Frederick Douglass

We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last.

For the moment the northern lamb was transformed into a lion, and his roar was terrible.

Guilty or not guilty, to be accused was to be sure of a flogging.

From the first, I, for one, saw in this war the end of slavery; and truth requires me to say that my interest in the success of the North was largely due to this belief.

Words are now useful only as they stimulate to blows.

The office of speech now is only to point out when, where, and how to strike to the best advantage.

Food to the indolent is poison, not sustenance.

In good earnest then, and after the best deliberation, I now for the first time during this war, feel at liberty to call and counsel you to arms.

I am authorized to assure you that you will receive the same wages, the same rations, the same equipments, the same protection, the same treatment, and the same bounty, secured to white soldiers.

More than twenty years of unswerving devotion to our common cause may give me some humble claim to be trusted at this momentous crisis.

To make a man a slave was to rob him of moral responsibility.

I, therefore, soon found that the negro had still a cause, and that he needed my voice and pen with others to plead for it.