Product Description

In this timely and provocative book, Damon Root reveals how Frederick Douglass’s fight for an antislavery Constitution helped to shape the course of American history in the nineteenth century and beyond. At a time when the principles of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were under assault, Frederick Douglass picked up their banner, championing inalienable rights for all, regardless of race. When Americans were killing each other on the battlefield, Douglass fought for a cause greater than the mere preservation of the Union. “No war but an Abolition war,” he maintained. “No peace but an Abolition peace.” In the aftermath of the Civil War, when state and local governments were violating the rights of the recently emancipated, Douglass preached the importance of “the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the cartridge-box” in the struggle against Jim Crow.

Frederick Douglass, the former slave who had secretly taught himself how to read, would teach the American people a thing or two about the true meaning of the Constitution. This is the story of a fundamental debate that goes to the very heart of America’s founding ideals—a debate that is still very much with us today.

Review

“Brilliant…one of the best concise histories of the movement to end slavery.”
–Stephen F. Rohde, former chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California

“Today, once again, the original Constitution is being vilified, as a validation of slavery, by people with disreputable agendas and negligible understanding. Damon Root, who explicates the great document as well as anyone writing today, brings the patience of Job and a noble ally–Frederick Douglass–to the task of refuting this recycled canard. Root and Douglass, like root beer and ice cream, are an irresistible American combination.”
–George F. Will

“Damon Root has written a meticulously researched celebration of the intellectual legacy of Frederick Douglass. . . . As we continue to debate the legacy of slavery, Root convincingly argues that in reconciling the country's most profound moral incongruity–that a nation purporting to be a beacon of liberty could be so inextricably rooted in human bondage–Douglass should be mentioned in the same breath as the Founding Fathers, perhaps even more so, as a historical figure who not only championed the ideas that made America great, but in pointing out where it fell short of those values demanded that the country become a better version of itself.”
–Radley Balko, investigative journalist at the Washington Post and coauthor of The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South

“Provocative and engagingly written….Root's Douglass is a second-generation founding father, battling to make the new republic realize fully the liberty inherent in its founding documents
….A Glorious Liberty is refreshing and thoughtful, written in accessible prose. It would be an excellent starting point for any undergraduate class not only on Douglass but also the debates over slavery into which he entered.”
–Intellectual History Review

“A great and important book.”
–Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind

About the Author

Damon Root is an award-winning legal journalist and the author of
Overruled: The Long War for Control of the U.S. Supreme Court. He works as a senior editor and columnist for
Reason magazine. Root’s writing has also appeared in the
Los Angeles Daily News,
Chicago Sun-Times,
Newsweek,
New York Post,
New York Daily News,
New York Press,
Washington Times, WallStreetJournal.com,
Globe and Mail, and other publications.