By now, Douglass, a more seasoned activist, is imagining how the world will see him. What will future generations think about his work, his effort toward seeing freedom for black people in America. Douglass's dissatisfaction with the White House administration's blatant concern for the slaveholder and the southern and bordering slave states sent Lincoln back to the proverbial drawing board.
It's a tug of war between a man committed to freedom and one wanting to save the nation at the expense of the very people who, dehumanized for hundreds of years, labored for a country that only recognized them as worthy on sunny days, toiling in the fields. But let it rain resistance, let the very people wronged cry foul, point the finger at the true source of violence, and then those people are no longer useful or wanted.
And now comes a string of proclamations. Almost freedom, but not quite. Almost a nation disentangling itself from the ill-gained profits of slavery. But not quite. Douglass would have seen through it all. He would see the anger of a collective of slaveholders dampening Lincoln's spirit. But, there, too, was a reluctant Lincoln, unable to imagine the plight of "wretched strangers", visible to him on any given day, toiling away, unfree, at the White House.
Finally in March 1862, the president began floating the idea of emancipating African Americans. That is, the freeing of enslaved blacks in the border states seemed less of a threat to slaveholders in southern states. In Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and even Delaware, slaveholders in these border states would receive compensation, of course. After all, blacks are property, even if these states had few enslaved blacks.
Abolitionists, including Douglass, who had been holding their breaths, finally let out a collective cheer. It was a start. Nothing grand. A start. Finally, a president of the United States was thinking about "emancipation", Douglass thought.
Congress, however, despite ferocious debates, could only muster the votes to emancipate "thirty-two hundred slaves in the District of Columbia". It seemed that too many lawmakers imagined "free" African Americans unable to "cope with freedom". What should the US do with these people after slavery, then, continued to be an issue for white America.
Emancipation for African Americans meant the beginning of restoring a people to the ranks of humanity.
For white Americans, emancipation meant something else entirely.
While the lash strikes one more person's back and the selling of another two children helps purchase an upscale carriage for the mistress, down on the plantation, high places, the federal government drafts financial documents to exchange money between the US government and slaveholders (property owners). The "art of the deal" reflects the civilization inherited from the European conquistadors, kings, and queens. Whether in Mississippi or Washington D.C., the American power-brokers resemble one another as the one hands off to the other a payment of (according to Blight) three hundred dollars per slave. In total, some one hundred thousand dollars went to "schemes of colonization in the wake of abolition in the District".
Some ideas die hard.
It seems that few recognized the slaveholders (as did Douglass and John Brown) as criminals. The whole system of enslavement, a crime against humanity, paid well: nine-hundred-thousand dollars went to slaveholders in compensation. Games were being played. Minds were moving slowly toward the idea of total emancipation. Douglass accepted the effort toward that day when total emancipation would be a reality.
But, as Blight notes, Douglass was soon lecturing the president. How much should this man presume to know about black people? How would he know "the intentions and spirits" of black people? Did he ask black people if they would consider "leaving their own country to satisfy the demands of white supremacy"?
**
It was for Douglass an old problem. Not that of what to do with African Americans, but rather, what to make of America's love affair with white supremacy. The origins of the Civil War, he told the nation, is born of slavery. In fact, Douglass continues (quoted by Blight), "We are only continuing the tremendous struggle, which your fathers and my fathers began eighty six years ago." Douglass recognized a nation, writes Blight, facing "a second American revolution". Already underway, Douglass recognized this war as "more bloody, but perhaps more enduring and important than the first".
While white Americans thought of extending white supremacy to the "frontiers" and beyond, African Americans focused on what's at stake: freedom or death?
The "'singularly pleasing dream'" of white supremacy, however, as Douglass noted, was moving forward. Despite the freeing of African Americans in the District of Columbia, Lincoln, too, isn't giving up the prospect of blacks expatriating to Africa or the Caribbean. He calls a meeting at the White House on August 14, 1862, inviting a small delegation of black ministers, writes Blight. Douglass isn't invited. But he hears.
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