The mistake of the last session was the attempt to do this very thing, by a renunciation of its power to secure political rights to any class of citizens, with the obvious purpose to allow the rebellious States to disfranchise, if they should see fit, their colored citizens.
Douglass critiques the previous Congress for attempting to deny political rights to any class of citizens, particularly colored citizens.
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We (the people of the North) are a charitable people, and in the excess of this feeling we were disposed to put the very best construction upon the strange behavior of our southern brethren.
The anti-slavery platform had performed its work, and my voice was no longer needed.
It only abolished slavery where it did not exist, and left it intact where it did exist.
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.