CONSTITUTIONAL CONVERSATIONS
Our Nation’s Two-hundred and Forty-Fourth Birthday
by
M. E. Boyd, Esq., “Miss Constitution”
Excerpts of a speech given by Frederick Douglass commemorating the unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington, DC, 1876. This statue is the source of current unrest and attempts are being made to remove it or destroy it. It is being protected now by a fence and the national guard. From Frederick Douglass, AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, by Literary Classics of the United States, Penguin Putnam, Inc., 1984. Orations were typically exceptionally long at this time. Miss Constitution hopes she captured the spirit of his message.
“That we are here in peace today is a compliment and credit to American civilization and a prophecy of still greater national enlightenment and progress in the future. . . We fully comprehend the relation of Abraham Lincoln both to ourselves and to the white people of the United States. . . It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory, that Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits of thought and in his prejudices, he was a white man. . . You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best only his stepchildren, children by adoption, children by force of circumstances and necessity. Our faith in him was often taxed and strained to the uttermost, but it never failed. . . We came to the conclusion that the hour and the man of our redemption had somehow met in the person of Abraham Lincoln. It mattered little to us what language he might employ on special occasions; it mattered little to us, when we fully knew him, whether he was swift or slow in his movements; it was enough for us that Abraham Lincoln was at the head of a great movement, and was in living and earnest sympathy with that movement, which, in the nature of things, must go on until slavery should be utterly and forever abolished in the United States. . . Any man can say things that are true of Abraham Lincoln, but no man can say anything that is new of Abraham Lincoln. . . He was a mystery to no man who saw him and heard him. Though high in position, the humblest could approach him and feel at home in his presence. Though deep he was transparent; though strong he was gentle; though decided and pronounced in his convictions, he was tolerant towards those who differed from him, and patient under reproaches. . . Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than was Abraham Lincoln during his administration. He was often wounded in the house of his friends. Reproaches came fast and thick upon him from within and from without, and from opposite quarters. He was assailed by abolitionists; he was assailed by slaveholders; he was assailed by men who were for peace at any price; he was assailed by those who were for a more vigorous prosecution of the war; he was assailed for not making the war an abolition war; and he was most bitterly assailed for making the war an abolition war. . . Born and reared among the lowly; a stranger to wealth and luxury; compelled from tender youth to sturdy manhood to grapple single-handed with the flintiest hardships of life, he grew strong and manly in the heroic qualities demanded by the great mission to which he was called by the votes of his countrymen. . . A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic. . . A formidable rebellion rose in his path before him. . . He brought his strong common sense, sharpened in the school of adversity, to bear upon the question. He did not hesitate, he did not doubt, he did not falter; but at once resolved that, at whatever peril, at whatever cost, the union of the states should be preserved. . . His moral training was against his saying one thing when he meant another. The trust which Abraham Lincoln had in himself and in the people was surprising and grand, but it was also well founded. He knew the American people better than they knew themselves and his truth was based on this knowledge. . . We have done good work for our race today. In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator we have been doing highest honors to ourselves and those who come after us.”
Just as Lincoln is honored by Frederick Douglass so did Lincoln himself honor George Washington. In a speech delivered many years before he became President of the United States Lincoln speaks to us about the importance of honoring not only great men and women of our nation but of the United States Constitution itself. May both prevail, unscathed, for another two-hundred forty-four years.
“They were the pillars in the temple of liberty; and now, that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall, unless we, their descendants supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the Constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last, that we remained free to the last; that we revered his name, George Washington, to the last; that during his long sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place.”
Miss Constitution would add, or his monument – ever.
Copyright©2020 by M. E. Boyd “Miss Constitution”
APPLES OF GOLD – Voices from the Past that Speak to Us Now by M. E. Boyd available at
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