Frederick Douglass

Born into slavery, self-taught in secret, escaped at twenty, and within a decade the most commanding orator and writer the abolition movement had. His Narrative made the case against slavery undeniable by the simple force of a first-person witness who could not be dismissed. His Fourth of July address is the greatest American speech. He read the Constitution not as a slaveholders' document but as a charter of liberty to be claimed, and he spent his life claiming it. The conscience of the founding, turned on the founders.