ABSTRACT
One of the major themes of American statesmanship and political thought is the indelible impression made upon the American polity by the institution of slavery. Few men understood that institution so well as Frederick Douglass. During his first years as a public man Douglass was a devoted disciple of William Lloyd Garrison, fully accepting his argument that the Constitution was a pro-slavery document and his doctrine of non-voting. When Douglass abandoned Garrisonian, he no longer saw the black as, strictly speaking, an "outlaw", because he now held that slavery was not lawful under the Constitution. The demand to be let alone is, however, not so negative as it might sound, due to the scope and character of the whites' "doing" for the blacks in the past. Douglass demanded "the most perfect civil and political equality, and all the rights, privileges and immunities enjoyed by any other members of the body politic".
