Frederick Douglass: “Taking all the circumstances into consideration, the colored people have no reason to despair.”

They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.

The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.

Everywhere in the south the colored man is learning to read.

None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.