Historical voices

No white man ever made the black man’s cause more completely his own.

What we wanted, and what we labored to obtain, was a constitution free from the narrow, selfish, and senseless limitation of the word white.

Anti-slavery men wanted a new constitution, but they did not want a defective instrument which required reform at the start.

In this he consulted policy rather than right, and at last shared the fate of all compromisers and trimmers, for he was disastrously defeated.

There was a double motive for seeking my re-enslavement--avarice and vengeance; and while, as I have said, there was little probability of successful recapture, if attempted openly, I was constantly in danger of being spirited away at a…

It was felt that I had committed the double offense of running away and exposing the secrets and crimes of slavery and slaveholders.

Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being a “bran new fact”--the first one out.

I found, however, full soon that my enthusiasm had been extravagant, that hardships and dangers were not all over, and that the life now before me had its shadows also, as well as its sunbeams.

In this enthusiastic spirit I dropped into the ranks of freedom’s friends and went forth to the battle.

Heaven’s blessing must attend all, and freedom must soon be given to the millions pining under a ruthless bondage.

The cause was good, the men engaged in it were good, the means to attain its triumph, good.

I had already its spirit, and only needed to understand its principles and measures, and as I became acquainted with these my hope for the ultimate freedom of my race increased.

You are the man--the Moses, raised up by God, to deliver his modern Israel from bondage,” was the spontaneous feeling of my heart, as I sat away back in the hall and listened to his mighty words,--mighty in truth,-- mighty in their simple…

His words were full of holy fire, and straight to the point.

He seemed to me an all-sufficient match to every opponent, whether they spoke in the name of the law or the gospel.

It preached human brotherhood; it exposed hypocrisy and wickedness in high places; it denounced oppression, and with all the solemnity of “Thus saith the Lord,” demanded the complete emancipation of my race.

It detested slavery, and made no truce with the traffickers in the bodies and souls of men.

Garrison, and his paper took a place in my heart second only to the Bible.

It was the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and I look back to it now after so many years with some complacency and a little wonder that I could have been so earnest and persevering in any pursuit other than for my daily bread.

Hard work, night and day, over a furnace hot enough to keep the metal running like water, was more favorable to action than thought; yet here I often nailed a newspaper to the post near my bellows, and read while I was performing the up…

They taught me that all colored men were not light-hearted triflers, incapable of serious thought or effort.

Young (21 years), strong, and active, and ambitious to do my full share, I soon made myself useful, and I think liked by the men who worked with me, though they were all white.

Ricketson, I found what is of the utmost importance to a young man just starting in life--constant employment and regular wages.

The consciousness that I was free--no longer a slave--kept me cheerful under this, and many similar proscriptions, which I was destined to meet in New Bedford, and elsewhere on the free soil of Massachusetts.