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I am the most photographed American of the nineteenth century. I sat for more portraits than Abraham Lincoln, more than any president of my era. This was deliberate.

The visual argument mattered. The image of an enslaved man was a drawing of chains and degradation, designed to produce pity. I wanted to produce something else: the image of a man in a frock coat and white collar, looking directly at the camera with absolute composure. No pity invited. No charity requested.

The camera cannot lie about the subject's bearing. It can show whether a man stands straight or stooped, whether his eyes meet yours or avoid them. In every photograph I gave the camera nothing to use against me. I stood straight. I looked directly. I dressed as a man who expected to be taken seriously.