There was a threat made long ago by an American statesman that the whole body of legislation enacted for the protection of American liberty and to secure the results of the war for the Union, should be blotted from the national statute book.
Douglass recalls a historical threat to dismantle protections for American liberty post-Civil War.
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But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.
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 sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.
Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.