Frederick Douglass: “The air seemed filled with bright, descending messengers from the sky.”

Every dollar you lay up, represents one day’s independence, one day of rest and security in the future.

The old slave quarter that had before sheltered them, and the fields that had yielded them corn, were now denied them.

To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.

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…