I believed that the exclusion of my race from participation in government was not only a wrong, but a great mistake, because it took from that race motives for high thought and endeavor, and degraded them in the eyes of the world around them.
In his autobiography, Douglass explains his conviction that denying his race participation in government was a profound error, diminishing their motivation and standing in the world.
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It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.
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.