On the recordJanuary 1, 1881
For my own part, I took the proclamation, first and last, for a little more than it purported; and saw in its spirit, a life and power far beyond its letter.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgFor my own part, I took the proclamation, first and last, for a little more than it purported; and saw in its spirit, a life and power far beyond its letter.
Douglass explains his personal interpretation of the Emancipation Proclamation, seeing its deeper moral and transformative potential beyond its explicit wording.
Share
More from Frederick Douglass
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.
Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.