Frederick Douglass: “The growth of intelligence, the influence of commerce, steam, wind, and lightning are our allies.”

That the mother was a slave was enough for its deadly purpose.

True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.

Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper, and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered.

Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.