And upon coming to the north, I expected to meet with a rough, hard-handed, and uncultivated population, living in the most Spartan-like simplicity, knowing nothing of the ease, luxury, pomp, and grandeur of southern slaveholders.
Frederick Douglass: “And upon coming to the north, I expected to meet with a rough, hard-handed, and uncultivated population, living in the…”
Editor's note · Context
From his autobiography, Douglass describes his preconceived notions of the North upon his escape from slavery.
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Put us in Kansas or in Africa, and until we learn to save more than we spend, we are sure to sink and perish.
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…
No people to whom liberty is given, can hold it as firmly and wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from the iron hand of the tyrant.
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.