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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: But no harm came from the "fi'penny-bit" blunder, and I confidently
and cheerfully went to work with my saw and buck. It was new business to me,
but I never did better work, or more of it, in the same space of time
on the plantation for Covey, the negro-breaker, than I did for myself
in these earliest years of my freedom.
Notwithstanding the just and humane sentiment of New Bedford
three and forty years ago, the place was not entirely free from
race and color prejudice. The good influence of the Roaches,
Rodmans, Arnolds, Grinnells, and Robesons did not pervade all
classes of its people. The test of the real civilization of the
community came when I applied for work at my trade, and then my
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