I have observed this in my experience of slavery,—that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom.
In his autobiography, Douglass reflects on the paradoxical effect of improved conditions under slavery, which only intensified his longing for freedom.
Share
More from Frederick Douglass
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.
Still another ground of hope I find in the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors, and firm in their political convictions.
In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.