Timeless political advice from Civil War era abolitionist Frederick Douglass

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Encountering very great opposition to Black liberation from President Andrew Johnson, Douglass, upon great reflection, stated:

Our government may at some time be in the hands of a bad man. When in the hands of a good man it is all well enough…We ought to have our government so shaped that even when it is in the hands of a bad man we shall be safe.

quoted by David W. Blight in his Pulitzer prize winning biography of Frederick Douglass.
 
The country survived Andrew Johnson’s presidency (who by the way despite his impeachment and Douglass regarding him as a “Bad Man” was elected to the Senate after he left the Presidency, and who was regarded positively until about the mid-1900s; he was largely inept, not “bad”).

The country survived the presidencies of Harding, Nixon, and Clinton, who was also impeached and clearly committed perjury and knew he was doing so because he was a lawyer.

Our government was already “shaped” with the appropriate checks and balances to survive inept or “bad” Presidents before Douglass came along with his speech.
 
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According to Blight Johnson was bad. Blight’s biography of Douglass opened my eyes to the backlash to emancipation,starting right at the top with Johnson – certainly in the opposition to Black suffrage, which would have legally put the former slaves on the same legal footing with Whites. The 14th Amendment was passed by Congress over Johnson’s veto and ratified by the states within a year.

All the presidents prior to Lincoln were slaveowners. The checks and balances did not work for human rights of all until an irreversible change was made by Lincoln, who used special war powers to bring about emancipation. Douglass’s maxim is not a law, but an ideal which ought to be kept in mind.

Certainly in the Church in our day, the Pope has been accused of heresy and there are no checks and balances in the human realm. Canon Law fails us on McCarrick, sexual abuse by clerics around the world, massive settlements for sexual abuse, cover-ups by bishops, etc.
 
c1949 said:
All the presidents prior to Lincoln were slaveowners.
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Where did you get that misinformation from?

John Adams (2nd President) and John Quincy Adams (6th President) were from Massachusetts, and certainly did NOT own any slaves. In fact John Adams would have preferred to prohibit slavery in the Declaration of Independence.

Millard Fillmore (13th President) from New York, Franklin Pierce (14th President) from New Hampshire and James Buchanan (15th President) from Pennsylvania sure didn’t own any slaves either.

Sorry but when you make such a huge error that could have been easily checked by simply looking at Wikipedia, you lose all credibility for whatever else you’re trying to say. Bye now.
 
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