Frederick Douglass

The son of common people, wealth and education had done little for him; but he had in him a true heart, and a world of common sense; and these with industry, good habits, and perseverance, had carried him further and lifted him higher…

His first inauguration arrested the fall of the Republic, and the second was to restore it to enduring foundations.

Covey succeeded in breaking me--in body, soul, and spirit.

I had for some time looked upon myself as a man, but now in this multitude of the élite of the land, I felt myself a man among men.

It was not so much the need of the union, as the need of himself, that he should speak; the time when the union needed him, and all others, was when the slaveholding rebellion raised its defiant head, not when as now, that head was in the…

Heavy had been his burden, hard had been his toil, bitter had been his trials, and terrible had been his anxiety; but the future seemed now bright and full of hope.

His eyes had in them the tenderness of motherhood, and his mouth and other features the highest perfection of a genuine manhood.

But, alas! what are all good and great qualities; what are human hopes and human happiness to the revengeful hand of an assassin?

My great and exceeding joy over these stupendous achievements, especially over the abolition of slavery (which had been the deepest desire and the great labor of my life), was slightly tinged with a feeling of sadness.

I felt I had reached the end of the noblest and best part of my life; my school was broken up, my church disbanded, and the beloved congregation dispersed, never to come together again.

The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.

But now that slavery was destroyed, and the slave and the master stood upon equal ground, I was not only willing to meet him, but was very glad to do so.