ABSTRACT
In a rousing 1863 recruiting speech, Frederick Douglass said: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S, let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pockets, and there is no power on the earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States” (Blassingame 592). In this speech “Negroes and the National War Effort,” delivered at a mass meeting in Philadelphia, Douglass informed the mostly black audience of the opportunity to enlist in the Union Army. He also linked the ideas of black citizenship and military service. He exhorted the large crowd: “Young men of Philadelphia, you are without excuse. The hour has arrived and your place is in the Union army” (598).
