Brian Kilmeade. The President and the Freedom Fighter. Sentinel, 2021.

We have reviewed two other books by Brian Kilmeade. His history books are short and lively. The President and the Freedom Fighter is the same. While the other two books by him we reviewed were specifically concerned with the conduct of battles, this book sets the war as a backdrop.

Kilmeade presents what we could call parallel lives. He shows in broad strokes how Abraham Lincoln, poor farm boy, became President. Similarly, he shows how Frederick Douglass, born a slave, became a spokesman for the African American of his day.

Kilmeade does a great job of noting the significance of little things. I am familiar with both men because I frequently teach a class in Civil War Literature in which we study Douglass’s autobiography and a number of Lincoln’s speeches. Still, I learned a few things, perhaps things I could have picked up myself if I saw the significance.

For example, at age five, Douglass was taken from the fields where most of the slaves worked to become the personal servant of one of the sons of his owner. The son was about twelve and Douglass remained with him until the son was seventeen. That meant, among other things, that Douglass learned what we would call standard English. He would later learn to read and write, and he always kept a grammar book with him.

That explains a few things about Douglass. Even the first time he spoke publicly at a meeting in Massachusetts, he could communicate in a way his audience could understand. Some people did not think he had been a slave because he was so articulate, but he had learned English from the upper class.

Lincoln had little formal education. He also referred to grammar books for help. Both he and Douglass carried with them the same rhetoric text. They were both students who put into practice what they learned.

As best we can tell, Douglass and Lincoln only met two or three times, however Lincoln was aware of Douglass because of his magazine and wanted to meet him. One time he met with him, he kept him for hours. A leading senator who wanted to speak with the President had to cool his heels for some time, but it made no difference to Lincoln.

After their meeting, Douglass came to a different understanding of Lincoln. Douglass was mainly concerned with one thing—freeing the slaves. Lincoln ultimately wanted that, too, but “Lincoln’s political dance was delicate” (156). He had to consider the military, radical Republicans, copperhead Democrats, and fears of white laborers that freed slaves would take their jobs. Douglass did not always agree with Lincoln, but afterward he would admit that Lincoln was doing what he could.

From the perspective of the 1860s, Lincoln did accomplish a lot. The country stayed together, and the nation passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution making slavery illegal. Sadly, Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson was more prejudiced and would not even consider an idea from Douglass or any other black man. Under Grant, many of Lincoln’s ideas went forward.

A last connection between Lincoln and Douglass was Douglass’s speech at the dedication of the Freedman’s Memorial in Washington D.C. in 1876. Although Douglass himself was not crazy about its design, the memorial does acknowledge Lincoln’s role in overcoming chattel slavery. We are reminded that the memorial was paid for and installed by black Americans.

Kilmeade emphasizes the significance of the Gettysburg Address.

Without saying so directly, the president acknowledged the passing not only of the Gettysburg dead but of the old republic, wounded and divided by war. In its place, he proclaimed a reborn nation, one in which freedom would be redefined, not solely as freedom from tyranny but by adopting the even higher standard of equality. Lincoln had already extended the pledge of freedom to the enslaved; here, in Gettysburg, Lincoln was asking his countrymen to join him in carrying out a transformation of the nation’s society, extending freedom to all, Black and White. (190)

Both that speech and the Emancipation Proclamation appealed to Douglass. He was glad to see, for example, that the final draft of the Proclamation included an invitation for black Americans to join the military. He also understood that without a change in the law and even the Constitution, some things might take longer.

Of course, the book does remind us of the war that was going on. Douglass was an early advocate of using black men in the military. Lincoln agreed, but he also wanted to make sure that it would not backfire politically or hinder the war effort. One of the biggest supporters of the idea was General Grant.

When it became obvious that he was one of the more successful Federal generals, his support would go a long way. There were draft riots in New York in 1863 which ended in attacks on some black citizens and institutions, but a year later black army volunteers were cheered in some of the same streets.

Early in his career, Douglass was supported by William Lloyd Garrison. One could even say, in Hollywood language, that Garrison discovered Douglass. Garrison would burn copies of the Constitution to make a point that the Constitution’s passivity concerning slavery was an abomination.

Later, both Douglass and Lincoln would focus on the Declaration of Independence in their rhetoric. Because the Constitution provided for the “blessings of liberty” which included the ideas that “all men are created equal” and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” there was hope for our constitutional republic.

Douglass could see changes happening even if they were slower than he would have liked. The President and the Freedom Fighter reminds us of both “the better angels of our nature” and the idea that “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”