My great and exceeding joy over these stupendous achievements, especially over the abolition of slavery (which had been the deepest desire and the great labor of my life), was slightly tinged with a feeling of sadness.
Reflecting on the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, Douglass describes his mixed emotions about the culmination of his life's work.
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Nothing but the shot-gun or the bull-dozer’s whip can keep them from voting their convictions.
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.
They cannot be coaxed or driven to vote with their enemies against their friends.