Since,” thought I, “you will make a slave of me, I will await your orders in all things;” and, instead of going to look for work on Monday morning, as I had formerly done, I remained at home during the entire week, without the performance of a single stroke of work.
In his autobiography, Douglass recounts his decision to engage in passive resistance after his master revoked his privilege to hire out his own time.
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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.
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.
In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.