Frederick Douglass: “Instead of quiet, they have produced alarm; instead of peace, they have brought us war; and so it must ever be.”

The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.

I wished it was possible I could remain small all my life, knowing that the sooner I grew large the shorter would be my time to remain with them.

It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.

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.