On the recordJanuary 1, 1881
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgFrederick Douglass: “No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.”
Editor's note · Context
From his autobiography, Douglass asserts that no external force can bring prosperity or happiness to a people lacking essential virtues like knowledge, industry, and moral conduct.
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None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
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Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.
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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.