Two men may be seated at the same table at a hotel; one may be a Webster in intellect, and the other a Guiteau in feebleness of mind and morals, and, of course, socially and intellectually, they are as wide apart as are the poles of the moral universe, but their civil rights are the same.
He illustrates that civil rights should be equal regardless of personal attributes or social standing, emphasizing the distinction between civil and social rights.
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More from Frederick Douglass
True it is that this faith was many times shaken by passing events, but never destroyed.
My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes.
The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.
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.