It involves the question, whether after all our boasted civilization, our Declaration of Independence, our matchless Constitution, our sublime Christianity, our wise statesmanship, we as a people, possess virtue enough to solve this problem in accordance with wisdom and justice, and to the advantage of both races.
Frederick Douglass: “It involves the question, whether after all our boasted civilization, our Declaration of Independence, our matchless…”
Editor's note · Context
This quote raises fundamental questions about the nation's moral capacity to address social issues justly.
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The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.
The vote of the colored man, formerly beaten down and stamped out by intimidation, is now revived, sought, and defended by powerful allies, and this from no transient sentiment of the moment, but from the permanent laws controlling the…
Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.
Still another ground of hope I find in the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors, and firm in their political convictions.