Frederick Douglass

Yet, let but his own temper be stirred, his own passions get loose, and the slave-owner will go far beyond the overseer in cruelty.

As one genuine bankbill is worth more than a thousand counterfeits, so is one man, with right on his side, worth more than a thousand in the wrong.

It is the righteous of the cause—the humanity of the cause—which constitutes its potency.

His voice is the voice of a man, and his cry is the cry of a man in distress, and man must cease to be man before he can become insensible to that cry.

The slave is bound to mankind by the powerful and inextricable net-work of human brotherhood.

There is no kind of work that a man can do which requires a better supply of food to prevent physical exhaustion, than the field-work of a slave.

It is beyond the power of slavery to annihilate affinities recognized and established by the Almighty.

The growth of intelligence, the influence of commerce, steam, wind, and lightning are our allies.

Slaves sing more to make themselves happy, than to express their happiness.

England, France, and Germany, the three great lights of modern civilization, are with us, and every American traveler learns to regret the existence of slavery in his country.

In addition to authors, poets, and scholars at home, the moral sense of the civilized world is with us.

So it is, so hath it ever been, and so must it ever be, when the claims of justice and mercy make their demand at the door of human selfishness.