Frederick Douglass View On The Nature Of The Constitution Summary

Douglass goes on to explain Garrison’s position and how he initially fell for it. Garrison’s teachings declared the “pro-slavery character of the Constitution” and he advocated for the “non-voting principle” as a means to promote “no union with slaveholders.” For Garrison, the only way to deal with sin is to cut it off completely. Voting and holding office simply made a person complacent in a corrupt system, since it was built upon by the Construction, a pro-slavery doctrine. Garrison refused to work with evil to get rid of evil—meaning, he refused to work with the Constitution to get rid of slavery. However, Douglass’s view of the Constitution changed. He first began to realize that “to seek dissolution” of the union was “not part of [his]

Garrison focused too much on intention, while Douglass wanted to seek a real end to the problem. It is here that Douglass changes his opinion on the nature of the Constitution. Douglass was driven to “re-think the whole subject, and study with some care not only the just and proper rules of legal interpretation, but the origins, design, nature, rights, powers, and duties of civil government.” Douglass needed to look at the document and uncover from that the true nature of the Constitution. He came to discover that the contents of the document could never uphold slavery. The Constitution was created “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” and from this Douglass concluded that it “could not well have been designed at the same time to maintain and perpetuate a system of rapine and murder like slavery.” Slavery goes against all of the principles promised by the preamble of the Constitution, and therefore can be used as a means to abolish slavery since it goes against the country’s principle