We stand to-day at the national center to perform something like a national act--an act which is to go into history; and we are here where every pulsation of the national heart can be heard, felt, and reciprocated.
From a speech dedicating a monument, Douglass emphasizes the historical significance of the event and its national resonance.
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More from Frederick Douglass
It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning.
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.
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.