For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the negro race. is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses . . that, while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men . . living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the christian’s god, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men! —frederick douglass this is an example of reasoning.