Frederick Douglass: “It is nature's grand police, vigilant and faithful, sentineled in the soul, guarding against violence to peace and life.”

The father might be a white man, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves.

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

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

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