The reaction from the glorious assertion of freedom and independence on the part of the North in the triumphant election of Abraham Lincoln, was a painful and humiliating development of its weakness.
Douglass critically observes the North's initial post-election reaction to Southern threats as a disappointing display of weakness, despite Lincoln's victory.
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No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
Pardon me, therefore, for urging upon you, my people, the importance of saving your earnings; of denying yourselves in the present, that you may have something in the future, of consuming less for yourselves that your children may have a…