The reading of these speeches added much to my limited stock of language, and enabled me to give tongue to many interesting thoughts, which had frequently flashed through my soul, and died away for want of utterance.
Douglass explains how reading the speeches in 'The Columbian Orator' provided him with the vocabulary and rhetorical tools to articulate his own thoughts on freedom.
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A poverty-stricken class will be an ignorant and despised class, and no amount of sentiment can make it otherwise.
But whether it shall come late or come soon will depend mainly upon ourselves.
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.