Frederick Douglass

He always impressed me as a strong, earnest man, having no time or disposition to trifle; grappling with all his might the work he had in hand.

A country, redeemed and regenerated from the foulest crime against human nature that ever saw the sun!

Heavy had been his burden, hard had been his toil, bitter had been his trials, and terrible had been his anxiety; but the future seemed now bright and full of hope.

It was not so much the need of the union, as the need of himself, that he should speak; the time when the union needed him, and all others, was when the slaveholding rebellion raised its defiant head, not when as now, that head was in the…

The son of common people, wealth and education had done little for him; but he had in him a true heart, and a world of common sense; and these with industry, good habits, and perseverance, had carried him further and lifted him higher…

I have found in my experience that the way to break down an unreasonable custom, is to contradict it in practice.

I had for some time looked upon myself as a man, but now in this multitude of the élite of the land, I felt myself a man among men.

There are moments in the lives of most men, when the doors of their souls are open, and unconsciously to themselves, their true characters may be read by the observant eye.

A wink or a nod from such men might unchain the hand of violence and set order and law at defiance.

But desperation discards logic as well as law, and the South was desperate.

It had reached that verge of madness when it had called upon the negro for help to fight against the freedom which he so longed to find, for the bondage he would escape--against Lincoln the Emancipator for Davis the enslaver.

His first inauguration arrested the fall of the Republic, and the second was to restore it to enduring foundations.