those differences. No class of men aredoing more according to their numbers, to conduct this great war to theEmancipation of the slaves than Mr. Garrison and the American Anti-SlaverySociety." (Frederick Douglass, Monthly of March 1862).Raising the free black regiments for service in the Union Army was apolicy intended to give blacks a sturdy claim on the state and prove that theywere citizens of the United States. Frederick Douglass was extremely active,and his own sons were the first recruits from New York. In March 1863, hepublished the stirring Men of Color, To Arms! “Liberty won by white men wouldlack half its luster. “Who would be free themselves must strike the blow,”proclaimed Douglass. “The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondageof centuries, and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the plane ofcommon equality with all other varieties of men....Action! action! notcriticism, is the plain duty of this hour.” Soon, two black regiments wereformed. After learning the truth about abolition, Douglass never deceived himselfby thinking that the blacks were anything but the nation's foster children,taken into the “family” as a result of accident and necessity. Although theywere not of the nation, they were in the nation. They, the black race, werecitizens of the United States, and they were on equal terms. The laws of thenational state guaranteed that. By 1870, Douglass and his allies had madeconsiderable progress. Most of the measures they had originally advocated hadbeen adopted: the immediate and universal abolition of slavery, the enlistmentof black soldiers, the creation of a Freedmen's Bureau, and most importantly,the incorporation of the black man's civil and political equality into the lawof the land (Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments).But the next decade proved to be a very frustrating one for Douglass andmany of his supporters....
