New North Star: A Journal of the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/NNS <p><em>New North Star: A Journal of the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass</em> is a peer-reviewed, semi-annual, open-access online journal, published by the <em>Institute for American Thought</em>. The journal features new scholarship on the activities and ideas of the nineteenth century African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the world with which he interacted.</p> IUPUI Institute for American Thought en-US New North Star: A Journal of the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass 2693-1486 “Those Deluded, Ill-Starred Men”: Frederick Douglass, the New National Era, and the Paris Commune https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/NNS/article/view/26926 <p>The Paris Commune was the apotheosis of what unfolded in the 1848 European Revolutions, the first time the working class actually took political power, although briefly. Frederick Douglass covered the events of the Paris Commune closely in his newspaper, the <em>New National Era</em>. Douglass’s views on the Paris Commune, as of yet unexplored in detail by scholars, illuminate his relationship to democratic and social movements both abroad and in the United States. This essay examines in-depth the writings in Douglass’s newspaper on the Paris Commune and argues Douglass’s commitment to mass movements and oppositional politics did not necessarily extend to oppressed wage workers and was therefore situational, specifically as it related to class, labor, and republicanism. The Commune abroad and labor unrest at home motivated Douglass to examine the “labor question” for his readers. This brought to light his free labor prescription, with its assumption of a harmony of interests between capital and workers, to the problem of inequality and the exploitation of labor. Douglass supported, at key junctures, revolutionary movements and action both in Europe and at home, but his reaction to the Paris Commune exposes the limitations of his liberal political thought to take on an internationalist analysis of class conflict and labor struggles, especially when compared to contemporaries such as Benjamin Butler, Wendell Phillips, and Karl Marx. This study offers a unique contribution to Douglass scholarship while also building on research on Americans’ views of the Paris Commune and the retreat from Reconstruction. Douglass’s writings on the Paris Commune and the labor movement deserve more attention. They provide opportunities for historians, political theorists, and labor activists to augment our understanding of Douglass’s post-war career.</p> Kyle A. Edwards Copyright (c) 2022 Kyle A. Edwards 2022-12-19 2022-12-19 4 1 1 19 10.18060/26926 Frederick Douglass, Margaret Garner, and the Republican Party in 1856 https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/NNS/article/view/26927 Robert K. Wallace Copyright (c) 2022 Robert K. Wallace 2022-12-19 2022-12-19 4 1 20 42 10.18060/26927 Frederick Douglass’s “New Departure” in the Reconstruction Era Woman Suffrage Movement https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/NNS/article/view/26928 John R. McKivigan Alex Schwartz Copyright (c) 2022 John R. McKivigan, Alex Schwartz 2022-12-19 2022-12-19 4 1 43 59 10.18060/26928 The African American Rhetoric of the 1895 South Carolina Constitutional Convention and the Limits of Deliberative Rhetoric of Equality https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/NNS/article/view/26929 Glen McClish Copyright (c) 2022 Glen McClish 2022-12-19 2022-12-19 4 1 60 77 10.18060/26929 Future Directions of Douglass Scholarship: Biography https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/NNS/article/view/26931 Ezra Greenspan Copyright (c) 2022 Ezra Greenspan 2022-12-19 2022-12-19 4 1 78 82 10.18060/26931 Reconstructions: Frederick Douglass, Albion Tourgée, and Plessy v. Ferguson https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/NNS/article/view/26932 Robert S. Levine Copyright (c) 2022 Robert S. Levine 2022-12-19 2022-12-19 4 1 83 88 10.18060/26932 “Persons with whom I am acquainted”: Frederick Douglass’s Encounters with Americans in Europe in 1887, and Maybe Jack the Ripper https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/NNS/article/view/26933 Patrick Hanlon Copyright (c) 2022 Patrick Hanlon 2022-12-19 2022-12-19 4 1 91 94 10.18060/26933