Strange, and even ridiculous as it may seem, among a people so uncultivated, and with so many stern trials to look in the face, there is not to be found, among any people, a more rigid enforcement of the law of respect to elders, than they maintain.
From his autobiography, Douglass observes the profound respect for elders maintained by enslaved people despite their harsh conditions.
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It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.
A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.
The good to be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other.