Thus, the light of this grand movement broke in upon my mind, by degrees; and I must say, that, ignorant as I then was of the philosophy of that movement, I believe in it from the first—and I believed in it, partly, because I saw that it alarmed the consciences of slaveholders.
Douglass explains his early, intuitive belief in the abolition movement, partly because he observed its unsettling effect on the consciences of slaveholders.
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In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.
The vote of the colored man, formerly beaten down and stamped out by intimidation, is now revived, sought, and defended by powerful allies, and this from no transient sentiment of the moment, but from the permanent laws controlling the…
Still another ground of hope I find in the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors, and firm in their political convictions.