WASHINGTON, DC — (Pinkston News Service) —One hundred and fifty six years ago this week, the last three states were secured to help successfully ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. In New York Times bestselling author Brian Kilmeade’s new book, The President and the Freedom Fighter, the Fox News Channel co-host explores the little-known but historically significant story of how two American heroes, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, rose to power and overcame strong disagreements to forge a friendship that changed the entire course of history.
Alabama (December 2, 1865), North Carolina (December 4, 1865), and Georgia (December 6, 1865) were the last three states needed to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. In The President and the Freedom Fighter, Brian Kilmeade uses the background of this momentous event to tell the story of how abolition in the United States came about. His book covers the lives of Lincoln and Douglass who both moved from strong disagreement to friendship, and in the process changed the entire course of history by paving the way for freedom.
Abraham Lincoln was white and born impoverished on a frontier farm. Frederick Douglass was Black, a child of slavery who had risked his life escaping to freedom in the North. Neither man had a formal education, and neither had had an easy path to influence. No one would have expected them to become friends—or to transform the country. But Lincoln and Douglass believed in their nation’s greatness. They were determined to make the grand democratic experiment live up to its ideals.
Lincoln knew slavery was immoral and it was time to prevent its expansion, but how fast could the country change without being torn apart? And would it be possible to get rid of slavery while keeping America’s Constitution intact? Douglass said that the Constitution was irredeemably corrupted by slavery—and he wanted Lincoln to move quickly to end it. Sharing little more than the conviction that slavery was wrong, the two men’s paths eventually converged. Over the course of the Civil War, they’d endure bloodthirsty mobs, feverish conspiracies, devastating losses on the battlefield, and a growing firestorm of unrest that would culminate on the fields of Gettysburg.
In The President and The Freedom Fighter, Kilmeade tells the dramatic story of how these two heroes, through their principles and patience, not only changed each other but made America truly free for all and it comes at a time when the first formal steps towards equality were taken by a country that, even today, tries to continually perfect itself.
This is Kilmeade’s seventh book. All combined, his books have been bought by over 2 million readers. Kilmeade co-hosts Fox News Channel’s morning show, Fox & Friends and hosts the daily national radio show, The Brian Kilmeade Show.
