Frederick Douglass

I was an ex-slave, identified with a despised race; and yet I was to meet the most exalted person in this great republic.

I entered it with a moderate estimate of my own consequence, and yet there I was to talk with, and even to advise, the head man of a great nation.

The black man (unlike the Indian) loves civilization.

The first of January, 1863, was a memorable day in the progress of American liberty and civilization.

It is needless to say that the success of such a party, on such a platform, with such a candidate, at such a time would have been a fatal calamity.

All that had been done towards suppressing the rebellion and abolishing slavery would have proved of no avail, and the final settlement between the two sections of the Republic, touching slavery and the right of secession, would have been…

True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.

I shall leave to the statesman, the philosopher, and historian, the more comprehensive discussion of this document, and only tell how it touched me, and those in like condition with me at the time.

It must be the end of all compromises with slavery--a declaration that thereafter the war was to be conducted on a new principle, with a new aim.

It would be a full and fair assertion that the government would neither trifle, or be trifled with any longer.

No word of retaliation when a black man is slain by a rebel in cold blood.

Peace between races is not to be secured by degrading one race and exalting another, by giving power to one race and withholding it from another, but by maintaining a state of equal justice between all classes.