration were male and female, black, white, and other nationalities, anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions all operating in the justification of their cause. The anti-slavery faction was driven by their desire to see slavery abolished their pro-slavery opponents made up mostly of slave owners and merchants had a different motivation to see slaves set free, just not in America.

In fact, it would be the pro-slavery abolitionist who would establish a small colony on the west coast of Africa and over time enlist even some anti-slavery abolitionist support. The pro-slavery merchants and slaveholders' arm of the abolitionist movement saw free slaves as bad for their business. 

Free slaves offered hope to those who were enslaved so the pro-slavery abolitionist developed a drive complete with all the logistics necessary to transport free blacks to the African continent even though after over 400 years in America, African Americans, with the exception of their skin color,  had very little in common with the African people.

Strangely enough, even those neither the African American nor the Africans spoke each other's language they were able to, with the help of the ACS, learn how to communicate; and over time the African Americans sent to Africa by the pro-and-anti-slavery abolitionist, American Colonization Society, would blend together and become the nation we know today as Liberia.

 

Anti-slavery abolitionists joined pro-slavery abolitionists in the belief that for a free-African American to truly live free the trip to African provided by the ACS was the answer.

For the most part, the anti-slavery abolitionist wanted to see slavery in American abolished and perhaps figured that the words in the constitution (All men are created equal) would be enough insurance for the African American people over 400 years separated from the African continent to live free in the land so many of their generations have been born in. Some African traditions had been held onto and passed down through the generations since the first slaves were brought to the Americas.

The anti-slavery abolitionist would remain active until the end of the Civil War maintaining the clandestine underground railroad system that ran in the direction of freedom. The pro-slavery abolitionist would be just as active because eventually, the U.S. would more-or-less ban slavery which meant that slave merchants would be forbidden from bringing in any new slaves from African. 

The pro-slavery merchants and slave owners would basically ignore the slave ban and eventually form their own underground railroad to transport their human contraband. The underground railroad that was set up by the slaveholders and merchants did not run in the direction of freedom.

The 4th of July and the Slave

What to the Slave is the 4th of July, asked Fredrick Douglass? To Fredrick Douglass, the 4th of July meant that America had not lived up to its promise. What the constitution said to the abolitionist was that: all men were created equal except the slave. To Douglass and the abolitionists that supported him, Independence Day stood as a glaring contradiction to the words in the constitution, words made glowingly obvious to the anti-slavery members when it came to black men. The slaves had taken part in helping to preserve the colonies turned states by fighting in the war of independence for independence that did not necessarily apply to the slaves. That meant that slaves could fight for the American Flag, but because they were not considered citizens, at that time, were not entitled to equal protection under the law.  

To Frederick Douglass and those who supported him the constitution's elegant written design and words: all men are created equal, clearly referred only to white men. Black men, even "free black men," really had no protections under the law except where they appeared as the property of a slaveholder. The Dread Scott Decision by the courts would make it clear that slaves, black men, and women were not seen as citizens of the U.S. whose flag the slaves were being asked to honor. A situation that would persist from 1776 up to and into the Civil War. 

After reading the book Douglass and Lincoln, by Paul Kendrick and Stephen Kendrick, I realized that if Lincoln had any problem with Frederick Douglass it was that Douglass wanted freedom for his people now! Right then and there while Lincoln on the other hand preferred a more cautious approach when dealing with the abolishment of the slavery problem.

Fredrick Douglass had his wit, intelligence, and experiences with racism that drove him to advocate so forcefully for the end of slavery. Lincoln didn't see himself as a reformer, or even an abolitionist, but he did possess a deep dislike of slavery and a desire to see an end to slavery but Lincoln also realized that the issue of slavery was such an economic and emotional issue that put maximum stress on and already shaky union with pro-slavery states it could fracture that union and lead to Civil War.

As far as Douglass was concerned there was the Presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln that he received positive affirmation from their discussions about ways to institute and embrace the end of slavery, and then the new President-Elect Abraham Lincoln who seemed suddenly more reticent about the slavery issues that drove Frederick Douglass day and night. For Douglass, with the election of Abraham Lincoln, never had the time been so right for a major change in the social-economic makeup of a nation. 

Back in 1860 the U.S. existed mostly east of the Mississippi River and in an attempt to expand new additions to the union like Kansas were usually invaded by slavery and anti-slavery factions determined to battle it out over whether a new state became a slave state, or a state free of slavery. After Lincoln's election, the south began dismantling the union of states by session and declaring war on the United States with an attack on Fort Sumter followed by the Civil War. Fredrick Douglass's first attempt to impress upon the new president Abraham Lincoln to allow black troops to join the U.S. military was not well received by Lincoln. 

Two or three years into the Civil War Abraham Lincoln would announce the Emancipation Proclamation. The document would earn the disapproval of Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists because while it was a start, freeing only the slaves in confederate areas, it did not set free slaves in friendly northern areas, a fact that further inflamed the confederacy and disappointed the abolitionist.

Frederick Douglass did consider it good news when later Lincoln would allow black American troops to fight for their own freedom and just like in the war for this nation's independence from England black troops would distinguish themselves on the battlefield. The end of the Civil War was a time that represented a successful end to the underground railroad for the white abolitionist and clergy who maintained it and established a new Independence Day for black men and women called Juneteenth.