Essay Assignment: Views on Emancipation

"In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.” –Frederick Douglass, Seneca Falls Convention,1848

"We want more soul, a higher cultivation of all spiritual faculties. We need more unselfishness, earnestness, and integrity. We need men and women whose hearts are the homes of high and lofty enthusiasm and a noble devotion to the cause of emancipation, who are ready and willing to lay time, talent, and money on the altar of universal freedom." –Frances E.W. Harper, The Anglo-African Magazine, 1859

Frederick Douglass (ca.1818-1895) wrote and published many articles and delivered many speeches on the subject of emancipation throughout his life. A fierce and fiery advocate of immediate emancipation for all enslaved people (in the Americas and abroad), he grew increasingly bitter in the decade following the end of Reconstruction, as the post-Civil War gains made by African Americans came to an end and conditions (particularly in the South) worsened. Frances E.W. Harper (1825-1911) was a poet, novelist, abolitionist, and early feminist. Her 1854 collection of poetry, Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, sold extremely well and was published in several editions. 

Assignment: Below are links to several works by Douglass and Harper, respectively. Compare and contrast each writer’s views on emancipation, freedom, and equality. Examine how race, gender, and class concerns are reflected in the writings.

Frederick Douglass

“Emancipation is an Individual, a National, and an International Responsibility” (1846)

“West India Emancipation” (1857) 

“What Shall Be Done with the Slaves If Emancipated?” (1862)

“Men of Color, to Arms!” (1863)

“I Denounce the So-called Emancipation as a Stupendous Fraud” (1888)

“On Woman Suffrage” (1888)

Frances E.W. Harper 

“Bury Me in a Free Land” (1864)

“We Are All Bound Up Together” (1866)

“The Great Problem to be Solved” (1875)

“Then and Now” (1900)