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Frederick Douglass And Lincoln Relationship Essay

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Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were alike in many ways, especially on how to end slavery. One devoted his life’s work to the abolition of slavery in America and to becoming the leader of the many African people. The other became the President of United States whose sole reason for starting the Civil War (1861-1865) was to preserve the national unity and later led to the abolition of slavery in America. Two men with the difference in political position have nothing in common at first. And yet, form a relationship like no other relationship has ever impacted the future of race relations in the United States more than that of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Never once had they meet each other personally until the Emancipation …show more content…

During the time he was in the Whig Party, he argued against the Democratic Party on racist ground. While campaigning for William Henry Harrison, a fellow Whig member, he denounced the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee Martin Van Buren for his support of black citizens to have voting rights in New York. Lincoln also fought in cases where he represented the Negroes and won some cases while losing some. Two of the cases he won were the Bailey v. Cromwell (1841) and the People v. Pond (1845). On both cases he represented a black women and her children and defended for harboring the fugitive slave John Hauley. There was one case where he did not win which were the Matson v. Rutherford where he represent a slave owner claiming the return of fugitive slaves in 1847. However, in the 1850s, with the breakup of the Whig Party, he parted way and later resurface in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and gave out his “Peoria Speech” on October 16, 1854 declaring his opposition to slavery, which he later reused it in his route to the

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