7

DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY                                                                                     547

conditions can prevent│this. To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes│
upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.│Not less encouraging
than this is the political situation at the│south.
         The vote of the colored man, formerly beaten down and│stamped out by
intimidation, is now revived, sought, and│defended by powerful allies, and this from
no transient senti-│ment of the moment, but from the permanent laws controlling│
the action of political parties.
         While the Constitution of the United States shall guarantee│the colored man's
right to vote, somebody in the south will│want that vote and will offer the terms
upon which that vote│can be obtained.
         Thus the forces against us are passion and prejudice, which│are transient, and
those for us are principles, self-acting, self-│sustaining, and permanent. My hope
for the future of my│race is further supported by the rapid decline of an emotional,
shouting, and thoughtless religion. Scarcely in any direction│can there be found
a less favorable field for mind or morals│than where such a religion prevails. It
abounds in the│wildest hopes and fears, and in blind, unreasoning faith.│Instead of
adding to faith virtue, its tendency is to substitute│faith for virtue, and is a deadly
enemy to our progress.│There is still another ground for hope. It arises out of a│
comparison of our past condition with our present one,—the│immeasurable depths
from which we have come and the│point of progress already attained. We shall
look over the│world, and survey the history of any other oppressed and│enslaved
people in vain, to find one which has made more│progress within the same length
of time, than have the colored people of the United States. These, and many other
con- siderations which I might name, give brightness and fervor│to my hopes that
that better day for which the more thought- ful amongst us have long labored, and
millions of our│people have sighed for centuries, is near at hand.

Binding: Edges trimmed 7  27/32" X 5".

Note: To conclude the introduction on p. xi rather than on p. xii as in the first printing,
and thus accommodate the inclusion of a list of illustrations lacking in the first
printing, Park Publishing Company deleted five lines of text and the 1 September
1881 dating.

Locations: Library Company of Philadelphia (2 copies, one rebound, the other
inscribed by Douglass to R. Purvis, dated 1882); Charles L. Blockson Collection,
Temple University ('Princeton Ladies Reading Society' copy, dated April 1882');
British Library (not a deposit copy, receipt dated 11 February 1928); New-York
Historical Society.

A3. First American Edition, Third Printing
         Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., 1882

The same as the second American printing, binding A, except for: