In such cases it is not the business of the accusers to prove guilt, but it is for the accused to prove his innocence, a thing hard for any man to do, even in a court of law, and utterly impossible for him to do in these infernal Lynch courts.
Here, Douglass highlights the injustice faced by the accused in lynch courts, where proving innocence is nearly impossible.
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The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.
A son of toil himself, he was linked in brotherly sympathy with the sons of toil in every loyal part of the republic.
The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.