On the recordJanuary 1, 1855
It only proves to my mind, that though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgFrederick Douglass: “It only proves to my mind, that though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely to kill the…”
Editor's note · Context
Douglass refutes the idea that enslaved people's occasional merriment indicates contentment, arguing instead that it shows the resilience of the human spirit.
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Jan 1, 1881
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.
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The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.
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In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.