Frederick Douglas was a former slave who escaped bondage and fought for his freedom. Once he earned his freedom, he felt no need to stop there. Douglas continued to fight for the rights of others in a time where his actions could have had morbid consequences. Frederick soon gained notoriety and was invited to speak on what the Fourth of July means for  America's black population. In this speech Douglas makes it clear that to the black population the Fourth of July exemplifies the hypocrisy in America. Douglas argues the point that America was built on the principles of freedom and justice but for his people there was no freedom or justice to be found. As a strengthening point to his argument, Douglas argues that the founding fathers meant to extract slavery from this nation. He argues that the Constitution reflects this, Douglas believes that the Constitution is an anti-slavery document and should be treated as so. However, the main question is how could the Constitution be an anti-slavery document when it failed to directly address the issue? How could something that clearly allows slavery to continue be used to eradicate it? The easy answer to these questions is that it could not. The Constitution was a pro-slavery document and therefore could not be used to eliminate the terrible tyrant known as slavery. 

“Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it” (Douglas). In this quote, Douglas argues that the Constitution is absent of any pro-slavery clause and therefore must be anti-slavery. This idea comes from those of strict constructionist like Thomas Jefferson who believed if the Constitution did not directly state an issue then it was unconstitutional. However, I agree with loose constructionist on the laws of the constitution. The Constitution mentions slavery very few times but in each instance, it never outlaws it or even speaks upon it negatively. Even though the founding fathers may have disagreed with slavery they were apathetic to the issue which only exacerbated the problem. The refusal to mention slavery as property or anything else in the Constitution means something. But what it meant was embarrassment and damage control. The planters didn’t need or even want an explicit statement that slaves were property; it would have stated the obvious while opening up the United States to international ridicule in an era when slavery was coming into question. As long as the Constitution did not directly state slavery was wrong then pro-slavery Americans had means to justify it. On balance, the Constitution was deliberately ambiguous—but operationally proslavery. 

The most famous white abolitionist in the U.S., and deservedly so, is William Lloyd Garrison. Frederick and Garrison were close friends and Douglas followed many of Garrison’s ideas. While not identical, their views on most topics of the day were close and each defended the other from attacks by critics. In William Lloyd Garrison’s excerpt, The Great Crisis, he explains that the Constitution was a compromise put in place by our founding fathers to ignore the issue of slavery to keep peace inside of our nation. First Garrison raises the question of who gave slaveholders the right to enslave other men. He asks what separates the slaveholder from the slave in God's eyes. He uses many quotes from the Declaration of Independence to show the hypocrisy of the words of the Declaration of Independence and the actions of pro-slavery Americans. Next, he calls into question the character of anyone who was willing to basically sell their soul to avoid confrontation. Garrison tells his fellow anti-slavery Americans “Be not afraid to look the monster SLAVERY boldly in the face”. Finally, Garrison presents his counter argument that agitating the question of slavery would divide the nation. His answer to this is for Americans to “perform their duty” and leave the consequences to God. Garrisons says if nothing is done about slavery it will promptly destroy the Union but even if the Union could be saved would it be worth spilling the blood of millions of innocent people. 

A second article that negates Frederick Douglas’ point is the Constitution itself. The original Constitution did not state the actual word “slave” a single time but it still addressed the issue of slavery in four different sections. The first instance is in Article 1, Section 2; this article states that all slaves count as ⅗ of a person. Rather than concluding or even slowing the importation of slaves in the south, this article gave slavery a political life. The south began to increase its political status and electoral votes by importing and breeding more slaves. The second-time slavery is mentioned had more apparent effects on slavery. Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution states that Congress could not ban the slave trade until 1808. The fifth article

 strengthens this article; Article 5 states that no amendment could be passed to ban slavery until 1808. These two articles together permitted slavery until the year 1808. This made any anti-slavery actions prior to 1808 pointless. These articles also show that the founding fathers knew something needed to be done to abolish slavery and it even showed that they perhaps foresaw it coming but they chose to protect it to keep slaveholders temporarily pleased. Prior to Article 5, Section 2 of Article 4 states that free states could not protect slaves. Not only did the Constitution protect slavery but it also protected slaveholders. Furthermore, the mere presence of the 13th amendment in the Constitution shows that the original Constitution was pro-slavery. If the Constitution had the tools to abolish slavery then it could have done just that, but instead Congress later needed to push through an amendment that had the power to finally abolish slavery.

For Frederick Douglas to proclaim the Constitution is an anti-slavery instrument is understandable because the Constitution has the principles needed to abolish slavery. Douglas argues that these same principles could and should be applied to eliminate slavery in America. However, after considering the Constitution and researching William Lloyd Garrison, it is easier to see that the founding fathers had no intent for these principles to apply to everyone. These principles were established strictly for white men in America. It is clear that Douglas understands this idea by his use of second person speech when referring to the founding fathers and this Nation. Douglas repeatedly uses phrases such as “your founding father” and “your nation”. It is then difficult to understand why Douglas would think the Constitution could be used to rid slavery. He was an avid follower of William Lloyd Garrison, he understood that the founding fathers ignored slavery, and prior to this speech had proclaimed that the Constitution was “conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity.” 

What led to this shift in is unclear but what is clear is that the original Constitution could not be used to abolish slavery. This was less clear to Frederick Douglas because he did not have the hindsight of history that I have. Douglas delivered the speech in a time before the civil war, before the 13th amendment so how could know that what he was preaching was false. The question also arises if Frederick Douglas believed what he was arguing or if he only argued in order to make a difference. If he preached that the Constitution was pro-slavery, then there could be no later debate of the constitutionality of slavery. So perhaps Douglas only switched sides on the issue to have ground to continue the fight against slavery. Either way after delving into the Constitution it is apparently pro-slavery.