Frederick Douglass

It may or may not be true that my complexion was the cause of this departure, but no man has any right to assume that position in advance of a plain declaration to that effect by President Hayes himself.

Alexander, a Democrat, and, I believe, once a slaveholder, had not only the courage, but the magnanimity to give me fair play in this fight.

Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.

Besides being dependent upon the roughest and flintiest kind of labor, the climate of the South makes such labor uninviting and harshly repulsive to the white man.

They do not emigrate from the free North, where labor is respected, to a lately enslaved South, where labor has been whipped, chained, and degraded for centuries.

Hence it is seen that the dependence of the planters, land-owners, and old master-class of the South upon the negro, however galling and humiliating to Southern pride and power, is nearly complete and perfect.

Since he is free he can now give it or withhold it, use it where he is, or take it elsewhere as he pleases.

His labor made him a slave, and his labor can, if he will, make him free, comfortable, and independent.

It touches the heart of the South through its pocket.

Starvation and death stared him in the face and marked him for their victim.

I looked into this kitchen with peculiar interest, and remembered that it was there I last saw my mother.

In all his education and feeling he was an American of the Americans.