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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: done. I had some skill in both branches, and applied to Mr. French
for work. He, generous man that he was, told me he would employ
me, and I might go at once to the vessel. I obeyed him, but upon
reaching the float-stage, where others [sic] calkers were at work,
I was told that every white man would leave the ship, in her
unfinished condition, if I struck a blow at my trade upon her.
This uncivil, inhuman, and selfish treatment was not so shocking
and scandalous in my eyes at the time as it now appears to me.
Slavery had inured me to hardships that made ordinary trouble sit
lightly upon me. Could I have worked at my trade I could have
earned two dollars a day, but as a common laborer I received but
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