DOUGLASS FREDERICK Two Speeches One on West India Emancip

Sale 2377 - Lot 89

Price Realized: $ 4,750

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Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 5,000

DOUGLASS, FREDERICK. Two Speeches . . . One on West India Emancipation, delivered at Canandaigua, Aug. 4th, and the Other on the Dred Scott Decision, Delivered in New York. 24 and 46 pages respectively. 8vo, original blue wrappers, stitched; tiny, closed tear to the bottom of the front cover. Rochester: C. P. Dewey, 1857

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a very nice copy of a rare printing of two significant douglass speeches. The first speech, given on the 23rd anniversary of West Indian Emancipation, addresses the accomplishments of Wilberforce and Clarkson, and builds to the Amistad captives and their fight for freedom, making the point that freedom is fought for, not given. This forms the perfect introduction to the second speech, on Dred Scott. Here Douglass says that the right to liberty is "self-evident. . . . Man was born with it. It was his before he comprehended it. . . . To decide against this right in the person of Dred Scott or the humblest and most whip-scarred bondsman in the land, is to decide against God. It is an open rebellion against God's government, and attempt to undo what God [has] done. . . . Such a decision cannot stand. . . . We can appeal from this hell-black judgment of the Supreme Court, to the court of common sense and common humanity."