Frederick Douglass

"For Frederick Douglass, the iconic nineteenth-century slave and abolitionist, the foundations for his arguments in support of racial equality rested on natural rights and natural law - and the bold proclamation of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. But because many Americans never observed this principle - and in Douglass's day even renounced it - he made it his life's work to move the nation toward this vision of a more noble liberalism. Peter Myers now considers that effort and the natural rights arguments by which Douglass confronted race in America." "Myers examines the philosophic core of Douglass's political thought, offering a greater understanding of its depth and coherence. He depicts Douglass as the leading thinker to apply the Founders' doctrine of natural rights to the plight of African Americans - an activist who grounded his arguments in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the inherent injustice not only of slavery but of any form of racial discrimination." "Myers finds in Douglass's political thought the foundations of a revitalized argument for the mainstream civil rights, integrationist tradition of African American political thought. His analysis offers a new way of looking at an important thinker, as well as a compelling case for hoping that race relations in America will improve over time."--Jacket.