OK, I'll bite -- exactly what is the great misquote here: the use of deprecate instead of depreciate? Or is it that my signature takes the highlights, instead of going on for two paragraphs?
A much longer time ago, I got tired of sectarian and dogmatic ultra-left types who thought that they had some sort of a claim on Frederick Douglass, despite his rather clear, persistent and sensible pursuit of a "left wing of the possible" politics, so I did some research on the quote and found it in a Philip Foner collection of Douglass' writings. The Foner collection agrees with the Blassingame edition in identifying the Canandaigua speech, and it has pretty much the same text.
And, yes, I am going to keep it. For those who don't like that, get some John Brown quote representing your politics of "revolutionary suicide" for your own signature.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --
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