On the recordJanuary 1, 1881
That I did not yield to this temptation was not entirely due to my age; for the idea did not square well with my better judgment and sense of propriety.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgThat I did not yield to this temptation was not entirely due to my age; for the idea did not square well with my better judgment and sense of propriety.
Douglass explains his decision not to pursue political office despite the opportunities presented by the new constitutional amendments.
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It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.
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.
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.