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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: government to wholly destroy it, unless the Federal government
be armed with despotic power, to blot out State authority,
and to station a Federal officer at every cross-road.
This, of course, cannot be done, and ought not even if it could.
The true way and the easiest way is to make our government entirely
consistent with itself, and give to every loyal citizen the elective franchise,
--a right and power which will be ever present, and will form a wall
of fire for his protection.
One of the invaluable compensations of the late Rebellion
is the highly instructive disclosure it made of the true source
of danger to republican government. Whatever may be tolerated
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