Frederick Douglass

It was no longer a mere strife for territory and dominion, but a contest of civilization against barbarism.

It is not a bad thing to have individuals or nations do right though they do so from selfish motives.

It was in my estimation an immense gain to have the war for the Union committed to the extinction of Slavery, even from a military necessity.

Its meaning to me was the entire abolition of slavery, wherever the evil could be reached by the Federal arm, and I saw that its moral power would extend much further.

For my own part, I took the proclamation, first and last, for a little more than it purported; and saw in its spirit, a life and power far beyond its letter.

It was a measure apparently inspired by the low motive of military necessity, and by so far as it was so, it would become inoperative and useless when military necessity should cease.

It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.

Remembering those in bonds as bound with them, we wanted to join in the shout for freedom, and in the anthem of the redeemed.

We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky, which should rend the fetters of four million of slaves; we were watching, as it were, by the dim light of the stars, for the dawn of a new day; we were longing for the answer to…

It was not logic, but the trump of jubilee, which everybody wanted to hear.

It would be a full and fair assertion that the government would neither trifle, or be trifled with any longer.

It must be the end of all compromises with slavery--a declaration that thereafter the war was to be conducted on a new principle, with a new aim.