Individuals of the race have here and there enjoyed large benefits from emancipation, and the result is seen in their conduct, but the mass have had their liberty coupled with hardships which tend strongly to keep them a dwarfed and miserable class.
Douglass highlights the mixed outcomes of emancipation, noting that many still face significant hardships.
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More from Frederick Douglass
True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.
We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.
Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.