Send Back the Bloodstained Money

Frederick Douglass on Tainted Gifts

Bibliographic Data

ID3285189
AuthorsEmma Saunders-Hastings (0000-0002-6574-5535, The Ohio State University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume115
Issue3
Pages729-741
Publication date2021-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0003055421000319
OpenAlexW3157028637
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited17

Institutions today face calls to return "tainted" donations from controversial donors like the Sackler family. Such critiques of "dirty money," while gaining in public salience, are prone to charges of puritanism or of hypocrisy. This paper recovers a distinctive position on dirty money, capable of responding to these charges, from the early speeches and writings of Frederick Douglass. In Great Britain in 1846, Douglass delivered a series of speeches claiming that the Free Church of Scotland had "made itself responsible for slavery" by accepting donations from American slaveholders, and he led a public campaign to "Send back the money." Douglass's argument centers on the claim that accepting money and other gifts can distort political relationships and subvert political judgment. His rhetoric also shows how criticizing objectionable gifts is an opportunity to shape people's moral reasoning and political judgment for the better

Argument (complex analysis · Face (sociological concept · Hypocrisy · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Salience (neuroscience · Social science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Political Theory and Influence · Psychology

Tools

Open DOI