Had there been no anti-slavery agitation at the North, there would have been no active anti-slavery anywhere to resist the demands of the slave-power at the South, and where there is no resistance there can be no war.
In his autobiography, Douglass argues that the absence of Northern anti-slavery resistance would have prevented conflict by allowing the unchecked expansion of slave power.
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Inhuman as was this treatment, it was the natural result of the bitter resentment felt by the old master class, and in view of it, the wonder is, not that the colored people of the South have done so little in the way of acquiring a…
Let us then, wherever we are, whether at the North or at the South, resolutely struggle on in the belief that there is a better day coming, and that we by patience, industry, uprightness, and economy may hasten that better day.
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.