Reaction to Frederick Douglass vs Thomas Jefferson. Epic Rap Battles of History 

My ERB reaction playlist! ru-vid.com/group/PLG217Y9Pofu6dn2PNbn71uh36sa2Hmjf6

Finally someone who admits he did some research. Nothing wrong with that, that's how it should've been done

Frederick Douglass is really underated. He was a genius and a powerful activist. He worked a lot with Abraham Lincoln during his presidency. I believe he also knew Ulysses S. Grant and General Sherman during the Civil War. Despite Frederick Douglass's life as a slave and the racism he faced, he still loved the USA and appreciated the Founding Fathers' ideals. Frederick Douglass accomplished a lot, that can't be understated.

It kinda plays into Jeffersons character to apologize. He's trying to save face with Frederick, like he tried to save face back then.

In Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence, he addressed slavery as a hideous blot foisted upon our country and history by the Crown. We were subject colonies, therefore we were under the King's law not our own, and England outlawed slavery in Great Britain, but allowed it on all of her colonies. Jefferson, even though he practiced slavery like the rest of the rich (at its height, less than 10% of the population owned a slave), he actually abhorred the institution. Most of our Founding Fathers did, but they didn't want a Civil War while still fighting for independence. They knew, and acknowledged, that their actions didn't match their beliefs, but they figured it was the lesser of two evils. So they kicked that can down the road. And Lincoln picked it up and threw it out 80 years later.

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” This is the beginning of the Declaration of Independence

When Jefferson went to Paris, he brought his “slave momma” with him. He basically told he that if she chose to stay, he couldn’t hold her because slavery was illegal in France. However, she was pregnant with his child and chose to come back

So this battle is interesting when you look at Douglas's writings. In his famous speech "What, to a slave, is the 4th of July?" which was referenced here, Douglas talks about the founding fathers and straight up says that these men are worth celebrating. Their ideas changed the world for the better, and started us down the path that lead to freedom for the enslaved. It's a really interesting speech that I encourage everyone to read if you haven't.

As far as Jefferson's 2nd verse, politician being a politician.

Fredrick coming straight outta bondage was a fire line ♥♥

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the declaration of independence he was forced to "compromise" when writing "All men are created equal" because of slavery in the south some parts immediately after that statement were removed as it pertained to slavery. .. he compromised. But also Thomas Jefferson as a lawyer brought up a case to abolish slavery but it was outright dismissed

“5th of me”is referring to the 3/5 compromise :)

In the making of video JB Smoove explains how he was a fan and ran across Nice Peter at a web awards show and said he wanted to work on one and said "I could play Frederick Douglas", it just so happened that Nice Peter has been wanting to do it for months but couldn't think of the right guy to portray him. Destiny

All y'all who are mad that Frederick focused on slavery need to review some history and figure out who you have to thank for not experiencing slavery yourself. And Jefferson using his entire second verse to make excuses is forfeiting the battle. Frederick Douglass won.

One of the all time great ERB opening lines to a verse. ~_~

Crazy I’ve been watching all your ERB reactions but I just searched the reactions for this specific video and coincidentally you just uploaded.

Scru Face Jean had a very similar reaction to the "straight outta bondage" line, and loved how Frederick was swaggin' during that!

(Edited because I saw someone else mentioned it) I felt like the 3/5 Compromise was right on the tip of your tongue. Loving your reactions to not only the figures, but the music behind them. Keep being awesome, Dave.

[Movie Guy Voice] "Before "Straight Outta Compton" there was "Straight Outta Bondage" STARRING Frederick Douglass, coming to a theatre near you"

"Whip a 5th of me" I think this is a reference to the "3/5 of a man" voting clause, wherein a free black man's vote was worth 3/5 of a white man's vote

Dave I'm back again. I love the erb shit my guy. Even the older content is dope

Another great reaction to a great ERB ;) Keep it up Dave!

"When in the course of human events..." Is the opening line to the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson.

The 1/5th bar was a reference to the census compromise where the Southern states wanted slaves counted as population, and the North did not, so they agreed to count them as 1/5th of a person.

Watching Dave lose it for like a minute straight at that Straight Outta Compton reference was... * kisses fingers * mwah!

I really like your reviews, I also have to say, you've got more charming yet deep giggles than Dr. Hibbert from the Simpsons. Keep laughing, my talented dude!

THANK YOU for catching the "dug less" joke.

Keep the erb videos up

Hell yeah! Love the channel!

I don't find this stuff as funny, but dave's laugh, it's a new type of infectious

Slaves were only valued as 1/5 of a man. So that's what the 5th is referencing. This is great, thanks for the reaction! - Chelsea

You did heavy research and I replace that you admit that sir :) Have a nice day

He's referring to the "3/5ths compromise". Basically black people were worth 3/5 of a vote of one white person. The Louisiana Purchase was when they bought Louisiana from France. We purchased it for 15,000,000 dollars, which is equivalent to just over 362 million today.

time for the key and peele ERBs

There wasn't much that could be said against Frederick Douglass, so the battle was kind of one-sided from the start. It became more about how should we think about Thomas Jefferson historically? I think Douglass' last line got it about right.

1:21 **whispers** psst? Dave. over here. he's referencing the Declaration of Independence.

Omg I love your laugh at straight out of bondage

There's an edited version of this battle someone made if you're interested, but nonetheless, I'm enjoying these reactions

Now you need to do a reaction for Justin beiber vs beethoven or Dr Seuss vs Shakespeare both are fire bars and hilarious

Books were the handheld “info device” of the day and libraries depending on their size were the gigabytes of stored info in the day.

I'm a really big fan

Thomas Jefferson came to play, but Frederick Douglas came to kill

oh wait, Dave. it had something to do with the three-fifths clause. (i made another comment, cuz if i just edited the previous, RU-vid would take away my heart.)

Early gang here for Dave

4:38 The 3/5 Compromise, the agreement that, since most states in the South weren't very populous, they could count 3/5 of the slaves towards the state population.

some have explained parts of it, but the 3/5 compromise came about because by law, the higher your population, the more representatives you get to have in congress. So southern states tried to count slaves as part of their populations. despite the fact said slaves had no freedoms, no rights, and couldn't vote. they weren't even considered human. southern states would double, or more, their political representation in a government that only half, or less, of their populations could actually participate in. THAT is where the 3/5ths part comes in. they couldn't stop it, but they could, as bad as it all sounds, esp out of context, limit the amount of power southern slave owners could have over the country. as you said in the video. trying to work within the system. declaring slaves as counting 1 for 1 wouldn't have given them their freedom. it would have given more power to the people trying to keep it from them. it would be like, if prison inmates were counted for the location of the prison, not their homes, yet couldn't vote. how messed up would THAT be? (and absolutely do NOT google if prisoners are counted in the locations of the prison. nor which states have the most prisons, or which states don't allow prison inmates to vote)

Please add all erb videos in playlist? Love to see your reactions Edit. Ok nevermind. You got 2 playlist. And one of them only have 1 video😅

Nobody ever gets the swivel chair joke the first time around…

I finished my school and technically education pre calculator and personal computer age. My pocket “calculator” was a 6 inch slide rule 😬 yep I can calculator the change and work lots of other stuff out in my head.

In this ERB episode a president vs a former slave. President Thomas Jefferson fought very hard to make slaves free

I do some Research about all of these either before if I’m Clueless or after to fact check. This was a good one

thats one of my fav battles frederick douglas whooped his ass!

Yes, that was a NWA refrence. Straight Out of Compton

Yup! 6 babies… very sick honestly because she was very young like 13-14 when she had his first child and who knows how long he was assaulting her before then and it was his wife’s slave half-sister (obviously also born of rape of a slave), not all of them survived adulthood but they’re still thomas jefferson descendants and a lot of them are black (along with white obviously) there’s actually i think an old program where oprah reuniting the black and white descendants, there’s also a photoshoot of one of his great x7 or whatever grandson (the black side) where they compare them.

Man frederick had some fucking B32 TRUTH BOMBS

Jefferson "Straight outta bondage." What it do Dave: *laughs for 9 years about someone no longer being a slave*

President Thomas Jefferson wrote the Bill of Rights

And congratulations on having a baby

Dave he was talking about the Constitutional compromise that made black people 3/5s of a human being for political distribution of voting power.

tbh, when I first saw the matchup, I was going for Jefferson, but Douglass won me over. Same thing happened with Washington vs William Wallace. I guess my bias is towards MCs who are against slavery in general, who talk about true justice.

i mean.. as you said as Prez he was saving his face.. you know, just like his 2nd verse..

It was even harder in Virginia, as Virginia outlawed the freeing of slaves, outlawed interracial coupling, outlawed taking slaves out of state to free them legally. And unlike now, when the president does whatever he wants through executive order, it was actually possible for congress to stop a president or local legislation to stop a governor. So no, Jefferson couldn't acknowledge his children or free his lover, legally speaking. And it's easy to say "he could just break the law", well no, as the third president and writer of the declaration of independence, he kind had to obey the laws the people of Virginia demanded... I mean, it would be pretty hypocritical to give people the right to self determination and then violate those same laws because you didn't agree with them. Even if violating them was right. Washington was in a similar predicament. Especially when you consider that the states were more like individual nations at the time, not units of a greater whole like we see now.

when he said you couldnt whip a 5th of me man its because before black people were considered 3/5 a person

It's a good battle but Frederick got stale pretty quickly for me when every bar was about slavery or restating that yes Jefferson owned slaves while Jefferson set himself up in his first verse with a quick jab or two added then used the second to counter and clear up some things that were wrong/missing context in Frederick's bars

I get what you're saying about being apologetics, but that's pretty accurate. Jefferson would love nothing more than hear that slavery was ended. He wanted to outlaw in it the first place, but they needed the slave states to help fight the British.

Heya, it may sound dumb, but can somebody please explain the Asterisk line to me? i dont get it.... Is he meaning that as in Jefferson's?

Last time I watched a reaction to this they got offended.

this is the erb that i know nothing about .

you gon talk about his "swag", but not recognize the fact that's JB Smoove? 🤔🤣

Thomas Jefferson was actually a good guy. He subtly tried to stop slave trade any many other things to help slaves during the slavery period. The only draw back and they touched on it was that he was not willing to compromise his financial status, as well he was not willing to become a public enemy as he was from Virginia. He as well as many others did not want the country to become divided early in the independence stage fearing another invasion of England essentially making the previous war pointless. Imagine the war of 1812 with a divided country, it would not have worked out very well. Sad he did not fight harder for the things he truly believed in, but it is what it is. The rich are only concerned about maintaining power first and above all.

A fifth of me- 3/5s compromise. The South was pushing to allow (white and black) slaves and black people in general to be counted as people on the census... The north refused and initially said that of three south could count slaves then they could count livestock(pigs and cows). Finally the north allowed the 3/5s compromise, rather than counting a black person as a whole person(which the south pushed for) they Said every 5 black people could equal 3 real people. But you know, the north wasn't the racist one

JB Smoove is hilarious, check him out on Curb Your Enthusiasm... brilliant!

3/5 compromise basically said black people only counted as 3/5 of a person

@whatitdodave my sbd you both "Putting an Asterisk" to our names !! Snd he did father 6 black kids from a skave woman.. But you dont see or hear about that.... Ooooh!!! Did i open a can of worms? Cause i can hear *loud as fuck cricket noises*

Jefferson's 2nd verse was short

This is one of 3 ERB's that are solely political and are basically one sided. But the fact that they made all 3 entertaining in their own way, is quite the feat

Why they give FD such dry bars and delivery in comparison to TJ? 😑

I honestly hate this one. Not due to a lack of skill by the artists, but because of their obvious failure to present either Jefferson or Douglas. They did a HUGE disservice to both of these great men. The truth is that Douglas LOVED America. This video makes him look like a stereotypical "angry black man" but he was anything but that. And in this ENTIRE rap, they never say anything about the great accomplishments of Douglas other than "I taught myself to read" which is the least impressive thing about him. He knew very well that the infamous "3/5ths compromise" was NOT a racist clause in the constitution. It was actually an anti-slavery clause that greatly limited the power of the southern, slave holding states. Douglas specifically said about the 3/5th compromise: "The 3/5ths clause is a downright disability laid upon the slaveholding States; one which deprives those States of two-fifths of their natural basis of representation. ... Therefore, instead of encouraging slavery, the Constitution encourages freedom by giving an increase of 'two-fifths' of political power to free over slave States. ... Taking [the clause] at its worst, it still leans to freedom, not slavery; for, be it remembered that the Constitution nowhere forbids a coloured man to vote." And that final part is 100% true. The constitution always guaranteed rights to all people, regardless of color. In fact, the very first slave owner in the US was a black man. That black man enjoyed all the rights of any white American of the time, up to and including, owning hundreds of slaves. In 1830, 3,770 free black Americans owned 12,900 slaves, including white American indentured servants. So you can not say the constitution was a pro-slavery or anti-black document. As far as Jefferson goes, he was extremely anti-slavery for his entire life. The slaves he owned were inherited from his father and due to the laws of the time he could not legally free them. It was illegal to free his slaves even in death. So several times he risked his own freedom by arranging for his slaves to "escape" whenever he thought he could get away with it. He also bought and sold slaves in order to keep black families together, when the common practice was to break the slave families up to keep them easier to control. He also ordered his "taskmasters" to never beat is slaves and provided them far more amenities than most slave owners would dream of providing. And no, it wasn't about money. He nearly went personally bankrupt in his efforts to free slaves and end slavery. When Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, which was a list of grievances against the British crown, the longest single grievance he wrote was about how the king of England would not allow the colonies to end slavery. But then that clause was voted out of the final document by two states out of the original 13. These are two of the greatest Americans to have ever lived, with a list of accomplishments between them that would take a normal person 1000 life times to achieve, and this stupid rap battle reduced them down to "You're racist!" "Nooo, I'm not racist!" "Yes you are!" Frankly it disgusts me.

I liked the first verse of Thomas Jefferson but his weak apologetic 2nd one was was put there to make him lose, a bit of a stupid battle because it was made on purpose for Frederick Douglass to win even though the content in the actual lyrics was solid and I don't mind it being about that subject, but at least hey should have given Jefferson a chance to fight for a win...

My boi Jefferson won, he didn’t rely on just you had slaves.

I don't quite think you understand the level of backlash they would have received had they made Jefferson respond in any other way than they did. Gotten that feeling from most black people I've seen react to this one "It's a rap battle, it's fine to be disrespectful" uh-uuh, not with that, not for us. For us there is no context where it's fine to relax on that shit, we're not allowed. Seen a number of the more chill black people who don't have such a chip on their shoulder, who just live their lives like people, seem to fail to understand that. Its both nerving but also sign of a good person

Tommy won because he actually battled. But Freddy just screamed “U HAD SLAVES”. That was it. You had slaves. No other disses. Meh

3/5s compromise

lol Douglas did not teach himself to read, his black wife did, which he then later divorced to marry a white woman 🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️

Jefferson couldn't win flat out. Douglass was discrediting him from the jump.

8:35 @What It Do Dave, I think Thomas Jefferson started to apologize, because even racist people hate being called racist; it's their kryptonite. Thomas is also a man worried about his legacy, and as Fredrick said, he did some good things, but his bad things and overlooked things have muddied the waters--6 babies with Sally Hemings (he raped her, man) and didn't even free her. Yikes. Anyway, like I said, I think Jefferson was trying to save face because he was looking to his legacy, so at the point winning the battle became less important, but I guess that's just me. I like this battle a lot. And I agree with you about Jefferson's first verse, that was pure fire!

Bondage as y'know slavery 'n' stuff.

Sorry but Jefferson won hands down. Prove me wrong. Douglas was looking at the smaller picture while Jefferson was looking at the big picture. Hell Jefferson first verse trumps anything Douglas said hands down. Douglas was no one special compared to Thomas Jefferson who is one of the main reason we live in the greatest country ever. Jefferson for the win and if you dont agree then from Jefferson's own mouth "the f*ck you do?". Lol

This is certainly one of the weaker ERBs. Fredrick Douglass had no material

Yeah no Frederick Douglass bars are kind of garbage