Frederick Douglass

In their magnitude, these issues cast all others into the shade, depriving them of all life and vitality.

We ought to know who our enemies are, where they are, and what are their objects and measures.

That party, sir, has determined upon a fixed, definite, and comprehensive policy toward the whole colored population of the United States.

I doubt if there be another nation on the globe having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book.

In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this fugitive slave law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical…

Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their office under an open and palpable bribe, and are bound…

The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side, and that side is the side of the oppressor.

The oath of an(sic) two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery!

The fugitive slave law makes MERCY TO THEM A CRIME; and bribes the judge who tries them.

For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, nor religion.

The right of the hunter to his prey, stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included!

Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime.