Frederick Douglass: “The thought of going to live among a people in order to gain their votes and acquire official honors, was repugnant to…”

The black man (unlike the Indian) loves civilization.

To make a man a slave was to rob him of moral responsibility.

Land is not worth much where there are no people to occupy it, and a mule is not worth much where there is no one to drive him.

He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.