Frederick Douglass: “Thus early, I got a foretaste of that painful uncertainty which slavery brings to the ordinary lot of mortals.”

The fact that we have endured wrongs and hardships, which would have destroyed any other race, and have increased in numbers and public consideration, ought to strengthen our faith in ourselves and our future.

No power beneath the sky can make an ignorant, wasteful, and idle people prosperous, or a licentious people happy.

We are no longer four millions of slaves, but six millions of freemen.

If the time shall ever come when we shall possess in the colored people of the United States, a class of men noted for enterprise, industry, economy, and success, we shall no longer have any trouble in the matter of civil and political…