On the recordJanuary 1, 1855
The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me.
Said by
Frederick Douglass
Source
gutenberg.orgFrederick Douglass: “The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you…”
Editor's note · Context
Speaking on the Fourth of July, Douglass asserts that the foundational American ideals of justice and liberty are not extended to him or his fellow enslaved people.
Share
More from Frederick Douglass
Jan 1, 1881
Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.
Jan 1, 1881
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
Jan 1, 1881
He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.
Jan 1, 1881
The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.