You have a right to say what you please on that point; yet I think it would be only fair and generous to wait for some dereliction of duty on my part before I shall be adjudged as incompetent to fill the place.
From his autobiography, Douglass defends himself against critics, arguing for fair judgment based on performance rather than prejudice.
Share
More from Frederick Douglass
The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.