Frederick Douglass: “It was in the air, and men breathed it and were permeated by it, often when they were quite unconscious of its presence.”

Everywhere in the south the colored man is learning to read.

To-day the negro, starting from nothing, pays taxes upon six millions in Georgia, and forty millions in Louisiana.

None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.

Still another ground of hope I find in the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors, and firm in their political convictions.