Cullen, “The Wright Stuff”
The Wright Stuff
Stephen Douglas, Frederick Douglass, and the blackened reputation of Abraham Lincolnby Jim Cullen
It has become a commonplace of modern politics to bemoan the presumably sorry state of our election campaigns by comparing them with the 1858 U.S. Senate debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. The seven encounters around the state of Illinois exactly 150 years ago are often collectively regarded as the apogee of high-minded democratic discourse. “Lincoln-Douglas It Wasn’t,” reads the title of a blog entry on a George Bush-John Kerry debate in 2004. A suburban New York newspaper Website summed up its coverage of a 2006 debate for state senate with the headline, “It Wasn’t Exactly Lincoln-Douglas.” U.S. News and World Report described former presidential candidate John Edwards’s response to a 2007 video portraying him fussing with his hair by saying “it wasn’t the Lincoln-Douglas debates, exactly.” At one point in the presidential primary campaigns this spring, Hillary Clinton repeatedly called for Lincoln-Douglas styled debates with Barack Obama. “I think they would love seeing that kind of debate and discussion,” she said. The Obama campaign made a similar pitch to John McCain in response to the McCain campaign’s call for town meetings.
Of course, as anyone who has actually read the transcripts of the Lincoln-Douglas debates knows, they were characterized by often numbing repetition, mudslinging, and innuendo. The racial dimension of the innuendo was especially important. If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, then racism—cloaked in the garb of anti-extremism—may well be the first.
[This is just a snippet. Read the whole article at Common-Place, then come back here to comment below.]
i throughly enjoyed this article not because I agreed with all of the author’s points but because it made me think about issues that i had never considered. I never would have considered a comparison between Frederick Douglass and Rev. Wright not even to confirm or dispute the comparison but the two quotes at the beginning of the article grabbed my attention and made me ponder the issue. In my opinion the line between Douglass and Wright, which Prof. Cullen admits is not straight, is not solid. The type of oppression that both individuals rally against is different. Douglass condemned the United States for holding African-Americans in chains while Wright is concerned with the lack of progress in post Civil-Rights America but this is only my opinion and the difference between the two can definetly be debated. Also, I believe that a stronger connection can be made between members of the Republican party, as well as conservative talk show hosts such Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reily, and Stephen Douglas than a connection between Douglas and McCain because he has largely avoided making Wright and Obama a campaign issue while the others have kept the issue alive. Prof. Cullen has successfully merged history and current events and provided a forum for debate.
Comment by wgl — October 23, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
The issues of race in the 2008 Presidential campaign have been consistently and intentionally distorted and this article does not represent an exception. Rev. Wright is a race-baiting opportunist whose primary motivation seems to be increasing his own wealth by fanning the flames of racial hatred. Comparing Rev. Wright to Frederick Douglass is an insult to Mr. Douglass and every other American who has sincerely attempted to improve the racial situation in this country. Only in the world of liberal academia would such a comparison not strike a person as laughable on its face.
Also embarrassing is Prof. Cullen’s attempt to defend Bob Herbert’s tedious and predictable accusations of racial bigotry by the McCain camp. Prof. Cullen applauds Mr. Herbert for uncovering the insidious racial subtext of a McCain campaign ad. Pathetic. To Mr. Herbert and the left-wing loons that populate the Times Op-Ed page, a racist can be defined as anyone who fails to wholeheartedly support the magical and planet-saving candidacy of Sen. Obama. By embracing this transparent left-wing hackery, Prof. Cullen robs himself of even the illusion of measured impartiality and exposes himself as nothing more than another leftist academic with an ax to grind.
Academia is totally dominated by lock-step leftist ideology. This is painfully obvious to everyone yet many academics make a pitiful attempt to either deny it outright or justify it by indulging in orgies of smug self-satisfaction. It doesn’t really matter; the liberal domination of academia is a fact of life. Judging by Prof. Cullen’s article, he certainly has no intention of altering the status quo.
Comment by Burt Lancaster — October 26, 2008 @ 1:08 am
I believe that a comparison between Jeremiah Wright and Frederick Douglass is debatable — precisely the point of the article, and I’m glad to see that it was a comparison sufficiently provocative to evoke responses on the part of those who at least partially disagree with me, whether in terms of premise or conclusion. I would point out to wgl that the chains Frederick Douglass sought to break were literal as well as figurative, and that he continued this project for decades after the formal end of slavery. I agree with both him and Mr. Lancaster that Wright is not as persuasive a figure as Douglass, though I will add that the point of view of Douglass, once considered every bit as incendiary as Wright is now, is widely regarded as common sense by a great many conservatives, among others. That Wright would suggest that the United States has acted in ways that God would condemn, and that the tragedy of September 11 is a terrible price the few have paid for the sins of many, does not strike me as a patently false, treacherous statement. Whether or not we agree, I believe, as I think Douglass did, that an honest patriotism requires grappling with difficult questions rather than turning on the people who raise them, exploiting them to stoke resentment, or dismissing, with lots of assertions and not much in the way of substantial evidence, those who do as mindless hacks.
Comment by Jim Cullen — October 26, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
A very fine article. People with interest in the debates absolutely must listen to the audio recording of them using modern actors (Richard Dreyfuss plays Douglas; see “The Lincoln-Douglas Debates” in audible.com). I too was appalled by the level of overt racism and race-baiting, the “would you let your daughter marry one” threat, not to mention guilt by association, accusations of conspiracies, the constant reference to the “BLACK Republicans”, wrapping himself in the mantle of the Founding Fathers…who, according to Douglass, would have made slavery legal throughout the nation if they had followed Lincoln’s “house divided” logic. You have to hear it to believe it. I too despise the level of debate today; but any student of American history knows that it is not unusual.
Comment by Gary Shogren — April 4, 2010 @ 10:11 am
I have studied Frederick Douglass for many years and followed his activities for many years in Wisconsin and Illinois.
If you have read “My Bondage and My Freedom or Life and Times of Frederick Douglass”, and authored by F. Douglass turn to pages of his attack in 1843 from the pro-slavery mob in Indiana with William Abjiah White. The freindship of F. Douglass and
William A. White is not very well known. Willaim A. White is credited with saving Douglass’ life when the proslavery mob attacked at the antislavery gathering at Pendelton, Indiana. William A. White put his life and family fortune on the line for human rights. William A. White is one of the founding fathers of the early radical element which blossemed into the Republican Party on a National Level Pittsburg, Pa., Feebruary 22 & 23 of 1856. James Redpath a advocate of John Brown was their and Frederick Douglass, Redpath was a delegate at this first Sectional Republican meeting.
William A. White was despised by the the Democrats of Madison, Wisconsin because of his freindship with Frederick Douglass
and when the book “My Bondage and My Freedom,” was published it may have been one of the issues that was (may have) responsible for White’s homicide and at this time White was the very first Wisconsin Republican Central Committee Chairman of Republican Party.
In January of 1854 the late Stephen A. Douglass submitted a proposal for the will of the people too decide whether slavery should exsist in the Kansas Territory. At this same time Frederick Douglass’ prominence was well known in the antislavery politcal social system. He was regarded as a honorable Stateman and leader of extending humanity to all. Wisconsin was going to name Douglas County, Wisconsin for the late Stephen A. Douglas Senator from Illinois and it was. But,! One person stepped forward a new State Senator from Rock County Louis P. Harvey and submitted a proposal in the Wisconsin Legislature January 1854 that Frederick Douglass receive that honor of the new County assciated name sake. Stephen A. Douglass wanted to extend slavery into the new territories that would be assocaited with more human rights violations. Frederick Douglass was denoted by Harvey as a champion of freedom and humanity. This is months before the birth of the Republican Party and Harvey was a strong antislavery supporter of his day. Louis P. Harvey became a Civil War Governor in Wisconsin and died in an accident while visiting the wounded Badger Boys in Blue Tennessee 1862.
Frederick Douglass was a invited guest speaker of the local, county and State level Republican Rallies and or funtionss 1854 and 1856. He spoke about slavery and the constitution being a tool of the Southern slave owners was well received.
This occurred in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. In 1856 he put in many hours of traveling and speaking engagements with Republicans in support of John C. Fremont the very first National Republican candidate to seek the office of President.
1856 was a very violent period in Kansas, Washington and during the election time of October and Novemebr 1856.
Frederick Douglass was in Wisconsin and Illinois 1856 during the Fremont election campaign canvassing for his candidate of choice. Douglass could not vote was denied American citizenship status but was a very powerful speaker and Statesman. He gave a very powerful speech in Chicago in October of 1856 and he was speaking of the mixing of the races and that the first families of the South preferred the Negro slave woman over their white wife. And, rememeber this was at a get out the vote Young Republican Fremont Club rally. He spoke of the bondsman the evils of not being paid for ones work in wages and that the
Slaveholder was a evil curse upon this nation. He was denoted in the newspapers as saying at a Republican meeting it was the duty of the slave too cut the masters’ throat when asleep. There were many politcains speaking the same language with using the Sharpes Rifle as tool to extinguish slavery by force in Kanasa and elsewhere.
He (Douglass) was there when the Lincoln and Douglas debates took place feeling out the next Republican Candidate that would cause secession and inherit death and destruction in a Civil War. John Brown and Harpers Ferry was just the tip of the iceburg and with the election of any Republican or evil “Black Republican,” this nation would split and Frederck Douglass utilized (at any cost) this war to promote the use of African Americam freemen and slaves as Union soldiers to extinguish slavery forever. Douglass was a brilliant and man using his skills to rally the nation for a war that can not be denied was over the issue of slavery. Frederick Douglass and the New England Emigrant Kansas Aid societies help propel the virgin Republican Party into a strong Sectional Republican Party and win the “Slaveholders Rebellion.”
KEVIN, Douglass Historian, Let us deal with facts and truth
Comment by Kevin Dier-Zimmel, Douglass Historian — July 8, 2010 @ 9:09 pm
From: 1856 Wisconsin Newspaper (historic Newspaper Reports of the election of 1856)
How much influence did Frederick Douglass with the Republicans and general voter in 1856: More than reported!
Negroes Instructing White Men How to Vote!
Last Week, Fred Douglass, the well-known colored orator, adressed the Fremont Club in Milwaukee>
He had the largest audience of the campaign—completely elclisping Judge Doolittle, Jude Howe,
and other white speakers who had spoken at previuos meetings and was RAPTUROUSLY applauded. Inviting or employing
negroes to instruct white men how to vote at a Presidential election, is, we suppose practical Republicanism, or
Fremontism illustrated.
So be it.
A notorious darkey, named Bob Purvie who resides in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, has taken the
stump for his friend Col. John C. Fremont in that city.
Another article of historic nature:
The Fremont meeting at the camp House, on Saturday, was enthusiastic the great hall being crammed
to its utmost capacity. Frederick Douglass spoke nearly two and a half hours to an intensely interested audience and was
frequently interupted by hearty chhers. His speech was very able and eloquent, and made a decided impression. It will
be seen by the programe that he is to speak at Beaver Dam, Fond Du Lac, Racine, Elkhorn, Kenosha here again next Monday night
and at Waukesha, before he returns to New York. “he will draw a crowd where ever he goes.. (Wisconsin Octber 1856)
He did in Chicago that same week after his stump in Wisconsin…
Comment by kevin — July 8, 2010 @ 11:27 pm