The reasons Douglass offered in support of this conclusion reveal that unlike most libertarian thinkers, he did not accept the idea that human beings are free insofar as they are able to act without unjust interference of others. This is what philosophers like to call “freedom as noninterference,” and it is at the foundation of most libertarian theories of justice. While Douglass certainly believed that it was important to protect individuals from unjust interference, he did not believe this was sufficient to make human beings free.

In the context of the post-Civil War United States, Douglass explained, negative liberty was not enough because of the significant differences in power between former slaves and their former masters. The “old master class” had not lost “the power of life and death” over the human beings it used to claim as property, he said, because it “retained the power to starve them to death.” “You shall serve me,” the former master was still able to say to the former slave, “or starve.” This was slavery by another name.

It should be clear by now that the alternative theory of liberty defended by Douglass, which philosophers often call “freedom as non-domination,” poses serious problems for those wishing to defend the idea that he was a libertarian. What makes libertarians uncomfortable about “freedom as non-domination” is that it opens the door to the idea that the state may have an important role to play in counteracting the power of economic elites, who left unchecked might use their power to dominate others.

But let’s step down out of the clouds of theory to see the practical implications of Douglass’s view. Recall that in his libertarian reading, Sandefur argues that Douglass “never joined in efforts by some leaders, including Charles Sumner, to confiscate plantation land and divide it among the former slaves.” Douglass “was too well versed in the history and theory of freedom,” Sandefur explains, “not to know that destabilizing property rights in such a way would in the long run harm the freedmen more.”

Sandefur is right that in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, Douglass did not join with Sumner and the other Radical Republicans in their call for confiscation and redistribution. Perhaps Sandefur is also right that Douglass’s “theory of freedom” led him to reject this path in those years. What Sandefur does not tell us, though, is that Douglass changed his mind.

In the 1880 Emancipation Day speech, Douglass said the threat to liberty presented by economic inequality was “seen and felt by Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and leading stalwart Republicans, and had their counsels prevailed, the terrible evils from which we now suffer would have been averted.” It is hard to imagine Douglass stating this more clearly. By 1880, he was looking back and saying, they were right, I was wrong. His “theory of freedom” had evolved.