Frederick Douglass

I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary!

What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?

The crushed worm may yet turn under the heel of the oppressor.

It goes against the grain to treat and address a Negro precisely as they would treat and address a white man.

Without appealing to any higher feeling, I would warn the American people, and the American government, to be wise in their day and generation.

In the spirit of genuine patriotism, I warn the American people, by all that is just and honorable, to BEWARE!

There is no better material in the world for making a gentleman, than is furnished in the African.

We have not only heard much lately of patriotism, and of its aid being invoked on the side of slavery and injustice, but the very prosperity of this people has been called in to deafen them to the voice of duty, and to lead them onward in…

We have been called upon, in its name, to desecrate our whole land by the footprints of slave-hunters, and even to engage ourselves in the horrible business of kidnapping.

The cause was good; the men engaged in it were good; the means to attain its triumph, good; Heaven’s blessing must attend all, and freedom must soon be given to the pining millions under a ruthless bondage.

In its name, we have been called upon to deepen our infamy before the world, to rivet the fetter more firmly on the limbs of the enslaved, and to become utterly insensible to the voice of human woe that is wafted to us on every southern…

We have heard much of late of the virtue of patriotism, the love of country, &c., and this sentiment, so natural and so strong, has been impiously appealed to, by all the powers of human selfishness, to cherish the viper which is stinging…