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The Importance of Free Speech in the American Civil War
Douglass's plea for free speech was meant not just for the people of Boston. It was for the whole nation, broken and fragile as it was. Less than two weeks after Douglass's speech, South Carolina would secede from the Union. In this era of political tension, the greatest weapons in the struggle to build a more perfect union were not bullets or bayonets,. but novels, pamphlets, newspapers, petitions.