Frederick Douglass

They were tired of the rule-or-ruin intimidation adopted by the South, and felt then, if never before, that they had quailed before it too often and too long.

Into this contest I threw myself, with firmer faith and more ardent hope than ever before, and what I could do by pen or voice was done with a will.

Not only the intelligence of the slave, but the instincts of humanity, must be barred by positive law, hence Breckenridge and his friends erected the flinty walls of the Constitution and the Supreme Court for the protection of slavery at…

The South was too sagacious to leave slavery to the chance of defeat in a fair vote by the people of a territory.

He alone of all our Presidents was to have the opportunity to destroy slavery, and to lift into manhood millions of his countrymen hitherto held as chattels and numbered with the beasts of the field.

It was a great thing to achieve American independence when we numbered three millions, but it was a greater thing to save this country from dismemberment and ruin when it numbered thirty millions.

It is something to couple one’s name with great occasions, and it was a great thing to me to be permitted to bear some humble part in this, the greatest that had thus far come to the American people.

Upon his own head he invited all the bolts of slaveholding vengeance.

Those who looked for confession heard only the voice of rebuke and warning.

Had he wavered, had he retreated or apologized, the case had been different.

What he had lost by the sword, he had more than gained by the truth.

He had spoken great words in the face of death and the champions of slavery.