Abraham Lincoln's Definition of Democracy

Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln met several times.

Today is President's day, it falls between the birthdays' of the two most important U.S. Presidents: Abraham Lincoln born on February 12, 1809 and George Washington on February 22, 1732. Both, in today's ahistorical climate, are considered controversial, but reading their statements, and their example one obtains a deeper understanding of why they are, and should be honored and remembered as exemplars.

Historians believe that Abraham Lincoln wrote his definition of democracy on August 1, 1858.

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."

Slavery was routed after a long and bloody war that begin in 1861 and ended with the Union consolidated in 1865, and President Abraham Lincoln assassinated  by Southern partisans on the evening of April 14, 1865. 

Abolitionist Frederick Douglass passed away on this day in 1895 at his Cedar Hill home in Anacostia.The DC City Council commemorated this anniversary earlier today.

On this date in 1895, Frederick Douglass passed away at his Cedar Hill home in Anacostia. His funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. We are so proud of all Douglass accomplished, & that he lived out his final decades here in DC. pic.twitter.com/MIwjpfdUgh

— Council of DC (@councilofdc) February 20, 2023

Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass met together three times in the White House. Historians report that Douglass was initially harshly critical, but he ultimately came to view Lincoln as "emphatically the Black man's president: the first to show any respect for their rights as men." 

Over the next 12 years we saw the  U.S. Constitution amended, slavery outlawed in the United States, and African Americans living in the United States made full citizens, but then a corrupt bargain ended this spring of freedom and the Dream was deferred 80 years.

Progress is not inevitable, and the legacy of Lincoln, and his clear eyed view of democracy impacted the direction of the United States positively to the present day.

His definition of democracy remains relevant today for too many around the world still denied it.

These are additional reasons for my defense in June 2020 of the Emancipation Memorial at Lincoln Park, and for it remaining in its current location.

In Defense of the Emancipation Memorial: The Freedman Statue paid for by former slaves and unveiled on April 14, 1876 by Frederick Douglass

"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead." - G.K. Chesterton

Why do I care so much about a statue paid for by former black slaves and inaugurated by Frederick Douglas on April 14, 1876? Because black lives matter yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  This is why I signed a petition to keep The Emancipation Memorial also known as the Freedman Statue at the same location that it has been for the past 144 years and prevent the destruction of a piece of black history.

This guy is a descendant of the liberated slaves who paid for the emancipation monument-indeed he says his great-great grandfather is the man sculpted with Lincoln. This really would be a teaching moment, if he was not being shouted down. pic.twitter.com/OC8VtV5Rbx

— JamesHeartfield (@JamesHeartfield) June 27, 2020

It both outrages me and saddens me that a mob in the present, who claim outrage over slavery and Jim Crow in the United States that disregarded the humanity and agency of black people, would ignore the choices made by blacks because they can no longer speak for themselves.

The lives of black slaves matter too, and we must remember them and their voices. Not erase them or the monuments they erected to suit the fashions of today.

Archer Alexander

The black man who was the model for the slave rising up from his chains and becoming free in the emancipation statue was Archer Alexander.  While still a slave in 1863 he had learned that a bridge had been sabotaged to kill Union soldiers, and he was able to warn them, but fell under suspicion when the plot failed and fled for his life. Muhammad Ali was a descendant of Archer Alexander a  third great-grandson. In the picture below is Betsy Jane Alexander daughter of Wesley Alexander and the granddaughter of Archer Alexander. She is being assisted by her great grandson's Muhammad Ali and Rahaman Ali.

Muhammad Ali, Betsy Jane Alexander, and Rahaman Ali

The scenes of young people shouting down their black elders trying to educate them on the historical import of the Emancipation Memorial at Lincoln Park were straight out of the Chinese cultural revolution in the 1960s.  


Back then young Chinese attacked their elders and tore down ancient Chinese relics. They desecrated, looted and destroyed the graves of Confucius and his descendants. This was done on the orders of Mao Zedong to erase history. 

We must embrace the best of our history both black and white. Our true history of national liberation that began in 1776 was called forth in an imperfect fashion in 1781 made stronger but still suffered the fatal flaw of slavery in 1787 but strengthened by the Bill of Rights. 

Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln met in life.

Slavery was routed after a long and bloody war that begin in 1861 and ended with the Union consolidated in 1865, and President Lincoln assassinated on the evening of April 14, 1865. And over the next 12 years we saw the Constitution amended, slavery outlawed, and blacks made full citizens of the United States, but then a corrupt bargain ended this spring of freedom and the Dream was deferred 80 years. 

Full program booklet available via Internet Archive

 However, on April 14, 1876, with the betrayal yet a year away, the Emancipation Memorial was unveiled before an audience of over 25,000 including President Ulysses S. Grant and members of the House and Senate in attendance. Freed slaves had raised the funds for the statue. Charlotte Scott, a former slave, used her first five dollars earned in freedom to launch the fundraising drive.  Frederick Douglass gave the keynote address and President Grant unveiled the statue. There it has stood to the present day.

Charlotte Scott

Eighty years of Jim Crow segregation, lynchings, the destruction of Black Wall Street in Tulsa, and it’s rebuilding. Despite best efforts to destroy blacks in America this community survived and grew. Black culture came to dominate in the USA & its influence felt around the world.  

Thurgood Marshall and other black lawyers with the NAACP successfully challenged Jim Crow in the Courts and brought the system of legal institutional racism down in a series of cases that reached the Supreme Court in the 1950s and early 60s. 

Between 1955 and April 1968 Martin Luther King Jr and the civil rights movement that he led through a series of nonviolent actions first made real what the Supreme Court had affirmed ending segregation and pushing for voting rights in legislation that was signed by Eisenhower & Johnson.  

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 and that same month in his memory the 1968 Fair Housing Act was made law. The riots celebrated and promoted by the Black Power Movement engulfed the United States afterwards led to the election of Richard Nixon in 1968.

This is black history, and it is also American history, and in the current environment where the history of the United States is being systematically destroyed by revolutionary mobs, even black history is not exempt.

Therefore we people of good will must stand up and say no to the mob, and defend this monument erected by former black slaves to celebrate their emancipation. 

Please join me and take a stand by signing this petition and being counted.