Frederick Douglass, Republican

This book analyzes the political thought of Frederick Douglass within the larger Black Republican tradition of the nineteenth century. It argues that Douglass's overriding goal during five decades of public life was to cultivate a political order across the western hemisphere that would ensure self-determination as a universal right. To this end, the book examines Douglass's views on national sovereignty, democratic citizenship, civic virtue, and economic independence. Douglass's expansive--though largely unrealized--visions for emancipation and integration offers a constructive framework for the pursuit of racial justice today. This is because Douglass builds his philosophy on a robust conception of freedom as nondomination--for individuals and for society at large--and, crucially, thinks through what it would take to overcome systemic forms of domination. What makes Douglass's approach distinctively republican is its reliance on structural as well as moral reforms--changes to how political and economic power is distributed within American society alongside changes in how Americans (of all races) use the power they have.