Avery Brooks
Solomon Northup
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What Abraham Lincoln said in respect of the United States is as true of the colored people as of the relations of those States. They cannot remain half slave and half free. You must give them all or take from them all. Until this half-and-half condition is ended, there will be just ground of complaint.
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
May 11, 2005 · Levine explores the far-reaching, divisive changes in American life that came with the incomplete Revolution of 1776 and the development of two distinct social systems, one based on slavery, the other on free labor--changes out of which the Civil War developed.
- (104)
- Bruce C. Levine
- $14.07
- Hill and Wang
The United States Cannot Remain Half-Slave and Half-Free. by Frederick Douglass. May 16, 1883. Edited and introduced by David Tucker. Version One. Version two. Study Questions. What are the grounds for pessimism about race relations, according to Douglass? Why are the grounds for optimism more compelling in his view?
"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
During the 1850s, the problems with a half slave and half free nation convinced many Americans that a divided nation could not stand. Fugitive enslaved people exacerbated tensions between the slave states and the free states.
Jan 1, 1992 · Levine explores the far-reaching, divisive changes in American life that came with the incomplete Revolution of 1776 and the development of two distinct social systems, one based on slavery, the other on free labor--changes out of which the Civil War developed.
