Frederick Douglass: “I have seen too many abuses outgrown, too many evils removed, too many moral and physical improvements made, to doubt…”

The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.

Slavery had no recognition of fathers, as none of families.

Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.

It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.