Many of the achievements of the Civil War andReconstruction were not concrete. It became expedient for northern politicaland business interests to conciliate southern whites, and an end to federalenforcement of black equality in the South was the price of conciliation. Frederick Douglass declared that “as the war for the Union recedes into themisty shadows of the past, and the Negro is not longer needed to assault fortsand stop rebel bullets, he is . . . of less importance. Peace with the oldmaster class has been war to the Negro. As the one has risen, the other hasfallen.” The Reconstruction guarantees of the national state were broken. The ugly truth was now exposed. Abolition was a war between whites, andblacks joined only on sufferance. Douglass knew this early on, but noweveryone knew. It may sound depressing, but Douglass, and many others like him,did build the foundation for later equality movements by Martin Luther King. Today, we are still working up to the ideals of Douglass' crusade.BibliographyThe Frederick Douglass Papers Volumes I-VEditor: John Blassingame, Yale University Press 1985Radical Abolition, Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery ThoughtLewis Perry, Cornell University 1973William Lloyd Garrison and the Humanitarian ReformersEditor: Oscar Handlin, Little Brown and Company, 1955 ...
