 Relying on the deus ex machina, however, was not enough for Douglass. His vision of human rights involved action (Myers 2008). Here he echoes the civic republican tradition by stressing the need for active participation to claim, or earn one’s rights and status as a citoyen (Pettit 1997; Gooding-Williams 2009; Rousseau [SC]). Humans resist providential justice; this could be seen in the resistance of the slave-holding states of America to the abolition of slavery and the apathy of many other Americans about slavery; thus, the end of slavery requires action: agitation, protest, and if needed military intervention. Douglass longed for God to cast his thunderbolts at the United States, but he knew that to achieve the abolition of slavery in America, action was needed. His view of providence is on full display at the end of his famous Fourth of July oration of 1852. Douglass uses Psalm 68:31 and pairs the idea of God’s fiat with the image of Africa and Asia rising: