A Twitter post by Darrell Harrison
I have some close friends who, for personal reasons, are conflicted about voting for Donald Trump. I voted for him. And though, as with any candidate running for political office, there is much to be desired about Trump, both as a man and a presidential candidate in terms of his policies, I found these words from an 1876 speech by former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, titled Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, to be helpful to me personally:
"Though he [Lincoln] loved Caesar less than Rome, though the Union was more to him than our freedom or our future, under his wise and beneficent rule we saw ourselves gradually lifted from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood; under his wise and beneficent rule, and by measures approved and vigorously pressed by him, we saw that the handwriting of ages, in the form of prejudice and proscription, was rapidly fading away from the face of our whole country . . . We saw Abraham Lincoln, after giving slaveholders three months' grace in which to save their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper [Emancipation Proclamation], which though special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making slavery forever impossible in the United States. Though we waited long, we saw all this and more."
Keep in mind that Douglass was no great admirer of Lincoln. He knew that on the issue of slavery Lincoln was not an abolitionist. In fact, in that same speech, he said, "You [white people] are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We [black people] are at best only his step-children." My point is that though Lincoln, in totality, was not the kind of president Douglass wished him to be, he was nevertheless an ardent supporter of Lincoln knowing that, though he had to "wait long," Lincoln was the right candidate to support.
I'll leave it there.
A Twitter post by Darrell Harrison
I have some close friends who, for personal reasons, are conflicted about voting for Donald Trump. I voted for him. And though, as with any candidate running for political office, there is much to be desired about Trump, both as a man and a presidential candidate in terms of his policies, I found these words from an 1876 speech by former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, titled Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, to be helpful to me personally:
"Though he [Lincoln] loved Caesar less than Rome, though the Union was more to him than our freedom or our future, under his wise and beneficent rule we saw ourselves gradually lifted from the depths of slavery to the heights of liberty and manhood; under his wise and beneficent rule, and by measures approved and vigorously pressed by him, we saw that the handwriting of ages, in the form of prejudice and proscription, was rapidly fading away from the face of our whole country . . . We saw Abraham Lincoln, after giving slaveholders three months' grace in which to save their hateful slave system, penning the immortal paper [Emancipation Proclamation], which though special in its language, was general in its principles and effect, making slavery forever impossible in the United States. Though we waited long, we saw all this and more."
Keep in mind that Douglass was no great admirer of Lincoln. He knew that on the issue of slavery Lincoln was not an abolitionist. In fact, in that same speech, he said, "You [white people] are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We [black people] are at best only his step-children." My point is that though Lincoln, in totality, was not the kind of president Douglass wished him to be, he was nevertheless an ardent supporter of Lincoln knowing that, though he had to "wait long," Lincoln was the right candidate to support.
I'll leave it there.
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