The Public Record
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He was "the most important leader of the movement for African-American civil rights in the 19th century".
As an assertion of power by a people hitherto held in bitter contempt, as an emphatic and stinging protest against high-handed, greedy, and shameless injustice to the weak and defenceless, as a means of opening the blind eyes of oppressors…
With a moderate degree of intelligent leadership among the laboring class of the South, properly handling the justice of their cause, and wisely using the exodus example, they can easily exact better terms for their labor than ever before.
While, however, it may be the highest wisdom in the circumstances for the freedmen to stay where they are, no encouragement should be given to any measures of coercion to keep them there.
The American people are bound, if they are or can be bound to anything, to keep the north gate of the South open to black and white and to all the people.
They had “fought the good fight” before I came into the ranks, but by their unflinching testimony and unwavering courage, they had opened the way and made it possible, if not easy, for other women to follow their example.
For solid, persistent, indefatigable work for the slave, Abby Kelley was without rival.
True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.
To those who have taken some risks and encountered hardships in the flight from bondage, I can say I too have endured and risked.
The practice from week to week of openly robbing me of all my earnings, kept the nature and character of slavery constantly before me.