We have grown up with this republic, and I see nothing in her character, or even in the character of the American people, as yet which compels the belief that we must leave the United States.
Douglass asserts the historical connection of Black people to the American republic and finds no justification for their forced departure from the nation.
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More from Frederick Douglass
No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.
Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.