Frederick Douglass: “The practical construction of American life is a convention against us.”

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.

It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.

My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.

The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.