Frederick Douglass did not know the day of his birth. Born a slave, the institution’s humanity-denying treatment deprived him of that knowledge. Douglass did believe he could trace his birth month to February 1818 and chose to observe it on the 14th. In large part because of Douglass, we celebrate February as Black History Month .

Douglass himself was an impressive man. He escaped from bondage to join the abolitionist movement. A master orator, he gave speeches against slavery and, during the Civil War, in favor of both of the Union cause and black enlistment in the war effort. He wrote several autobiographies, the first of which is rightly considered an American classic. Before, during, and after the war, Douglass also agitated for black civil and political rights. He died in February 1895 after speaking at an event for another cause he took up later in life — women’s suffrage.

We rightly remember Douglass as one of our country’s greatest African Americans. But Americans of all backgrounds and colors can learn much from him today. In particular, Douglass can teach us important truths about who we are.

We suffer much confusion on this front. Some see our founding as evil, steeped in racism and in love with slavery. At first, Douglass agreed with this view, aligning with William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist who called the Constitution an “agreement with Hell.” But in 1851, Douglass publicly broke with him on the question of our country’s principles. The next year, in his famous speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Douglass called the Constitution a “glorious liberty document.” He said in an 1867 address that we were “a Government founded upon justice, and recognizing the equal rights of all men.”

In so arguing, Douglass did not turn a blind eye to slavery’s existence or absolve America of that sin. In another speech, he called the Constitution America’s compass and its government our ship. The compass always pointed true north, toward justice. However, the ship did not always follow that guide and sometimes lost its way. That, too, is why Douglass expressed such anger in his July Fourth speech. America was not being true to itself, and unspeakable was the consequence.

Second, Douglass believed we could live together across lines of race. This possibility seems questioned today. Some question it because of white racism, perceived and real. Others question it because of supposed inherent differences, consistent with race, that accustom some to self-government and not others.

Douglass did not deny racism existed, nor did he think particular cultures, even ethnicities, inculcated distinct habits and characteristics. But in 1863, he asked, “Can the white and colored people of this country be blended into a common nationality, and enjoy together, in the same country, under the same flag, the inestimable blessings of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as neighborly citizens of a common country?”

Douglass answered with an emphatic yes. Regardless of race , we share a common humanity. That humanity, he explained, means we all are rational beings capable of self-government, deserving respect for our equal rights. He called these principles “the solid and immovable bases of Eternal justice.” Moreover, even the differences among persons called for their union because their diversity of talents and abilities have the power to make the country stronger.

Third, Douglass believed this vision of America was worth the fight to fully attain. He declared that he would “demand for him [blacks] the most perfect civil and political equality.” In so doing, he did not merely think himself doing a good for his own race. Blacks were an integral part of America. Both they and this country “are to rise or fall, be killed or cured, saved or lost together,” he said. And this future salvation or damnation rested in fighting together for equal justice for all.

Today, let us remember Frederick Douglass as the great African American he was. But let us also remember him as a great American, simply — one from whom we can learn much, regardless of our race. Let us fight together for our Constitution as “one great law of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity for all Americans without respect to color.” That remains our compass, as it was his. That remains, as it was for him, our true north.

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.