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478

LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

try, uprightness, and economy may hasten that better day. I will not listen,
myself, and I would not have you listen to the nonsense, that no people can
succeed in life among a people by whom they have been despised and
oppressed.

The statement is erroneous and contradicted by the whole history of
human progress. A few centuries ago, all Europe was cursed with serfdom,
or slavery. Traces of this bondage still remain but are not easily visible.

The Jews, only a century ago were despised, hated, and oppressed, but
they have defied, met, and vanquished the hard conditions imposed upon
them, and are now opulent and powerful, and compel respect in all
countries.

Take courage from the example of all religious denominations that have
sprung up since Martin Luther. Each in its turn, has been oppressed and
persecuted.

Methodists, Baptists, and Quakers, have all been compelled to feel the
lash and sting of popular disfavor—yet all in turn have conquered the preju-
dice and hate of their surroundings.

Greatness does not come to any people on flowery beds of ease. We
must fight to win the prize. No people to whom liberty is given, can hold it
as firmly and wear it as grandly as those who wrench their liberty from the
iron hand of the tyrant. The hardships and dangers involved in the struggle
give strength and toughness to the character, and enable it to stand firm in
storm as well as in sunshine.

One thought more before I leave this subject, and it is a thought I wish
you all to lay to heart. Practice it yourselves and teach it to your children. It
is this, neither we, nor any other people, will ever be respected till we respect
ourselves, and we will never respect ourselves till we have the means to live
respectably. An exceptionally poor and dependent people will be despised by
the opulent and despise themselves.

You cannot make an empty sack stand on end. A race which cannot saw
its earnings, which spends all it makes and goes in debt when it is sick, can
never rise in the scale of civilization, no matter under what laws it may
chance to be. Put us in Kansas or in Africa, and until we learn to save more
than we spend, we are sure to sink and perish. It is not in the nature of things
that we should be equally rich in this world's goods. Some will be more suc-
cessful than others, and poverty, in many cases, is the result of misfortune
rather than of crime; but no race can afford to have all its members the vic-
tims of this misfortune, without being considered a worthless race. Pardon
me, therefore, for urging upon you, my people, the importance of saving