It was quite natural for Master Thomas to presume I was feigning sickness to escape work, for he probably thought that were he in the place of a slave, with no wages for his work, no praise for well-doing, no motive for toil but the lash, he would try every possible scheme by which to escape labor.
From his autobiography, Douglass reflects on the natural human desire to avoid unrewarded labor, even for slaveholders.
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More from Frederick Douglass
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.
To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.