Frederick Douglass

I replied that there must be two sides to the relation of master and slave, and what was deemed kind and just to the one was the opposite to the other.

I esteem myself a good, persistent hater of injustice and oppression, but my resentment ceases when they cease, and I have no heart to visit upon children the sins of their fathers.

The day we celebrate is preëminently the colored man’s day.

As in the case of the abolition of slavery, the white people of the rebellious States have themselves to thank for its adoption.

The adoption of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments and their incorporation into the Constitution of the United States opened a very tempting field to my ambition, and one to which I should probably have yielded, had I been a younger…

That I did not yield to this temptation was not entirely due to my age; for the idea did not square well with my better judgment and sense of propriety.

The laws which determine the destinies of individuals and nations are impartial and eternal.

I had heard of golden dreams, but such dreams had no comparison with this reality.

Santo Domingo wanted to come under our government upon the terms thus described; and for more reasons than I can stop here to give, I then believed, and do now believe, it would have been wise to have received her into our sisterhood of…

The idea that annexation meant degradation to a colored nation, was altogether fanciful; there was no more dishonor to Santo Domingo in making her a State of the American union, than in making Kansas, Nebraska, or any other territory such…

The truth is, that neither one was entirely just to the other, because neither saw the other in his true character; and having once fallen asunder, the occasion never came when they could be brought together.

You have a right to say what you please on that point; yet I think it would be only fair and generous to wait for some dereliction of duty on my part before I shall be adjudged as incompetent to fill the place.