I think so.
The abolitionists understood well that there must be division before their could ever be justice and peace.
“Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”
“This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North, and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages, and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.”
Frederick Douglass, 1857
After an alert from PP I added his 1855 autobiography to my shopping cart but before I ordered it I had a "D'OH" moment. An autobiography published in 1855 will not include events after that. That is, there will be no 160-year-old bits to include in this series. Anybody know of a later Frederick Douglass bio or autobio that will cover 1855-65? I found one recent book at Amazon but the reviews were tepid.
“philosophy of reform”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Philosophical_View_of_Reform
Reform is one of those words that sounds good until you think about it. Mark Twain always helps:
I have never known, in the case of any petty thief, of a reform that covered the whole ground, after he had once gotten habituated to the feel of the coin in another man’s pocket.
- Letter to Seymour Eaton, 8 January 1906
Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.
- Pudd’nhead Wilson
The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not be a bad idea to reform itself a little, by way of example.
- A Tramp Abroad
Reflection is the beginning of reform. There can be no reform without reflection. If you don’t reflect when you commit a crime then that crime is of no use. It might just as well have been committed by someone else.
- The Watermelon speech, 1907
That desire which is in us all to better other people’s condition by having them think as we think.
- What is Man
In my early manhood and in middle life I used to vex myself with reforms every now and then. And I never had occasion to regret these divergencies for, whether the resulting deprivations were long or short, the rewarding pleasure which I got out of the vice when I returned to it always paid me for all that it cost.
- Autobiography of Mark Twain
You can straighten a worm, but the crook is in him and only waiting.
- More Maxims of Mark, edited by Merle Johnson
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).
- Notebook, 1904
I am jaded as I get older. The quote, “Slaves dream more of being master, than freedom” (which is from a movie I believe) keeps echoing in my head..................