Customer Reviews

Frederick Douglass: Race and the Rebirth of American Liberalism (American Political Thought (University of Kansas))

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Professor Myers' book is an equal to Professor Jaffa's book on the Lincoln-Stephen Douglas debates which helped catapault Lincoln to the White House. It seems as though Professor Myers read everything that Frederick Douglass wrote. With a keen eye and an engaging style, Professor Myers shows the core of Frederick Douglass' political philosophy which is as relevant today as it was more than 160 years ago when Frederick Douglass escaped to freedom and began to demand equal rights for both African Americans and women in a liberal democracy. One sees how thoughtful and comprehensive Frederick Douglass' thought is.

A Possession for All Time

In this well-conceived and beautifully executed study, Myers has given Frederick Douglass a chance to explain his thought through his own books and speeches, and has thereby rescued his long career of political action from now-common misunderstandings. As a scholar, Myers cut his teeth with a fine book on Locke's political philosophy; he recognizes in Douglass a profound student of "the judicious Locke," who successfully avoided the pitfalls to which Locke's thought is prone when petrified into dogma. He understands the difficulties we face in making reason "our only star and compass" in political life. For Myers, Douglass rivals Lincoln as a model of thoughtful statesmanship, in a life devoted primarily to public speaking and writing. He displays Douglass as a master of political rhetoric who is able to bend to his audience, and rise to public emergencies, without losing his way. His Douglass is in a line with the first American Founders; and the principal obstacle to understanding him today is the same: Myers might have subtitled his book "Vindicating a Founder." After more than a century of Douglass-scholarship and criticism dominated by the historicist assumption that the human mind is never strong enough to rise above its time, Myers has restored to view Douglass's towering accomplishment, challenging readers today to meet the standard of excellence that Douglass set for all time.
Robert Eden, Professor of Political Science, Hillsdale College.