Frederick Douglass: “In his downward course he meets with no resistance, but his course upward is resented and resisted at every step of his…”

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.

Guilty or not guilty, to be accused was to be sure of a flogging.

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

He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.