Frederick Douglass, American Citizen

In his own time, Frederick Douglass embodied white Americans’ fears about the viability of their constitutional republicanism. Today, though, he represents the most visible hope for fulfilling America’s promise of multicultural democracy. Some see Douglass as a pioneer of the black struggle for freedom and equality against slavery and white supremacy. Others see him as having identified the Constitution’s true antislavery spirit—obscured by proslavery concessions and constructions, but eventually affirmed in the Reconstruction amendments. To both audiences, Douglass personifies the hope that blacks and whites can abide together in a constitutional democracy.