Not because he earned it,—not because he had any hand in earning it,—not because I owed it to him,—nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up.
From his autobiography, Douglass articulates that his master's claim to his wages was based purely on coercive power, not on any moral or legal right.
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In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.
The fact that we have endured wrongs and hardships, which would have destroyed any other race, and have increased in numbers and public consideration, ought to strengthen our faith in ourselves and our future.
Put us in Kansas or in Africa, and until we learn to save more than we spend, we are sure to sink and perish.
Some will be more successful than others, and poverty, in many cases, is the result of misfortune rather than of crime; but no race can afford to have all its members the victims of this misfortune, without being considered a worthless…