ABSTRACT
By the late 1840s, Frederick Douglass broke with Garrison for a variety of personal, intellectual, and tactical reasons. The American Government and the American Constitution are spoken of in a manner which would naturally lead the hearer to believe that the one is identical with the other; when the truth is, they are as distinct in character as is a ship and a compass. If the Government has been governed by mean, sordid, and wicked passions, it does not follow that the Constitution is mean, sordid, and wicked. The American Constitution is a written instrument full and complete in itself. The Bible must follow the Constitution for that has been interpreted for slavery by American divines.
