Warmup # 5 1
Industry + Reform
Frederick Douglass was a former enslaved person
who joined the abolitionist cause
(the movement
to end slavery) upon receiving his freedom.
Summarize what he is saying in this
excerpt
:
"I have sometimes thought that the American people are too great to
be small, to just and magnanimous to oppress
the weak, too brave to
yield up the right to the strong, and
too grateful for public services
ever
to forget them or fail to reward them
. I have fondly hoped that this
estimate of American character would
soon cease to be contradicted
or
put in doubt. But the favor with which this
cowardly proposition of
disfranchisement has been received by public
men, white and black
, by
Republicans as well as Democrats, has
shaken my faith in the nobility
of the nation. I hope and trust all will
come out right in the end, but
the
immediate future looks dark and troubled. I
cannot shut my eyes to the
ugly facts before me."