Download FREDERICK DOUGLASS AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON BLACK

Survey
yes no Was this document useful for you?
   Thank you for your participation!

* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project

Document related concepts

Alabama in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup

Virginia in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln wikipedia , lookup

Reconstruction era wikipedia , lookup

Frémont Emancipation wikipedia , lookup

Battle of Fort Pillow wikipedia , lookup

South Carolina in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup

Mississippi in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup

Commemoration of the American Civil War on postage stamps wikipedia , lookup

Border states (American Civil War) wikipedia , lookup

Baltimore riot of 1861 wikipedia , lookup

Gettysburg Address wikipedia , lookup

Issues of the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup

Military history of African Americans in the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup

United Kingdom and the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup

Opposition to the American Civil War wikipedia , lookup

United States presidential election, 1860 wikipedia , lookup

Union (American Civil War) wikipedia , lookup

Hampton Roads Conference wikipedia , lookup

Transcript
73
No.2
FREDERICK
DOUGLASS
AND
ABRAHAM
LINCOLN ON BLACK EQUITY IN THE CIVIL WAR:
A HISTORICAL-RHETORICAL PERSPECTIVE
By Katherine Scott Sturdevant and Stephen Collins
There are traditional approaches by which
students can learn about the issues of slavery and Black
troops in the Civil War or the personages of Frederick
Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Pitfalls can occur,
however, if we do not delve deeper into specific actions,
primary sources, and rhetoric, such as our “revisionist”
tendency to condemn Lincoln as “not really freeing any
slaves” with the Emancipation Proclamation. Abolitionist
Frederick Douglass was Lincoln’s outspoken critic until
the Emancipation Proclamation, but then understood that
Lincoln’s efforts were calculated and prudent within the
political and social context of the times.
Another pitfall would be to assume that these
two men were friends in common cause all along. In
reality, Douglass and Lincoln met only three times,
with the first meeting on August 10, 1863, more than
28 months into the Civil War and eight months after the
Emancipation Proclamation. Yet, they developed parallel
and complementary goals and strategies to end slavery, to
enable Black men to serve in the Union army, and to protect
Black servicemen’s rights and lives. At their second meeting
a year later, on August 25, 1864, Lincoln asked Douglass
to undertake covert efforts to free slaves if Lincoln lost reelection. Their third and final meeting was as friends, at the
reception after Lincoln’s second inauguration, on March 4,
1865, just six weeks before Lincoln’s assassination.
Before the Emancipation Proclamation and before
these two great men met, their relationship was a remote
one: Lincoln campaigned for office or made presidential
policy statements while Douglass at times critiqued both
with biting rhetoric. Meanwhile, Illinois Senator Stephen
Douglas falsely insinuated that the two men were intimate
friends, co-conspirators against slavery, and in favor of
racial mixing. Lincoln’s positions against slavery and for
equality grew as his understanding of these issues grew. In
the words of Henry Louis Gates, “We can do Lincoln no
greater service than to walk that path with him, and we can
do him no greater disservice than to whitewash it, seeking
to give ourselves an odd form of comfort by pretending
that he was even one whit less complicated than he actually
was.”1 When evaluating Lincoln’s moral growth in all
its complexity, we must view that growth in relation to
Frederick Douglass’s moral appeals to him.
8 | BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 72, NO.2
8
BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN Vol. 73, No. 2
Lincoln gained national attention in 1858 for
his position that the federal government had the right
to regulate slavery in federal territorial lands. Lincoln’s
position in his First Inaugural Address on March 4, 1861,
however, was pro-union and not specifically anti-slavery: “I
have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe
I have no lawful right to do so….” Although Lincoln’s pace
toward abolition was too slow for Frederick Douglass, his
anti-slavery plan was discernable as early as 1861-62. He
asked Congress to pass a law that defined confiscated slaves
as contraband and thus free individuals. He suppressed the
international slave trade and tried to persuade the border
states to emancipate. He made it clear that he viewed federal
emancipation as the president’s edict (not that of a general),
and he accepted the use of Black troops as noncombatants.
He also planned an emancipation proclamation, announcing
it preliminarily, but waiting for a Union victory. Lincoln
took the steps that he could take, politically, all in the same
anti-slavery direction, while maintaining border state and
Union support.
Before the Emancipation Proclamation, Douglass
was critical of Lincoln. He was deeply disappointed in
Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address. The articulate former
slave and abolitionist had hoped that the Republican Party
and its candidate would carry the anti-slavery banner
consistently. His doubts fluctuated with their rhetoric.
73
Douglass delivered all of his most significant arguments
regarding emancipation and the use of black troops before he
ever met Lincoln—before the Emancipation Proclamation.
When the two men first met in August 1863, Lincoln took
umbrage at Douglass’s criticism of a New York City speech
he had given a year and a half earlier. Douglass had stated
(in February 1862), “If I were asked to describe the most
painful and mortifying feature…in the prosecution and
management of the present war... I should point to the
vacillation, doubt, uncertainty and hesitation, which have
thus far distinguished dealing with the vital cause of the
rebellion.”2 According to Douglass, Lincoln took exception
to this earlier criticism and said that, although he (Lincoln)
might be slow to make a decision, “I think it cannot be
shown that when I have once taken a position, I have ever
retreated from it.”3
Douglass’s patience vacillated until the
Emancipation Proclamation. On March 25, 1862, Douglass
said he could “see where the President’s heart is. I see...a
brave man trying against great odds, to do right.... He is
tall and strong but he is not done growing, he grows as the
nation grows.... He has dared to say that the highest interest
of the country will be promoted by the abolition of slavery.”4
By the summer of 1862, however, as the war intensified
and the fates of so many hung in the balance, Douglass
declared, “We have a right to hold Abraham Lincoln
sternly responsible for any disaster or failure attending the
suppression of this rebellion.”5
The Emancipation Proclamation was not then
considered a weak document, as some see it today. Lincoln
was an astute politician who knew that policy must be timed
by anticipated public perceptions; if he, his administration,
the war, or the Union failed, his work would be for naught.
After Antietam (September 17, 1862), the bloodiest battle
of the Civil War and declared a Union victory, Lincoln
announced that the Emancipation Proclamation would
take effect January 1, 1863. Modern critics note that the
Proclamation only freed slaves in rebelling territories,
sheltering border state slave owners and not freeing Southern
slaves until Union troops arrived. Yet Frederick Douglass
understood that Lincoln needed border state loyalty and that
the Proclamation was the long-sought-after turning point.
The Proclamation restored Frederick Douglass’s faith, and
he called for Black men to serve in combat. On January 26,
1863, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton authorized creation of
the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, an all-Black experimental
unit. Abolitionist Robert Gould Shaw led the 54th, and two
of Frederick Douglass’s sons, Charles and Lewis, joined it.
Douglass carried Lincoln’s call in his Douglass
Monthly on March 2 by publishing “Men of Color to
Arms.” His criticism of Lincoln virtually disappeared, and
he traveled as the Union’s chief recruiter of Black troops.
In July 1863, when Lincoln heard that Confederates were
re-enslaving or executing Black Union troops whom they
captured, he signed the Order of Retaliation: “[F]or every
soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws
of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one
enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier
shall be placed at hard labor on the public works…until
the other shall be released.” He also wrote to General U.S.
Grant, urging him to rely on Black troops still more. Thus,
when Douglass and Lincoln met for the first time, on August
10, 1863, the two men were like-minded.
Frederick Douglass wrote many times about his
remarkable meetings with Abraham Lincoln.6 At a time
when equal treatment was rare, Lincoln welcomed Douglass
with respect, warmth, and honesty. He explained at length
the political reasons for gradual and strategic movement
toward abolition and equal treatment of Black troops.
Douglass remained an advocate for greater equity at greater
speed, but he did so without undermining the president ever
again.
As the 1864 election approached, Lincoln called
upon Douglass for special, secret support. With good
reason; he feared that, were he not re-elected, the war might
end without complete emancipation of the slaves or many of
them might die at the hands of Southern whites. On August
25, 1864, in their second meeting, Lincoln asked Douglass
to serve as a secret agent, to travel and make contacts that
would cause as many slaves as possible to flee the South
before it was too late. A few days later, Douglass wrote to
the president about his progress with the secret plan. He
also asked Lincoln to discharge his son, Charles Douglass,
from military service due to illness, which Lincoln did. The
men who had once been strangers at odds were now allies
who trusted and helped one another. Sherman’s marches
and Lincoln’s re-election on November 8, 1864, made the
covert operation seem unnecessary.
After
Lincoln’s
re-election,
events
and
opportunities moved fast. Frederick Douglass conveyed
“What the Black Man Wants” in his speech of early 1865,
given before and after Congress passed the 13th Amendment
that formally outlawed slavery (ratified December 6,
1865). He was “for the ‘immediate, unconditional, and
universal’ enfranchisement of the black man, in every State
in the Union.” At the Hampton Roads Peace Conference
with Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens on
February 3, 1865, Lincoln’s stipulations included that all
states rejoin the Union and recognize the emancipation of
slaves. As much as he wanted to end the war, Lincoln was
BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN Vol. 73, No. 2
9
No.2
73
No.2
adamant that emancipation was not negotiable.
Frederick Douglass’s admiration for Lincoln
reached new heights when he heard Lincoln’s Second
Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865. Douglass was in the
crowd and attended the reception afterward, where they
had their third and final meeting. Lincoln was anxious to
hear Douglass’s opinion of the speech and very pleased that
Douglass called it “a sacred effort.” Their warm handclasp
Douglass would never forget. On April 9, Robert E. Lee
surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox. On April 14,
John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln in Ford’s Theatre,
and the next day, the president was dead. Starting on that day
in Rochester, New York, and for decades to come (Douglass
died in 1895), Douglass eulogized Abraham Lincoln as a
great, but down-to-earth man, an astute moral and political
leader, and the man who freed the slaves.
It is difficult to imagine slavery’s successful
demise or Black troops in the Union Army without these
two men juxtaposed as they were. That juxtaposition,
however, included Douglass’s understandable mistrust,
disappointment, and public criticism of Lincoln, and
Lincoln’s early expedient avoidance of Douglass. Abraham
Lincoln might not have achieved the presidency and thus
the power to end slavery had he been visibly linked with
Frederick Douglass. Douglass, whose passionate agitation
was essential as both a prod and a foil for the president’s
ability to act, undoubtedly helped lay groundwork for
Lincoln even when Lincoln’s inaction or words infuriated
him. That Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln were
allies upon the end of slavery is inspirational.
1862,” in Blassingame and McKivigan, 519.
5. Frederick Douglass, “The Slaveholders’ Rebellion: An
Address Delivered in Himrod’s, New York, on 4 July 1862,”
in Blassingame and McKivigan, 531.
6. See James Oakes, The Radical and the Republican:
Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph
of Antislavery Politics (New York: W. W. Norton & Co.,
2007) for authoritative summaries of the meetings, or see
The Frederick Douglass Papers (cited above) for the many
descriptions that Oakes synthesized.
Teacher Resources
•
1. Glory (motion picture). Directed by Edward Zwick.
TriStar Pictures, 1989. This 1989 Hollywood film
about the 54th Massachusetts Regiment is rated “R,”
so teachers may need to single out scenes to show. For
activities with original documents, see the National
Archives site: http://www.archives.gov/education/
lessons/blacks-civil-war/.
•
2. A recent documentary, For Love of Liberty: The
Story of America’s Black Patriots (2010) is a four-hour
U.S. Army-sponsored compilation of Black war service
across American history. Its summary of the Black
troops in the Civil War is concise and useful.
•
3. See also collections of letters from Black soldiers
such as Corporal James Henry Gooding, On the Altar of
Freedom: A Black Soldier’s Civil War Letters from the
Front, ed. Virginia M. Adams (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1991) and Edwin S. Redkey, ed.,
A Grand Army of Black Men (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992).
•
4. On African Americans in Civil War military service,
see Dudley Taylor Cornish, The Sable Arm: Negro
Troops in the Union Army (Lawrence: University Press
of Kansas, 1987); Joseph T. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle:
The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White
Officers (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 2000); James M. McPherson, The Negro’s Civil
War: How American Blacks Felt and Acted During the
War for the Union (New York: Vintage Books, 2003);
and Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Civil War
(Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 1989).
Notes
1. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Abraham Lincoln on Race and
Slavery,” in Lincoln on Race and Slavery, ed. Henry Louis
Gates, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009),
lxiv.
2. Frederick Douglass, “The Black Man’s Future in
the Southern States: An Address Delivered in Boston,
Massachusetts, on 5 February, 1862,” in The Frederick
Douglass Papers, Series One, Speeches, Debates, and
Interviews, Vol. 3, 1855-1863, ed. John W. Blassingame
and John R. McKivigan (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1991), 490.
3. Frederick Douglass, “Emancipation, Racism, and the
Work Before Us: An Address Delivered in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, on 4 December 1863,” in Blassingame and
McKivigan, 607.
4. Frederick Douglass, “The War and How to End It: An
Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on 25 March
10 | BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 72, NO.2
10
BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN Vol. 73, No. 2
73
•
5. On the relationship and parallelism between
Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, see David
W. Blight, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln:
A Relationship in Language, Politics, and Memory,
Frank L. Klement Lectures (Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press, 2001); David W. Blight, Frederick
Douglass’ Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991); James
Oakes, The Radical and the Republican: Frederick
Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of
Antislavery Politics (New York: W. W. Norton and Co.,
2007); and John Stauffer, Giants: The Parallel Lives of
Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (New York:
Twelve, 2008).
•
6. For some of the latest scholarship on Lincoln, slavery,
and rhetoric, see Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham
Lincoln and American Slavery (New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 2010); Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and
Donald Yacovone, eds., Lincoln on Race and Slavery
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); Allen C.
Guelzo, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End
of Slavery in America (New York: Simon & Schuster,
2006); Harold Holzer, Lincoln at Cooper Union: The
Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2006); and Ronald C. White,
Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2006).
•
No.2
Katherine Scott Sturdevant is a professor of history at
Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado Springs, CO
and a Ph.D. candidate in history (University of California,
Santa Barbara).
Email: [email protected].
Stephen Collins is a professor of communication at Pikes
Peak Community College in Colorado Springs, CO and
holds a Ph.D. in communication studies from Northwestern
University, specializing in American historical rhetoric.
Email: [email protected].
7. For the original writings and speeches of Frederick
Douglass, we used The Frederick Douglass Papers,
Series One: Speeches, Debates, and Interviews, ed.
John W. Blassingame and John R. McKivigan (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1991).
BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN Vol. 73, No. 2
11
73
No.2
The list of Lincoln policies:
L1.
(C) None.
L2.
(D) The Union Army will treat escaped or confiscated slaves as contraband property and will not return
them to their owners.
L3.
(I) The Union will ask border states to emancipate slaves on their own.
L4.
(E) The Union will not allow its military generals to emancipate slaves in their own districts of their own
accord.
L5.
(B) The Union will stop the international slave trade.
L6.
(L) The Union will use Black men as Union troops, but in noncombatant roles.
L7.
(F)The Union will emancipate all Confederate slaves in rebelling territories.
L8.
(A) The Union will use Black men as Union troops in combatant roles except as officers.
L9.
(K) When Confederates take Black Union troops as prisoners and kill or re-enslave them, the Union will
retaliate by executing or imprisoning Confederate captives.
L10. (G) The Union will emancipate all slaves, south or north, and declare slavery illegal. [Teacher note: This
policy stance repeats in a second round.]
L11. (H) The Union will allow Black soldiers to serve as officers. **
**There was no presidential authorization allowing Black soldiers to become officers during the Civil War, although
109 received commissions and over 7,000 Black noncommissioned officers served.
The list of Douglass quotations:
D1.
(A) No significant statement or change in position
D2.
(C) “There can be no peace or unity in this country while slavery exists.”
D3.
(G) “I...urge all men, and especially the Government, to the abolition of slavery.”
D4.
(E) “We are striking the guilty rebels with our soft, white hand, when we should be striking with the iron
hand of the black man, which we keep chained behind us.”
D5.
(F) “I hold that the Proclamation, good as it is, will be worthless—a miserable mockery—unless the nation
shall so far conquer its prejudice as to welcome into the army full-grown black men to help fight the battles
of the Republic.”
D6.
(H) “Nothing can be more plain, nothing more certain than that the speediest and best possible way open
to us to manhood, equal rights and elevation, is that we enter this [military] service.”
D7.
(D) “I am for the ‘immediate, unconditional and universal’ enfranchisement of the black man, in every
State of the Union.”
D8.
(B) “And when it is... asked, ‘What have you done?’ my answer will be, that the first soldiers who entered
the long-beleaguered and long-desired city of Richmond, on the heels of the retreating rebels, were black
soldiers.”
Round 1 (March and April, 1861)
Historical Events (to tell to the competing teams):
• March 1: AL delivers his 1st Inaugural Address. His speech disappoints FD because it does not take a strong
anti-slavery stand.
• April 12: Confederate firing on Ft. Sumter begins Civil War; FD sees war on slavery.
Position taken by Lincoln: L1; Position taken by Douglass: D2 (April 28, 1861)
12 | BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 72, NO.2
12
BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN Vol. 73, No. 2
73
No.2
Round 2 (June-July, 1861)
Historical Events (to tell to the competing teams):
• April-July: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina secede from the Union.
• April 22: Robert E. Lee becomes commander of the Virginia forces.
• May 3: AL calls for three-year volunteers.
Position taken by Lincoln: L2 (On July 4, AL asks Congress to pass a confiscation act defining slaves as contraband of
war.); Position taken by Douglass: D3 (June 30, 1861)
Round 3 (September, 1861)
Historical Events (to tell to the competing teams):
• July 21: The first Battle of Bull Run/Manassas is a humiliating defeat for the Union.
• August 30: Gen. John C. Fremont proclaims emancipation in Missouri.
Position taken by Lincoln: L3 and L4 (AL pressures border states to liberate slaves and overrules Gen. Fremont’s
proclamation freeing Missouri slaves on the grounds that it was the president’s responsibility to declare emancipation.)
[Student teams get credit for answering either 3 or 4.]; Position taken by Douglass: D1 (FD gives no significant new
speech but later, on January 14, 1862, denounces AL’s letter to Fremont as “weakness and imbecility.”)
Round 4 (January-April 1862)
Historical Events (to tell to the competing teams):
• January: Douglass Monthly complains that US had refused to make a treaty with Britain against the illegal
Atlantic slave trade for 25 years.
Position taken by Lincoln: L5 (On April 10, Lincoln sends British-US treaty against illegal Atlantic slave trade to
Congress.); Position taken by Douglass: D4 (January 14, 1862)
Round 5 (September, 1862)
Historical Events (to tell to the competing teams):
• July 17: Congress passes the Militia Act authorizing Black troops as noncombatants.
• September 17: The Battle of Antietam is declared a Union victory due to Lee’s retreat.
Position taken by Lincoln: L6 & L7 (AL makes a preliminary announcement that he will emancipate slaves in the
rebelling states, effective January 1, 1863.); Position taken by Douglass: D1 (No significant new speech is given during
this period.)
Round 6 (January-February, 1863)
Historical Events (to tell to the competing teams):
• January 1, 1863: Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect, freeing all slaves in the rebelling states.
Position taken by Lincoln: L8 (AL gives Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, permission to authorize on January 26, 1863
the creation of the all-Black 54th Massachusetts Regiment which includes two sons of Frederick Douglass, Charles and
Lewis.); Position taken by Douglass: D5 (January 19 and February 6, 1863)
BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN Vol. 73, No. 2
13
73
No.2
Round 7 (July, 1863)
Historical Events (to tell to the competing teams):
• May 1: The Confederate Congress authorizes President Jefferson Davis to deal with Black regiments taken
prisoner by executing their White officers and re-enslaving or killing their Black enlisted men.
• May 27-July 9: Battle at Port Hudson, Louisiana, during the siege of Vicksburg demonstrates the valor of
black troops.
• June 4: The War Department announces that the Militia Act authorized $10 per month pay for Black troops
rather than the $13 per month given to White troops.
• July 13: New York City draft riots kill Black abolitionists.
• July 16: During the 2nd Battle of Fort Wagner, SC (depicted in the movie Glory), half the men in the 54th
Massachusetts Regiment are lost, including commanding officer Col. Shaw, and Lewis Douglass is wounded.
Position taken by Lincoln: L9 (AL signs the Order of Retaliation on July 30.); Position taken by Douglass: D6 (July 6,
1863)
Round 8 (January-February, 1865)
Historical Events (to tell to the competing teams):
• April12: Black troops distinguish themselves but are massacred at Fort Pillow.
• June 15: Congress authorizes equal pay for Black soldiers.
• September 2: Sherman conquers Atlanta, next marches to the sea.
• November 8: AL is re-elected.
Position taken by Lincoln: L10 (Congress passes the 13th Amendment on January 31; AL signs it to go to the states for
ratification on February 1.); Position taken by Douglass: D7 (January 26, 1865)
Round 9 (March-April, 1865)
Historical Events (to tell to the competing teams):
• February 1: Sherman’s March through the Carolinas is underway.
• February 3: AL holds Hampton Roads Peace Conference with Confederate VP Alexander Stephens to no
avail.
• March 4: AL’s Second Inauguration. FD was in the crowd and also attended the reception afterward, their
third and final meeting. FD called the speech “a sacred effort.”
Position taken by Lincoln: L10 repeats (On March 4, AL gives his Second Inaugural Address, indicating that slavery is
dead and emancipation is definite.); Position taken by Douglass: D8 (April 4, 1865)
Epilogue to the Game
• April 9, 1865: Robert E. Lee surrenders to U.S. Grant at Appomattox.
• April 14, 1865: John Wilkes Booth assassinates Abraham Lincoln.
• April 15, 1865: Frederick Douglass gives the first of his many eulogies for Lincoln.
• December 6, 1865: The states finally ratify the 13th Amendment.
• April 14, 1876: Frederick Douglass dedicates the Freedmen’s Monument in Lincoln Park (Washington, D.C.).
Although he comments that the kneeling figure of a Black man should have stood tall, he praises Lincoln as
the man who freed the slaves.
• February 20, 1895: Frederick Douglass dies.
14 | BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN VOL. 72, NO.2
14
BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN Vol. 73, No. 2
73
No.2
LESSON PLAN
FREDERICK DOUGLASS AND ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON BLACK EQUITY IN THE CIVIL WAR:
A HISTORICAL-RHETORICAL PERSPECTIVE
By Katherine Scott Sturdevant and Stephen Collins
Connections to High School
Students will analyze how Abraham Lincoln’s cautious but effective policymaking interacted with Frederick Douglass’s
vehement, farsighted advocacy to result in the emancipation of slaves and the employment and fair treatment of Black troops.
They can do so by examining both men’s original rhetoric to discover how their sophisticated and influential commentary
affected history.
Goal of the Lesson Plan
The goal of this lesson is to teach students the complexities of policymaking by elected officials and policy influencing by
activist reformers. This is an exercise in critical thinking about historical decision-making.
National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) Standards
History
Assist learners in utilizing chronological thinking so that they can distinguish between past, present, and future
time; can place historical narratives in the proper chronological framework; can interpret data presented in time
lines; and can compare alternative models for periodization.
• Guide learners in practicing skills of historical analysis and interpretation, such as compare and contrast, differentiate
between historical facts and interpretations, consider multiple perspectives, analyze cause and effect relationships,
compare competing historical narratives, recognize the tentative nature of historical interpretations, and hypothesize
the influence of the past.
• Help learners to identify issues and problems in the past, recognize factors contributing to such problems, identify
and analyze alternative courses of action, formulate a position or course of action, and evaluate the implementation
of that decision.
•
Activity and Assessment
The goal of this game is to determine what policies Lincoln advocated for during nine different periods of his administration
and what statements Douglass made during those same time periods.
1. The instructor determines the number of teams and members.
2. Teachers should give a copy of the provided list of 11 policy stances of Lincoln and eight quotations by Douglass
to all members of the student teams.
3. For each round, the teacher states the significant historical events provided.
4. The student teams then need to determine which Lincoln policy and which Douglass quotation fall within the period
covered by that round. Each team submits its answer privately to the teacher (on slips of folded paper or through
the use of clickers).
5. The teacher tallies the scores and announces each team’s score after each round. Teams receive one point for getting
either the Lincoln policy or the Douglass quotation right for the round in question. Teams receive three points if they
get both Lincoln’s policy and Douglass’s quotation correct for that round. Note: Although listed chronologically for
the benefit of the teacher (L1-L11 and D1-D8 respectively), the policy and quotation lists given to students should
be listed as A., B., C., etc. (as they appear to the right in the lists below) so that the students must figure out the
correct sequences.
6. The student team that has the most points after all 10 rounds wins.
BLACK HISTORY BULLETIN Vol. 73, No. 2
15