Slavery was bleeding and dying, but it was not dead, and no man can tell just when its foul spirit departed from our land, if, indeed, it has yet departed, and hence we do not know what day we may properly celebrate as coupled with this great American event.
Douglass reflects on the protracted demise of slavery, noting the ambiguity of its end and questioning whether its influence has truly vanished from the nation.
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To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.
In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.
Still another ground of hope I find in the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors, and firm in their political convictions.