I found, however, full soon that my enthusiasm had been extravagant, that hardships and dangers were not all over, and that the life now before me had its shadows also, as well as its sunbeams.
Douglass reflects on the sobering realization that the abolitionist struggle was fraught with ongoing difficulties despite his initial enthusiasm.
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To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.