The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,—like a tantalizing will-o’-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host.
From his seminal work, this passage characterizes the immediate post-Civil War decade as a frustrating and unfulfilled pursuit of true freedom for Black Americans.
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Such an assumption is the arrogance of peoples irreverent toward Time and ignorant of the deeds of men.
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