Frederick Douglass

I am free to say that, had I been guided only by the promptings of my heart, I should in this controversy have followed the lead of Charles Sumner.

But now the children of those who had committed these outrages and follies, were applauding the very principles which their fathers had condemned.

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.

I was called forward, and responded with all the energy of my soul, for I looked upon suffrage to the negro as the only measure which could prevent him from being thrust back into slavery.

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

Grant, with his characteristic nerve and clear perception of justice, promptly recommended the great amendment to the Constitution by which colored men are to-day invested with complete citizenship--the right to vote and to be voted for in…

It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.

Upon the whole, I have never regretted that I did not enter the arena of Congressional honors to which I was invited.

The journal was valuable while it lasted, and the experiment was full of instruction to me, which has to some extent been heeded, for I have kept well out of newspaper undertakings since.

It seemed fitting to me to cast in my lot with my brother freedmen, and help to build up an institution which represented their thrift and economy to so striking advantage; for the more millions accumulated there, I thought, the more…

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…

In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power for the…