is. He proclaims, Oh! Be warned! A horrible reptile is coiled up in your nations bosom; thevenomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic;for the love of God tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever. (82) But the warning would not be heeded. Douglasss comment signifies that the rage, the fury, the impending inevitability of crisis, is a result of white Americas persistent failure to peacefully concede. And in 1861, Douglass issues this judgment against America:The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time; but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery; and that it can never be effectually put down till one or the other of these vital forces is completely destroyed. The irrepressible conflict, long confined to words and votes, is now to be carried by bayonets and bullets, and may God defend the right! (my emphasis)(Nemesis 80)Once considered a peace-man, Douglass here advocates bloodshed and violence, harnessing rage to overthrow oppression. As would be seen throughout American history, Rage has risen indeed to the height of irrepressible conflict.When considering the extent to which rage will lead, one must ask, what if white America did not engage in civil war? What if white abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison , John Brown , and many others did not adamantly stand against slavery? Would blacks have waited, continuing in bonds, until white deliverance arrived? Or, would they have risen up in rebellion likened unto the Amistad and once and for all declared themselves free and autonomous from white oppression? History will not afford us the answers to these questions. One thing is certain, however: a momentous movement towards that end can be historically traced and noted...
