Frederick Douglass: “It was not from a generous unconcern for the slave’s labor, but from a prudent regard for the slave system.”

A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.

It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.

Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.

We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.