Frederick Douglass: “Father Lawson’s solemn words, of what I ought to be, and might be, in the providence of God, had not fallen dead on my…”

To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.

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.

Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.