I have never placed my opposition to slavery on a basis so narrow as my own enslavement, but rather upon the indestructible and unchangeable laws of human nature, every one of which is perpetually and flagrantly violated by the slave system.
In this statement, Douglass articulates a broader moral opposition to slavery that transcends his own experiences.
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Lincoln was not only a great President, but a GREAT MAN--too great to be small in anything.
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.
It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.
Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.