The Measured Memory of Abraham Lincoln: Ring Composition and Rhetorical Complexity in Frederick Douglass's Freedmen's Monument Address

Abstract Frederick Douglass's Freedmen's Monument Address, delivered on April 14, 1876, at the unveiling of a monument to Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC, was a complex and extraordinary rhetorical act. This essay argues that Douglass's address created a measured memory of Lincoln by moving the audience through a cycle of experiences that allowed multiple, often conflicting, sentiments to meaningfully coexist. The essay begins with an account of key contextual elements about Douglass, Lincoln, and the events that shaped the address. The next section turns to the text of the Freedmen's Monument Address, showing how Douglass's use of a ring composition served to memorialize both Black Americans and Lincoln in complex ways. The essay concludes with observations about how the address was received, which illustrates the difficulty of maintaining rhetorical complexity in acts of memorialization.