Frederick Douglass was an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer,
and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the
abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his dazzling oratory
and incisive antislavery writings. In his time, he was described by abolitionists as a living
counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to
function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe
that such a great orator had once been a slave.
Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all peoples, whether black, female, Native
American, or recent immigrant. He was also a believer in dialogue and in making alliances
across racial and ideological divides, and in the liberal values of the American Constitution.
When radical abolitionists, under the motto "No Union With Slaveholders", criticized
Douglass' willingness to dialogue with slave owners, he famously replied: "I would unite with
anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."
