“We the People of the United States . . .” This ostensibly trivial phrase was the main source of Frederick Douglass’s hope for the future of blacks in the Union. Douglass had a vision of what justice required for blacks—that vision was inexorably intertwined with the idea of what it meant to be a citizen of a republic. The Constitution’s Preamble set out a citizenship worthy of one’s allegiance and devotion, if only the Union were to embrace fully the promise of its own aspirations as articulated in the Declaration of Independence and reimagined in the Gettysburg Address. A republican government of the people, by the people, and for the people, dedicated to securing the natural rights of all.