Frederick Douglass: “Of course, it was impossible to get any white man to volunteer his testimony in my behalf, and against the white young…”

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

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.

I believed I should get enough to eat at Covey’s, even if I suffered in other respects, and this to a hungry man is not a prospect to be regarded with indifference.

He was called upon not merely to administer the government, but to decide, in the face of terrible odds, the fate of the Republic.