Political Quotes

Frederick Douglass: “It is a sharp spur to industry; and some of the most enterprising colored men in Baltimore hire themselves in this way.”

On the record
It is a sharp spur to industry; and some of the most enterprising colored men in Baltimore hire themselves in this way.
Said by
Frederick Douglass

Editor's note · Context

Douglass highlights the motivation that self-hiring provides for industriousness among enslaved individuals.

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In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.

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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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The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.

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