Frederick Douglass

<p><strong>Frederick Douglass</strong> (born <strong>Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey</strong>, c. February 1817<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass#cite_note-5">[a]</a></sup> – February 20, 1895) was an American <a class="mw-redirect" title="Social reform" href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_reform">social reformer</a>, <a class="mw-redirect" title="Abolitionist" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionist">abolitionist</a>, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from <a title= "Slavery in the United States" href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_United_States">slavery</a> in <a title="Maryland" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland">Maryland</a>, he became a national leader of the <a title= "Abolitionism in the United States" href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism_in_the_United_States">abolitionist movement</a> in <a title="Massachusetts" href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts">Massachusetts</a> and <a title="New York (state)" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_(state)">New York</a>, becoming famous for his oratory<sup id="cite_ref-6" class= "reference"><a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass#cite_note-6">[5]</a></sup> and incisive <a class="mw-redirect" title="Antislavery" href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antislavery">antislavery</a> writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass#cite_note-7">[6]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference"><a href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass#cite_note-8">[7]</a></sup> Likewise, <a title="Northern United States" href= "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_United_States">Northerners</a> at the time found it hard to believe that such