While, however, it may be the highest wisdom in the circumstances for the freedmen to stay where they are, no encouragement should be given to any measures of coercion to keep them there.
From his autobiography, Douglass argues against forced migration or immobility for newly freed slaves.
Share
More from Frederick Douglass
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.
To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.