I cannot do so for this good reason: there are at this moment three millions of the American population, by slavery and prejudice, placed entirely beyond the pale of American temperance societies.
Frederick Douglass: “I cannot do so for this good reason: there are at this moment three millions of the American population, by slavery and…”
Editor's note · Context
At a temperance convention, Douglass explains why he cannot fully participate or represent the American temperance movement due to the exclusion of enslaved people.
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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.
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
Inhuman as was this treatment, it was the natural result of the bitter resentment felt by the old master class, and in view of it, the wonder is, not that the colored people of the South have done so little in the way of acquiring a…
Taking all the circumstances into consideration, the colored people have no reason to despair.