Frederick Douglass: “In all things noble which he attempted, his own meanness shone most conspicuous.”

The day we celebrate is preëminently the colored man’s day.

But we are not here to applaud manly courage, save as it has been displayed in a noble cause.

Slavery had no recognition of fathers, as none of families.

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