Baffled, entangled, and discouraged, I had at times asked myself the question, May not my condition after all be God’s work, and ordered for a wise purpose, and if so, was not submission my duty?
From his autobiography, Douglass recounts his internal conflict and moments of doubt, questioning whether his enslaved condition was divinely ordained.
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This was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit, the white man’s power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man.
Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.