Who could have predicted that a man who had suffered slavery and torture at the hands of his fellow Americans could have much warmer patriotism than modern American atheletes who are among the most privileged and respected in the world?
Former slave, writer, and orator Frederick Douglass did not know the exact date in February when he was born, but he remembered his mother calling him her “little valentine,” so he celebrated his birthday on Feb. 14, St. Valentine’s Day. There are many noble types of love, one of which is love of country or patriotism. And that is precisely the love in which some — not all — American Olympic athletes are lacking.
We hear much of Douglass’s pre-Civil War speech “What to the slave is the 4th of July?” Leftists are extremely fond of quoting the parts of the speech which are critical of America as it then was, still permitting slavery and systemic racism. Yet the same leftists are strangely reticent to discuss the parts of the speech that applaud America’s Founding and express a firm belief that America has only to live up to her own ideals and founding documents to be free.
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Douglass, in fact, was a passionate admirer of the American Revolution precisely because he believed, as, in fact, the greatest Founders such as George Washington and Alexander Hamilton also believed, that in the seeds of that revolution were freedom not only for certain Americans, but eventually for all mankind. The Founders did not live up fully to their own ideals, but the ideals were there from the beginning. “Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment” of British tyranny, Douglass said. “They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born!”
“The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history — the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny,” he said. And we also find magnificent passages where Douglass expressed his faith that America would live up to her own founding ideals:
Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the RINGBOLT to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost…The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too—great enough to give fame to a great age…
Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but interpreted, as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? it is neither…if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it.
This is the passage that I think particularly applies to unpatriotic Olympic athletes, not, of course, because slavery has anything to do with them, but because Douglass's words expressed such admirable patriotism, and that despite the very real and pernicious political evils of the speaker’s time.
How different was Douglass’s view from that of skater Amber Glenn, who claimed the Trump administration is persecuting LGBTQ-identifying individuals; Hunter Hess, the skier who had “mixed emotions” about representing the United States; and Chris Lillis, the skier “heartbroken” at Trump’s immigration enforcement. Douglass was brutally honest about slavery, but he did not allow the severe wrongs he had suffered to make him hate our nation. Unpatriotic Olympic athletes could benefit from his example.
