If intelligence is the only true and rational basis of government, it follows that that is the best government which draws its life and power from the largest sources of wisdom, energy, and goodness at its command.
Douglass articulates a fundamental principle of good governance, emphasizing intelligence as its true foundation.
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More from Frederick Douglass
Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.