Frederick Douglass

Only a moderate share of sagacity was needed to see that the arm of the slave was the best defense against the arm of the slaveholder.

A war undertaken and brazenly carried on for the perpetual enslavement of colored men, calls logically and loudly for colored men to help suppress it.

When first the rebel cannon shattered the walls of Sumpter and drove away its starving garrison, I predicted that the war then and there inaugurated would not be fought out entirely by white men.

Soldiers with a mark upon them to show that they were inferior to other soldiers; soldiers with a badge of degradation upon them.

When at last the truth began to dawn upon the administration that the negro might be made useful to loyalty, as well as to treason, to the Union as well as to the Confederacy, it then considered in what way it could employ him, which would…

The abolition heart of the North ached over the delay, and uttered its bitter complaints, but the administration remained blind and dumb.

Destroy these,” was the burden of all my utterances during this part of the struggle, “and you cripple and destroy the rebellion.” It is surprising how long and bitterly the government resisted and rejected this view of the situation.

They are taught less by theories than by facts and events.

But nations seldom listen to advice from individuals, however reasonable.

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

From the first, I, for one, saw in this war the end of slavery; and truth requires me to say that my interest in the success of the North was largely due to this belief.

It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.