I desire to be quite emphatic here, for of all guilty men, he is the guiltiest who lures his fellowmen to an undertaking of this sort, under promise of assistance which he afterwards fails to render.
From his autobiography, Douglass asserts a moral principle about the responsibility of leaders who promise aid but fail to deliver.
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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.
Pardon me, therefore, for urging upon you, my people, the importance of saving your earnings; of denying yourselves in the present, that you may have something in the future, of consuming less for yourselves that your children may have a…
An exceptionally poor and dependent people will be despised by the opulent and despise themselves.