Frederick Douglass

But as only one person can be appointed to any one office, only one can be pleased, while many are offended; unhappily, resentment follows disappointment, and this resentment often finds expression in disparagement and abuse of the…

The progress of a nation is sometimes indicated by small things.

Such men increase the faith of all in the possibilities of their race, and make it easier for those who are to come after them.

Only a few years before, any colored man was forbidden by law to carry a United States mail bag from one post-office to another.

We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation’s destroyers.

We must never forget that victory to the rebellion meant death to the republic.

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.

In the raging storm of fire and blood, in the fierce torrent of shot and shell, of sword and bayonet, whether on foot or on horse, unflinching courage marked the rebel not less than the loyal soldier.

The essence and significance of our devotions here to-day are not to be found in the fact that the men whose remains fill these graves were brave in battle.

We are sometimes asked, in the name of patriotism, to forget the merits of this fearful struggle, and to remember with equal admiration those who struck at the nation’s life and those who struck to save it,--those who fought for slavery…

No loftier tribute can be paid to the most illustrious of all the benefactors of mankind than we pay to these unrecognized soldiers, when we write above their graves this shining epitaph.

Those unknown heroes whose whitened bones have been piously gathered here, and whose green graves we now strew with sweet and beautiful flowers, choice emblems alike of pure hearts and brave spirits, reached in their glorious career that…