If the time shall ever come when we shall possess in the colored people of the United States, a class of men noted for enterprise, industry, economy, and success, we shall no longer have any trouble in the matter of civil and political rights.
From his autobiography, Douglass expresses his conviction that economic prosperity within the Black community will lead to the attainment of civil and political rights.
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They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.
The vote of the colored man, formerly beaten down and stamped out by intimidation, is now revived, sought, and defended by powerful allies, and this from no transient sentiment of the moment, but from the permanent laws controlling the…
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.