Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 295
can be obtained under difficulties; that poverty
may give place to competency; that obscurity is
not an absolute bar to distinction, and that a way
is open to welfare and happiness to all who will
resolutely and wisely pursue that way; that
neither slavery, stripes, imprisonment, nor proscription
need extinguish self-respect, crush manly
ambition, or paralyze effort; that no power outside
of himself can prevent a man from sustaining
an honorable character and a useful relation
to his day and generation; that neither institutions
nor friends can make a race to stand unless
it has strength in its own legs; that there is no
power in the world that can be relied upon to
help the weak against the strong, or the simple
against the wise; that races, like individuals,
must stand or fall by their own merits. I have
urged upon them self-reliance, self-respect, industry,
perseverance, and economy. Forty years of
my life have been given to the cause of my people,
and if I had forty years more they should all
be sacredly given to the same great cause."
There is not a taint of selfishness there. If any
man ever lived who carried this race upon his
heart, who desired to see it succeed, and who
labored earnestly for its freedom, for its elevation,
for its protection under the laws, and in order
that it might have a fair chance in the race of
life, that man was Frederick Douglass. He loved