Frederick Douglass: “Against truth and right, legislative enactments were to his mind mere cobwebs--the pompous emptiness of human pride--the…”

Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposed us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty.

We could not but believe that there existed at the South a latent and powerful Union sentiment which would assert itself at last.

The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can stir and thrill the human heart.

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.