Frederick Douglass: “When I plead for recruits I want to do it with all my heart, without qualification.”

To make a man a slave was to rob him of moral responsibility.

The black man (unlike the Indian) loves civilization.

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

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.