More from Jacob Mchangama on Frederick Douglass's Views on Free Speech

A short excerpt from Prof. Mchangama’s Sept. 3 post (though the whole thing is much worth reading):

Frederick Douglass was a frequent target of vilification and smears—not to mention hostile mobs, stones and rotten eggs. His enemies—and sometimes even erstwhile allies—used press and pulpit to counter the growing influence of his oratorical genius and editorial prowess. Douglass’ primary weapon consisted of words—but what to do when opponents turned this weapon against him? Was counterspeech a sufficient remedy, or should legal redress also be an option? What rules—legal or moral—should guide newspaper editors with power to shape public opinion? And as Douglass became an influential speaker, editor and publisher himself, did he practice what he preached?

Douglass the Defamed

“Nigger” and other racial epithets were routinely hurled at Douglass. But far more damaging than crude racist attacks were various allegations of sexual depravity, of lying about his life story, of being a paid anti-American agitator and of being a cowardly co-conspirator in the attack on Harper’s Ferry….

To Douglass, the proper response to attacks on reputation and ideas was reciprocal counterspeech. Ideally the venue of attack would provide the target equal access to respond. When reciprocity was denied, press freedom provided a corrective mechanism. Media pluralism increased the chances that a fair-minded newspaper would give voice to those denied a right of reply elsewhere….

Two things underwrote Douglass’ conviction that the law should protect the pen rather than restrain it: an extraordinary confidence in counterspeech, and a demanding conception of what press freedom required. A newspaper worthy of being called the “palladium of liberty” did not protect readers from controversy. It enabled accusations to be answered, exposed its own claims to adversarial testing and gave truth a chance to prevail over falsehood. Douglass did not merely preach that ideal. Across more than half a century of vilification, he practiced it with a record that—if not unblemished—was impressively consistent.

And, likewise, from his Sept. 11 post, which I likewise highly recommend:

As in the previous installments, the harder test is whether Douglass extended his principles to his enemies. Did an antislavery crowd get a pass when it silenced a defender of human bondage?

Douglass’s defense of free speech extended to one of slavery’s most powerful political allies. In an October 1854 speech in Chicago, he addressed the recent shouting down of Senator Stephen A. Douglas (no relation and no ally), the architect of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. But before considering the senator’s grievances, Douglass described the people excluded from his promises of “Popular Sovereignty”:

Every right of human nature, as such, is denied them—they are dumb in their chains! To utter one groan, or scream, for freedom in the presence of the Southern advocate of Popular Sovereignty, is to bring down the frightful lash upon their quivering flesh. I know this suffering people; I am acquainted with their sorrows; I am one with them in experience; I have felt the lash of the slave driver, and stand up here with all the bitter recollections of its horrors vividly upon me.

This experience gave Douglass a particular obligation to exercise the freedom denied to those still enslaved:

There are special reasons, therefore, why I should speak and speak freely. The right of speech is a very precious one, especially to the oppressed.

He then turned to the senator’s wounded feelings:

“I understand that Mr. Douglas regards himself as the most abused man in the United States, and that the greatest outrage ever committed upon him, was in the case in which your indignation raised your voices so high that his could not be heard. No personal violence, as I understand, was offered him. It seems to have been a trial of vocal powers between the individual and the multitude; as might have been expected, the voice of one man was not equal in volume to the voice of five hundred.”

The mockery came with an explicit reaffirmation of principle:

I do not approve it; I am for free speech as well as for freemen and free soil.

Douglass recognized the senator’s right to speak while putting the interference he had suffered in perspective. Being drowned out by non-violent political opponents scarcely compared with the enforced silence of millions living under the lash. Yet the senator had no problem with systematic suppression when slavery was decided in elections where those wielding the whip cast ballots but those being whipped did not. Douglass could condemn the crowd’s conduct and ridicule the senator’s self-pity in the same breath. Indeed, he hoped the experience might teach the senator to respect the rights of those whose oppression he defended….

And you can also read Prof. Mchangama’s Aug. 21 post, which I had briefly excerpted as well.

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