It has happened to me—as it has happened to most other men engaged in a good cause—often to be more indebted to my enemies than to my own skill or to the assistance of my friends, for whatever success has attended my labors.
In his autobiography, Douglass reflects on how opposition and criticism often inadvertently helped advance his abolitionist work.
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We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.
Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.
For the moment the northern lamb was transformed into a lion, and his roar was terrible.
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.